A/N: ... Did Alabaster86 and I write the same fic? Because I hadn't even read hers when I came up with mine, and ours both involve the same situation- Azula being a little shit and telling Mai all about Zuko's banishment. LOL. Great minds think alike?
.injustice.
The worst things always happen on the best days, she thinks.
It's clear and bright outside when she walks into the spacious Tanaka courtyard, yet even the gentle peeps coming from the turtleduck pond do not alleviate her sense of foreboding. Nobody is hanging about the palace except for the usual guards, who'd hardly spared her a second glance and whispered amongst themselves once her back was turned. The last time this atmosphere permeated the caldera, Fire Lord Azulon's funeral was in session.
"There you are," a familiar voice trills, and Mai turns around to find Azula, clad in leather armor that is too large for her slim frame- a child playing dress-up. She has a strange look on her face, like a cat who's just devoured a pitcher of cream.
"Your highness," she automatically replies, performing a shallow bow and almost immediately straightening up again. "Where's Prince Zuko? We were supposed to have a portrait done today."
Azula laughs, but with something harsher and crueler than mirth. It is a disconcerting sound when spilled from the lips of an eleven-year-old girl. "Don't worry, Mai. Zuzu isn't going to be sitting for portraits any time soon."
"What happened?" Mai demands, bile rising in the back of her throat. Nothing, nothing that makes Azula laugh that way can be good.
"I'm really not supposed to say," Azula airily declares. "Father wants it kept as quiet as possible- only his closest were invited, and those who needed a little reminder about who's in charge around here. But since you were his betrothed-"
"Tell me. Please."
"All right," she scoffs, "don't be so impatient. My uncle was stupid enough to let him into a war meeting, and when General Buijing suggested sacrificing some piddly division so that we'd lose less of the elites, he jumped up and started babbling about how unjust and cruel the plan is. So Father said that he'd have to fight an Agni Kai to defend his honor, because it wasn't his place to criticize anything. He agreed, but it wasn't the general who stepped out when the gong rang- it was Father, and Zuzu refused to fight him. It was pathetic- he actually got on his knees and cried for mercy like a child. Finally Father said that he'd learn respect and that suffering would be his teacher, and he burned him in the face all around the left side. He's been banished from the Fire Nation for being such a coward, can you believe it? At least until he captures the long-lost avatar, which will obviously never happen."
"You're lying," Mai chokes out. Fire Lord Ozai is not a kind man, but he is Zuko's father. No father could do that to his child, no matter how much he loathed the child in question. Cognitive dissonance has taken over, and she half-expects for Azula to burst out laughing again at any moment.
"Are you actually sad?" Azula asks, incredulous. "You can just marry someone else- it's not like my brother was a prize. If anything, you should be congratulating me on my promotion."
There is a hurricane of emotion whirling through her at the moment, startling in its intensity, and her primary desire is to hit the princess until she sees stars. Only by tightly digging her nails into her palms does she manage to regain a semblance of self-control. "Shut up," she hisses.
"He screamed," Azula persists, twisting the knife in further. It's obvious that she's enjoying herself. "Like a pig that's been branded-"
Mai slaps her, so quickly that the younger girl has no time to react. Her head snaps back, and there's a crimson handprint in the same spot where Zuko was burned. "Shut. Up."
If Azula had slapped her back, or winced, or had the guards seize her for striking one of Sozin's blood, that would have at least been cathartic. But instead she just smirks, narrows her citrine eyes a bit. "Maybe you should go home," she suggests in her sweetest voice. "Tomorrow I'm sure you'll see what a stroke of good fortune this was."
Mai runs out the gates and does not look back, despite all of her mother's lessons on how a lady conducts herself in public, until she's reached the doorstep of her empty house (Father is toadying up to a man who maimed his own son, Mother is drinking a cup of chai tea and eating pastries with her 'friends'.) Fleeing up the stairs, she waves off the servants and slams the door to her room shut. It's exactly how she left it- red curtains pulled halfway open, a poetry scroll left unfurled beside her armoire. On the desk there is a small vial of orange ink- a last gift from Zuko. He'd known she likes to paint.
The ink makes a sizable splatter on the adjacent wall when she throws it, shattering the pretty glass container and making a sickly, bright mess for some hapless maid to tidy. Mai sits down on her bed, draws her knees to her chest, and promises to herself that she won't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her cry.