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Chapter Text

Mai couldn’t remember when she’d first learned to hide every emotion behind a mask of boredom. She recalled vague half-memories of outbursts when she was little, screaming because there were too many people and this food was gross and her dress was itchy, until her mother would whisk her out of sight and hand her off to a nanny. Mai never questioned that her mother needed to mingle with the nobility at parties more than she needed to comfort her young daughter. That was normal prioritizing.

Mai grew up learning to be a refined young lady, making polite conversation with visiting dignitaries, sitting quietly while her father discussed politics, nodding and smiling at the appropriate times. She knew which style of dress was best for a garden party and which art pieces to compliment the host on.

Her own thoughts were irrelevant, and her feelings even more so.

—

It was unladylike to skip or spin or wave her arms, like she sometimes did when her emotions were too big for her body. It was impolite to avoid eye contact, and also impolite to stare. Fidgeting with her jewelry was not allowed. Fidgeting with her clothing was not allowed. Fidgeting with her pen was not allowed. So she forced herself to sit still, and her parents praised her for it. Their disapproval felt like the dark, heavy stormclouds that rolled in during the rainy season, and their praise felt like the entire sun was glowing inside her chest.

—

The mask of boredom came about because she eventually learned that showing enthusiasm for any of her interests would be looked down on.

As a child, she idolized the guards of her household, and a kind young guard showed her the different fighting stances and that she needed to keep her thumb outside her fist when she punched. That only lasted a day before her parents found out, fired the guard, and informed Mai that fighting was in no way an acceptable activity for a noble lady.

School was worse, because little girls who had been raised in the fox-viper nest that was court could be vicious. Somehow all of Mai’s lessons on etiquette had never covered how to make a true friend. The other girls gossiped in whispers meant for her to hear: “She only talks when she raises her hand in class, and then she goes off about math formulas or whatever— like, no one wants to hear that. I can’t believe she’s actually interested in that stuff.” “Her clothes are always in style, but it’s so obvious someone else picked it out for her.” “She acts so mysterious, but then if you ask her about the homework she’ll actually explain it all in detail. I wish she was that enthusiastic when we talk about anything normal.”

It got better when she was nine, and seven-year-old Princess Azula started attending the Fire Nation Academy for Girls. The two girls knew each other from playing together during their parents’ frequent meetings. Azula looked at this quiet outcast and decided that she would be her friend. Maybe it was calculated, that she knew Mai would be loyal since she had no other friends. But Mai liked to believe that back then, Azula had just been showing kindness.

A girl in Azula’s year, Ty Lee, kept hanging around them. She would sit down next to Azula and Mai at the otherwise empty lunch table and start chattering like she was friends with them. Azula decided to adopt her as the third part of their trio.

Perhaps it was a strange dynamic, but it worked for them. Azula was the leader, which suited Mai fine. Ty Lee talked a lot, and didn’t mind that Mai sometimes replied nonverbally. Ty Lee was into gymnastics, and was always bouncing with energy that sometimes released itself in a cartwheel or back handspring. She tried to teach her two friends, and wasn’t upset when Mai took a while to learn. Azula, of course, picked it up right away. As Mai was discovering, Azula couldn’t stand being less than perfect at anything.

Azula understood how people worked. She could interpret what they wanted and what they feared, and send that back at them wrapped in a socially acceptable veneer. Azula taught Mai that if she acted like she purposely set herself apart from others, people would think she was just aloof instead of an outcast.

Azula said that Mai should be strong. Strong was never a thing anyone had told Mai to be. Quiet, nice, happy, polite, those were the things she had heard. Azula and Ty Lee were the only people in her life who never asked her to act like a dignified young lady. They just wanted a loyal friend, and Mai was happy to be that.

—

Sometimes Azula’s older brother Zuko would join the three girls. He was only a few months older than Mai, and the two of them got along well. Soon, Azula and Ty Lee were relentlessly teasing them about having crushes. Mai didn’t know what a crush was supposed to feel like, but she liked spending time with Zuko. He was shy, but his eyes lit up when he talked about theater or swords or turtleducks, with passion but also like he was surprised that Mai would want to hear him ramble. It took Mai a while to realize that she looked like that too, when she would talk about herself and Zuko would listen and want to know more.

When his mother mysteriously disappeared, she was the one who hugged him while he cried. She didn’t know how to comfort people, how to deal with her own emotions, much less other people’s, but he seemed to appreciate her just being there.

They understood each other in some way that no one else did. When it was just the two of them, Mai didn’t have to force eye contact or make small talk. Zuko never said things that actually meant something else. Just like Mai, he felt everything strongly, emotions too big for his body and senses that took in too much. When it was overwhelming, he would shut down, curled up in a ball on the floor and rocking back and forth. Sometimes Mai felt like doing that too.

Mai knew that some of Zuko’s characteristics probably came from the way his father treated him. Zuko didn’t like being touched unexpectedly, or loud noises, or speaking with authority figures. But that didn’t explain why Mai had some of the same traits. She knew no one would hurt her if she made mistakes, but they would judge her, think she was weird or not good enough, and somehow that felt just as terrifying. (She almost wished that people would just yell at her or even hurt her when she did something wrong. Then she would know where she stood with them, instead of having to interpret their glances and polite words that somehow meant something other than what they said.)

Her parents weren’t bad. She’d seen how Zuko tensed up whenever his father was around. She’d seen how Azula came back from training sessions with small burns or bruises that she tried to hide. Mai’s parents weren’t like that. They were well-meaning and calm and reasonable. She loved them. Maybe. She wasn’t sure what love was supposed to feel like.

—

Mai’s first kiss was with Zuko, when they were twelve. Everyone knew that one day the two of them would marry; she was from a powerful noble family and the fact that they liked each other was a bonus. That day, the servants had laid out a picnic for two in one of the gardens. Zuko and Mai reached for the last pastry at the same time. Their hands brushed, and when she looked up, she discovered that their faces were almost touching.

Both of them blushed, and Zuko scooted away. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay! Do you want to…?”

“Only if you want to.”

“Yeah.” She leaned in.

It was just a soft brush of the lips. There was no spark or anything like Ty Lee’s romance novels said there should be. But it was nice, Mai guessed.

She kind of preferred just hugging Zuko or leaning against each other, a warm pressure that made her feel soft inside. So she put her head on his shoulder and listened to him talk about the latest play he’d read. If she had to pick anyone to spend the rest of her life with, she wouldn’t mind it being him.

—

Mai was there at Zuko’s Agni Kai. She had to be, because all the nobles were attending. When Zuko’s opponent turned around, revealing himself to be Firelord Ozai, muffled gasps rose from the crowd. Not from Mai; she had always known deep inside it would come to something like this. Zuko would stand up for what was fair and right, and his father would see it as disrespect and an excuse to get rid of his ‘weak’ son.

She didn’t want to watch, but she felt like she owed it to Zuko, to not look away. Not when he kneeled, tears dripping down his face. Not when his father pressed a hand wreathed in flame over Zuko’s eye. Not when Zuko was carried away after screaming himself into unconsciousness. That was the last Mai would see of him for three years.

Mai’s parents didn’t ask whether she was okay, having just seen her best friend have half his face burned off. She was glad they didn’t ask, because she wasn’t sure she could pretend that she was.

—

After Zuko’s banishment, Mai’s parents encouraged her to shift her attention to Azula. Obviously a royal marriage was no longer in the cards, but it would still be good for her to be the friend of the Crown Princess. Mai didn’t dislike Azula. And she liked Ty Lee, for all that she pretended that the girl’s bubbly chatter annoyed her.

Mai worried about Azula, in the first few months after Zuko was gone. But Azula seemed fine— if anything, she seemed more perfect than before. Her composure never cracked as she repeated the lines she must have learned from her father: Zuko got what he deserved. She was stronger and smarter and better than him. (Mai should have seen past Azula’s cruel words to their real meaning. “I will prove that I’m nothing like him, because now I know what happens if I fail.”)

Azula liked to pit Mai and Ty Lee against each other, in practice for when she’d have to be a ruthless politician and strategist. She would tell Mai that Ty Lee had said mean things about her, or make the two of them compete for her affection. Mai fell for it a lot at first, but somehow Ty Lee never did. Ty Lee always wanted to believe the best of people. That kind of relentless optimism shouldn’t have been an asset, but she made it one.

Mai and Ty Lee were opposites. One was cheerful and bouncing with energy and always wore pink, and one was quiet and wore black to represent her angsty teenage soul. (That was Mai. The year she was thirteen was rough.) And yet, against all odds, they cared about each other.

Sometimes Mai felt guilty that Ty Lee put so much into their friendship and Mai gave her almost nothing in return. But when she asked about it, Ty Lee replied, “I get your friendship, and you’re a good friend. You’re smart, and funny in a weird sarcastic way, and a good listener. And when you do share stuff about yourself, there’s a little sort of secret smile that you do and it’s really cute. And…” Mai memorized that list of compliments and held it close to her heart. On bad days, she would remind herself of it, and it was like a little light inside her chased away the shadows.

—

Azula wanted Mai to learn a useful skill. Just because she couldn’t summon fire didn’t mean she couldn’t fight. The three of them, Azula leading Mai and Ty Lee, walked through the training grounds where the palace guards practiced. Azula pointed out various types of weapons, but what caught Mai’s eye was a set of throwing knives. They were small, almost delicate-looking, yet when the guard threw one at a target, it sank into the wood with a satisfying thunk.

The guard turned to look at the trio of young girls watching her. She was perhaps in her early thirties, with black hair tied up in a neat bun, and sweat glistening on her golden skin. She bowed low as Azula approached her. “Your Highness. How can I be of service?”

Azula nudged Mai to the front. Ugh. Azula knew Mai didn’t like asking for things.

“Can I learn…” Mai stumbled over her words. “Can I learn how to use those?”

“Would you like me to teach you, my lady?”

“Yes.” Mai was surprised by just how much she wanted it. The idea of learning something dangerous and unladylike sent a thrill through her body. She would be like those knives, underestimated but capable of being deadly.

When she took to embroidering the sleeves of her dresses to disguise the sheaths she had sewn in, her mother remarked that it was nice Mai had found a new hobby. Embroidery was a classic passtime for noble young ladies, after all.

—

The years passed. Azula left the Fire Nation Academy for Girls at age thirteen, to learn politics and military strategy from the finest tutors. Ty Lee also left, for entirely different reasons. She wasn’t from a noble family, and she confided to Mai that she hated court with all its etiquette and posturing and double-edged words. Ty Lee used to dream of running away to join the circus. “You could actually do that,” Mai said. And so she did. They promised to write plenty of letters back and forth, even if the travel of the circus meant Ty Lee’s address would change often. Azula was angry that one of her two best friends was leaving her. Mai wasn’t angry, because she knew Ty Lee would be happy. But Mai still missed her.

Without Ty Lee there, Azula and Mai both became sharper, angrier, more relentlessly focused. At fourteen, Azula was a weapon honed to a fine edge. She could manipulate court politics and summon blue fire and give advice on military strategy, all with not a hair out of place. She was the youngest-ever wielder of lightning. She was perfect, and no one except Mai knew the effort that went into maintaining that perfection.

At sixteen, Mai was seen as a refined, if quiet, young noble lady. She attended luncheons and galas, absorbed the gossip and reported it to Azula, then went to the training grounds and practiced until the motions chased all other thoughts from her mind. Mai learned to use daggers, then throwing stars, and now she was learning some hand-to-hand combat. When she was fighting, she felt more like herself than any other time. The guard she’d asked to teach her had become one of the few people Mai trusted.

Azula didn’t want to hear Mai ramble about the balances of different types of knives and the angles they needed to be thrown at, so Mai put it in her letters to Ty Lee. Ty Lee regaled her with stories of circus life and the faraway places she’d traveled, and didn’t mind Mai’s infodumping. Mai knew Zuko would have loved hearing about her lessons, but she didn’t know where he was to send any letters to him. Maybe she would learn the dual dao swords next. They could spar when he came home.

Because there were rumors that the Avatar had returned, and that meant the condition of Zuko’s banishment had gone from a wild-goose-hen-chase to an achievable goal. Zuko would come back soon.

Chapter Text

Mai’s father was appointed the governor of New Ozai, formerly the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu. Azula raged that her remaining best friend was being taken away from her. Raged privately, to Mai, of course. One did not rage at the Fire Lord, even if he was one’s father. 

It was the most boring two months of Mai’s life. She wasn’t allowed to do anything to help with the administration of the colony, because that wasn’t her role, which really meant that her parents didn’t trust her to handle anything important. Never mind her ten years at the best school in the Fire Nation, or her talent for numbers, or that she was almost an adult. She was just a doll to them, meant to sit there and look pretty and perform scripted social interactions.

She wasn’t needed for the continuation of her family’s legacy, because her parents had had a son. Her only use now was a political marriage, which made her feel sick. (Zuko was the only man she could imagine herself marrying, and lately, she wasn’t even sure that she liked him that way.) 

When Azula arrived, bringing Ty Lee with her and offering a spot on her Avatar-hunting team, Mai jumped at the chance. 

It was like they had never been separated. The three of them worked seamlessly together, fighting and chasing and having fun. Living on the road with no one but Ty Lee and Azula around her was so freeing. She would choose a thousand dangerous fights over the passive-aggressive judgment of court or her parents. It was counterintuitive, but she didn’t feel scared here. 

The only thing that bothered Mai was that the Avatar and his group were all children younger than she was. Stopping them without seriously harming them added an interesting challenge to their fights. She precisely pinned their clothing to trees without hitting flesh, or used her attacks to corral the kids towards Ty Lee, who could just paralyze them. 

Azula lectured Mai about it several times. Compassion is a weakness, she said. Holding back when fighting formidable enemies is foolish and pathetic. Even this undeniable logic, even Azula’s threats, didn’t stop Mai from doing it anyway. 

— 

She couldn’t hold back when fighting the Kyoshi Warriors. It was life or death, hers or theirs. She wouldn’t know until later that their face paint obscured the fact that they were all teenagers or young women, just like her. 

Afterwards, there were four bodies. Azula had killed three, Mai one. Ty Lee was partially responsible for one of Azula’s. 

While Mai bandaged a cut on Ty Lee’s arm, keeping her eyes on her work instead of how close the other girl’s face was, she heard a quiet sob. Then Ty Lee was shaking and Mai couldn’t ignore it anymore. Leaving the bandage dangling, she turned and met her friend’s tear-filled eyes. 

“I— I didn’t mean to push her into Azula’s fire.” Ty Lee took a shuddering breath.

“I know.” Mai hadn’t meant to kill either. She’d just been trying to protect her friends.

Ty Lee wrapped her arms around Mai and buried her face in her shoulder. Mai was about to return the hug when she saw Azula approaching. 

“What are you doing?” There was no emotion in Azula’s voice, only efficiency. 

Mai sat up straight and wiped her expression blank. “I was patching up Ty Lee, and then she started crying.” 

Ty Lee detached herself from Mai to look up at Azula. “The three of us, we—” She gestured at the bodies, flinching when her eyes caught on them. “We did that.” 

“Yes. This is war, and that’s how war is!” Anger crept into Azula’s voice. “It’s pathetic to waste time crying over it. We have things to do, get up.” 

(Mai never considered until much later that Azula might have been trying to convince herself as much as Ty Lee. Azula was ruthless; Azula was perfect; these were facts.)

That night, Mai lay awake, sorting through her own emotions. She didn’t feel like crying, and she wasn’t really sorry about killing in self-defense or defense of her friends. Did that make her a bad person? Did that make Azula a bad person? 

Azula was right, though, it was pathetic to get upset about this in the middle of a war. Did that make Ty Lee pathetic? 

Mai was strong. Strong was a good thing, and strong meant not breaking down over silly emotions. She could be who Azula wanted her to be. 

And if, when Mai caught Ty Lee crying the next day, she gently fixed the other girl’s makeup instead of admonishing her, that was no one’s business but her own. 

— 

After Azula casually conquered a city, the three girls returned home. Well, they returned to Azula’s home, the royal palace. Mai wasn’t sure if there was any place she would call her own home.

Zuko was home too. He had changed over the past few years. Mai still wasn’t used to looking at him and seeing the scar covering the left side of his face. He was sharper and angrier now, too. Apparently he had killed the Avatar. Knowing that the Avatar was a kid, Mai wasn’t sure how she felt about that. This was Zuko, who had cried for hours when Azula broke a turtleduck egg to see what was inside. 

Mai wanted to talk to him about it, but she didn’t know how. They were both so closed-off. The weird habits that had united them in childhood were now stifled, leaving an awkward sort of emptiness behind. 

The two of them resumed their relationship, even though neither of their hearts were in it. They understood each other better than anyone else around them, and they cared about each other, even if there was no passion in their occasional kisses. 

If this was what the rest of their lives would be like, it was more than broken people like them deserved. 

—  

Mai didn’t much care for the beach, but Azula and Ty Lee wanted to go to Ember Island, so Mai came with them. The day was the same mixture of boring and awkward that most of her days were, but now with the background of sand, sea, and obnoxious teenagers. Mai didn’t understand why Azula and Ty Lee thought it would be fun to go to a party at some rich kid’s parents’ beach house. Apparently it was because Azula had a crush on the guy. Ew. Mai went across the room to get a drink, choosing the least alcoholic option on the table.

When she returned, Ty Lee was teaching Azula how to flirt. An ugly feeling twisted through Mai. Jealousy? But why would she be jealous? It wasn’t like Mai wanted to learn how to flirt. Though Ty Lee made it look fun, giggling and looking at Azula with wide eyes. Mai wouldn’t mind having Ty Lee fake-flirt with her… 

Oh. 

That was a dangerous feeling. 

Someone bumped into Mai, and almost spilled their drink on her before she caught it. 

Her reflexes were slow right now. She was still processing the emotion around Ty Lee, if processing meant shoving it deep down and hoping she’d never have to deal with it. The music was too loud and her ears caught snatches of several conversations, and she felt off-balance from the person bumping into her. She needed to find somewhere less overwhelming. 

All the private rooms in the house, she discovered, were claimed by pairs of teenagers. Outside, the party had spilled out onto the porch and balcony. In desperation, Mai opened a closet in the hallway. 

Of course there was a couple making out in the closet. Mai went to close the door again, but one of the teenagers blocked it from closing fully. “Wait.” 

Mai had no idea why he would want her to stay, but she paused long enough to take a closer look at the couple. The boy looked vaguely familiar, probably from another noble family. His partner was hiding her face, and oh , that was a male hairstyle and clothing; that was a boy. That was two boys who had been making out in a closet. That was illegal. 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” the boy who’d spoken begged Mai. 

“I won’t.” Mai bowed and made the sign of the flame to convey how serious she was. “I swear your secret is safe with me.” 

“There’s a smaller closet down the hall,” he offered sheepishly. “If you’re looking for somewhere to be alone.” 

“Thank you.” Mai closed this closet door. 

Soon she was nestled between piles of towels and sheets, and she could finally breathe. She finally had space to process these emotions. Except she didn’t want to process them, she wanted to push them away and pretend they never existed. That would be so much easier. What was a crush supposed to feel like anyway? Maybe these were normal platonic feelings. Maybe she was misinterpreting her emotions and this feeling would pass. Until then, she would just have to see Ty Lee every day and forbid herself from thinking about how pretty the girl was, or how Mai wanted to make her smile, or how she would give anything for Ty Lee to look at her with the same adoration she gave Azula… 

Because that was the problem. Even if it weren’t illegal for two girls to be together, even if Ty Lee liked girls, Mai still didn’t stand a chance. Ty Lee was hopelessly devoted to Azula. 

As if Mai’s thoughts had summoned her, Ty Lee opened the closet door. “There you are! Azula got rejected by that guy so she’s going to set the beach house on fire. Wanna join?” 

It took a few seconds for Mai’s brain to catch up with the words. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” 

“Are you okay?” Ty Lee asked. 

“Yeah. Just got a little overwhelmed.” 

“Well, it’s good we’re breaking up the party, then.” 

On their way out, Mai knocked on the door of the other closet. “It’s me again. We’re going to commit some arson, so you might want to leave now.” 

Azula might have been onto something with burning things as an outlet for your emotions. Mai took all her feelings, her realization from tonight, her constant worries over what people would think about her, and threw them into the fire. When she went to bed that night, she could still smell the smoke. 

— 

Zuko disappeared, leaving Mai a stilted breakup letter and an enraged princess. The Firelord didn’t have to order Azula to hunt down her brother; she undertook the mission with a vengeance. Mai thought it might be because Azula felt betrayed that they had started mending their sibling relationship only for Zuko to throw it all away. 

To be honest, Mai felt betrayed too. She was Zuko’s best friend, and he hadn’t told her anything about his doubts or plans to leave. She’d thought he trusted her. Part of her wanted to burn the stupid letter he’d left her, but instead she folded it up and kept it with her.

Zuko was going to join the Avatar (who apparently he hadn’t killed), so the first step was finding where the Avatar had gone after his failed invasion. Azula questioned the prisoners they’d taken from the attack on the Day of Black Sun, but they genuinely seemed to know nothing except that all the children from the invasion force flew away on the Avatar’s bison. They were headed south, but that didn’t mean anything since they likely changed direction to throw off pursuers. 

There were a few more prisoners they could question: the Kyoshi Warrior who was friends with the Avatar’s group, and the leader of the attack, a Water Tribe man who had been sent to a different prison. Azula ordered that he be transferred to Boiling Rock Prison so she could speak to both at once. Mai’s uncle was the warden of Boiling Rock, and he welcomed the three girls with a smile. “Mai, I have someone you’re going to love seeing.” 

She didn’t know who he could possibly mean, until he showed her to a dim room with a single chair in the center, and moments later, a pair of guards threw in Zuko. 

He didn’t see her at first; he was still struggling against the guards. Of course, he was always so stupid and emotional and kept getting hurt for it. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” he shouted. 

Mai didn’t know whether she wanted to slap him or hug him. But the guards were still watching from outside the room, so she did neither. Instead she stepped out from the shadows, annoyance bleeding through her usual emotionless mask. “Come on, Zuko. We all know that’s a lie.”

The shock on his face would possibly have been funny if he didn’t look so pitiful. “How did you know I was here?” 

“Because I know you so well,” Mai deadpanned.

“But—?” 

“The warden’s my uncle, you idiot.” 

Mai sensed more than saw Azula outside the room, watching through the tiny window in the door. Azula wouldn’t want Mai showing any sympathy to a traitor. 

Mai fell back on what she was actually angry with Zuko about— not the treason, but the leaving with no warning, not confiding in her about whatever his reasons were. “The truth is, I guess I don’t know you. All I get is a letter?” She remembered a phrase from a play he’d showed her years ago: “You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped out my heart.” 

He recognized the line. And seemed to take it as a sign that she was acting angrier than she really felt, which, she realized, she was. Mai subtly gestured to the door, where Azula and the guards still were. Regardless of how Mai felt, she needed it to look like she was mad at Zuko. 

Miraculously, he understood, and kept up the argument. “I didn’t mean to—” 

“You didn’t mean to?” She pulled out the letter and read from it: “ Dear Mai, I’m sorry you have to find out this way, but I’m leaving. ” 

Outside, someone approached Azula and started speaking to her. Mai only caught a few words: “...escape attempt… interrogate…”  She and Zuko continued arguing until Azula and all but one guard left. 

Mai took a deep breath. Now that she’d yelled at Zuko a little, her annoyance with him drained away. Him leaving was him sticking up for his ideals, and she suddenly realized that was what had been missing from him in the past few months. He’d been trying to bury the empathetic part of himself, and it was suffocating him. 

What did that say about her? She’d been burying parts of herself for so long, she didn’t even remember some of them. Had she once cared so much about the whole world that she would put herself in danger to save the lives of people she never knew? It seemed like the sort of thing that would have been trained out of her. Despite the harshness of his lessons, Zuko had never stopped being that way. That was what she loved about him. 

(Loved. As a friend, almost like a brother. The non-romantic nature of that love didn’t make it any less strong.) She couldn’t leave him here. She couldn’t let him be brought back to his father, where there was no way he’d be given another chance.

She lowered her voice so the remaining guard wouldn’t hear. “Now that I’ve gotten out all my anger at you, what are you doing here? You went to help the Avatar, and you ended up in prison? Why didn’t the warden report that to Azula until now? Are you okay?” 

Zuko took a second to process the onslaught of questions. “Um, yes, I’m mostly okay. I only got arrested less than a day ago. Sokka and I were trying to break his dad out of here—” He noticed Mai’s confusion. “The guy in the Avatar’s group, his dad led the invasion. We had an escape plan, but it failed and I got caught. But Sokka has a new plan now!” 

“What is this plan?” Mai was skeptical that this guy’s new plan would be better than the one that had failed. 

“I don’t actually know,” Zuko admitted. “He just said I should be in the yard in one hour… that was maybe a half hour ago?” 

“Alright. I think we can stage a believable scene where you escape from this room…”

— 

Everything happened so quickly. Zuko and his fellow escapees made it onto the cable car over the boiling lake, breaking the lever so it couldn’t be stopped. The guards jammed the mechanism to stop it, then tried to cut the line, and Mai couldn’t let that happen. 

She hadn’t had a good fight in ages, and it was a relief to be back in the moment, where nothing mattered except the people she needed to stop and the weapons in her hands. She dodged blasts of fire. She pinned guards to the wall with her knives, not aiming to kill, but not taking special care not to either. Aren’t you proud of how ruthless I’ve become, Azula? Mai unjammed the lever and watched the cable car continue toward freedom. Then more guards arrived, and it was back to fighting. 

She was more than a match for them, but there were so many, and she was running out of throwing knives. She didn’t lie to herself that she could hold them off forever, especially with Azula and Ty Lee approaching. Just until the cable car reached the other side. 

Then she allowed the guards to grab her arms and hold her in place in front of Azula. 

Azula dismissed the guards, probably knowing that she and Ty Lee could easily take down Mai on their own. “I never expected this from you.” Azula spat out the words like they burned her. 

Mai didn’t know what to reply. It was just the three of them on this platform, open air around them, steam rising from the boiling lake below. So this was what it had come to. 

“The thing I don’t understand is why,” Azula said. “Why would you do it? You know the consequences.” She did. Azula had relished speculating out loud to Mai and Ty Lee about what Zuko’s fate would be when they caught him. That probably only applied to traitor princes, but Azula might make an exception for her former best friend. 

But Mai knew better than to show fear, so she kept her tone even. “I guess you just don’t know people as well as you think you do.” It was so satisfying to see Azula’s face contort with rage as she continued. “You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you.” 

Maybe Azula would never understand that kind of love. Not a romantic desire or a manipulation of power, just caring about someone. Mai had cared about Azula, and maybe Azula had once cared for her. But for years, Azula’s casual cruelty had been rotting away the core of their friendship until all that was left was an empty shell, this moment, as Azula collected static electricity around her in preparation for a lightning strike. 

Mai had only one knife left. Lightning was faster than steel. But she readied the blade anyway, determined not to go down quietly. She had been quiet and obedient all her life, so now she would be defiant. 

And then, before either of them could move, Ty Lee struck. Azula crumpled, paralyzed. Her shocked anger mirrored Ty Lee’s surprise at her own actions. 

Ty Lee and Mai ran. 

They didn’t make it far. The dozens of guards weren’t completely useless, it turned out.

— 

According to the rules of honor, capture was more shameful than death. That was surely what Azula meant when she sentenced Mai and Ty Lee to life imprisonment in the Boiling Rock, an insult. 

Ty Lee whispered that maybe it was proof that Azula did have a heart, that she still cared about her former friends.

Mai wasn’t holding out hope for that. 

— 

After a humiliatingly thorough check that Mai had no more weapons on her, the guards led her to a regular cell on the third level.

“You don’t get any special treatment just because you’re the former warden’s niece,” one told her. 

“Former warden?” 

“He always said he would jump in the boiling lake before seeing his no-escape record broken. Pretty honorable of him to stick to his words like that.” 

Oh. Mai hadn’t even considered how her uncle would react to the successful escape. She didn’t especially love the man, but she hadn’t wanted that.  

She hadn’t wanted any of this.

— 

Prison wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t much worse than living at home with her family. Maybe that said something about her home and family. The same strategies that Mai had used her whole life worked just as well here. Follow the rules, spoken and unspoken. Don’t start conversations. Don’t show interest in anything. Retreat inside yourself, so no one notices you. 

Except Ty Lee noticed. 

Ty Lee insisted on talking to Mai. Finding out which cafeteria food Mai would eat, and hoarding extra of that for when Mai couldn’t make herself eat the dish being served that day. Dragging Mai into the courtyard to sit in the sun. 

Mai’s favorite hobbies involved sharp things, and therefore were not allowed in prison. She spent most of the time sitting in her cell, staring at the wall and losing herself in thought. 

Ty Lee pooled her chore credits with Mai’s to buy her a book of logic puzzles, and Mai initiated a hug for the first time in years. 

Mai was pretty sure she loved Ty Lee in a way she had never loved Zuko. And she carried a tiny hope that maybe Ty Lee liked her that way too. 

Chapter Text

It was a week after Sozin’s Comet passed overhead that the guards led Mai and Ty Lee onto an airship. During that time, fragments of a story had trickled into the prison: the Avatar had defeated Firelord Ozai. Zuko was the new Firelord now. Mai and Ty Lee were among the first wave of prisoners freed, somewhere between enemy combatants and political dissidents. 

The warden had briefly put up a portrait of Azula next to the one of Firelord Ozai. Then both were removed. The rumors surrounding the princess contradicted each other— gone insane, crowned Firelord, defeated.

When Mai stepped off the airship onto solid ground at the palace, it didn't seem real. Everything looked the same as before, but Mai felt like a ghost. The last time she’d stood in this courtyard, she was Azula’s loyal follower, a respectable noble, a deadly weapon for the princess to wield. She was a different person now, and different also from the girl who’d aimed a knife at one of her best friends to save another. She fidgeted with the sleeve of her prison uniform, feeling numb. 

Mai barely got a look at Zuko before Ty Lee threw herself at him, dragging Mai along. Zuko tentatively wrapped his arms around the both of them. 

After what might have been a bit longer than socially acceptable, they drew back. Zuko’s hair was long enough for a true topknot now, and he had the spark in his eyes that had been missing during his last stay at the palace. The scar still covered half his face the same as before, but his expression made it look softer. “You’re here. How are you doing?” 

“Much better now.” Ty Lee smiled. “That place was so gray, but I can already feel my aura brightening!”

Mai didn’t really believe in auras, but Ty Lee did look brighter somehow. Maybe it was just the lighting here, or maybe the joy of being free. 

Zuko looked to Mai, a silent ‘and how are you?’ She nodded in reply. She may not be as effusive as Ty Lee, but she was also glad to be here. 

— 

“What happened to Azula?”
“She was about to be crowned Firelord— because Ozai decided to give himself an even better title— and I challenged her to an Agni Kai. She shot me with lightning—” 

“What? ” Mai didn’t know it was possible to survive being shot with lightning. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, pretty much.” Zuko shrugged, wincing a little at the movement. “Anyway, she was in a really bad mental state. Katara subdued her and now she’s in a hospital.” 

“‘In a bad mental state’ how?” Ty Lee asked, concerned— for Azula or for Zuko? Maybe both. 

“I can’t really explain it, but she seemed… disconnected from reality. The staff say she was acting really paranoid right before her coronation, exiling anyone who even looked at her wrong. And then, when she was chained up, I wasn’t fully conscious, but Katara says Azula was screaming and crying.” 

Mai couldn’t imagine Azula crying, or screaming with any emotion other than anger. She tried to visualize it, and she felt sorry for the faceless girl she pictured, but she couldn’t reconcile that image with Azula. 

“I think the stress of—” Zuko gestured to their surroundings— “everything finally got to her. Being our father’s only child for three years was probably rough.” 

There were conflicting emotions inside Mai. She was angry at Azula, for manipulating her and Ty Lee for years. But now Zuko was making her almost feel sorry for Azula. And the worst part was, Mai knew what it was like to have parents that expected you to be perfect; she knew what it was like to bury your emotions and wear a mask of ruthlessness. 

It was Azula who had encouraged her to do so. 

Mai couldn’t deal with this right now. She excused herself from the conversation and followed her familiar path to the training grounds. She didn’t know who to direct her anger at, Azula or Firelord Ozai or Zuko or herself, so instead she threw knives at a wooden target until her muscles ached. 

— 

That night, Mai couldn't fall asleep. The guest room she’d stayed in when she lived at the palace this past summer still had her belongings in it. But it felt too big, too soft, too quiet. She wasn't sure she wanted to look at the Fire Nation ornaments covering the walls in red and gold anymore. But a blank wall would look like her prison cell, so she left them. 

There was a knock on her door. Mai opened it to find Ty Lee standing in the hall. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Ty Lee said. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry—” 

“No, I couldn’t sleep either.” 

They sat on the bed together. It was easily big enough for three people, another contrast with the tiny cots in the Boiling Rock prison. 

“I keep thinking about Azula,” Ty Lee said. “She must have felt so alone without us. No wonder she… broke.” 

Ty Lee had always had more empathy than Mai. “She put us in prison,” Mai reminded her. 

“Because we betrayed her.” Ty Lee let herself fall backwards to lie on the bed. “I mean, we made the right choice; I don’t regret it. I just kind of…” 

Mai wasn’t sure what to say, so she stayed silent as Ty Lee found the words.  

“...I kind of wish she wasn’t alone. She needed us, even though she was, you know.” 

Mai did know. “She was ruthless. Cruel. To Zuko, to the Avatar and his allies.” 

“To us?” Ty Lee made it sound like a question— Was Azula cruel to them? Was that what Mai intended to say? 

Mai didn’t know. She couldn’t see Ty Lee’s face from this angle, but she could guess at the complicated expressions passing over it. Mai lowered herself to lay on her back next to Ty Lee. They both gazed at the gold-inlaid ceiling. 

Ty Lee finally spoke. “We didn’t deserve how she treated us. And also she didn’t deserve how she was raised. Those two truths have to coexist.” 

“So the world is unfair and everything sucks,” Mai summarized.

A rustle of sheets indicated Ty Lee rolling over to face Mai. “I mean, yeah, the world is unfair, but not everything is bad. The war is over, we’re out of prison, we have each other.” 

That was true. Mai rolled onto her side to face Ty Lee. Their faces were only a handspan apart, and Ty Lee’s eyes shone in the dim lamplight. 

“You can stay here tonight,” Mai offered. “I mean, if it would help you sleep— just, having someone there. If you want.” In the following moment, Mai was sure she’d messed things up by being so awkward. But then Ty Lee smiled and snuggled up against her in a way that made Mai’s insides flip as she tentatively placed her arms around Ty Lee.

That night, Mai slept better curled together with her with than she had slept in the past three years. 

— 

Mai didn’t like to look like she wanted or needed hugs (or really, any sort of physical or emotional comfort). In the past, she had rolled her eyes when Ty Lee hugged her, and would never hug back. But now it was like a dam had burst. When Ty Lee hugged her, Mai would relax into it and wrap her arms around the shorter girl. Sometimes they’d be sitting next to each other, and Mai would nudge her leg up against Ty Lee’s, and Ty Lee would put her arm around her. 

It was wonderful, and it was also torturous, because Ty Lee had always been a physically affectionate friend. Mai didn’t know whether these hugs were platonic or an indication of something more. She just wanted to melt into Ty Lee and hold her and be held. 

— 

There was nothing that Mai was required to do here. No schedules and routines like in prison, no single-minded focus on a goal like her time chasing the Avatar with Azula, not even mandatory social events like her parents would make her go to. Mai was bored. 

She spent her days talking with Ty Lee or reading random books in the palace library or practicing knife skills. Zuko was always busy with Firelord duties, though he tried his best to make time for his friends. Mai took to sitting in his office reading while he did paperwork in the evenings. 

“Can you check the math on this budget proposal?” he asked her one night. “You’re better with numbers than me.” 

She took the sheet of paper he offered and set her mind to the simple task of addition and subtraction. “The math all works out,” she told Zuko a few minutes later, “but it doesn’t really make sense to spend ten thousand repairing flood damage on one island when only thirty thousand is going toward transporting soldiers home.” 

Zuko squinted at the paper. “That seems wrong. The advisor who wrote this… is from that island. Ugh, I think he’s trying to embezzle. I can’t even fire him because I need his vote on the decolonization measures.” 

“I could just check over all his budget proposals,” Mai suggested. 

“You’d do that?” 

“Yeah, I’ve been bored anyway.” She hoped Zuko knew that her casual statement really meant Thank you for thinking I’m valuable. Thank you for trusting me.

— 

The Kyoshi Warriors were Zuko's new bodyguards. Apparently their leader, Suki, was part of Team Avatar and they had volunteered to protect the new Firelord while someone determined which of the former guards could be trusted.

This was a problem, because Mai had killed a Kyoshi Warrior and was only now realizing how bad that was.

She was able to avoid them most of the time; she suspected they also avoided her. Whenever she was with Zuko, he would dismiss the warriors guarding him, saying that Mai was perfectly capable of keeping him safe. She still kept her knives on her at all times. 

Maybe there was some kind of symbolism there, that she was having trouble leaving the war behind, but she felt safer with them. The sheaths sewn into her sleeves and strapped to her legs were a comforting weight. She hadn’t been without them in years, aside from when she was in prison.

She wasn’t sure who she was without a weapon.

— 

Mai and Ty Lee sat in on a few council meetings. The phrase “child soldiers” was thrown around. Mai didn’t feel like a child. She wasn’t sure she ever had. 

— 

Mai had been dreading writing to her parents, but she knew she needed to. She wasn’t sure how much they knew about the events of the past few months, whether they even knew she’d been in prison. If they did, they were probably horrified and ashamed of her. Even an ocean away from them, the thought made her stomach twist. 

She settled for writing I am back at the palace. I will be staying here for the foreseeable future. The rest of the letter was just pleasantries, socially-required lies like I hope to see you again soon. She signed it as Your loving and dutiful daughter, Mai. 

As Mai went to mail the letter, she saw one of the Avatar’s friends, the little girl named Toph, picking up a letter of her own. Toph glared at the green-and-gold wax seal like it had personally offended her and stomped past Mai. 

That evening, Mai was sitting alone in a courtyard, watching the sunset, when Toph approached her. She sat down next to Mai without asking, and Mai noticed that the girl’s head only came up to Mai’s shoulder. She couldn’t be much older than twelve or thirteen. 

“Hey,” Toph said. “Zuko told me you and I actually have a lot in common.” 

Mai found that hard to believe. Toph was always barefoot, covered in dirt, with atrocious manners and a mischievous grin. Mai’s mother probably would have called her a feral gremlin. Toph probably would have taken it as a compliment. 

“I’m gonna take a wild guess,” Toph said, “and say we both have high-society parents that wanted their daughter to be a delicate flower and got a badass fighter with her own opinions instead.” 

Mai let out a surprised huff of breath that could generously be called a laugh. “Yeah. Exactly.” 

“I got another letter from them today— the worst part is, I have to have someone read out loud to me, I’m blind, and they keep sending me letters that I can’t even keep private if I want to know what they say!” Toph stomped one foot, stirring up a cloud of dust. “At least Zuko tells me ‘here’s half a page of the same as always.’ They want me to come home, but they don’t want me. They want a helpless little girl for them to dress up and display like a porcelain doll.” 

Mai nodded. “No personality. No inconvenient emotions.” 

“Yeah, you get it.” 

They sat in silence for a moment, and Mai found herself drawing patterns in the dirt with the toe of her shoe, mirroring Toph.

“Y’know,” Toph said, “you don’t always have to act like how they taught you.” 

Mai’s first instinct was to say Yes, I do. But there was no real reason for that anymore. “I… I’m not sure if I know how.” She considered that Toph had been raised learning the same things. “How are you just so casually… the opposite of everything they wanted you to be?” 

“Spite.” Toph smirked, but the smile didn’t quite reach her pale eyes. “But seriously, it’s because I make an effort to act this way. When I first joined the gaang, I took it too far and wouldn’t accept help from anyone. I wanted to prove that I was strong. But it turns out they weren’t offering help out of pity, friends just do things for each other because they care. Apparently, people can love you in a way that isn’t looking down on you.” 

It was a strange idea to Mai, that someone could love her as more than an obligation. Her parents cared for her because that was their responsibility. Zuko had dated her because he was expected to. Azula had befriended her because a princess needed loyal allies. Ty Lee…?

“Sorry for getting all mushy there.” Toph’s vulnerability was being locked back behind her walls in a way that Mai now recognized. “I know neither of us really does the whole ‘talking about feelings’ thing. But Zuko told me you would understand, so thanks for listening, I guess.” 

Mai nudged Toph’s arm with her own, not like a hug or holding hands, but a small gesture of sympathy and affection. “Sure. This actually helped me too.” 

The sky was fully dark by now, and they stood to head back inside. 

“So,” Toph said, “when are you going to tell Ty Lee you like her?” 

If Mai was less dignified, she would be spluttering and turning red. 

Toph laughed, brash and completely unladylike. “I can sense heartbeats through the ground. Your heart always speeds up around her.” She nudged Mai’s arm. “For what it’s worth, hers speeds up around you too.”

Did that mean Ty Lee liked her back? The idea of discussing it with her was terrifying. But maybe it was what she had to do if she wanted to find out for sure. 

— 

Being open with her emotions, step one: talk to Zuko about what their relationship even was. Did his leaving count as an official breakup? Did he still see her as his girlfriend? 

She put off the conversation for several days. Finally, she knocked on Zuko’s bedroom door, where she knew he would be after his afternoon meetings. “Hi. Um, is now a good time to talk? About our… whatever this is. Relationship.” 

Zuko let her in and the two of them sat on the floor side by side, leaning against the foot of his bed. If it weren’t for the tension winding through her, it would almost be comfortable, being next to him. This was Zuko. He wouldn’t interpret her lack of eye contact or flat tone of voice as hostile. 

“I actually wanted to talk about it too,” Zuko said. “There’s, uh, something I should tell you.” 

“Same, but you go first.” If he was about to confess his love or something, she couldn’t tell him that she didn’t feel the same way.

Zuko tapped one hand against his leg, a nervous rhythm like a racing heartbeat. “Well, now I’m scared of what you’re going to say.” 

The inevitable ‘You go first!’ ‘No, you!’ ‘No, you!’ was already annoying Mai. “What if we both say our things at the same time?” she suggested. 

Zuko nodded and counted down: “Three, two, one…”

“I don’t think I like guys,” Mai blurted out, at the same time that Zuko spoke. 

They looked at each other for a second afterwards, then:

“I actually didn’t understand what you said since I was talking at the same time.”

“Me neither.” 

Zuko went first. “I have a crush on someone else.” 

Relief flooded through Mai. “Actually, same. Um, what I said was ‘I don’t think I like guys.’” 

“Same,” Zuko exclaimed, then backtracked. “I mean— I don’t think I like girls. I do like guys. That’s the thing I meant.” 

Mai felt like laughing, so she allowed herself to. This whole situation was already so outside of the bounds of the rules she had grown up with. “I’m so glad we both don’t like each other.” 

“We’re still friends, though, right?” 

“Of course. I didn’t betray Azula and spend a month in prison for you, just to not be your friend anymore.” 

Zuko tensed beside her. “I’m so sorry that happened. If I could redo it, I’d save you— and Ty Lee.” 

“It’s okay.” No, that wasn’t quite right; they were all still wrestling with the aftermath. “We chose it. And prison wasn’t terrible. Ty Lee and I got closer.” 

“Wait—” Zuko’s tone changed, brighter, “the person you have a crush on— is it Ty Lee?” 

Mai could feel herself blushing. Why was it suddenly hard to speak? She knew Zuko wouldn’t judge her; he had literally just said that he had a crush on a boy. But something constricting was worming its way through her chest. 

“If it’s not, I’m so sorry for bringing it up,” Zuko rambled, “I don’t know why I assumed—” 

“It is.” The words came out as a tense exhale. Mai kept her eyes on the fabric of her sleeve as she twisted it between her fingers. “I just— why is it so hard to say?” 

“Because we grew up thinking that it was wrong and illegal?” 

“Yeah.” That would be it. 

They sat in silence for a moment. Then Zuko spoke in a small voice. “Sometimes I worry that I’m broken.” 

Mai’s heart clenched. “For liking boys?” 

“Yeah. Partly. But also for everything: not getting social cues, being overwhelmed easily, having too many emotions and expressing them too strongly but somehow not in the right ways… And now on top of trying to fix a country, I have a crush on a boy, who was also one of my first real friends. What if I’m just attracted to him because of that, and I’m weird and gross?” Zuko ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it. “I don’t know how any of this stuff is supposed to work.” 

Mai didn’t know what to say or do, so she leaned her weight against Zuko in an approximation of a hug. “I feel the same,” she said. “Well, I’m not running a country, and instead of showing my emotions too strongly, I shove them down until I don’t even know what they are, but yeah.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Maybe we’re both broken.” 

“Or maybe neither of us is.” Zuko didn't sound sure about it, but he leaned against her too. “Or maybe we’re both broken, but we have each other.” 

Mai rested her head on his shoulder, and he tilted his head to rest it on hers. “Yeah.” 

—

She visited Azula for the first time a few weeks after coming home. Mai was required to remove all sharp objects from herself before entering the room, in case Azula tried to use them. Without her knives, in the blank, sterile halls, Mai was uncomfortably reminded of prison. And this place was a sort of prison, even though Zuko had tried his best to find somewhere Azula could heal.

It was hard seeing Azula this way. The princess had always been perfect. Now her hair was cut jaggedly— had she done that herself?— and she no longer had makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Azula smiled when she saw Mai, but it wasn’t her classic manipulative smirk or even one of her rare genuine smiles; it was wild and sharp and broken. 

“Have you come to gloat? You and Zuko get your happily-ever-after, and I’m locked away where you don’t have to fear me anymore. Everything you’ve always wanted.” 

Mai sank into the chair across from Azula. “I never wanted this. You know that, right?” 

Azula didn’t respond to the question, which pretty clearly conveyed her answer. Instead she asked, in a voice not quite as smooth and uncaring as usual, “Did you ever really like me? Or was it just fear all along?” 

Mai had to take a moment to process that. “Spirits, Azula, yes I liked you. You were my first friend, and you didn’t mind that I was weird, and you taught me that I could be strong. I wouldn’t be who I am without you.” It was all true. But it wasn’t the whole truth, so she took a deep breath and continued. “And yes, I also feared you. Especially when you started asking us to hurt and kill people. And when you tried to kill Zuko, I loved both of you too much to let you do that.” 

“What, you didn’t want me to carry the emotional burden of killing my brother? I could have, you know.” Azula’s expression flickered for a barely-noticeable second before she gave a mocking smile. “I’m already a monster.” 

“You’re not a monster.” Azula made a skeptical face, but Mai continued, “You may have done some monstrous things, but that doesn’t make you a monster.”

Azula was silent. Mai couldn’t interpret the emotion in her eyes.

The words spilled out of Mai, all the things she’d been thinking about in the past weeks. “It’s only just hitting me now that the war’s over— we’re kids. We shouldn’t have been in those situations, and it’s not your fault that you were taught to be a weapon. And we’re still young and we have the rest of our lives to become something else. I mean, you’re not even fifteen.” 

“I’m not?” That was the part Azula responded to. “I thought my birthday was a few days ago.” Something inside Mai twinged at learning that Azula thought she’d been here for longer than she had. And that she’d assumed no one had done anything for her birthday. 

“No, it’s in a week. Zuko wanted me to ask you if there’s anything you want as a gift.” 

“My freedom. The throne. The Avatar’s head. A calendar.” 

“...I’ll tell him to get you a calendar. Is there anything else realistic you want?” Mai tried to think of what she’d gotten for Azula in the past. Any sort of weapon was a bad idea. “Makeup?” 

“I don’t have a mirror to put it on. They won’t give me one anymore, because I kept seeing my mother in the reflection and trying to break the mirror.” Azula stated this matter-of-fact-ly.

“Oh.” Acting like hallucinations were normal was better than Azula keeping it to herself, right? How long had she been seeing things and not telling anyone?

There was a long pause, during which Azula appeared to be trying to figure out how to say something. Then: “Mai?” Asking rather than demanding seemed like a struggle for her. “Would you cut my hair? I can’t see it, but it feels wrong and I don’t like it.” 

It took a while for Mai to convince the nurse to let her have even a pair of children’s scissors barely sharp enough to cut paper. It also took a long time for Mai to even out the length of Azula’s hair; she didn’t exactly have experience as a hairstylist. When it was done, Azula ran her fingers through her newly chin-length hair and short bangs. 

Azula didn’t say thank you. Mai didn’t expect her to, but she could tell that Azula was grateful.

A week later, Zuko delivered Mai’s gift to Azula: a book of logic puzzles, like Mai had enjoyed in prison. She thought Azula would appreciate some challenges to keep her mind occupied. Azula didn’t thank her, but Mai didn’t expect her to, and that was okay.

— 

Mai, Zuko, and Ty Lee were sitting by the turtleduck pond one humid afternoon, feet in the cool water and a loaf of bread between them to feed the turtleducks. One of the creatures had crawled into Zuko's lap. "You can pet it if you want," he offered.

Mai reached out a hand, half expecting the turtleduck to run away, but it didn't. Its feathers were smooth, a pleasant texture to stroke.

Maybe it was the comfort from petting the turtleduck, but when the conversation turned to the Kyoshi Warriors, Mai spoke up.

"I think they all hate me," she said, watching the pattern her fingers made in the turtleduck's feathers.

Zuko turned toward her. "Why?"

Right, she had never actually talked to him about that. There was an understanding between them that they had both been on the wrong side before but now they were better. But she was pretty sure Zuko had never actually killed anyone.

"I…" Why was this so hard to say? She had been trained as a weapon, it naturally followed that she would have hurt people.

"When we were with Azula," Ty Lee cut in, "we fought the Kyoshi Warriors. We, uh, won, and sent them to prison."

"Suki already told me about that," Zuko said. "I'm sure she'll forgive you."

Mai made a noise of skepticism.

"She forgave me for setting her village on fire,” Zuko insisted. “She's a cool person, I actually think you guys would get along."

Mai wasn't the best at making friends under normal circumstances, so she doubted that.

Zuko continued, oblivious. “The Kyoshi Warriors are great fighters; they use these fans— well, you’ve seen them. Maybe you could spar together as a bonding activity! You could learn from them, they could learn from you, you’d get to know each other…”

"I don't know if they would want to do that," Ty Lee said.

"Why? They train with each other all the time and sometimes we'll—"

"I killed one of them." Mai wanted this conversation to be over. She wanted it to have never started.

"Oh."

Mai couldn’t look at whatever expression was on Zuko’s face. She stared at the turtleduck her hand still rested on. It had no idea what was being discussed by the humans holding it. 

Zuko must have realized that every second he waited to speak made it worse, even if he didn’t have his thoughts together yet. “That’s, um. I mean, I don’t blame you, it was war and all and you were being manipulated by Azula. But I see what you mean that they have a reason to hate you. Not that you deserve to be hated. But they also deserve… yeah. This is a mess.” 

“I also sort of killed a Warrior,” Ty Lee admitted. “We were fighting and I pushed her right into one of Azula’s fire blasts. I didn’t mean for her to die. But that doesn’t really matter when she's gone and they still have to mourn her either way.” 

Mai put an arm around her and Ty Lee leaned into it. Mai felt the other girl’s breath hitch. 

“Would they even accept an apology?” Mai asked Zuko. She had never lost a friend— well, not to death— but it had to be even more painful than watching Zuko be burned and banished. She wasn’t sure whether she would accept an apology if she was in the warriors’ place. 

“Accept, yes. Actually forgive you, I don’t know,” Zuko responded. “But it might be good just to talk it out? I don’t know, that’s what Team Avatar recommended for when people have issues between them.” 

“We can let them know we’re sorry and let them react however they feel,” Ty Lee mused. “That could be a first step.” 

Mai hoped that ‘reacting however they feel’ wouldn’t be yelling at or physically taking revenge on the two girls. Ty Lee didn’t deserve that— even if maybe Mai did. 

— 

Suki met with Mai and Ty Lee in a courtyard the next morning. This was one of the more formal gardens, sculptures and water features surrounding a pavilion with a table suitable for meals or diplomatic meetings. Suki stood at the head of the table, hands resting on the back of a chair, the sun behind her, when Mai and Ty Lee approached. 

Mai knelt in front of Suki, bowed her head, and began the speech she had prepared. "We wish to apologize for taking the lives of four members of the Kyoshi Warriors during our altercation in the Earth Kingdom. We have since renounced our connection with Princess Azula and the former regime of the Fire Nation. We recognize that—"

"Please stop," Suki interrupted. "I don't want a formal apology."

"Oh." Mai raised her head but kept her eyes lowered, partly because of the bright sun behind Suki and partly to avoid eye contact. "...What do you want?"

Suki pulled out a chair to sit and motioned for Mai and Ty Lee to do the same. They complied, though Mai felt more uncomfortable this way than kneeling on the stone floor.

"I was thinking about it a lot last night,” Suki said, “and I already know you're different people than you were back then. You sacrificed yourselves to help us break out of Boiling Rock. I'm guessing you were probably brainwashed like Zuko but eventually you figured out that what you were doing was wrong."

"Yeah. But we're still really, really sorry," Ty Lee said. "And you don't have to forgive us—  because what we did was awful and there's no way to fix it."

"I know." Suki nodded. "I'm not sure I'm ready to entirely forgive you, and I know some of the other warriors definitely aren't. But I have an idea for something that you can do to start."

Suki whistled and five Kyoshi Warriors entered the courtyard. They were out of uniform, and Mai was struck by how normal they seemed. They were all young women around her age, all weapons in a war they hadn't started.

“We want to tell you about the four girls you killed. They were more than just warriors, they were friends and sisters and whole people with personalities and feelings. They deserve to be remembered that way. When you know them, you can mourn them with us.” 

And so they began. The other warriors introduced themselves, and one of them showed sketches she had done of the girls before they died. Together with Suki, they shared their memories of the fallen warriors with Mai and Ty Lee. 

By the time Zuko came to check on them hours later, Ty Lee had sobbed her eyes out twice and Mai had to wipe away tears of her own. Most of the warriors had cried as well, but there were also smiles and laughter. They told stories of pranks and inside jokes, training and signature moves, long nights awake and comforting hugs. Of a girl who loved music, a girl who fought like she danced, a girl whose freckles showed through her white warrior paint, and a girl who trained tirelessly to protect her home. Mai wished she could have known them. She wished she wasn’t responsible for the death of seventeen-year-old Kami, a girl with a gap-toothed smile and dreams of owning a restaurant. 

None of them had deserved this. Mai wasn’t sure if she deserved to live while those girls had died. Learning about them hurt more than if the Warriors had decided to physically punish Mai for killing one of their own. The ache settled into Mai’s heart and made a home there, next to her complicated feelings about Azula and her love for Zuko and Ty Lee. She was going to have to carry this guilt for the rest of her life. But it was a relief to have people to carry it with her. 

— 

Over time, Mai became more comfortable joining Zuko and the Avatar’s group of friends. She got to know Toph’s brash humor, Suki’s strength, Aang’s combination of playfulness and wisdom, Katara’s fierce protectiveness, and Sokka’s curiosity and persistence. They drank tea and exchanged fighting techniques and stories of their homes. Mai worried before their first time sparring that it would bring back memories of when they’d fought on opposite sides, but the other teens seemed just as eager for a friendly spar as she was. Often, they knocked her to the ground, but they always offered a hand to help her back up. 

At one point, Sokka approached Mai to ask if she and Zuko were together. She assured him they weren’t and tried to subtly hint that Zuko liked him back. She wasn’t the best at subtlety, but she saw the two of them by the turtleduck pond that evening. Zuko was working on repealing the law against same-sex marriage, though there were more urgent matters of reconstructing a nation broken by its own imperialism. Meanwhile, in the midst of all the politics, these teenagers were reconstructing their own lives. 

— 

“Hey!” Ty Lee caught up to Mai in the hallway as she walked to lunch one day. “The Autumn Moon Festival is next week. Do you want to go together?” 

Together. Did Ty Lee mean as a date? Or just as friends? “Sure.” Mai consciously showed her smile, because no matter what the context was, she was happy to spend time with Ty Lee.

The evening of the festival, they met in front of the palace at sunset. Ty Lee was wearing a short, flowy dress so dark pink it was almost red, and she had painted her eyelids with golden glitter. Mai’s heart stuttered at how beautiful she was. 

They wandered through the city, Ty Lee pulling Mai along to look at the stalls selling knicknacks and food. Mai insisted on paying for the rice dumplings they split. Colorful lanterns shone everywhere along the streets, gold and red and orange and green and blue. 

As night fell, more and more people gathered to celebrate, more than Mai had seen in any one place in months. She was starting to get a little overwhelmed, but she pushed it down. She was having a fun evening with Ty Lee. She could handle a little crowd. 

And yet the feeling grew. Everything was too much. There was a different musician on every corner, all playing different tunes that clashed in her ears. The people around Mai were talking too loud (voices mixing with the music in a wave of sound) and jostling her (unexpected touch meant fight meant danger; she tried to ground herself with the weight of the knives in her sleeves) and Ty Lee was right next to her but it felt like she was speaking from far away. 

“...But I think the pink one is prettier, even though red and gold are the traditional colors. What do you think?” 

“Mm-hm.” Mai wasn’t sure if she could manage words right now. She could barely manage breathing. 

Ty Lee turned to look at her. “Mai? Are you okay?” 

Even though it was Ty Lee, even though part of her knew it would be fine, Mai had the impulse to hide her discomfort. She didn’t want to ruin this experience for Ty Lee. It was a nice festival; it was the first event they had gone to since getting out of prison; it was stupid that Mai was reacting this way to all the lights and sounds and people.

“Mai?” 

Mai shook her head. She wasn’t sure if she meant ‘no, I’m fine’ or ‘no, I’m not fine.’

“Let’s go somewhere quieter, okay?” 

Ty Lee led Mai to an alley, where the noise of the crowd was slightly muffled by distance, and finally they were alone. Mai couldn’t stop herself from sinking to the ground and tucking her knees to her chest, pressing her hands over her ears, despite the voices running through her head saying that this was pathetic and weird and undignified and everything she’d ever been told was wrong with her. 

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Ty Lee spoke just loudly enough for Mai to hear. “I understand— I mean, not to the same extent, but we were in prison where everything was drab and orderly, and then in the palace there’s not a lot of people around…” 

Mai tried to focus on Ty Lee’s voice. The ground in front of her was swaying, moving closer and further away. Wait, no, she was the one rocking. She forced herself to stop.  

“You don't have to sit still if you don't want to,” Ty Lee said. “Sometimes if I’m feeling a lot of emotions it helps to move. Not that you have to do a cartwheel or anything— what I'm trying to say is, you're allowed to rock back and forth.” 

No, I'm not, Mai’s instincts wanted to respond. But there was no one here watching her except Ty Lee. Ty Lee expressed her emotions with movement. It was okay around her. 

Mai slowly leaned forward and back, then faster as she realized it helped. It felt like all the overwhelming sounds and sensations had been crowding into her body, and now she could shake them out. She sat and rocked for a minute, letting the tension slowly drain away. With her hands over her ears and only the sights of the alley and Ty Lee around her, she was safe. 

“Let’s go back to the palace.” Ty Lee held out a hand to Mai. “Do you want to hold hands while we walk?” 

Normally, Mai would love to, but right now removing her hands from her ears would expose her to all the noise. “I have to keep my ears covered. But you can touch my arm to guide me,” she managed to say.

So they walked back to the palace, Ty Lee helping to steer Mai through the crowd. The Kyoshi Warriors guarding the gates didn’t comment on Mai’s hands still pressed over her ears. Part of her was afraid of their judgment, but she knew that some of them had nightmares and they all dealt with it in their own ways. 

Ty Lee led her to one of the sitting rooms with a balcony that overlooked the city. From here, the colorful lanterns looked as small as fireflies. Soft strains of music drifted up from a band playing near the palace gates. Mai gingerly lowered her hands. 

“Is this okay?” Ty Lee asked. 

Mai nodded. “Thank you.” 

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the lights of the city. Now that Mai’s body was leaving its fight-or-flight mode, shame crawled up inside the empty spaces left by adrenaline. Why had she reacted like that to the festival? Her parents would hate her, Azula would hate her, Ty Lee would hate her… 

“I can feel you thinking.” Ty Lee interrupted Mai’s internal catastrophizing. “You don’t have to feel ashamed about it. I know the same thing happens to Zuko sometimes, and some of the warriors who get reminded of bad memories when there’s loud noises and fire.” 

“It’s not a memories thing, though.” At least, she didn’t think it was. The overwhelm didn’t remind her of anything traumatic, it just felt… bad. Painful, in a different way than physical pain. “I think I’ve just always been this way. I used to be good at hiding it, though.” 

“We all had to be good at hiding things.”

Mai turned toward Ty Lee. “What do you mean?” 

Ty Lee kept her eyes fixed on the lanterns in the distance. “Just… You can stop me if this isn’t helping, if I’m taking attention away from your problems— Just, I had to hide things too, around Azula. How I felt, how I cared about other people, because I always had to care about her the most.” 

Mai remembered Ty Lee following Azula without question, fawning over her every move. Mai had done the same thing, just in a different way. “I get it.” 

“You acted like you didn’t have any emotions, because that’s how Azula— and your parents— wanted it. I was allowed to have emotions, but only if they were happy and fun and supportive.” 

“Neither of us was really free to express ourselves,” Mai said. “But around me, you don't have to hide it if you're feeling sad or angry. I want you to feel able to be yourself around me.” 

Ty Lee let out a noise that might have been a laugh or a sob. “I’m not sure I even know who that is.” 

And wasn't that the core of it for both of them? They had been wearing their respective masks for so long that they weren't sure who they were underneath. Who would they have become if they hadn't grown up with Azula, shaped by cruel politics when they were just children? 

“I don't know about me either.” Mai tentatively put an arm around Ty Lee. “But we can figure it out together, I guess.” 

Ty Lee melted into her touch. “I like you no matter who you are,” she said quietly. 

The two of them curled into each other they way a burning piece of paper cradles the flame. 

— 

Eventually, they drew apart. The musicians below had just switched to a new song, upbeat and rhythmic. 

“This is one of the songs my circus act was set to!” Ty Lee bounced on her toes. 

“I wish I could have seen it.” 

“I don’t have the trapezes here, or I would show you. It went like flip-swing-swing-flip-spin-swing-flip…” Ty Lee acted out some of the movements as she spoke. “It doesn’t work as well like this. But we can just dance.” Her moves softened to something less choreographed, but still graceful.

Mai awkwardly twitched her arms in rhythm with the music. “I don’t know.” She didn’t know how to dance. People compared fighting to dancing sometimes, but she only knew how to move her body for the purpose of taking down a target effectively. 

“Come on.” Ty Lee took Mai’s hands. “I haven’t actually danced or even listened to music since… since Azula recruited me for the whole hunting-the-Avatar thing.” Ty Lee swayed, lost in memories. “My circus act was set to music, but they also threw a little party for my fifteenth birthday, only a few days before Azula showed up. It was nice. I liked the circus, but I wished you were there too.” 

Mai squeezed her hands. She imagined Ty Lee surrounded by friends and fellow performers, dancing, and inexplicably yearning for Mai. “I wish I could have been there.” 

“At least we’re both here now.” Ty Lee pulled Mai closer, bringing their joined hands up between them. 

Mai swayed back and forth with the music, not knowing what else to do. Ty Lee swayed with her, then released one of Mai’s hands to spin, ducking under the arch made by their other arms. Ty Lee’s skirt swirled around her. “See, it’s not that hard. You try.” 

Mai was taller, so it was awkward to bend under their joined arms, but spinning was fun. Ty Lee let go so Mai could spin again. The music blended with the air moving past her and the fabric of her clothes against her skin, but it wasn’t overwhelming; it was just right. Ty Lee spun too, smiling. 

The next song started and Mai let herself move with it. She probably looked silly— she felt silly— but it was just Ty Lee here, who grinned and copied Mai’s moves, turning them graceful as she always was. Something bright and wild expanded within Mai, and she let herself twirl and wave and leap like the light was shining out from inside her. 

After a few songs, the musicians switched to something more traditional. A procession of festival-goers carrying lanterns was passing by. Children followed along and people danced in the street. Mai and Ty Lee paused in their own dancing to watch the revelry. 

“I’m sorry we’re not down there,” Mai said. 

“It’s okay! This has been even better.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” Ty Lee’s eyes shone with the festival lights, sincere. “This is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.” 

“Me too.” For once, Mai had no trouble admitting her emotion.

Ty Lee must have been drunk on the lights and music and dancing, because only that could account for the next thing she said: “I'm so happy, I could kiss you.” 

“Then do it,” Mai said without thinking. She blushed at how forward she was being, but couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from quirking upwards. 

Ty Lee was staring at Mai’s smile, at her lips. Slowly, she raised a hand to cup Mai’s face, giving her the chance to pull away if she wanted to. 

But Mai wanted this. She leaned in and brought their lips together. 

Kissing Ty Lee felt like the sun exploding in her chest. It was soft and joyful and fumbling— because neither of them had any real experience, but Mai wanted to hold Ty Lee close and never let her go. She had never understood all the talk about butterflies until now, now that Ty Lee’s fluttering heartbeat pressed against her made Mai feel like she was floating.

When they drew apart, Mai couldn’t help smiling. Ty Lee was grinning too, her cheeks flushed and her breath soft on Mai’s face. Her gold eye shadow had smudged, and Mai tried to wipe some of it off with her finger, but only smeared it more.

“That was… really nice,” Mai said. 

“Can we do it again?” Ty Lee asked, her smile radiant. 

Mai answered with another kiss. 

— 

All too soon, Mai’s family returned to the capital city. Her parents looked the same as ever, perfectly polished, not even acknowledging the servants unloading their luggage from the ship. Mai’s younger brother was now toddling around under the watchful eye of a nanny and babbling strings of words. If that wasn’t proof that half a year could make a difference in somebody, Mai herself was proof. It felt like ages ago that she had bid her family goodbye back in Omashu, ready to follow Azula across the Earth Kingdom on a wild chase for the Avatar. 

Mai exchanged polite bows with her parents. It was only when they reached the privacy of their home that Mai’s mother hugged her. “Thank goodness you’re alright. We were told that you were arrested for treason, but we couldn’t even ask for details…” 

Obviously, that would have jeopardized their safety, not to mention their political standing. Mai didn’t blame her parents for whatever they had said to distance themselves from her. Really, she didn’t, she understood how court politics worked. It would have been disastrous for them to be perceived as sympathetic towards a traitor, even if that traitor was their teenage daughter. 

“What happened?” Mai’s father asked.

“I helped Zuko and some of the Avatar’s allies escape Boiling Rock Prison and almost stabbed Azula.” 

Her parents wore matching horrified expressions. Mai felt herself shrinking under their gaze. Should she have made her explanation vaguer or somehow more tactful? They would probably find out the truth eventually anyway. 

“Then Azula sentenced Ty Lee and me to life in Boiling Rock, but when Zuko became Firelord, he pardoned us.” 

“Have you been staying at the palace all this time? Even though you are Prin— Firelord Zuko’s betrothed, it would be more proper for you to move back home.” 

Mai fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, then stopped when she remembered that her parents disapproved of that. “I’m actually not anymore. Not Zuko’s betrothed, I mean.”
“What? How did you fall out of favor?” 

“Zuko and I mutually broke up. We’re both interested in different people.” 

“What person could you possibly be interested in that is more important than the literal Firelord?” This was the most emotion that Mai had ever seen from her father, and it was anger. “This has been the plan for years! How could you give up marrying into the royal family?” 

“I thought the two of you were in love,” her mother protested. “You’ve been close since you were children.”

“We are close. Just not in that way.” Mai took a deep breath. “I don’t like men at all. I… have a girlfriend.” 

“That’s illegal,” her father stated bluntly. “And wrong. That isn’t done.”

Mai’s mother wore a more sympathetic expression, but in a cloyingly condescending way. “Look, just because the end of the war is changing things, that doesn’t mean we should abandon all our traditional views.”

“Is this some kind of teenage rebellion?” Mai’s father demanded. “You went to prison for treason, now you want to date a girl?”

A look of horror dawned on her mother’s face. “Did something happen to you in prison?”

It took Mai a moment to figure out what kind of something in prison would have affected her sexuality, but when she realized, she vehemently shook her head. “Nothing happened! I think… I think I’ve always been this way and just didn’t realize it.” 

“But you had a crush on Zuko when you were younger, and you were dating him when he came back after killing the Avatar,” her mother argued. 

“We were friends, and everyone was telling us we should date, so we did.” 

“You may be explaining it that way to yourself now, but you’ll realize your true feelings when you’re older. It’s all these new ideas they’re introducing… You’ve just convinced yourself that you’re like that because you want to abandon your duty…” 

The conversation went on for much longer. By the end, the only thing keeping Mai from screaming and crying was that showing too much emotion would make her seem immature. She was mature, she was sixteen, but facing her parents, she felt like a child again, having to prove that she knew her own feelings better than they did. 

She didn’t break down or storm off. She politely informed them that she was done arguing and would be staying in the palace rather than returning home. She kept up the emotionless facade until she made it back to her room in the palace. Then she threw herself on the bed and screamed into a pillow. 

A knock sounded on her door. “Are you okay?” Ty Lee called. 

Mai buried her face deeper in the pillow. 

“If you don’t answer, I’m going to break down the door and come in,” a different voice said. 

“Toph, please don’t break down any doors,” Zuko said, with a tone that implied he had to tell her this at least once a week. 

Mai raised her head from the pillow. “It’s unlocked, you can come in.” 

Soon Mai’s friends were surrounding her. “Do you want to talk about it?” Zuko asked. 

So Mai ranted about her parents and their reaction to her announcement that she was dating a girl now. Expressing her anger felt good, and her friends reacted with sympathy (Zuko), comfort (Ty Lee), and violent threats toward her parents (Toph). 

Maybe Mai wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted out of the future, but she knew that she wanted this. She wanted Ty Lee cuddled up against her and Zuko sitting on her other side, comfortably not making eye contact, and Toph brainstorming ideas for a “parents suck” club. 

When Mai was younger, she had known what she wanted, but only because it was what she was told she should want. She wanted to marry Zuko one day, and to be Azula’s loyal follower, and to be the perfect refined noble lady she was supposed to be. 

Now she wanted to be friends with Zuko, but nothing more. She hoped that Azula would heal, and they might not ever be friends, but they could eventually forgive each other. 

Mai wanted Ty Lee, wanted to hold each other and spend years together and remind each other that it was safe to be who they wanted to be now. 

She wanted to know that it was safe to be herself now, wanted to know it deep within her, where her grief and love and cynicism lived. She wanted to make a world where it was safe for everybody to be themself. 

She could do that. She was still young. The future stretched in front of her like an open road, like the sun. 

— 

In one version of the future, Ty Lee joined the Kyoshi Warriors who acted as Zuko’s bodyguards, and Mai pretended to be Zuko’s girlfriend to appease the close-minded nobles he needed support from. In one version of the future, Mai and Ty Lee joined the circus and traveled around for a few years, using their fighting skills to perform daring tricks and sharing a bed in a tiny caravan. In one version of the future, they went to university, and Mai learned accounting and Ty Lee became a therapist and they opened their own clinic. 

Mai still kept knives sewn into her sleeves, but these days, it was more about their grounding weight than having to use them. Over time, memories of the palace as a place of fear faded, overlaid with memories of a place of friendship. Laws were changed. Children would never again be forced to fight. Men and women could marry whoever they loved. Slowly, the hearts of a nation changed too. 

Mai didn’t have to hide parts of herself anymore. There was cracked pottery that had been repaired with gold, but that wasn’t a perfect metaphor. The pieces of herself she had tried to hide had never been broken in the first place. 

(Not because she was strong. But because she was not broken for being the way she’d been all along.)