[Avatar Fic] What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted
My beta-reader is holding my Water-Tribe-as-aggressors story hostage until I complete finals. Something about not wanting to distract me.
Title:What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted
Characters: Mai, Ozai, Ty Lee, Hitozi (OC), Aang, Zuko, little Ursa (OC), assorted Fire Nation palace extras
Pairings: Mai/Zuko, Mai/Aang, past Katara/Aang
Rating: R
Word Count: 3674
Summary: After Zuko leaves with Katara, Mai grieves and rules the Fire Nation.
Author's Notes: A while ago, I read a Katara story with her being unhappy in her choice of Aang, and eventually asking to dissolve their marriage. Aang agrees, and I was sad for both of them. Then the final bit involved Katara running away with Zuko, and I just went "uh, what? what about Mai? what about his country?".
So that's where this came from.
I'm using the Air: Tempest themeset from 7_chakras.
---
last time
Mai wrapped her arms around Hitozi and tried not to tighten her hold as he wriggled in her arms. The little prince didn't understand what was going on, why his father hadn't come home tonight or the night before.
She couldn't say she understood it either. They had welcomed Katara to the palace three days ago for she was Zuko's friend and the Avatar's lover. Zuko had been so happy to see her- Mai closed her eyes and sighed. Happy. Zuko. She should have known. She shouldn't have been surprised when the messenger came barreling into her luncheon and gasped out that the Firelord had left with the waterbender in a small ship.
He'd at least left her a note when he ran off to Katara the first time.
"Mommy?" Her son asked in a high, clear voice.
Mai sighed again and squeezed him gently in a hug. "Aunt Ty Lee is coming to visit, Hitozi."
She'd send the messenger-hawk in the morning. Ty Lee would come. Ty Lee would make the halls of the palace bright, play with Hitozi and teach him her little strangenesses, distract Mai from wondering if she would still be Firelady when Zuko returned. If Zuko returned.
It would be... better than this. Better than the too-dark halls, and the servants who fell quiet when she entered the room.
"I like Auntie Ty Lee." Her son hugged her as hard as he could, and Mai was surprised to find she could muster up a smile for him.
"Good." Mai closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember what today was. Oh. Damn it. "Your grandfather is going to come visit in three days." Like clockwork. Mai suspected the guards left Ozai's cell unlocked on those days, just so they didn't have to deal with the broken arms and ribs when the old bastard decided he wanted out.
When he heard what Zuko had done-
Mai flexed a wrist, feeling the weight of her knives. She had two days to take absolute control of the country so Ozai wouldn't steal back what Zuko had claimed as his own. Well. She could do that.
She had faced down Azula for Zuko as a teenaged girl. She was a woman and a mother now - she could face down Ozai.
***
i can't have you
Mai sat at the Firelord's writing desk, propping herself up with her elbow as she read through the reports from the colonies. Petty Earth Kingdom kings claiming problems with Fire Nation bandits again, demanding the Fire Nation colonists pull further back to the shores. Never mind they were already inside the borders agreed on at the Concords. Earth Kingdom bandits raiding Fire Nation villages and merchant trains. Earth Kingdom markets with no places to sell Fire Nation goods.
Ba Sing Se was silent. Ba Sing Se was always silent to the Fire Nation.
So tedious. They could not think the Fire Nation was blind. She could see through these little games.
She had no idea what to do about them.
She sighed, and the doors to the imperial apartments swung open, servants bustling in ahead as Hitozi led his grandfather inside. Mai glanced at him, the corner of her mouth turning down ever so slightly. The undecorated, dull red robe he wore couldn't hide how much he resembled Zuko or how regally he still carried himself. It couldn't hide the cruelty in his mouth, either, or the streaks of grey in his hair and beard. A year shy of fifty, but the line of Sozin lived for a long time.
Hitozi, unfortunately, loved his grandfather, and Ozai seemed to love his grandson. At least Mai was willing to consider 'if you make the same mistakes with him that I made with you and Azula, I will kill you' to be a sign of love.
"Still working through the reports, Firelady?" Ozai asked as he stooped to pick up the yawning Hitoshi. He did not bow to her as a condemned prisoner ought. On the other edge of the knife, he did not deign to call Zuko Firelord.
"Yes," Mai said.
Hitoshi rubbed his eyes sleepily, and Ozai merely hmmed at her before taking her son out of the main room and into the attached children's apartments.
Mai turned her attention back to the reports, trying to fight down annoyance as she stared at them. No answer would mysteriously reveal itself. But an answer was needed.
Damn it. If Zuko had been here, they could have talked this out.
Ozai returned from Hitozi's rooms and leaned down to read over her shoulder. She hissed in irritation and elbowed him in the stomach. The sheathes under her robes made the strike harder, but he barely grunted.
His return blow left her head ringing.
The guards darted forward, instantly shifting from 'ugly wall furniture' to 'people' in her perception again. Some part of her wished she hadn't gotten so used to them always being around. It would be dangerous if any of them ever got any bright ideas about who should be Firelord.
Mai raised her hand to forestall the first fireball. "Return to your posts."
Fire died in their hands, and they bowed then obeyed.
Ozai, the old bastard, did not so much as glance at them. He was still reading the reports on Zuko's desk. "Stop trade with the Earth Kingdom. Especially spices. Especially to Ba Sing Se."
Mai stared at him. Maybe this was another manifestation of the insanity that led him to try to destroy the Earth Kingdom. "That will just cause more harm."
"No," he said, "It will inconvenience your traders, but most of the spice trade goes between the different islands and colonies of the Fire Nation anyway. It will hurt Ba Sing Se, and they will ask in their sly little ways why there are no spices coming. Then you will tell them there are too many bandits harassing your traders, and the ones who survive to reach Earth Kingdom towns find no place to sell their goods."
Understanding sparked in her, and Mai found herself smiling. "Then Ba Sing Se will fix the problem for us."
"Very good," Ozai murmured in approval.
She considered hitting him again but suspected the fight between them would upset Hitozi and the guards both.
"You still have a lot to read, don't you?" He smirked, and Mai was very, very tempted to hit him anyway. "I am going to bed."
He turned and walked towards her bedroom door.
Mai raised an eyebrow. "That's my bedroom, you know."
"That is the Firelord's bedroom," Ozai corrected.
"Who you are not." Mai forced disdain into her voice, just enough to prick the man.
Ozai did not rise to the bait, unfortunately. "Of course not. I abdicated in favor of my daughter. However," he said as he pressed his hands to the door-handles, "You do not have appropriate quarters for the Phoenix King, so this will have to do."
One shot. Right between his shoulder-blades. All she had to do was flex her wrist to drop the stiletto into her hand and throw it. "I am not sleeping in some other bed, Ozai."
"Then don't." He glanced over his shoulder. "I am a married man, Firelady."
The old bastard managed to get the door shut before her first stiletto hit the wood, and then the rest of her arsenal tore ugly scars in the beautiful cypress.
***
distance
Ty Lee hugged her hard, and Mai wrapped her arms around her childhood friend. She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat, and concentrated on how ugly the Kyoshi uniform made Ty Lee. Maybe heavy green and actor's makeup had looked good on the actual Avatar, but it didn't suit Ty Lee's vibrancy. She belonged in her soft reds.
Mai didn't want to let go, but she knew she needed to. The Head of Household Servants would want to settle Ty Lee into her room himself, and her seneschal - Zuko's seneschal, she corrected herself - needed to consult her on how many of Ozai's suggested edicts to throw out.
She held on a little longer anyway.
"Your aura is so red right now," Ty Lee said worriedly as they drew apart. "Bright red."
Mai raised her eyebrows at her long-time friend.
"You're furious," Ty Lee clarified. "The only other person I've seen this red is Sokka."
"Sokka?" Mai rested her hand on the small of Ty Lee's back as her friend wandered through the halls of the palace. Ty Lee didn't need a guide; they'd had almost free-run when they were Azula's playmates.
Ty Lee nodded, her braid bobbing. "He's been spitting fire since he heard, only Suki's so close to having her baby-"
"-Another?"
"Third one!" Ty Lee grinned. "She said this would be the last one for a while. But! Suki's so close to having her baby, Sokka can't go running off to chase down Katara without missing the birth. So his aura has gotten all spiky."
Mai nodded, trying to fit the idea of Sokka being angry at Katara into her head. She supposed he could do that. He was her brother, and Azula and Ty Lee certainly both got angry at their siblings often enough. But... "Why?"
Ty Lee looked over at her, then cast her eyes down to the floor. "Because Katara hurt you and Aang."
Mai suspected the order of Sokka's caring was reversed than from Ty Lee's, but it warmed her just a little bit to think someone so far away could be angry on her behalf. "How is the Avatar taking this?"
"We don't really know," Ty Lee admitted in a small voice. "Nobody's seen him."
Mai nodded again, then her eyes widened as Ty Lee enveloped her in another hug. Her friend rubbed her back, the heels of her hands digging into aching muscles Mai had been ignoring, and she sighed with something like pleasure.
"It'll be all right," Ty Lee told her earnestly. "Just you wait and see. We'll make things all right."
***
broken heart
It'd been four months.
Four months, and all the reports Mai received about Zuko put him farther and farther away from her. Maybe he would circle the world and come home from the west, like the hero Chang-Ming had.
But that was only a story she told to Hitozi to keep him amused, and she was starting to think Zuko's declarations of love were just as fictional.
Better than the alternative. Better to have never been loved at all than to think she had ever competed with Katara, better to have been chosen because being a woman of the Fire Nation would please Zuko's daimyos and generals than to be cast aside because his love for her wasn't as great as his love for the Water Tribe witch.
It had been four months, and he hadn't sent her word at all.
She didn't think of the bed as Zuko's anymore. It was hers, and Ozai shared it, though he did not share her.
She was having a harder time not thinking of the throne as Zuko's. For all she sat on it day after day, she was not of the line of Sozin. She was the Firelady, the consort of the Firelord.
But the Firelord was gone from the Fire Nation.
From her side and her bed.
But not from her heart.
Bastard.
***
would you like me if...?
Zuko had been gone for five months when the Avatar came to the Fire Nation capitol.
He'd changed, Mai thought as she formally welcomed him to her palace and granted him free rein throughout the nation. There were shadows in his eyes, something the fight with Ozai six years ago hadn't managed to rouse.
But his grin was the same when he held out a hand to her. "Do you think your seneschal would mind if I stole you for today?"
"Only if you bring me back by the end of it," Mai said severely, trying to fight the smile threatening to overcome her. She climbed down from her throne, and he offered his arm. He had muscles there he hadn't had as a boy, not as impressive as an earthbender's or shaped like a firebender's but still hard under her hand.
"How's Hitozi?" Aang asked as he let her lead the way out of the throne room.
"He's fine."
"Think he'd mind a visit? I haven't seen him since he was born, and there's all kinds of firebending tricks I can show him!"
Mai glanced sidelong at him, then signaled one of the pages. "He wouldn't, but his grandfather would. Let's walk around a bit so the old bastard can find someplace else to be."
Aang chuckled. "I don't think even Toph calls him that, and she's-"
"Extremely vulgar," Mai finished, tone indulgent. "I have met Lady Bei Fong."
He didn't deny it. He couldn't really, as Mai well knew. Instead his smile faded, making the shadows in his eyes more pronounced. "How is Ozai doing? I- Well, I haven't seen him in six years, and Zuko won't answer my questions when I ask about him."
She raised her eyebrows. He asked after Ozai? Hnh. Well, he had spared the man in the first place. Presumably, as the Avatar, he knew things that regular people didn't. Equally presumably, she should give him a more complete answer than 'fine' since he wouldn't be seeing Ozai at all if Ozai had his way. "He's doing well enough, I suppose. He is very fond of Hitozi, and he's been helping me with ruling the Fire Nation. I'm learning a lot from him." She frowned. "He pushes for control sometimes, but I find between myself and the seneschal, we can keep him from getting any."
Aang nodded, and then it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds as he grinned again. "Hey, you think we could get away to Ember Island while I'm here? You look like you could use a chance to hit the beach."
She actually laughed, and then the page came back to report Ozai had left. The rest of the afternoon, she and the Avatar played with her son and talked, him telling her about the work being done on the Air Temples and how much he had annoyed Long Feng last time he visited Ba Sing Se, her talking about Ty Lee's life on Kyoshi Island and the diplomatic battles to keep the Fire Nation colonies intact.
Evening found Hitozi in her lap, listening raptly as Aang told Air Nomad fairy tales. The grass was cool under her hands, and she half-listened to the tale as she watched the turtleducks paddle across the pond.
A cool breeze brushed through her hair, contrary to the way the rest of the winds were blowing, and she glanced sharply at the Avatar. He only grinned mischievously at her, and then Hitozi patted her sleeve and pointed one little arm at the pages waiting at the garden gate.
Dinner was set for four, but the servants only put out food for three. Mai did not glance at the empty seat at the head of the table, and their dinner conversation focused on Hitozi and Sokka's children.
After dinner, Mai took Hitozi back to the imperial apartments and his grandfather. Ozai seemed quite happy to put down the reports he'd been reading and making notes on to spend time with his grandson, and Mai left them there to return to Aang.
The servants had brought him sake since she left. She sighed softly as he poured her a cup. She hadn't indulged since Zuko left. She hadn't dared.
"I shouldn't be doing this," Aang said as he downed one cup and poured himself another. "Master Gyatso would be so disappointed in me."
"At least it's good sake," Mai said as she drank hers more slowly.
"Yeah, Roku thinks so." He grinned, but it faded too fast. "Why?"
Mai finished her cup and poured herself another. "I don't know."
Aang nodded and poured himself another cup.
Somewhere halfway through the second bottle, Mai found Aang leaning his head on her shoulder and babbling about the history of Roku and Sozin. It was a history Mai mostly already knew, so she pushed her cup away, touched his cheek to get his attention, and kissed him.
He didn't kiss like Zuko, but that was all right. She didn't want Zuko's kisses right then.
Aang pressed against her, hands roaming over her back and sides, as she smoothed her palm over his scalp. He was the one who undid her clothes and his too, laying her down in the puddle of her dress. His fingers skimmed over the sheaths still decorating her body, and she traced the tattoos down his arms and across his hips to their terminus. He jerked then, biting his lip, and then she lifted her hips in invitation, and he pressed into her with a soft sound.
Somehow they managed to go from there to his guest bedroom, and dawn found her with an arm flung across his chest, the sheets tangled around their legs.
***
regrets
The most irritating thing about Ozai sleeping in the Firelord's bed was half the time he didn't actually sleep. He tossed and turned and wound up climbing out of bed to read quietly by candlelight.
Mai was this close to stabbing him, damn Aang and Zuko both for wanting him alive.
"You're more annoying to sleep with than Ty Lee," she growled as he sat up in bed for the second time that night.
He snorted. "Oh, your husband will grow into this when he grows into his power. It's something all powerful or extremely skillful firebenders have to look forward to."
"Why should it still affect you then?" Mai asked, throwing the words at him like the stilettos she wore on her wrists.
Ozai glanced over his shoulder at her, eyes hooded. "Ask the Avatar." Then he reached across and touched the bulge of her belly. "Maybe he can help with you this, as well. I remember when Ursa was carrying our children, this time in the cycle made her- very passionate."
She lunged for him then, knife dropping into one hand with the flick of her wrist. Sly, malicious old bastard!
***
not dead
Mai held little Ursa to her breast, smiling faintly as the baby suckled. Behind her, she could hear Hitozi mock-roughhousing with Ozai and Ty Lee. She felt content for once.
Someone pounded on the doors of the imperial apartments. Mai glanced at one of her guards and inclined her head slightly. The woman opened the door, and a messenger stumbled in. "The Firelord has returned!"
Everything seemed to freeze.
"When's he going to get here?" Ty Lee demanded, standing up and grabbing for Hitozi. Her scowl made the Kyoshi warrior makeup look fearsome for the first time since Mai had seen it on her.
The messenger gulped and glanced over his shoulder. "-Now."
Zuko pushed his way into the imperial apartments, irritably waving away the seneschal hovering his shoulder. He scanned the room, looking puzzled to see Ty Lee and Ozai there. Then his gaze alighted on her and the baby in her arms.
His stricken expression felt like one of Azula's lightning-touched mock-kisses.
"Don't you dare look at me like that," Mai hissed. "You left me here. For her. Don't you dare look at me like that, Zuko."
Zuko gulped and looked away, eyes settling on Ozai. His stricken expression changed to a glare, and she knew what he was thinking, was disgusted he would think she would ever, ever do that. But before she could tell Zuko how wrong he was, Ozai spoke.
"Whatever evil people may ascribe to me, Zuko, I do not seduce other people's wives."
The words struck as hard as hers had, Mai saw, and she felt some satisfaction. At least Zuko recognized he had been wrong.
- Why had he come back at all?
Zuko turned to her once again, expression pleading. "Mai..."
Mai glanced at Hitozi, who was watching all of this with wide eyes, one hand held in tightly in Ty Lee's. She smiled at him and tightened her hold on little Ursa before she turned back to her husband. "Welcome home, Firelord."
He winced and took a step towards her. "Mai, please-"
"No," she said firmly. "You don't get to beg for forgiveness. You left me, you left your empire, and you do not get to walk back in and have everything work out. If you want this, if you really want this, you can work for it. I gave you your free chance when you left me the first time. I am not going to give you any more."
"Mai, can I-?" Ty Lee made a gesture from their childhood.
Mai nodded, and Ty Lee let go of Hitozi, stepped forward, and decked Zuko. "That's for leaving Mai!"
"Can I-?"
"No, Ozai." Mai rolled her eyes.
"Pity."
Zuko stared up at Ty Lee, one hand gingerly reaching to touch the red mark on the opposite side from his scar. "... I deserved that."
"You deserve a lot worse than that," Ty Lee huffed, folding her arms.
Zuko looked around at them from his father to his son to Ty Lee standing over him to little Ursa in Mai's arms and finally to Mai herself. He stared at her with such a painful yearning that she wanted to tell him it was all right.
But she'd learned better watching her parents. If she forgave him now, he would just do it again, and they would go the rest of their lives calling each other by their titles. Maybe someday she would be weak enough to do her hair like Mother wore hers while Zuko was away with the waterbender.
"You're right," Zuko said quietly. "I was wrong. I'm- I'm sorry, Mai."
"That's a start," Mai said. "But you have a long way to go yet."
He nodded in acceptance.
-End-
Title:What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted
Characters: Mai, Ozai, Ty Lee, Hitozi (OC), Aang, Zuko, little Ursa (OC), assorted Fire Nation palace extras
Pairings: Mai/Zuko, Mai/Aang, past Katara/Aang
Rating: R
Word Count: 3674
Summary: After Zuko leaves with Katara, Mai grieves and rules the Fire Nation.
Author's Notes: A while ago, I read a Katara story with her being unhappy in her choice of Aang, and eventually asking to dissolve their marriage. Aang agrees, and I was sad for both of them. Then the final bit involved Katara running away with Zuko, and I just went "uh, what? what about Mai? what about his country?".
So that's where this came from.
I'm using the Air: Tempest themeset from 7_chakras.
---
last time
Mai wrapped her arms around Hitozi and tried not to tighten her hold as he wriggled in her arms. The little prince didn't understand what was going on, why his father hadn't come home tonight or the night before.
She couldn't say she understood it either. They had welcomed Katara to the palace three days ago for she was Zuko's friend and the Avatar's lover. Zuko had been so happy to see her- Mai closed her eyes and sighed. Happy. Zuko. She should have known. She shouldn't have been surprised when the messenger came barreling into her luncheon and gasped out that the Firelord had left with the waterbender in a small ship.
He'd at least left her a note when he ran off to Katara the first time.
"Mommy?" Her son asked in a high, clear voice.
Mai sighed again and squeezed him gently in a hug. "Aunt Ty Lee is coming to visit, Hitozi."
She'd send the messenger-hawk in the morning. Ty Lee would come. Ty Lee would make the halls of the palace bright, play with Hitozi and teach him her little strangenesses, distract Mai from wondering if she would still be Firelady when Zuko returned. If Zuko returned.
It would be... better than this. Better than the too-dark halls, and the servants who fell quiet when she entered the room.
"I like Auntie Ty Lee." Her son hugged her as hard as he could, and Mai was surprised to find she could muster up a smile for him.
"Good." Mai closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember what today was. Oh. Damn it. "Your grandfather is going to come visit in three days." Like clockwork. Mai suspected the guards left Ozai's cell unlocked on those days, just so they didn't have to deal with the broken arms and ribs when the old bastard decided he wanted out.
When he heard what Zuko had done-
Mai flexed a wrist, feeling the weight of her knives. She had two days to take absolute control of the country so Ozai wouldn't steal back what Zuko had claimed as his own. Well. She could do that.
She had faced down Azula for Zuko as a teenaged girl. She was a woman and a mother now - she could face down Ozai.
***
i can't have you
Mai sat at the Firelord's writing desk, propping herself up with her elbow as she read through the reports from the colonies. Petty Earth Kingdom kings claiming problems with Fire Nation bandits again, demanding the Fire Nation colonists pull further back to the shores. Never mind they were already inside the borders agreed on at the Concords. Earth Kingdom bandits raiding Fire Nation villages and merchant trains. Earth Kingdom markets with no places to sell Fire Nation goods.
Ba Sing Se was silent. Ba Sing Se was always silent to the Fire Nation.
So tedious. They could not think the Fire Nation was blind. She could see through these little games.
She had no idea what to do about them.
She sighed, and the doors to the imperial apartments swung open, servants bustling in ahead as Hitozi led his grandfather inside. Mai glanced at him, the corner of her mouth turning down ever so slightly. The undecorated, dull red robe he wore couldn't hide how much he resembled Zuko or how regally he still carried himself. It couldn't hide the cruelty in his mouth, either, or the streaks of grey in his hair and beard. A year shy of fifty, but the line of Sozin lived for a long time.
Hitozi, unfortunately, loved his grandfather, and Ozai seemed to love his grandson. At least Mai was willing to consider 'if you make the same mistakes with him that I made with you and Azula, I will kill you' to be a sign of love.
"Still working through the reports, Firelady?" Ozai asked as he stooped to pick up the yawning Hitoshi. He did not bow to her as a condemned prisoner ought. On the other edge of the knife, he did not deign to call Zuko Firelord.
"Yes," Mai said.
Hitoshi rubbed his eyes sleepily, and Ozai merely hmmed at her before taking her son out of the main room and into the attached children's apartments.
Mai turned her attention back to the reports, trying to fight down annoyance as she stared at them. No answer would mysteriously reveal itself. But an answer was needed.
Damn it. If Zuko had been here, they could have talked this out.
Ozai returned from Hitozi's rooms and leaned down to read over her shoulder. She hissed in irritation and elbowed him in the stomach. The sheathes under her robes made the strike harder, but he barely grunted.
His return blow left her head ringing.
The guards darted forward, instantly shifting from 'ugly wall furniture' to 'people' in her perception again. Some part of her wished she hadn't gotten so used to them always being around. It would be dangerous if any of them ever got any bright ideas about who should be Firelord.
Mai raised her hand to forestall the first fireball. "Return to your posts."
Fire died in their hands, and they bowed then obeyed.
Ozai, the old bastard, did not so much as glance at them. He was still reading the reports on Zuko's desk. "Stop trade with the Earth Kingdom. Especially spices. Especially to Ba Sing Se."
Mai stared at him. Maybe this was another manifestation of the insanity that led him to try to destroy the Earth Kingdom. "That will just cause more harm."
"No," he said, "It will inconvenience your traders, but most of the spice trade goes between the different islands and colonies of the Fire Nation anyway. It will hurt Ba Sing Se, and they will ask in their sly little ways why there are no spices coming. Then you will tell them there are too many bandits harassing your traders, and the ones who survive to reach Earth Kingdom towns find no place to sell their goods."
Understanding sparked in her, and Mai found herself smiling. "Then Ba Sing Se will fix the problem for us."
"Very good," Ozai murmured in approval.
She considered hitting him again but suspected the fight between them would upset Hitozi and the guards both.
"You still have a lot to read, don't you?" He smirked, and Mai was very, very tempted to hit him anyway. "I am going to bed."
He turned and walked towards her bedroom door.
Mai raised an eyebrow. "That's my bedroom, you know."
"That is the Firelord's bedroom," Ozai corrected.
"Who you are not." Mai forced disdain into her voice, just enough to prick the man.
Ozai did not rise to the bait, unfortunately. "Of course not. I abdicated in favor of my daughter. However," he said as he pressed his hands to the door-handles, "You do not have appropriate quarters for the Phoenix King, so this will have to do."
One shot. Right between his shoulder-blades. All she had to do was flex her wrist to drop the stiletto into her hand and throw it. "I am not sleeping in some other bed, Ozai."
"Then don't." He glanced over his shoulder. "I am a married man, Firelady."
The old bastard managed to get the door shut before her first stiletto hit the wood, and then the rest of her arsenal tore ugly scars in the beautiful cypress.
***
distance
Ty Lee hugged her hard, and Mai wrapped her arms around her childhood friend. She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat, and concentrated on how ugly the Kyoshi uniform made Ty Lee. Maybe heavy green and actor's makeup had looked good on the actual Avatar, but it didn't suit Ty Lee's vibrancy. She belonged in her soft reds.
Mai didn't want to let go, but she knew she needed to. The Head of Household Servants would want to settle Ty Lee into her room himself, and her seneschal - Zuko's seneschal, she corrected herself - needed to consult her on how many of Ozai's suggested edicts to throw out.
She held on a little longer anyway.
"Your aura is so red right now," Ty Lee said worriedly as they drew apart. "Bright red."
Mai raised her eyebrows at her long-time friend.
"You're furious," Ty Lee clarified. "The only other person I've seen this red is Sokka."
"Sokka?" Mai rested her hand on the small of Ty Lee's back as her friend wandered through the halls of the palace. Ty Lee didn't need a guide; they'd had almost free-run when they were Azula's playmates.
Ty Lee nodded, her braid bobbing. "He's been spitting fire since he heard, only Suki's so close to having her baby-"
"-Another?"
"Third one!" Ty Lee grinned. "She said this would be the last one for a while. But! Suki's so close to having her baby, Sokka can't go running off to chase down Katara without missing the birth. So his aura has gotten all spiky."
Mai nodded, trying to fit the idea of Sokka being angry at Katara into her head. She supposed he could do that. He was her brother, and Azula and Ty Lee certainly both got angry at their siblings often enough. But... "Why?"
Ty Lee looked over at her, then cast her eyes down to the floor. "Because Katara hurt you and Aang."
Mai suspected the order of Sokka's caring was reversed than from Ty Lee's, but it warmed her just a little bit to think someone so far away could be angry on her behalf. "How is the Avatar taking this?"
"We don't really know," Ty Lee admitted in a small voice. "Nobody's seen him."
Mai nodded again, then her eyes widened as Ty Lee enveloped her in another hug. Her friend rubbed her back, the heels of her hands digging into aching muscles Mai had been ignoring, and she sighed with something like pleasure.
"It'll be all right," Ty Lee told her earnestly. "Just you wait and see. We'll make things all right."
***
broken heart
It'd been four months.
Four months, and all the reports Mai received about Zuko put him farther and farther away from her. Maybe he would circle the world and come home from the west, like the hero Chang-Ming had.
But that was only a story she told to Hitozi to keep him amused, and she was starting to think Zuko's declarations of love were just as fictional.
Better than the alternative. Better to have never been loved at all than to think she had ever competed with Katara, better to have been chosen because being a woman of the Fire Nation would please Zuko's daimyos and generals than to be cast aside because his love for her wasn't as great as his love for the Water Tribe witch.
It had been four months, and he hadn't sent her word at all.
She didn't think of the bed as Zuko's anymore. It was hers, and Ozai shared it, though he did not share her.
She was having a harder time not thinking of the throne as Zuko's. For all she sat on it day after day, she was not of the line of Sozin. She was the Firelady, the consort of the Firelord.
But the Firelord was gone from the Fire Nation.
From her side and her bed.
But not from her heart.
Bastard.
***
would you like me if...?
Zuko had been gone for five months when the Avatar came to the Fire Nation capitol.
He'd changed, Mai thought as she formally welcomed him to her palace and granted him free rein throughout the nation. There were shadows in his eyes, something the fight with Ozai six years ago hadn't managed to rouse.
But his grin was the same when he held out a hand to her. "Do you think your seneschal would mind if I stole you for today?"
"Only if you bring me back by the end of it," Mai said severely, trying to fight the smile threatening to overcome her. She climbed down from her throne, and he offered his arm. He had muscles there he hadn't had as a boy, not as impressive as an earthbender's or shaped like a firebender's but still hard under her hand.
"How's Hitozi?" Aang asked as he let her lead the way out of the throne room.
"He's fine."
"Think he'd mind a visit? I haven't seen him since he was born, and there's all kinds of firebending tricks I can show him!"
Mai glanced sidelong at him, then signaled one of the pages. "He wouldn't, but his grandfather would. Let's walk around a bit so the old bastard can find someplace else to be."
Aang chuckled. "I don't think even Toph calls him that, and she's-"
"Extremely vulgar," Mai finished, tone indulgent. "I have met Lady Bei Fong."
He didn't deny it. He couldn't really, as Mai well knew. Instead his smile faded, making the shadows in his eyes more pronounced. "How is Ozai doing? I- Well, I haven't seen him in six years, and Zuko won't answer my questions when I ask about him."
She raised her eyebrows. He asked after Ozai? Hnh. Well, he had spared the man in the first place. Presumably, as the Avatar, he knew things that regular people didn't. Equally presumably, she should give him a more complete answer than 'fine' since he wouldn't be seeing Ozai at all if Ozai had his way. "He's doing well enough, I suppose. He is very fond of Hitozi, and he's been helping me with ruling the Fire Nation. I'm learning a lot from him." She frowned. "He pushes for control sometimes, but I find between myself and the seneschal, we can keep him from getting any."
Aang nodded, and then it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds as he grinned again. "Hey, you think we could get away to Ember Island while I'm here? You look like you could use a chance to hit the beach."
She actually laughed, and then the page came back to report Ozai had left. The rest of the afternoon, she and the Avatar played with her son and talked, him telling her about the work being done on the Air Temples and how much he had annoyed Long Feng last time he visited Ba Sing Se, her talking about Ty Lee's life on Kyoshi Island and the diplomatic battles to keep the Fire Nation colonies intact.
Evening found Hitozi in her lap, listening raptly as Aang told Air Nomad fairy tales. The grass was cool under her hands, and she half-listened to the tale as she watched the turtleducks paddle across the pond.
A cool breeze brushed through her hair, contrary to the way the rest of the winds were blowing, and she glanced sharply at the Avatar. He only grinned mischievously at her, and then Hitozi patted her sleeve and pointed one little arm at the pages waiting at the garden gate.
Dinner was set for four, but the servants only put out food for three. Mai did not glance at the empty seat at the head of the table, and their dinner conversation focused on Hitozi and Sokka's children.
After dinner, Mai took Hitozi back to the imperial apartments and his grandfather. Ozai seemed quite happy to put down the reports he'd been reading and making notes on to spend time with his grandson, and Mai left them there to return to Aang.
The servants had brought him sake since she left. She sighed softly as he poured her a cup. She hadn't indulged since Zuko left. She hadn't dared.
"I shouldn't be doing this," Aang said as he downed one cup and poured himself another. "Master Gyatso would be so disappointed in me."
"At least it's good sake," Mai said as she drank hers more slowly.
"Yeah, Roku thinks so." He grinned, but it faded too fast. "Why?"
Mai finished her cup and poured herself another. "I don't know."
Aang nodded and poured himself another cup.
Somewhere halfway through the second bottle, Mai found Aang leaning his head on her shoulder and babbling about the history of Roku and Sozin. It was a history Mai mostly already knew, so she pushed her cup away, touched his cheek to get his attention, and kissed him.
He didn't kiss like Zuko, but that was all right. She didn't want Zuko's kisses right then.
Aang pressed against her, hands roaming over her back and sides, as she smoothed her palm over his scalp. He was the one who undid her clothes and his too, laying her down in the puddle of her dress. His fingers skimmed over the sheaths still decorating her body, and she traced the tattoos down his arms and across his hips to their terminus. He jerked then, biting his lip, and then she lifted her hips in invitation, and he pressed into her with a soft sound.
Somehow they managed to go from there to his guest bedroom, and dawn found her with an arm flung across his chest, the sheets tangled around their legs.
***
regrets
The most irritating thing about Ozai sleeping in the Firelord's bed was half the time he didn't actually sleep. He tossed and turned and wound up climbing out of bed to read quietly by candlelight.
Mai was this close to stabbing him, damn Aang and Zuko both for wanting him alive.
"You're more annoying to sleep with than Ty Lee," she growled as he sat up in bed for the second time that night.
He snorted. "Oh, your husband will grow into this when he grows into his power. It's something all powerful or extremely skillful firebenders have to look forward to."
"Why should it still affect you then?" Mai asked, throwing the words at him like the stilettos she wore on her wrists.
Ozai glanced over his shoulder at her, eyes hooded. "Ask the Avatar." Then he reached across and touched the bulge of her belly. "Maybe he can help with you this, as well. I remember when Ursa was carrying our children, this time in the cycle made her- very passionate."
She lunged for him then, knife dropping into one hand with the flick of her wrist. Sly, malicious old bastard!
***
not dead
Mai held little Ursa to her breast, smiling faintly as the baby suckled. Behind her, she could hear Hitozi mock-roughhousing with Ozai and Ty Lee. She felt content for once.
Someone pounded on the doors of the imperial apartments. Mai glanced at one of her guards and inclined her head slightly. The woman opened the door, and a messenger stumbled in. "The Firelord has returned!"
Everything seemed to freeze.
"When's he going to get here?" Ty Lee demanded, standing up and grabbing for Hitozi. Her scowl made the Kyoshi warrior makeup look fearsome for the first time since Mai had seen it on her.
The messenger gulped and glanced over his shoulder. "-Now."
Zuko pushed his way into the imperial apartments, irritably waving away the seneschal hovering his shoulder. He scanned the room, looking puzzled to see Ty Lee and Ozai there. Then his gaze alighted on her and the baby in her arms.
His stricken expression felt like one of Azula's lightning-touched mock-kisses.
"Don't you dare look at me like that," Mai hissed. "You left me here. For her. Don't you dare look at me like that, Zuko."
Zuko gulped and looked away, eyes settling on Ozai. His stricken expression changed to a glare, and she knew what he was thinking, was disgusted he would think she would ever, ever do that. But before she could tell Zuko how wrong he was, Ozai spoke.
"Whatever evil people may ascribe to me, Zuko, I do not seduce other people's wives."
The words struck as hard as hers had, Mai saw, and she felt some satisfaction. At least Zuko recognized he had been wrong.
- Why had he come back at all?
Zuko turned to her once again, expression pleading. "Mai..."
Mai glanced at Hitozi, who was watching all of this with wide eyes, one hand held in tightly in Ty Lee's. She smiled at him and tightened her hold on little Ursa before she turned back to her husband. "Welcome home, Firelord."
He winced and took a step towards her. "Mai, please-"
"No," she said firmly. "You don't get to beg for forgiveness. You left me, you left your empire, and you do not get to walk back in and have everything work out. If you want this, if you really want this, you can work for it. I gave you your free chance when you left me the first time. I am not going to give you any more."
"Mai, can I-?" Ty Lee made a gesture from their childhood.
Mai nodded, and Ty Lee let go of Hitozi, stepped forward, and decked Zuko. "That's for leaving Mai!"
"Can I-?"
"No, Ozai." Mai rolled her eyes.
"Pity."
Zuko stared up at Ty Lee, one hand gingerly reaching to touch the red mark on the opposite side from his scar. "... I deserved that."
"You deserve a lot worse than that," Ty Lee huffed, folding her arms.
Zuko looked around at them from his father to his son to Ty Lee standing over him to little Ursa in Mai's arms and finally to Mai herself. He stared at her with such a painful yearning that she wanted to tell him it was all right.
But she'd learned better watching her parents. If she forgave him now, he would just do it again, and they would go the rest of their lives calling each other by their titles. Maybe someday she would be weak enough to do her hair like Mother wore hers while Zuko was away with the waterbender.
"You're right," Zuko said quietly. "I was wrong. I'm- I'm sorry, Mai."
"That's a start," Mai said. "But you have a long way to go yet."
He nodded in acceptance.
-End-