Author's Note: So! I finally figured out to make freaking scene breaks! Hahahahaha I'm retarded... There's this nifty little feature up in the corner of the "Edit Document" thing that says "Insert Horizontal Line"... Sigh. If only I had known that from the beginning, then my transitions would not have been so abrupt. When I type this on Word, and I want a break in scene, I just hit the return (enter) button twice, but when I upload the file onto Fanfiction, it doesn't recognize the double-return as a break. It just makes it go back to a single-return. So, all this time you guys have been getting zero transition from scenes in chapters, when all I had to do was press that neat little button called "Insert Horizontal Line"... Sorry. - Fira
Thirty-four
It had been a few days since Zhao had visited them, and in those few days, Maya and the others had been staying at a seaside town, to break the monotony of the ocean. It was actually quite a pleasant time for all of them. For Maya, it was a chance to get to know Zuko better, since now they were trying so hard to be nice to each other. During the day, they would walk the pier or go into town for lunch, and just talk – although neither of them said much. It was not their way.
They tried, though. One day, while they were standing at the end of the pier, Maya said to Zuko, "Tell me more about your family."
"Only if you tell me more about yours."
She smiled. "Fair enough. How about this, then: you ask me a question, and then I ask you a question, and so on. If it's too hard to talk about, just say pass and we'll think of a different question. Is that okay?"
"Sure." He stood there for a while, looking out at sea, arms resting on the railing. Then he said, "What made you finally run away from your father?"
"I don't know. I guess I was just really tired of it. There was nothing left for me there with him, especially since my mother died. And when I turned fifteen, I guess I thought I was finally old enough to take care of myself. So I just… left."
"But… how did you leave?"
"Hey, I said one question each turn, remember?"
He sighed. "Fine. Whatever. What's your question?"
"Tell me more about your family."
"What about my family?"
"Well… Do you have any siblings?"
He scoffed. "Yeah. My crazy sister, Azula."
"Crazy how?"
"One question each," he reminded her, giving her a sideways grin.
"Right. Ask away."
"Okay. Now will you tell me how you escaped your father?"
"Oh. Well, that was a little tricky. It required stealing all of my father's gambling money, heading out to the docks unnoticed, and bartering a passage to the Earth Kingdom on some old guy's ship. I had to use all the money I had with me to get him to let me on, but at least I made it. After that it was all a matter of luck. I either got a job and had food for a few days, or I didn't." She laughed. "I was worse than a peasant back then."
Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Sorry for calling you that."
"It's okay. I know you have a superiority complex."
"What?"
"Nothing. Anyways, can I ask you another question now? And, no, that does not count as one question."
"Go ahead."
"Exactly what did you mean by your crazy sister, Azula? Crazy how?"
"I don't know, really." He turned to face the ocean again. "She's always been… strange. There's something wrong up here." He tapped his temple with a finger.
"Oh. So you mean she really is crazy. Insane."
"Yeah. But it's weird. Sometimes you can't even tell that there's anything wrong, and sometimes it so obvious that she might as well be smacking you with her insanity. My mother always said it wasn't her fault, but…"
"Your mother?"
Maya saw him flinch. "One question each."
"Go ahead."
"Can we stop playing now?"
"Why don't you want to tell me about your mother?"
He was silent for a minute. "Come on. It's getting cold out here."
That night, Maya had a very strange dream. She dreamed that a cloaked, dark figure was roaming through the forest. His face was hidden by a mask. The mask was blue and white. The eye-holes were outlined in white, as were the nose, the cheekbones and the eyebrows. There were fangs hanging down from the open, smiling mouth, and long, pointed ears on the sides. There was something ominous about it. In the dream, this Blue Spirit wandered the forest, going from place to place, as if looking for something. Then something even weirder happened. Suddenly, Aang appeared at the top of one of the trees, and called down to the Blue Spirit. He said, "Catch me if you can!" and then began jumping from tree-branch to tree-branch, while the Blue Spirit ran around under the trees silently. After about a minute of this, suddenly all the trees began catching fire, and Maya had the awful feeling that she was going to burn to death. The flames grew closer and closer, until for one terrible second she felt the lick of a flame across the left side of her face.
With a gasp, Maya awoke. She quickly felt her face, but breathed deeply after realizing that everything was all right and that she was fine. Quickly, she fell asleep again. In the morning, she did not even remember having the dream.