Fic: Reality Check
Title: Reality Check
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Mai/Aang, Katara/Zuko
Summary: As it so happens, Katara is not his Forever Girl. As it so happens, Zuko isn’t worth a death this slow.
Words: 1161
Mai lay in her bed, night shadow surrounding her and contemplated her slow death. Suffocation was a truly terrible way to die. When such an oppressive force wraps its hands around your neck and just squeezes, denying the body of air, a desperate fight begins between life and death.
Mai had a choice. She could surrender, stop fighting it and let go.
Or she could stop being so passive, shove a knife in it, and be done with it.
Calmly, Mai rose from her bed and lit a lantern. She set it on her writing desk and prepared brush, ink, and paper. Brush poised above paper, she hesitated only long enough to gather her thoughts. She wrote,
Zuko…
He wasn’t going to come after her. She knew that. The Firelord couldn’t spare the time to hunt down his ex-girlfriend. She was counting on that.
0o0
Aang sat in the garden, early morning sunlight shining down on him. Red, orange, and yellow flowers were carefully pruned to perfection. He was blind though and couldn’t see any of it. He couldn’t, refused to see. If he didn’t see, he could pretend that the reality wasn’t truly what it was. Because the reality, the truth hurt.
They were supposed to be helping Zuko, comforting a friend in his time of need, after his break-up. And Katara was performing wonderfully in that regard. In fact, he’d have appreciated if she hadn’t thrown herself into it so fully. Katara was doing more than any friend should for him.
And they looked at him with guilty eyes and strained smiles, and he grinned and laughed and pretended blind and happy-go-lucky. Simply reasoning, it was Katara and Zuko, his friends.
Because he’d been selfish and scared, he’d run away before, and the world had suffered for it. He was scared this time too, but more of what he might do if he stayed.
Aang let the scales fall from his eyes and took off before he could put them back.
0o0
He was surprised to see her here. He wasn’t even sure where here was other than some northern part of the Earth Kingdom. But sitting in a back corner, he spotted the familiar noblewoman who dumped Zuko and unknowingly ruined the only romantic relationship he’d ever had with a girl.
He weaved around tables and customers, heading directly for her. There was no reason to avoid her, he told himself. It’s not like he was bitter or lonely or whatever. Few people paid him any mind, as he’d taken to wearing a hooded robe.
Mai glanced at him as he settled into the chair across from her. He eased the hood back a little, revealing a bit of his arrow tattoo, smiling.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
She stared at him for so long he didn’t think she’d answer. Finally she said,
“It goes.”
“That’s…great,” he scratched his nose nervously. “You look good.”
And she did. It’d been about two years since he’d seen her, and her hair hung down her back in a long wolf’s tail; or rather phoenix tail. Her eyes stared at him directly, and he wondered if she noticed any differences in him. He was now - one hundred and - seventeen to her nineteen, and he noted with some satisfaction that he was taller than her.
“You almost look grown-up.”
“Hey, I am grown-up!” he objected.
Her mouth twitched up slightly. “Sorry. Your maturity is still a bit understated.”
“Sure, sure. So what brings you this far north?”
“Legs.”
“Heh, good one. Where are you headed from here?”
“I dunno. I’m taking a page from you, wandering with the wind. It is so. Much. Fun.”
“Oh, come on,” Aang leaned across the table. “You’re enjoying it. You’re like me in that way. Can’t stay anywhere long.”
“It’s got more to do with me not liking anywhere all that much. Staying in one place doesn’t suit me.”
Aang understood that. The only place he’d ever felt at home was the Southern Air Temple over one hundred years ago. Now the place was a massive grave. Later, his friends became his home, but they’d all drifted apart, and it was just Katara, Appa, and Momo. Now it’s just him, Appa, and Momo. He loved them, of course, but they weren’t that great for conversation
His friends were his home, but his home was scattered across the whole world. And he couldn’t stay in any of those places long. He didn’t fit in anywhere. He was a relic of a dead age of dead people.
“I understand completely. Have you ever been to one of the Air Temples?”
“Nope.”
“Wanna go to the Northern one? I mean, it’s not exactly like how it used to be, and the people who live there now made some changes. The Mechanist there made the air balloons with Sokka’s help.”
“On Apple?”
“Appa…and of course. We tried walking once, and I so admire people such as yourself who actually manage to get anywhere without a flying bison.”
“Have you bathed him recently?”
“Nope. But hey, if you’d rather trek through forests filled with unknown numbers of rabid animals, hygienically-challenged bandits, and dirt -“
“It appeals to my sense of adventure.”
A bar girl carelessly plopped a chipped bowl of soup in front of her then glanced at Aang. “You want anything?”
“Tea would be great!” He flashed her a smile.
A bit pinker than when she arrived, the girl scurried away.
Mai looked down at the grease floating in the soup. Chunks of…something green and brown waded in the yellowish liquid.
“No way am I eating this.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Mai poked it experimentally with the spoon. “I have this thing about eating things I can’t readily identify.”
Aang grinned wide. “What happened to your sense of adventure?”
An unidentified bit of food nailed him between the eyes and slid down his nose.
“I asked for that,” he admitted.
“You did, and I am nothing if not a people-pleaser.”
Aang chuckled heartily at that.
“It’s gonna be so fun having you around!”
“I didn’t agree to anything.”
“Yet,” he raised a finger. “I can be very convincing when I wanna be.”
“You’re desperate, aren’t you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say desperate -“
“I would.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Very mature, Avatar.”
The bar girl returned, delicately setting a fine tea cup before him and a plate of dumplings with a pair of chopsticks balanced atop. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said,
“I - I thought you might want something to eat so those are on the house.”
“Oh, wow, that’s so sweet of you. Thanks.”
The girl flushed again and scampered away. Aang couldn’t help but be impressed with her speed and took a sip of the tea.
“So where were we?”
Mai was just popping one of his dumplings into her mouth with his stolen chopsticks.
“Continue to flirt decent food out of waitresses, and I’m in.”