silence--

Mai does not quite believe in the spirit world. It seems foolish -- after all, everyone tells her that it's real and evidence of it is written plainly on the physical world -- but something in her, something cynical and long-dead, refuses to believe in happy endings.

She is seven years old when she falls in love with him. He's a little older, and so handsome, and he gives her a smile and a wave, and her heart leaps into her throat and stays there, long after he's gone. Her mother clucks a little when she sees this, and later, in the comfort of their home, she says -- coldly -- that even she wouldn't have dared hope that her daughter might marry a Prince of the Fire Nation.

Half of her wants to run off with some complete stranger, maybe a peasant boy, just to spite that cold approval on her mother's face.

The other half crows. She's made her mother happy.

She hates Azula, a little bit. The girl is everything Mai cannot be -- powerful, beautiful, alive. Azula brims with emotion that Mai is not allowed to feel, overflows with power that Mai will never know, exudes a kind of wild beauty that Mai will never be. She hates it, and she hates Azula, but propriety insists that she be kind to the little princess.

Azula, for reasons Mai will never understand, likes her. Encourages her, in a roundabout way. Seems impressed with her. When they go off to the Academy, Azula makes Mai part of her entourage.

Against Azula's better judgment, but at Mai's silent insistence, Ty Lee also joins the entourage. Ty Lee is also everything that Mai is denied, but she isn't jealous of the bright girl. Instead, Mai enjoys Ty Lee's presence, far more than she does Azula's. Ty Lee is different, and sees past Mai's facade, speaks straight to the young girl underneath the mask.

She takes to throwing knives against the wall in boredom, hitting ever-smaller marks with precision and ease. The prefect gasps in horror at what are you doing to the walls? Don't you have any idea how expensive -- Mai cuts her off with a knife, narrowly missing the prefect's head. It is not an accident. The older girl takes the hint and flees.

Mai allows herself a smile.

Ty Lee runs off the join the circus, and Mai is utterly unsurprised, if bored as hell. With only Azula around to get into trouble, her days become long strings of nodding politely and pretending not to exist. And then Azula is summoned to the capitol, with a haste that worries Mai and delights Azula.

She does not go with Azula, and will spend the rest of her life cursing this fact.

A week and a half later, Azula returns, packs everything and tells Mai to do the same.

"Why?"

"Because I am going to be Fire Lord, and I need someone there I can trust."

Mai nods and does as she told. Like always. Inside, she's reeling. What happened at the capitol? Where is Zuko? Why -- in the name of all the spirits -- does Azula trust her?

Probably because Mai always nods and does as she's told. A small part of her -- the part that insisted on spending time with Ty Lee, the part that wanted to run off with a peasant boy -- screams for freedom. It's a physical ache inside of her chest, the burning and desperate need to collapse into hysterical shrieking, to cry and rant and throw things at the bitch who didn't even care, to --

She bites her lip until she tastes blood, and does not betray any emotion.

Her brother is born when she is thirteen, and she feels nothing for the bouncing, joyful boy. Tom-Tom is expected to be emotional, because he's a baby, so it isn't fair to be jealous of him because of that. No, she's jealous of Tom-Tom for an entirely different reason. Her parents fawn over him, and she fades even farther into the background.

Nod, bow, do as you're told.

Tom-Tom never takes to Mai.

She sees Zuko again, and finds herself conflicted. On the one hand, he's still Zuko, and even for the burn marring his face, he's still unbearably attractive. On the other hand, she doesn't want to give her mother the satisfaction. Besides, she's thrown her lot in with Azula, however unwillingly, and even though they claim to be on the same side, Mai knows that this peace won't last. Azula trusts her, for some unfathomable reason, and she can't bring herself to betray that trust, not quite.

Ty Lee giggles and tells her that they are just adorable together.

She doesn't really believe it. She thinks that they don't quite fit, aren't quite well-matched. She's too tall and he's too thin, and when he kisses her, she tastes ash and misery and bad memories best left to time.

He won't tell her how he got the scar. Gossip insists that it was a training accident, which she doesn't believe for even a moment. She waits for him to work up the courage to tell her the story, but he doesn't even try. It's a secret he'll keep, she realizes, probably for the rest of his life. At least from her.

She kisses him, for better times, and because it's just so Mai, to do what she must, to do what they expect. To ignore her feelings and misgivings, to plow ahead just like always, because at least things are interesting this way. At least something is happening, which is better than Omashu -- oh, no, New Ozai. The name is bitter and unnatural, and Mai doesn't think it'll take.

It's not really meant to, she knows. It's all a show, Azula's show.

And Mai is just a player.

When Zuko leaves, she's angry despite herself. No, she wasn't the best girlfriend, but he could have had the balls to break up with her to her face, rather than leave her a hastily-scrawled note. What stings more, though, is the knowledge that she has cast her lot in with Azula, the girl she still hates, over Zuko, the boy she used to love. The knowledge that things are the way they are because of her choice, not his.

He was always going to take this road. She could have gone with him, could have made him trust her, could have made him tell her. But she didn't.

She throws knives at the wall with more force than is strictly necessary, and blames a broken heart for the whispers of doubt in her mind. Azula finds it terribly funny, but Ty Lee throws an arm around her and says that it'll all work out in the end.

At the Boiling Rock Prison, she sees him again and her heart leaps into her throat, but quickly settles again. He seems genuinely apologetic, but it's all just for show. All part of Azula's show -- Zuko, the dashing traitor prince, meeting one last time with his forgotten ex-lover. He will go his separate way and she will return to Azula's side, and one day they will have a glorious fight, all orchestrated by his sister, all so delightfully ironic and tragic. She might even die in his arms. The history books will remember it.

The history books that Azula will write.

She can't explain exactly why this burns her inside, the knowledge that she has played directly into Azula's hand. It's not new. She's always played into Azula's hand. She's always done exactly as she is told.

Which is why she rebels. She claims it's for Zuko, because it almost is, but it's really for herself. The urge to scream is rising, and she will not bite it down again.

Nod, bow, do as you're told.

She almost spits at Azula's feet, but instead, folds herself behind her mask. Safe, there. No matter what Azula does, she cannot touch Mai behind the mask. She is prepared. The history books will call it a terrible tragedy, the daughter of the governor of Omashu, so blinded by love that she turned against her country.

And then Ty Lee does the last thing Mai expects, and saves her.

It occurs to her suddenly that Ty Lee was never really on Azula's side. Unlike Mai, Ty Lee didn't cast her lot in with Azula. Ty Lee cast her lot in with Mai.

As they're dragged off to the deepest parts of the prison, Mai gives the other girl a genuine smile, and says, "Thank you." And she means it.

Ty Lee just cries. Something inside of Mai dies at the sound.

They're freed a few weeks later by the beautiful Waterbender who traveled with the Avatar. She looks haggard and weak and so exhausted that even Mai twinges a bit at the sight. Ty Lee reaches out a hand to steady the girl, and they both smile.

"You saved my brother, and my father, once. I figured... Well, I thought someone should repay the favor."

"It's over, then?" Ty Lee asks, eyes huge and hope spreading across her features. "The war, the comet..." Azula. It's unspoken, but Mai flinches as though it wasn't.

"Yes. Ozai and Azula were both defeated."

"That's a kind way of saying it," Mai drawls. The Waterbender turns to her.

"No, it's the truth. Neither of them are dead."

This gives Mai pause. Somehow, against all of the world's expectations, against a hundred years of assumption, the war ended without more death? Azula failed without having to be killed? It seems too easy.

"That's a mistake," she says.

"Mai, you shouldn't say that. Azula was our friend, after all," Ty Lee implores, but Mai shakes her head.

"Azula was never my friend. And as long as she lives, she'll fight for the throne."

"Maybe you're right," the Waterbender says, an odd expression on her face. "But it's not your decision to make."

"I assume it's the Avatar's?" Mai replies, twisting the name until it comes out like a joke. The other girls flinch.

"Yes, it is," the Waterbender hisses, her head held high.

"No," Ty Lee says suddenly. They both turn to her. "It's Zuko's decision. She's a threat to his throne, after all."

"Zuko won't kill Azula," the Waterbender says, with a curious conviction.

"You don't know that," Mai whispers. "You can't know that."

She doesn't respond. They continue their journey back to the Fire Nation in silence. When they disembark, the Waterbender girl doesn't say anything to Mai, but gives Ty Lee a surprisingly warm hug. The slight is obvious, but hardly unexpected. Just as well. Mai didn't much like the girl.

"So," Ty Lee says, swinging her arms. "What now?"

If Zuko won't do it, and the Avatar won't do it, then someone has to.

This is her justification.

Azula's blood may still be on her hands, but she thinks that she's quite all right with that. She won't be able to stay in the Fire Nation, and she gives only a moment's hesitation to this thought -- she does care about Zuko, even if she doesn't quite love him. But it's for Zuko that she does this.

"Well, well, well," Azula says, drawing out the syllables with something akin to interest. "Has the prodigal daughter returned to her master? Or are you here to kill me?"

Only Azula could sit in a prison cell, hands chained tightly together, and make it look like a throne.

"Kill you," she responds. Something in the other girl's face flinches, but she covers it quickly with a smirk.

"I don't think you've got the guts."

She moves swiftly, the knife leaving her palm before she has a chance to regret. It embeds itself cleanly in Azula's heart. The Princess has time for an expression of utmost shock, but is dead almost instantly. She makes no move to retrieve the knife or cover her tracks. From this angle, Azula looks almost -- almost -- harmless. Deep inside her chest, something aches.

Azula was never my friend, she tells herself, and almost believes it.

"You were wrong about me. Always," she whispers to the corpse, and leaves as silently as she came.

She thinks that Kyoshi Island might be a good place to relocate.

Mai will not admit who it was that killed Azula, although she suspects that everyone kind of knows. Ty Lee gives her an odd glance when she shows up at Kyoshi unannounced, but doesn't press the matter. For this, among other things, Mai is eternally grateful.

It's not a happy ending. Spending her life on a spirits-forsaken rock with a bunch of obnoxiously independent women and too much makeup, dancing around with fans and revering a dead Avatar is not the ideal life she might have imagined once. But it's nothing if not interesting, with the near-constant presence of that Waterbender's brother and the squalling children and the giant koi fish and that unagi thing that Mai finds herself inordinately interested in. And no one asks questions. No one expects anything of her, except to pull her own weight and maybe train the younger girls in the art of throwing knives.

It's not a happy ending. But each morning, Ty Lee wakes her up by bounding into her room and throwing open the curtains, and drags her out to a new day on the island that -- for some reason she will never understand -- accepts her.

She links arms with Ty Lee and smiles.

A/N: Because I like Mai, and in her and Ty Lee, I have found my first femmeslash OTP. Ty Lee is way better for her than Zuko, IMO. And, okay, so I'm a Zutarian. I still think Mai deserves a happy ending. I was going to make this more obviously Mai/Ty Lee, but it's 3:30 AM and that was a fine place to end it, so nyah. I know I'm gonna re-visit this couple again, though. Mai kicks too much ass for me not to. Also, I friggin' hate titles. I suck at them.