Lost and Found: Part Two

[attackfish]

Disclaimer: If I owned Avatar: the Last Airbender, I would have the money to donate to charity myself.

Summary: In a world where Mai's family never sent her to the Royal Academy for Girls, they see marrying her off as the best way to raise their prospects. Faced with marriage to a stranger, she runs away, only to find herself hunted.

Author's Note: This installment was written for the lovely Avrelia on Tumblr, who donated twenty-five more dollars to RAICES, and asked for a continuation.

Warnings: None

PART ONE


PART TWO

"Hey, Mai, we got a job."

Mai leapt down from the stable loft. "What kind?"

"The easy kind from a rich teenage idiot." She smirked. "He wants us to find a boy. Perfect job for training Hoshi."

"Oh great, a rich idiot boy who wants a boy." Mai rolled her eyes. "What, are we a matchmaking service now?"

June shrugged. "He's got his girlfriend with him."

"That's even worse."

Her boss walked off snickering as she opened Hoshi's stall door. Mai followed reluctantly, attaching the training lead to Hoshi.

"Don't worry, I've run into this kid before. At least his creepy uncle isn't around this time."

o0O0o

A small gaggle of children stood outside the tavern, leerily eyeing Nyla as she snuffled at the ground. Mai examined them. That was more than a boy and a girl. It was in fact three girls and two boys. "What is going on?" Mai hissed.

June shrugged. "Prince Pouty over there hired me to chase down that girl in the blue, and it went sour-"

"Hunting down girls for boys always does."

"Yeah yeah, I know," June waved it off. "Anyway, he actually wanted to find the bald monk kid with her, and now, he's joined up with the girl, and and the rest, and now the bald monk kid's run off again."

A Fire Prince and a bald monk. Mai had a terrible suspicion as to where this was going. "So we got to find him. I hope this job pays well, because I already know this job is going to suck."

"Getting paid?" June chuckled darkly. "Who said anything about getting paid?"

As June strolled over to the kids, Mai stared after her in horror. With great reluctance, she fashioned Hoshi's training lead to Nyla's saddle, and waited for her boss.

June sauntered back over, children in tow, a hunk of meat in her hand. "Nyla..."

Nyla lunged for the meat, wolfing it down.

"Who's my little snuffly wuffly," June cooed.

Nyla's tongue darted out of her mouth.

"Whoa!" June dodged and patted Nyla's nose firmly. "Careful there."

Hoshi sneezed. "Don't get any ideas," Mai told her.

"Okay," June said at last. "Who's got something with the Avatar's scent on it?"

Mai hated being right. She really really hated being right.

"I have Aang's staff." The girl held it out to June, who offered it to Nyla, before tossing it to Mai.

"Hey, be careful with that," the Fire Prince shouted.

Mai ignored him and held the staff out to Hoshi. The shirshu pup snuffled all over it while her mother worked to sniff out the smell. She circled, nosing the ground, before stopping, circling, and nosing the ground again. And again she circled, sniffing the air and the ground. Mai watched her puzzled as she flopped down and covered her nose. Hoshi ran forward, whimpering and sniffing at the air.

"Hey June," Mai called. "What are they doing? I've never seen them do that before."

Well?" Prince Pouty, or whatever his real name was, crossed his arms.

"Your friend's gone," June told them.

One of the kids, the shortest, a girl in green, glared. "We know he's gone, that's why we're trying to find him."

Standing up, June turned to them fluidly, like it didn't matter. "No, I mean he's gone gone. He doesn't exist."

"What do you mean Aang doesn't exist?" the boy in blue said. "Do you mean he's... you know, dead?"

"Nope, we could find him if he were dead. It's a real head scratcher."

"Helpful, real helpful," the little girl in green snapped.

"Great," Mai said. "So we can get going and not do this weird charity gig."

"Don't sass me in front of clients."

"If they aren't paying they're not clients," Mai reminded her. "Your rules."

"Wait," the fire prince tried to order, but it sounded more like a plea. "I have another idea. There's only one other person in this world who can help us face the Fire Lord. I'll be right back with a smell sample."

He ran off, while Mai slid down from Nyla's saddle to go comfort Hoshi, who had rolled over onto her back snuffling confusedly. She nudged Hoshi with her hand until Hoshi rolled back over. Rubbing the top of Hoshi's snout above her star shaped nose, she looked to June. "So what do I do now."

"I don't know," June said. "Never seen this before. I guess we wait for Prince Pouty."

The boy in blue snickered.

"Sokka!"

"What, he's a prince, he's pouty, it's funny!"

The aforementioned prince pouty skidded to a halt, a foul-looking sandal in hand.

Sokka gagged. "You saved your Uncle's sweaty sandal?"

"I think it's kind of sweet." The little girl in green blushed.

The prince tentatively held the sandal up to Nyla.

Mai held out her hand. The sandal slapped into it. The smell hit her nose. Her stomach flipped over in revulsion. Holding the sandal out to Hoshi, she pinched her nose closed, wishing she could rip it off. As soon as Hoshi had the scent, she threw it back at the prince. Her hand felt grubby. The scent stuck to it. She wiped it off on Nyla's fur.

June leapt up into Nyla's saddle. "Let's do this."

That was all the warning Mai had before Nyla took off with Hoshi attached. Mai clung to Hoshi's harness as the pup scrambled up her mother's tail.

Distantly she heard the prince call out, "Hey, wait up!" Don't bother, she wanted to tell him. June didn't slow down for anybody, especially non-paying clients.

o0O0o

"So we're looking for your uncle," Mai said as Nyla began to slow down to a steady lope, the sky bison lumbering beside her, Hoshi's training lead clipped to his reins.

But before he could reply, or Mai could say anything else, June broke in, "Your uncle? You mean your creepy uncle who groped me while I was paralyzed?"

"Yeah, him," the prince confirmed.

"Oh yikes," Mai said.

"Sorry."

"You know..." June said. "Mai was the job I took right after you."

"Wait, she hunted you down?" the little Earth Kingdom girl cut in. "Why?"

"My parents are Fire Nation nobility," Mai said tonelessly, like it didn't matter. "I ran away. They wanted me back."

"Hey the same thing happened to me!" She leaned out of the bison's saddle to throw an arm around Mai. "I ran off to teach the Avatar earthbending, and my parents hired too guys to kidnap me. But I invented metalbending and trapped them in the box they tried to put me in."

Mai shrugged off the arm. "I threw hot tea in June's face, stabbed her, and locked her in her room."

June yelped. "Hey, don't give these idiots any ideas."

Toph stuck her tongue out at her, and then patted Mai's hand. "You seem like my kind of girl."

"Your family's Fire Nation nobility?" the prince asked. "Anybody I know?"

"I don't know," Mai said. "Probably not. My parents are Michi and Ukano from the northern spine islands. They never bothered much with court or the royal family."

"Probably better that way," he said. "My family kind of chews everybody they come across up and spits them out."

"Is that why you're working for the Avatar?"

"I guess."

"I don't mean to pry. It just seems kind of drastic."

"Zuko used to be hunting the Avatar," Sokka broke in. "Because he was banished. It-"

Zuko glared at him.

"You know, it's a long story. You'd probably get really bored."

Mai smirked. "I don't think I would be."

Zuko turned his glare on her. He looked so sulky, she almost couldn't stop herself from laughing at him. "What about you? You ran away from your family. Why?"

"It's not that complicated," Mai said, offhandedly. "My parents wanted to marry me off to a middle-aged admiral."

"Anyone I know?" he asked again. This time, there was something strange in his voice.

"No idea," Mai said. "It's not like I know who you know. I don't know much about him, just that he had just become an admiral, and his name's Zhao."

Zuko, Sokka, and the Water Tribe girl all groaned in appalled shock.

"I guess you know him then."

"Oh yeah," Sokka burst out.

Zuko swallowed. "Yeah, we definitely knew him."

"You're lucky you got away," the Water Tribe girl said. "He was pretty awful."

"At least he's dead now," Sokka said reassuringly. "He's dead, right?"

"Yeah he's definitely dead," Zuko assured them. "I saw him die."

"That's good to know." It meant she could go home someday, if she wanted to.

Of course, her parents could always find somebody else to marry her off to. She wouldn't put it past them.

The girl in Fire Nation red was lying on her back with her eyes closed, ignoring all of them. Mai nudged her with her elbow. "Taking a nap?"

"No."

"It's okay if you are. You were up all night last night."

"I'm trying to take a nap, but you all keep talking, so it's kind of hard."

"Sorry," Mai told her. She wasn't. She didn't get to sleep. Hoshi was asleep, flopped over in the sky bison's saddle, round baby belly in the air without a care in the world, and it wasn't fair at all.

"Don't be," she said. "Sleeping on the back of this thing was probably always a lost cause."

"Why aren't you on the bison, then?" Mai asked.

"Your big baby shirshu took my place."

"Sorry," Mai said again, this time a little more sincere. "So how did you end up traveling with these guys?"

"Sokka and Zuko broke me out of prison."

Mai whistled. "No kidding?"

"No kidding."

"How'd you get put in prison anyway?"

She sighed, opened her eyes, blinked against the sunlight, gave up, and closed them again. "I'm Earth Kingdom. I was fighting the Fire Nation. That's all it took."

"I don't have a stake in this war," Mai told her, trying not to sound apologetic. "I'm Fire Nation, but I never fought for it. June and I take all kinds of clients."

"I don't think that's how it works."

"No," Zuko interrupted. "It really really isn't."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"It just isn't," he said, which Mai took to mean he didn't have a real answer. "When it's your nation, your people, it makes ot your responsibility to make your nation be better than this."

"Maybe it's different for princes," the little earthbender mused. "I mean I ran away to get away from my parents, not for the greater good of my people. Nobody thought it was my responsibility to protect the whole Earth Kingdom."

"It is now," Zuko pointed out.

"Yeah, I still don't know how that happened."

"So what's the big deal anyway?" Mai wondered. "The Fire Nation's been fighting the Earth Kingdom for as long as I've been alive. They've already conquered Ba Sing Se, why is it so important you need your uncle right now?"

"Because he's a sad little boy who likes creeping me out," June called back.

Zuko scowled. "That's not it."

"I figured."

"My dad wants to use Sozin's Comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to ash to make it stop rebelling and end the war once and for all."

Mai couldn't believe what she was hearing. It just didn't connect. "What?"

He shrugged, but it was more like hunching his shoulders. "I guess no one can rebel if everybody is dead."

"What the-" Even June didn't know what to say to that, which distantly, Mai found comforting. It meant she wasn't expected to find a response either. "That's... What's even the point? What about the colonies? What about the villages that aren't rebelling? what about..."

What about people like them in dingy waterfront taverns, just earning a living, not bothering anybody? What about people like June's mom, who she sent candied pineapples to every summer solstice?

"I don't think my dad cares."

And that was what was so monstrous.

"Anyway," Zuko said, determinedly. "That's why we need my uncle. He's-"

"The Dragon of the West," Mai finished. It wasn't important, her parents thought, if she was never going to court, to learn the names of the whole royal family, but she needed to know about the great heroes of their nation. "I did go to school. I do know that much. Didn't he try to conquer Ba Sing Se? Why would he help us?"

Zuko suddenly looked small, and she wondered what she said.

"Zuko's uncle's great," the little earthbender insisted defensively. "He tried to stop Azula from conquering Ba Sing Se."

"But I didn't," Zuko whispered.

"Yeah," Sokka said. "But you're making better choices now. Even Katara agrees, and she-"

"I what, Sokka?"

"Nothing!" he shot back hurriedly. "Anyway, Iroh's definitely on our side, and he broke himself out of prison, so he's tough And he's the Firelord's big brother, so he might be able to stop him."

"Iroh's the best," the earthbender girl said forcefully.

"He is not," June muttered.

"He is!"

"Toph just likes him because he made her tea that one time," Sokka told them.

"That's a lie," Toph shouted. "You take that back! But seriously, Iroh's the best."

It was weird, Mai thought. Maybe it was like what the other kids at school had gotten to be like, when they weren't the only noble girl in the village, who had to be perfect all the time to show the peasants how it was done, and went home to tutors every night to make sure she knew just what perfect was.

But Zuko was a prince, and Toph, by her own admission was a noble. They were allowed to be like this with these people. She swallowed. "He's a legend," she tried. "Before Ba Sing Se, everybody said he was the greatest Fire Nation general who ever lived, greater than his father, greater even than Sozin."

Zuko nodded seriously from his place in the bison's saddle. "That's why we need him."

o0O0o

The wall rose up in front of them like something out of a story, ot like something built by real human beings. For a moment, Mai just stared at it, stunned.

"We're going to Ba Sing Se?" Zuko asked. Mai thought that should be obvious, but she couldn't make her moth work, so who was she to judge?

June shrugged fluidly in the saddle. "Nyla's getting twitchy so he can't be too far. Good luck. Come on, Mai, let's get going."

"You know what?" Trying to sound braver than she felt, she unhooked the training lead from Nyla's saddle and hooked it onto Hoshi. "I'm going to go with these guys, maybe see if I can help."

June looked her over, and then sighed. "Fine, okay, fine. If that's what you want."

Mai nodded, a little more certain. "It is."

June leaned over Nyla's side to clap her on the shoulder. "Go save the world, kid."

Mai smiled. "I'll try, boss."

PART ONE