(A/N) Despite the fact that it has pretty close to nothing to do with your ship, this is dedicated to each and every Zutara supporter who has watched the finale. Even I admit that was cruel. They get your hopes up and then they dash them to sizeable pieces for the eating. That's totally how they get all their writing powers. Eating the shards of young girls' dead dreams. Mmh, Zutara flavored. ..Sorry. Disclaimer: I do not own the dream crusher.
Neither Mai nor Ty Lee was informed of the addition to their formerly all girl crew until the next morning, when they sort of figured it out on their own, after finding him sitting alone in the resplendent dining hall at breakfast.
"Oh look," Mai said in a manner far too unbiased for anyone's liking, "It's Zuko." She took a seat at the too long and equally resplendent table. Its hand carvings had hand carvings who in turn had slightly poorer quality hand carvings. "Hello, Zuko," she said, as though she hadn't really expected anything else of him.
In all probability, that was not, in fact, her intended meaning, but she could have said something like 'eggs are nice' and he would have taken this to be an accusation that he had turned his genial uncle over to his megalomaniacal sister on sole condition that he receive an omelet.
Zuko sullenly looked up under his eyebrows, and didn't respond, because he totally could've gone the other way with it, she didn't know…
What was he gonna do flying around with a bunch of twelve year olds on a big, white, fluffy dog-bear thing all day, anyway? Give himself an ulcer, that's what.
"…So," Mai said, conversationally, or as close to it as Mai got in Zuko's experience, though that had been a year or two back. She'd gotten… various.. things in the intervening time. "Pawn or prisoner?" She poured herself some tea.
"Neither," Zuko shot her a glare, putting food in his mouth so he wouldn't have to expand on this.
"Have it your way," Mai did her 'I am just slightly better than everyone you or anyone else can think of' half-grin into her tea cup.
Ty Lee, still standing because her legs hadn't yet managed to find the next tile on her way to the breakfast table, was horrified, like a child watching her parents fight. And Ty Lee's parents had never fought, as they were deep believers in calm, thorough conflict resolution through smoking a whole lot of opium together. This just hadn't been the way she'd expected the conversation to go.
For one thing, she'd seen it in a deep, dark forest away from the prying eyes of Azula and her cronies (Technically Ty Lee did fit the category of crony, but how can someone so cute ever be called something so ugly?) where Mai and Zuko would lock eyes for the first time in years, declare their eternal love, make out, then ride off into the sunset with Ty Lee and Zuko's uncle in tow, the latter playing a happy little song about turtle ducks on a samisen. Of course at this point the Avatar would appear and declare that he was giving up his futile attempts to thwart the Fire Nation. He would then tie himself up, and blow at the ground in order to catapult himself neatly into the wagon the four of them had now acquired out of nowhere. The blind girl and the water girl would shrug and wave goodbye, wishing him good luck and telling him that whatever his conscience told him to do was absolutely right. As for the cute boomerang guy, he would hop on the back of Ty Lee's ostrich horse, deciding that his conscience was telling him to run off with the bendy Fire Nation girl. Then Zuko and Mai would return triumphant to the Fire Nation where Ozai would kick the bucket of um, sharks or something, and the new reigning king and queen would keep Ty Lee's circus on the palace grounds year round for their personal enjoyment. Ty Lee would take up her former position as the greatest acrobat in the world and boomerang guy (she really needed to catch his name one of these days) would fill the position of totally adorable clown, the former clown having gone into a coma that looked suspiciously like blocked chi.
"You guys suck!" Ty Lee pointed out, lip quivering just a little, then dashed from the room.
Mai watched, vaguely interested, then turned back to her meal.
Zuko blinked. "Was that Ty Lee? She didn't run off and join the circus?" Zuko didn't really know why there was a clearly detectable measure of disdain in his voice.
"She did, actually. Until Azula convinced her otherwise. You should know, you're not alone in picking pawn, Ty Lee did the same-"
"Who said I did?" She was just trying to bother him now.
Mai brushed on unconcerned, "..Though she kind of likes to pretend it's the latter. It makes her feel better about it.. Couldn't say why," Mai's lips turned down, thoughtfully, staring down the hall.
Zuko really hated Mai at that moment. Mostly because his father was a big a-hole, and because Mai didn't remind him of his mother. "Alright, Mai, since you seem to have the rest of us figured out, how about you try yourself now, huh? Pawn or prisoner?"
Mai realized that the sudden breath escaping her mouth was something strangely akin to a laugh. "..I figured something out, Zuko, you want to know what it is?" she looked over at him and he was still frowning at her. The only place unaffected by the frown was the scarred patch of skin around his left eye. "Nobody can make you do something you don't want to do when you don't really not want to do anything."
His frown sunk in deeper, but still, it didn't strain one bit of scalded skin.
She gave him a smarmily pitying look. "Sorry, I think I just broke your brain."
Zuko soon made plans to discover whether Mai was, as he imagined, chockfull of crap, because he, for some reason, imagined it a matter of some importance.
(A/N) Written cause Mai gives me the ennui. She and Ty Lee are both quite creepy. I'm not sure I did Ty Lee any sort of justice (no character deserves to give voice to my inner fangirl) in this fic and need to write another that expresses why I think she totally rocks in every way. The opium smoking parents are a direct result of a mind quick to assign labels combined with the perusal of a genius fic called 'Get Bent' in which Ty Lee's mother is a poet and her father an artist. Both of whom are terribly concerned with formal education stifling the creative process. So awesome.