275 word Drabble: Normal People

Written for avatar_500 , prompt #12, Devour.

Summary: Neither girl really knows what to do after the fighting stops.

Normal People

The others trickled out of the teashop in twos and threes until Mai sat alone at the table with her bowl of noodles.  Even Zuko.  She heaved a bored sigh.

“You gonna eat that?”

Mai started in surprise.  The Avatar’s earthbender put her feet up on the table and leaned back in her chair until it almost touched Mai’s, pointing behind her to Mai’s bowl of noodles without looking.

Not that there was any point to her looking, Mai reasoned.  She lifted up the bowl absently before her eyes fell on the table in front of the girl.  Sitting back down, Mai pulled one of the noodles out of the bowl with her lips and drew it into her mouth with a long, careful slurp.  Mai didn’t slurp.  “You already have two bowls of noodles in front of you.”

The earthbender girl smirked and picked up one of the bowls.  “Yeah, not like I don’t want more after I’m done.”  She packed her mouth full and burped, dropping the bowl nonchalantly onto a letter in front of her on the table.

Mai glanced down at it.  “Want me to read that for you?”

“No,” Toph sneered down at it.

Mai shrugged.

“Parents suck.”  The earthbender’s voice cut through the stretching silence.

Mai shrugged again and slurped down another noodle.

“I didn’t think you made noise when you ate.”

“No.”

She smiled widely, leaning back in her chair far enough to rest her head on Mai’s shoulder. “Your parents as bad as mine?”

Mai glanced at the ceiling.

The earthbender elbowed her in the back.  “Come on, put your feet up here like a normal person.”

250 word Drabble: So Many Ways

Written for avatar_500 , prompt #13, Memory.

Summary: There are so many ways for someone to get hurt.

So Many Ways

After the birth, while her thighs were still bloody, the royal physician lay the baby in Mai’s shaking arms.  She slumped against the pillows and tried not to clench her hands and press her new daughter to her, to keep her safe from everything else.

Because she knew that would leave bruises all over her new, red skin.

She clenched her jaw instead, and felt something clench deep inside.

Zuko, face yellow-gray with worry, lowered himself down to perch tentatively beside her on the bed.  Mai’s hand clutched his so hard her nails sank into his flesh and raised up little drops of blood.  She stared at him in desperation.  Her voice was neutral.  Her voice was always neutral.  “Do you want to hold her?”

When he shook his head, he trembled so hard, the movements looked like spasms.  “No.”  She had seen him scared.  She had seen him scared so many times, but not like he was when he looked at the tiny human in her arms, not the wrenching, freezing terror and guilt radiating off him as he tried to tear his eyes away from their daughter.

He wanted to shove her away, send her away.  Far away so that he couldn’t hurt her.  His scar ached, and he felt the air around him crushing in on him.

All they could do was look at each other.  Neither one of them could speak.  They looked at each other instead of their child and tried not to remember anything.