A. N. : I should record myself when I'm trying to think up a title, honestly, just so you can all partake in the madness. Just talking about the meaning really doesn't convey the hours of spiraling idiocy and references I go through sometimes. Anyway, the apple is both a reference to Azula and Mai's tense friendship, as shown in Zuko Alone, and to William Tell. For everyone who wasn't fed Swiss founding mythos from childhood, Tell is a father who was forced, as punishment for disrespecting Austrian authority, to shoot an apple placed on top of his son's head with his crossbow. Kind of the reverse Ozai, in a way. Anyway, between the crossbow (throwing sharp stuff) and the scene in Zuko Alone, I always thought it could be fun to do something with Mai and this myth. And Azula going from being the apple of Ozai's eye to the one he shoots... I don't know, there's something here. I think. It took me days to settle on this title, I genuinely cannot explain properly how my brain works sometimes.
Mai should speak honestly.
That was one of the conditions Qin gave in exchange for teaching her how to build herself a garden, as he calls it. Hide in the garden when needed, but speak your mind instead of letting things fester otherwise.
Ty Lee will listen. So will Qin, or at least he said he will. Given the pattern so face, she's inclined to believe him, but…
Ty Lee listens. Azula does too, but that's a risky gamble to take each time. Tom Tom listened, Mai thinks, but she doubts he understood anything.
To everyone else, her voice means nothing.
Still. Mai should speak her mind and not let things fester, and Ty Lee is here, and Qin promised to listen, and between the two of them they should be able to help Mai be heard.
And so she speaks. Asks –
Is there something wrong with Azula ?
She was unconscious for about three days, and in that time she lost some weight, and her chi burned through her throat. Mai knows that, knew it would leave some scars. But three days isn't enough to fully incapacitate one as strong, as well-trained as Azula. With all the time spent on physical therapy, with Ty Lee and the Doctor making sure her chi flows correctly, she should be doing better than she is now.
She should be walking. She should be bending.
The fact that she isn't means something is wrong.
Mai expects her worries to be waved away – always so negative, can't she just be glad Azula didn't die ? – expects that Ty Lee will have to jump in and agree, and push the Doctor and the, his, the other one, to acknowledge Mai's words and existence.
Instead, that… man nods in agreement. Azula's physical condition doesn't match her behavior. The burns inside her throat have mostly healed, and while the damage to her vocal cords and the scars it left will likely result in Azula's voice never sounding the same again, she should be able to speak by now.
Her muscles and joints are all recovering as they should, as far as he can see, but her progress is too linear, almost as if calculated. In his experience, patients will have days where nothing gets any better, regressions at times, and bursts of energy and motivation that he has to refrain to avoid exhausting their body.
There is nothing of the like with Azula, he says. She walks more each day, by a roughly constant number of steps.
To him, it looks as if she doesn't want to recover, or wants to recover as slowly as possible. Although, for what reason, he cannot say.
Mai looks at Ty Lee, who stopped talking with the Doctor the second Mai spoke. She gasps, then claps her hands, eyes wide and smile bright. That means she's got a plan, she exclaims, and Mai looks to the ground.
It would fit. Azula despises weakness, so for her to fake it would mean she is probably just biding her time, playing weak so she will be underestimated when she decides to strike, just like Ty Lee.
It would fit, but Mai still feels uneasy. She can't place it.
Does it really, Qin asks, earning a glare from Ty Lee in return.
Does it ? Does Azula really have a plan that would require her to show weakness in front of two powerless old men ? Does she want to strike Ty Lee and Mai instead, play pretend for the sake of betraying them ?
They were the first to betray, Mai knows. Or Mai was, at least, when she chose freedom for the both of them, instead of death.
She doesn't expect Azula to be grateful. But something still feels wrong. It must be her gut, surely, these inexperienced feelings convincing her to worry over nothing.
It must be, and yet when the Doctor mentions patients lying for the sake of not going back to war, when that Tao talks about an overworked lady using illness as an excuse to get the care and attention she lacks, something twists in Mai's stomach.
It is not like Azula to run away, or to beg for attention – but then again, it isn't like her to lose either.
Maybe that's why Mai can't laugh it off like Ty Lee does, can't trust in Azula's perfection and power and strength. Maybe it's the memory of Azula's small frame on Qin's back, the youth of her face without any of the usual makeup. The broken doll on the floor resigned to be burned for the sake of punishment.
Maybe it's Mai's own disgust for Ozai and what he did, to Zuko, to Azula, to everyone twisting themselves with the desperate hope of pleasing him.
Without Ozai, what is Azula anymore ?
Mai doesn't know. She swore not to let Azula hurt her or Ty Lee anymore, but if Azula doesn't – if she can't, anymore, because without Ozai she isn't Azula anymore…
Mai doesn't know.
She doesn't think she ever wants to find out, either.