Shortfic: All the Tomorrows Beyond This
Dec. 3rd, 2017 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishDisclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender. If I did, Katara and Mai would have had a lot more screentime together.
Summary: During the war, the only time Katara saw Mai was on the other side of a battlefield. But there’s no more war, and no more battlefield, and they’re both stumbling their way into a brand new world.
Author's Note: Written for angryinterrobang, who won it in the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico charity auction. They wanted a story about Mai and Katara in my age swap AU.
All the Tomorrows Beyond This
She stood in the doorway like a specter of doom, and Katara figured it had to be on purpose, because no one looked that menacing without intent, especially not a fifteen year old girl. Katara made sure to finish putting away as much of the medical detritus as possible before looking up and acknowledging her. “Mai.”
Striding forward into the sunlit royal bedchamber should have taken away from her ominous gloom, but it didn’t. She was a blot. She carried the shadows with her. She rested her hand against the column of Zuko’s bed like a crow-snake alighting on a perch. “Katara,” she croaked.
“He’s sleeping,” Katara told her, deliberately casual. “And I don’t want to wake him up. He needs it.”
“That’s okay. You’re the one I came to talk to.”
“Okay.” Katara considered that warily. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“The Prince Regent told me you’re the one who took Zuko to face his sister,” she said without preamble.
Katara was impressed despite herself. For a cool, contained, proper noblewoman, she was surprisingly direct. “Yeah, that was me.”
Mai’s eyes flashed. “What possible justification do you think you have for doing that to a child?”
“I didn’t do anything to him,” Katara said, trying to be placating as her own irritation rose. “The only thing I’ve done is to heal the damage your princess did to him-”
“He’s twelve years old!” she hissed. “And you brought him to face Azula.”
Katara sucked air in through her nose, eyes narrowing with fury. “The last time we saw each other, we were fighting on opposite sides of the war-“
Mai waved this aside. “I’m used to that. I was in prison with the Kyoshi Warriors. That doesn’t change what you did.”
“I just don’t want you thinking you get to, I don’t know, claim some kind of moral authority here,” she spat. “You fought my brother.”
“I never attacked your brother.”
“No, you just stood at Azula’s side while she went after him.” Katara clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “He’s the same age Zuko is.”
“So you’re used to taking children into battle with you,” Mai said snidely.
“What about you?” Katara demanded, struggling to keep her voice down, to keep from waking her sleeping patient. “You refused to trade hostages for your brother. If Zuko’s too young, what about him? He was a baby!”
Katara had never seen anyone go pale with rage before. Before, she would have said Mai’s face was as pale as it could go, but as the blood spilled out of it, even her lips turned yellowish gray. She launched herself forward, stalking one, two, three steps toward Katara before stopping, standing stiffly in the middle of the floor for several seconds, mouth working, too overcome with emotion to speak.
Taking advantage of Mai’s silence, Katara pressed her advantage. “I don’t think you get to care about Zuko if you can’t even care about your own baby brother. I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“You don’t know anything about it!” Mai’s voice cut through the air, as if she had thrown them.
“I know he’s a prince.” Katara glanced at him, laying on the bed, nestled in silk blankets. “I know you fought us before and that if we won, he would be Firelord. I think you decided he was a better bet than Azula.”
“I thought I was going to die,” Mai said flatly. “I thought Azula was going to kill me. And she would have if Ty Lee hadn’t stopped her.”
“Sure she would have.”
Mai shot her a contemptuous glance, as if she were being stupid on purpose. “She shot lightning at her brother. You really think she’d think twice before using it on me?” She swallowed, a shudder spreading outwards through her whole body. Something about the look in her eye kept Katara from answering, kept her from saying anything until Mai was ready to go on. “You want to know why I didn’t trade King Bumi for my brother? Because if I did, Azula would known I cared too much, and she would have killed him. You don’t ever let Azula know there’s something more important to you than her, or she will take it away from you. I knew if I traded for him, one day, I would get a letter from my parents telling me there had been some kind of accident, and my brother was dead, and Azula would smile, and I would know, and I would be the only person who knew except her. So I just had to hope you wouldn’t hurt him. You didn’t look like you would.”
Mai slumped back against Zuko’s bedpost and closed her eyes. “Everything I did was to keep Azula away from the people I care about, and after all that, you took Zuko back to Azula.”
Oh, Katara almost said aloud. “Zuko’s going to be okay, you know. The lightning didn’t kill him, and Azula’s in prison. He’s safe.”
“Of course,” she said, as if she didn’t believe it.
Katara put a hand on her arm, ignoring the slight flinch as Mai’s eyes snapped open. “I didn’t take him to Azula. I followed along after him so that he would have some back up.”
“You should have stopped him from going at all.”
Katara snorted. “Yeah I have no idea why you think that would have worked. He wasn’t going to give up. He never does.”
“Yeah I know.” She stepped away and walked over to the head of the bed. For a moment, she stared at Zuko, watching the rise and fall of his chest and the faint movement of his fingers against the sheets, expression unreadable. At last she turned away and went to leave the room, stopping on the threshold, her face in shadow once more. Katara wondered if that was where she felt most comfortable, where she felt safest. “Don’t tell him I came.”
o0O0o
“Why didn’t you join the Kyoshi Warriors?”
Mai looked up at her and blinked slowly. “And people tell me I’m blunt.”
Katara shrugged. “I’m curious.
Mai sighed, folding her spare cloak and tucking it into her traveling trunk. It was late spring, and she was still wearing a heavy cloak trimmed with white fur. She had worn a long sleeve over robe and full length pants even in the Fire Nation, Katara remembered, when for her the very existence of cloth against her own skin in the sticky, heavy heat had been infuriating offence. Perhaps she was wise not to linger on Kyoshi island, where stray tufts of snow managed to cling on through the height of summer.
It was so strange to think of somewhere that wasn’t the South Pole as too cold, especially Kyoshi Island, where she remembered seeing trees for the very first time.
“Just because Ty Lee did doesn’t mean I have to,” Mai said at last, voice bland. “I don’t do everything my girlfriend does.”
Katara reeled back, feeling as if she had been slapped. Her eyes narrowed with outrage, fists clenching. “Because I do? Is that how you think it works with me and Aang?”
“That… wasn’t what I was saying,” Mai said, staring Katara straight in the eye and visibly weighing her words. “At all.”
Katara eyed her suspiciously. “And what were you saying?”
“Nothing important.” Mai waved off the prospect with an elegant hand. “Do you get told that a lot? That you’re only doing something because your boyfriend’s doing it, and he’s the Avatar?”
“And how is it any business of yours?” she snapped. Immediately she felt ashamed. She was there after all to pry into Mai’s choices. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t listen to them.” She gave Katara a sidelong look and a rare sardonic smile. “If you go with him, do something with him or to support him, they’ll say you’re just doing it for him, and you’re just the Avatar’s girlfriend. If you go somewhere else, or do something on your own, they’ll say you don’t love him enough and you’re just dating him because he’s the Avatar. It doesn’t matter what you do, somebody’s going to hate you for it. You might as well do what you want.”
Katara wondered how she knew that. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Mai rolled her eyes. “Sure.”
“It’s not?” Katara wished she would stop being so bafflingly opaque. It really was obnoxious.
Mai waited for a moment before answering, weighing her words again. “Ty Lee’s doing what she wants. I’m not going to take her away from that just because I don’t belong here.”
“You could,” Katara reminded her. “Belong here I mean. If you wanted to.”
Mai didn’t look at her as she closed the trunk lid and fiddled with the complicated looking locking mechanism. “No I really couldn’t.”
“The Kyoshi Warriors wouldn’t turn you down.” Katara pointed out.
“No, they wouldn’t,” she acknowledged. “But that wouldn’t make me belong.”
“Why not?” Katara pressed. “Ty Lee did everything you did, and she belongs now. You aren’t any worse than her.”
“Ty Lee’s good at belonging.” Mai shrugged. “I’m not.”
“I’m so shocked-”
“Yeah fine,” Mai cut in bitingly. “You don’t need to rub it in. I know I’m not good with people. People think I am because I know how to keep my mouth shut instead of sticking my foot in it most of the time, but I’m not. I’m not hanging around and ruining it for Ty Lee when I mess up.”
“Oh wow.” Katara didn’t know what to say to that. She had a feeling there might not be anything to say to that at all. The only thing she could think was that Mai was a coward, and that was both true, and not what Mai deserved to hear from her. Mai turned away, and the conversation might have ended there. Maybe it was supposed to. That was obviously what Mai wanted to happen, but Katara couldn’t let it rest. “But you love her, right? Ty Lee. You love her.
Startled, Mai’s whole body jerked towards her. “I’ve known Ty Lee longer than almost anyone, most of my life. I’ve loved her since before I even knew what that was supposed to feel like.”
“Then you should stay with her.” Katara gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “You aren’t going to ruin things for her. If you love her and want to be with her, stay.”
“That’s not the way it works,” she muttered tonelessly, without meeting Katara’s eyes.
Oh, Katara thought. You’re afraid she doesn’t love you. It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You know, That was some good advice you gave me. You might want to think about taking it.”
“I stole it from the Prince Regent,” she confessed dryly. “Of course when he gave it to Zuko, he was talking about doing the right thing, not doing what you want. Not really the same.”
“Maybe it is for something like this,” Kstara retorted, reaching over and patting her hand. Mai pulled it away, tucking it against her chest. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll help you get your trunk on the ship.”
As Katara turned to leave, Mai called out, “I’m coming back.”
Katara turned. “What?”
“I’m not going forever. I just…” Mai shook her head before leveling Katara with a determined look. “I need to get my head straightened out, and that’s not happening here.”
“Okay.” It took a moment for Katara to figure out why Mai had felt the need to tell her that, why she needed her to know. They weren’t close. She wasn’t even sure what they had could be called friendship. It was too knew, the edges of it too sharp. “You should tell that to Ty Lee, when you say goodbye.”
A small smile curved on Mai’s lips, her eyes closing. “She already knows.”
“So what?” Katara asked blithely. “Tell her again.”
o0O0o
Mai looked different in an apron. It didn’t suit her. It transformed her well trained aloof elegance into obvious discomfort. The little boy sitting on the floor next to her, laying the cut off ends of flower stems end to end in haphazardly meandering lines, didn’t help.
“So,” Mai said without looking up. “You found me.”
Katara folded her arms. “I didn’t think you were trying to hide.”
“If I were, you never would have found me,” Mai retorted.
“Of course not,” Katara drawled. “You’re just that good.”
“I am.”
Katara knelt down. “Hey Tom Tom!”
He looked up and gave her a considering glance before answering. For just a moment, it made him look eerily like his sister. “Hi,” he said shyly.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making my hand green,” he told her, holding up one of the flower stems, end crushed, seeping greenish liquid, and his other hand, stained the same green.
“You’re washing your hands as soon as you’re done,” Mai informed him.
“But-”
Mai set a small square of the rice paper used to wrap bouquets. “You can save your handprint if you want.”
He huffed through his nose and puffed out his cheeks, but he nodded. “Okay.”
The inside of the flower shop was cool and shady, and smelled so much like the tang of freshly cut plants the air practically tasted of it. Katara hoisted herself up onto the counter. “So you’re living with your aunt now. I thought you wanted to get away from your family?”
“Get away from my parents,” she corrected. “She’s not my parents.”
“Oh,” Katara said.
Mai picked up her brother’s handprint and took his mostly clean hand to lead him over to a wash basin. “I’s a good thing I did,” she murmured. “She has a home for Tom Tom.”
“Ty Lee said your mom visits,” Katara tried.
“Yeah. But I don’t let her stay.”
Katara stared stunned. It seemed impossibly cruel. “But she’s his mom.”
“Uh huh.”
<>“Look, so I mentioned to Iroh I was going to drop by,” she said, eager to change the subject, fishing a scroll out of her sleeve. “He asked me to give you this.”
Katara waited. She knew what was on it. Iroh had shown it to her before he gave it to her, a courtesy he told her, because she should never deliver a message they did not know the contents of.
All laws and edicts issued by Firelord Sozin with regards to so-called indecent relationships between people of the same gender and the acts committed within those relationships, are hereby rescinded, by order of the Prince Regent.
Mai put it down on the counter with a shaky nod.
“Were you afraid?” Katara wondered aloud.
Mai shook her head. “Ty Lee and I saved the Firelord.” Her finger rubbed over the red ink seal speculatively. “I was afraid other people would see us and think it was safe for them too. The rules have always been different for us.”
o0O0o
Mai held her brother high overhead as he flapped his arm like a bird, whooping with laughter. The sky was a bright, clear blue, sun hanging low in the west, and fire lilies poked their heads up through the grass. This far up the mountain that the breeze carried some bite, but the ground under their backs was warm. Katara glanced up at him smiling. “You having fun there, Tom Tom?”
Tom Tom stopped flapping his arms and wriggled in Mai’s arms. “I’m not Tom Tom, I’m a cat-owl!”
“Oh yeah?” Mai asked smiling. “If you’re a cat-owl, why are you out when the sun’s still up?”
He grinned like he was telling a joke. “I’m special.”
“Of course you are.” She swing him down to the ground and set him on his feet before sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Go play. I’ll watch from here, stay where I can see you.”
“You’re good with him.” As he tore off through the field, Katara looked over at Mai. “I didn’t expect that.”
Mai didn’t answer. For a while she just watched her brother run through the grass in wide loops, waving his arms like wings. Katara was most of the way to dozed off when Mai finally made her reply. “He was born when I was fourteen.”
“Which would be why he’s two now,” Katara said. “I can add and subtract.”
Mai shot her a glower without much heat. “Dad only noticed he existed when he was showing him off, and Mom could be holding him and completely ignore him. She would fire his nanny and forget to hire a new one, and leave him tucked behind a screen in an empty room. I used to be the one making sure he got fed and putting him down for a nap. And half the time I thought someone was watching him, only for one of my parents to call them away. They did it to me too. I remember what it was like.”
“So you took care of him.” Katara sat up, watching as the horizon turned yellow.
“And then I left.” Mai muttered. “With Azula.”
“I took my brother with me into a war when I left home,” Katara said. “I had no idea how bad it was going to be.”
“Me too.” Mai’s eyes went distant, and then suddenly went sharp. “Tom Tom, stay where I can see you! I’ll be right back.”
As Mai darted off after her brother, Katara leaned back to watch the clouds slowly edging their way across the sky, willing it all to subside for a little while, to not catch up with her right then. She pushed the memories, of every time she fought with her brother at her side, or looked behind her and Sokka wasn’t there, and the fear that never ever left, back, digging her nails into her palm.
“Okay Tom Tom, you need to stay on this side of those rocks, or we go home.” Sitting back down, Mai let go of her brother’s hand. “Can you do that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Go on, Mister cat-owl.” She rubbed his shoulder and patted him on the back. As he ran off again, Mai watched.
“He’s alive,” Katara assured her. “He’s happy.”
“Are you talking about Tom Tom,” Mai asked. “Or Sokka?”
Katara thought about it. “Both.”
“Yeah.” Mai summoned up a smile. “They are.”
“The war’s over. That’s it. They’re safe now.” Katara whispered. “It’s over.”
“Doesn’t feel that way, does it?” Mai whispered back. “Sokka’s the same age as Zuko.”
“Yeah,” Katara answered. “Why?”
“And you’re the same age as me.” Mai grimaced. “You ever decide he wasn’t allowed to have friends, and then tell any friends he tried to make that he’d said horrible things about them behind their backs?”
Katara blinked. “What?”
“You ever get angry because your friends said hello to him?”
“No!”
“You ever laugh at him about how he’s never going to be as good as you, and someday your dad was going to kill him so you could be the only child?”
“No!” Katara felt sick to her stomach. “Is that what Azula…”
“That’s what Azula did.” Mai shrugged fluidly. “It didn’t seem that bad when we were little. Or I didn’t think about it, I don’t know. But it started looking different after Tom Tom was born. I couldn’t imagine doing any of that to him, and it just… I guess I just decided Zuko needed a better big sister.”
“Wow,” she said. “No kidding.”
Mai looked away. “You know the one thing Azula teaches you is how to pare yourself down, strip parts of yourself and your life away until all you have left are the things you can’t live without. I still have those things. It’s everything else I’m trying to get back. I’m trying to figure out who I am when I don’t have to do that.”
That was an overwhelming thought. What were any of them like when they could stop and breathe and look around and feel safe? There were times Katara could almost see herself, the way she had been when she had felt safe, but she couldn’t reach that feeling. The war was over. The danger was past. She just couldn’t quite grasp it.
“I just keep reminding myself that I have Tom Tom and Zuko, and I have Ty Lee. I still have me. The rest will come.”
Tom Tom waved to his sister, and she waved back. Her sleeve slipped down, exposing the shuruken launchers on her wrists. Katara wondered if she wore them all the time because she liked them that much, or because they were one more way to feel a little safer and a little less afraid. “I hope it does soon.”
“Yeah I don’t think I will. I think it’s probably going to take the rest of my life.” She gave Katara a small, secret smile. “But I’m starting to think that’s okay.”
Summary: During the war, the only time Katara saw Mai was on the other side of a battlefield. But there’s no more war, and no more battlefield, and they’re both stumbling their way into a brand new world.
Author's Note: Written for angryinterrobang, who won it in the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico charity auction. They wanted a story about Mai and Katara in my age swap AU.
All the Tomorrows Beyond This
She stood in the doorway like a specter of doom, and Katara figured it had to be on purpose, because no one looked that menacing without intent, especially not a fifteen year old girl. Katara made sure to finish putting away as much of the medical detritus as possible before looking up and acknowledging her. “Mai.”
Striding forward into the sunlit royal bedchamber should have taken away from her ominous gloom, but it didn’t. She was a blot. She carried the shadows with her. She rested her hand against the column of Zuko’s bed like a crow-snake alighting on a perch. “Katara,” she croaked.
“He’s sleeping,” Katara told her, deliberately casual. “And I don’t want to wake him up. He needs it.”
“That’s okay. You’re the one I came to talk to.”
“Okay.” Katara considered that warily. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“The Prince Regent told me you’re the one who took Zuko to face his sister,” she said without preamble.
Katara was impressed despite herself. For a cool, contained, proper noblewoman, she was surprisingly direct. “Yeah, that was me.”
Mai’s eyes flashed. “What possible justification do you think you have for doing that to a child?”
“I didn’t do anything to him,” Katara said, trying to be placating as her own irritation rose. “The only thing I’ve done is to heal the damage your princess did to him-”
“He’s twelve years old!” she hissed. “And you brought him to face Azula.”
Katara sucked air in through her nose, eyes narrowing with fury. “The last time we saw each other, we were fighting on opposite sides of the war-“
Mai waved this aside. “I’m used to that. I was in prison with the Kyoshi Warriors. That doesn’t change what you did.”
“I just don’t want you thinking you get to, I don’t know, claim some kind of moral authority here,” she spat. “You fought my brother.”
“I never attacked your brother.”
“No, you just stood at Azula’s side while she went after him.” Katara clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “He’s the same age Zuko is.”
“So you’re used to taking children into battle with you,” Mai said snidely.
“What about you?” Katara demanded, struggling to keep her voice down, to keep from waking her sleeping patient. “You refused to trade hostages for your brother. If Zuko’s too young, what about him? He was a baby!”
Katara had never seen anyone go pale with rage before. Before, she would have said Mai’s face was as pale as it could go, but as the blood spilled out of it, even her lips turned yellowish gray. She launched herself forward, stalking one, two, three steps toward Katara before stopping, standing stiffly in the middle of the floor for several seconds, mouth working, too overcome with emotion to speak.
Taking advantage of Mai’s silence, Katara pressed her advantage. “I don’t think you get to care about Zuko if you can’t even care about your own baby brother. I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“You don’t know anything about it!” Mai’s voice cut through the air, as if she had thrown them.
“I know he’s a prince.” Katara glanced at him, laying on the bed, nestled in silk blankets. “I know you fought us before and that if we won, he would be Firelord. I think you decided he was a better bet than Azula.”
“I thought I was going to die,” Mai said flatly. “I thought Azula was going to kill me. And she would have if Ty Lee hadn’t stopped her.”
“Sure she would have.”
Mai shot her a contemptuous glance, as if she were being stupid on purpose. “She shot lightning at her brother. You really think she’d think twice before using it on me?” She swallowed, a shudder spreading outwards through her whole body. Something about the look in her eye kept Katara from answering, kept her from saying anything until Mai was ready to go on. “You want to know why I didn’t trade King Bumi for my brother? Because if I did, Azula would known I cared too much, and she would have killed him. You don’t ever let Azula know there’s something more important to you than her, or she will take it away from you. I knew if I traded for him, one day, I would get a letter from my parents telling me there had been some kind of accident, and my brother was dead, and Azula would smile, and I would know, and I would be the only person who knew except her. So I just had to hope you wouldn’t hurt him. You didn’t look like you would.”
Mai slumped back against Zuko’s bedpost and closed her eyes. “Everything I did was to keep Azula away from the people I care about, and after all that, you took Zuko back to Azula.”
Oh, Katara almost said aloud. “Zuko’s going to be okay, you know. The lightning didn’t kill him, and Azula’s in prison. He’s safe.”
“Of course,” she said, as if she didn’t believe it.
Katara put a hand on her arm, ignoring the slight flinch as Mai’s eyes snapped open. “I didn’t take him to Azula. I followed along after him so that he would have some back up.”
“You should have stopped him from going at all.”
Katara snorted. “Yeah I have no idea why you think that would have worked. He wasn’t going to give up. He never does.”
“Yeah I know.” She stepped away and walked over to the head of the bed. For a moment, she stared at Zuko, watching the rise and fall of his chest and the faint movement of his fingers against the sheets, expression unreadable. At last she turned away and went to leave the room, stopping on the threshold, her face in shadow once more. Katara wondered if that was where she felt most comfortable, where she felt safest. “Don’t tell him I came.”
o0O0o
“Why didn’t you join the Kyoshi Warriors?”
Mai looked up at her and blinked slowly. “And people tell me I’m blunt.”
Katara shrugged. “I’m curious.
Mai sighed, folding her spare cloak and tucking it into her traveling trunk. It was late spring, and she was still wearing a heavy cloak trimmed with white fur. She had worn a long sleeve over robe and full length pants even in the Fire Nation, Katara remembered, when for her the very existence of cloth against her own skin in the sticky, heavy heat had been infuriating offence. Perhaps she was wise not to linger on Kyoshi island, where stray tufts of snow managed to cling on through the height of summer.
It was so strange to think of somewhere that wasn’t the South Pole as too cold, especially Kyoshi Island, where she remembered seeing trees for the very first time.
“Just because Ty Lee did doesn’t mean I have to,” Mai said at last, voice bland. “I don’t do everything my girlfriend does.”
Katara reeled back, feeling as if she had been slapped. Her eyes narrowed with outrage, fists clenching. “Because I do? Is that how you think it works with me and Aang?”
“That… wasn’t what I was saying,” Mai said, staring Katara straight in the eye and visibly weighing her words. “At all.”
Katara eyed her suspiciously. “And what were you saying?”
“Nothing important.” Mai waved off the prospect with an elegant hand. “Do you get told that a lot? That you’re only doing something because your boyfriend’s doing it, and he’s the Avatar?”
“And how is it any business of yours?” she snapped. Immediately she felt ashamed. She was there after all to pry into Mai’s choices. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t listen to them.” She gave Katara a sidelong look and a rare sardonic smile. “If you go with him, do something with him or to support him, they’ll say you’re just doing it for him, and you’re just the Avatar’s girlfriend. If you go somewhere else, or do something on your own, they’ll say you don’t love him enough and you’re just dating him because he’s the Avatar. It doesn’t matter what you do, somebody’s going to hate you for it. You might as well do what you want.”
Katara wondered how she knew that. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Mai rolled her eyes. “Sure.”
“It’s not?” Katara wished she would stop being so bafflingly opaque. It really was obnoxious.
Mai waited for a moment before answering, weighing her words again. “Ty Lee’s doing what she wants. I’m not going to take her away from that just because I don’t belong here.”
“You could,” Katara reminded her. “Belong here I mean. If you wanted to.”
Mai didn’t look at her as she closed the trunk lid and fiddled with the complicated looking locking mechanism. “No I really couldn’t.”
“The Kyoshi Warriors wouldn’t turn you down.” Katara pointed out.
“No, they wouldn’t,” she acknowledged. “But that wouldn’t make me belong.”
“Why not?” Katara pressed. “Ty Lee did everything you did, and she belongs now. You aren’t any worse than her.”
“Ty Lee’s good at belonging.” Mai shrugged. “I’m not.”
“I’m so shocked-”
“Yeah fine,” Mai cut in bitingly. “You don’t need to rub it in. I know I’m not good with people. People think I am because I know how to keep my mouth shut instead of sticking my foot in it most of the time, but I’m not. I’m not hanging around and ruining it for Ty Lee when I mess up.”
“Oh wow.” Katara didn’t know what to say to that. She had a feeling there might not be anything to say to that at all. The only thing she could think was that Mai was a coward, and that was both true, and not what Mai deserved to hear from her. Mai turned away, and the conversation might have ended there. Maybe it was supposed to. That was obviously what Mai wanted to happen, but Katara couldn’t let it rest. “But you love her, right? Ty Lee. You love her.
Startled, Mai’s whole body jerked towards her. “I’ve known Ty Lee longer than almost anyone, most of my life. I’ve loved her since before I even knew what that was supposed to feel like.”
“Then you should stay with her.” Katara gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “You aren’t going to ruin things for her. If you love her and want to be with her, stay.”
“That’s not the way it works,” she muttered tonelessly, without meeting Katara’s eyes.
Oh, Katara thought. You’re afraid she doesn’t love you. It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You know, That was some good advice you gave me. You might want to think about taking it.”
“I stole it from the Prince Regent,” she confessed dryly. “Of course when he gave it to Zuko, he was talking about doing the right thing, not doing what you want. Not really the same.”
“Maybe it is for something like this,” Kstara retorted, reaching over and patting her hand. Mai pulled it away, tucking it against her chest. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll help you get your trunk on the ship.”
As Katara turned to leave, Mai called out, “I’m coming back.”
Katara turned. “What?”
“I’m not going forever. I just…” Mai shook her head before leveling Katara with a determined look. “I need to get my head straightened out, and that’s not happening here.”
“Okay.” It took a moment for Katara to figure out why Mai had felt the need to tell her that, why she needed her to know. They weren’t close. She wasn’t even sure what they had could be called friendship. It was too knew, the edges of it too sharp. “You should tell that to Ty Lee, when you say goodbye.”
A small smile curved on Mai’s lips, her eyes closing. “She already knows.”
“So what?” Katara asked blithely. “Tell her again.”
o0O0o
Mai looked different in an apron. It didn’t suit her. It transformed her well trained aloof elegance into obvious discomfort. The little boy sitting on the floor next to her, laying the cut off ends of flower stems end to end in haphazardly meandering lines, didn’t help.
“So,” Mai said without looking up. “You found me.”
Katara folded her arms. “I didn’t think you were trying to hide.”
“If I were, you never would have found me,” Mai retorted.
“Of course not,” Katara drawled. “You’re just that good.”
“I am.”
Katara knelt down. “Hey Tom Tom!”
He looked up and gave her a considering glance before answering. For just a moment, it made him look eerily like his sister. “Hi,” he said shyly.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making my hand green,” he told her, holding up one of the flower stems, end crushed, seeping greenish liquid, and his other hand, stained the same green.
“You’re washing your hands as soon as you’re done,” Mai informed him.
“But-”
Mai set a small square of the rice paper used to wrap bouquets. “You can save your handprint if you want.”
He huffed through his nose and puffed out his cheeks, but he nodded. “Okay.”
The inside of the flower shop was cool and shady, and smelled so much like the tang of freshly cut plants the air practically tasted of it. Katara hoisted herself up onto the counter. “So you’re living with your aunt now. I thought you wanted to get away from your family?”
“Get away from my parents,” she corrected. “She’s not my parents.”
“Oh,” Katara said.
Mai picked up her brother’s handprint and took his mostly clean hand to lead him over to a wash basin. “I’s a good thing I did,” she murmured. “She has a home for Tom Tom.”
“Ty Lee said your mom visits,” Katara tried.
“Yeah. But I don’t let her stay.”
Katara stared stunned. It seemed impossibly cruel. “But she’s his mom.”
“Uh huh.”
<>“Look, so I mentioned to Iroh I was going to drop by,” she said, eager to change the subject, fishing a scroll out of her sleeve. “He asked me to give you this.”
Katara waited. She knew what was on it. Iroh had shown it to her before he gave it to her, a courtesy he told her, because she should never deliver a message they did not know the contents of.
All laws and edicts issued by Firelord Sozin with regards to so-called indecent relationships between people of the same gender and the acts committed within those relationships, are hereby rescinded, by order of the Prince Regent.
Mai put it down on the counter with a shaky nod.
“Were you afraid?” Katara wondered aloud.
Mai shook her head. “Ty Lee and I saved the Firelord.” Her finger rubbed over the red ink seal speculatively. “I was afraid other people would see us and think it was safe for them too. The rules have always been different for us.”
o0O0o
Mai held her brother high overhead as he flapped his arm like a bird, whooping with laughter. The sky was a bright, clear blue, sun hanging low in the west, and fire lilies poked their heads up through the grass. This far up the mountain that the breeze carried some bite, but the ground under their backs was warm. Katara glanced up at him smiling. “You having fun there, Tom Tom?”
Tom Tom stopped flapping his arms and wriggled in Mai’s arms. “I’m not Tom Tom, I’m a cat-owl!”
“Oh yeah?” Mai asked smiling. “If you’re a cat-owl, why are you out when the sun’s still up?”
He grinned like he was telling a joke. “I’m special.”
“Of course you are.” She swing him down to the ground and set him on his feet before sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Go play. I’ll watch from here, stay where I can see you.”
“You’re good with him.” As he tore off through the field, Katara looked over at Mai. “I didn’t expect that.”
Mai didn’t answer. For a while she just watched her brother run through the grass in wide loops, waving his arms like wings. Katara was most of the way to dozed off when Mai finally made her reply. “He was born when I was fourteen.”
“Which would be why he’s two now,” Katara said. “I can add and subtract.”
Mai shot her a glower without much heat. “Dad only noticed he existed when he was showing him off, and Mom could be holding him and completely ignore him. She would fire his nanny and forget to hire a new one, and leave him tucked behind a screen in an empty room. I used to be the one making sure he got fed and putting him down for a nap. And half the time I thought someone was watching him, only for one of my parents to call them away. They did it to me too. I remember what it was like.”
“So you took care of him.” Katara sat up, watching as the horizon turned yellow.
“And then I left.” Mai muttered. “With Azula.”
“I took my brother with me into a war when I left home,” Katara said. “I had no idea how bad it was going to be.”
“Me too.” Mai’s eyes went distant, and then suddenly went sharp. “Tom Tom, stay where I can see you! I’ll be right back.”
As Mai darted off after her brother, Katara leaned back to watch the clouds slowly edging their way across the sky, willing it all to subside for a little while, to not catch up with her right then. She pushed the memories, of every time she fought with her brother at her side, or looked behind her and Sokka wasn’t there, and the fear that never ever left, back, digging her nails into her palm.
“Okay Tom Tom, you need to stay on this side of those rocks, or we go home.” Sitting back down, Mai let go of her brother’s hand. “Can you do that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Go on, Mister cat-owl.” She rubbed his shoulder and patted him on the back. As he ran off again, Mai watched.
“He’s alive,” Katara assured her. “He’s happy.”
“Are you talking about Tom Tom,” Mai asked. “Or Sokka?”
Katara thought about it. “Both.”
“Yeah.” Mai summoned up a smile. “They are.”
“The war’s over. That’s it. They’re safe now.” Katara whispered. “It’s over.”
“Doesn’t feel that way, does it?” Mai whispered back. “Sokka’s the same age as Zuko.”
“Yeah,” Katara answered. “Why?”
“And you’re the same age as me.” Mai grimaced. “You ever decide he wasn’t allowed to have friends, and then tell any friends he tried to make that he’d said horrible things about them behind their backs?”
Katara blinked. “What?”
“You ever get angry because your friends said hello to him?”
“No!”
“You ever laugh at him about how he’s never going to be as good as you, and someday your dad was going to kill him so you could be the only child?”
“No!” Katara felt sick to her stomach. “Is that what Azula…”
“That’s what Azula did.” Mai shrugged fluidly. “It didn’t seem that bad when we were little. Or I didn’t think about it, I don’t know. But it started looking different after Tom Tom was born. I couldn’t imagine doing any of that to him, and it just… I guess I just decided Zuko needed a better big sister.”
“Wow,” she said. “No kidding.”
Mai looked away. “You know the one thing Azula teaches you is how to pare yourself down, strip parts of yourself and your life away until all you have left are the things you can’t live without. I still have those things. It’s everything else I’m trying to get back. I’m trying to figure out who I am when I don’t have to do that.”
That was an overwhelming thought. What were any of them like when they could stop and breathe and look around and feel safe? There were times Katara could almost see herself, the way she had been when she had felt safe, but she couldn’t reach that feeling. The war was over. The danger was past. She just couldn’t quite grasp it.
“I just keep reminding myself that I have Tom Tom and Zuko, and I have Ty Lee. I still have me. The rest will come.”
Tom Tom waved to his sister, and she waved back. Her sleeve slipped down, exposing the shuruken launchers on her wrists. Katara wondered if she wore them all the time because she liked them that much, or because they were one more way to feel a little safer and a little less afraid. “I hope it does soon.”
“Yeah I don’t think I will. I think it’s probably going to take the rest of my life.” She gave Katara a small, secret smile. “But I’m starting to think that’s okay.”
