damn you
ps good work

I like the contrast you set up between these two.

First, in the narrative styles. Mai is clearly younger and leaving on somewhat happier circumstances. She's still true to canon in the inner monologue, which is nice. She is represented very well in her drabbles. Ursa is also shown well. She's clearly more torn on leaving, and I like the focus on her thoughts about Zuko and Azula.

Second, in the weather. Ursa, who is leaving on more depressing notes, leaves when the sun is just coming up on a clear day. It doesn't represented her feelings and turmoil at all. Mai's weather, however, would. Even though in the end they both are somewhat optimistic about their future outside of the Fire Nation Palace, I think that having Mai a little torn up about leaving Zuko would have made the contrast more stark. But that's just a personal opinion.

I really enjoyed your metaphors - and Mai's musings about her metaphors - and thought you worked them in really well. Having the character's monologues interrupting the other's was a fantastic idea. If reading without the line breaks, it's clever how you made them all fit together even though there are distinctive styles. Very nice touch.

Great one-shot!

There is some very nice sentancecrafting and crosscutting going on here. I'm still hate what The Promise did with Maiko though so I can't say the subject matter is my favorite, nor does your eloquent language make it any easier to read without my feeling sad. But you do a very good job of crafting the story itself.

I still love this, not the least for Mai's metaphors (or attempts thereof). :)

...I'm speechless. Thank you for writing this amazing story. My life is now complete.

Interesting. I hated "the promise" but this was good.

Wow...just wow. That was so remarkablely brilliant. I even ended up re-reading it a few times :) it was so poetically tragic, but with a sort of indubitable beauty weaved through the words. Wow, amazing job :)