Chapter Text
My name is Mai. I don’t have a family name, because my family likes to pretend we’re royalty, even though we’re really, really not.
When I was seven years old, my parents ordered me to befriend the second daughter of the then-second son of the Fire Lord, the day after she kicked her previous "best" friend down a flight of stairs, breaking three of her ribs, and her right arm.
When I was eleven, I watched the Fire Lord burn the dreamiest boy in the fire nation's face right off, and the now-crown princess laughed while I wept.
When I was twelve, my parents were transferred to a no-name Earth kingdom colony in punishment for my tears.
When I was thirteen, a new and more important Earth Kingdom city fell, and someone, somewhere, decided that I had paid appropriately for my sins, so my father was presented with its governorship.
Two months into my new and incredibly exciting life in the very bright and not terrible and dusty city of who-gives-a-shit, the orchestrator of the previous seven years of my life appeared before me, ready to rearrange my life, once again.
“Hello, Mai,” Azula said, standing eagerly before me, both of her hands folded tightly behind her back, with a bright, manic smile on her face. She had this way of looking at me—like my entire existence was hers, and justly so―it always made me forget just what, exactly, she was. I fell into her eyes, briefly, as all who had the misfortune of encountering her were liable to do.
Then she waited, like she always did, for me to respond, because she liked to preen.
"Princess," I said.
Azula preened like only the crown princess of the fire nation can preen, a full body preening that made sure to give her muscles a good flex and flip her obnoxiously impeccable bangs, all while smiling the smile that says she really deserves much better. It’s quite a trick―I’ve tried to do it in the mirror, but I’ve never been able to get it quite right.
"I have a bit of a problem," Azula said, just as her bangs fell back into place, and her nose made its way down from the surface of the sun. To Azula, "a huge problem" is a unsightly crease on her pants, and "a bit of problem" means that my house is on fire. I automatically checked my house behind me, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not a raging blue inferno.
When I turned back to Azula, she was giving me a Very Significant look. It was through her eyelashes, because her face was kinda titled down, but her eyelashes were actually pretty short, so she was really working for it.
To Azula " I have a problem" also means "You are going to help me fix my problem."
I ran through my available excuses. I was pregnant with Zuko's baby. Tom-Tom was deathly ill, and if I left he would die of loneliness. I had defected to the side of the Earth King, and had sworn to kill Azula.
But then I remembered who I was talking to.
(My house wasn’t on fire yet, but that could always be fixed.)
"Thank Agni," I said to her. "I think I might have been about to die of boredom."
It occurred to me only after I said it that I was thanking Agni for Azula's problem, but it apparently didn’t occur to Azula, because she laughed and laughed—a high, sharp laugh that grated on my ears with little shrieks on every intake of her breath.
Azula stopped laughing, and instead of really working to give me a significant eyelash look though her still-pretty-short eyelashes, the look she gave me instead was sharp, and gleeful. She looked at me like I was the source of everything good in the world, and because I was once again making the classic mistake of meeting her gaze, I found my breath stuttering in my chest.
Azula, of course, was, as always, completely ignorant to her effect on the people around her.
It was right around then that one hundred and twenty pounds of pink former-circus-freak crashed into me at full speed, sending me into a tumble of arms and legs across my father's courtyard.
Azula looked down her nose at me like she might a particularly ugly Turtle duckling, one corner of her tilted up in a mocking little smile.
“We leave in an hour,” she said, because Azula had never considered another person's convenience in her entire life.
“Mai!” Ty Lee screamed at my face as Azula turned away. “I missed you so much!”
I watched Azula shake her butt at us as she pranced away for a weak moment before turning to Ty Lee.
“Yes, Ty Lee,” I said, patting her back because I knew she hated back-patting hugs. “I missed you, too.”
And so it all began again.