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When Mai arrived in the palace, she was surprised that the guard politely lead her to the training ground instead of Azula’s rooms or their usual place in the garden. The training ground was transformed – instead of even expanse of the beaten earth perfect for firebending practice, there was a stronghold built out of mud and sand with several circular walls surrounding it – all about her height. Oh! Not any stronghold, it was a model of Ba Sing Se, Mai realized with a start; they studied the city’s structure at school, together with old and new plans of warfare, up to the last siege.
Mai looked around – Ty Lee was here, looking just as puzzled as she was. “Do you know what it is?”
“A model of Ba Sing Se,” Ty Lee shrugged, “And no, I have no idea why its here.”
“We’ll have to wait for the princess then.”
Soon enough, Azula appeared, with Zuko trailing behind her in his usual sullen mood. The many moods of Zuko and their mercurial change fascinated Mai. One moment sullen, the other moment excited, or quiet and serious, or angry, or grinning when he thought he got a great idea.
“Today we are going to practice taking over Ba Sing Se” Azula announced without preamble. “Since the older generation is incapable of great victories, it will necessarily fall on us.”
Nobody argued with it.
Azula continued. “I’ll be the head of our forces; I’ll command Zuko. Ty Lee will be the stupid and ineffectual Earth King and do nothing, just sit in the middle. Mai will protect Ba Sing Se. If Zuko manages to get to Ty Lee and capture her, you are defeated.”
“I am not going to firebend at Mai!” Zuko was indignant.
Azula regarded him with her best ‘I am surrounded by stupid’ look. “And she is not going to earthbend at you, either, dum-dum!”
Ty lee giggled. Mai didn’t say anything. It looked like a game she couldn’t possibly win, but she was still going to play it.
“Of course you don’t use firebending. You use your brains – or hands or whatever.”
Everyone got to their positions, and the game started. Well, it started with Zuko looking confused at the wall in front of him. Mai stood behind the outer wall with her arms crossed and waited for him to start doing anything. One cannot defend when there is no attack, can one?
“Come on, Zuko! Start destroying the outer wall! Even our uncle managed to do that, it’s that easy!” Azula shouted.
Zuko started to beat the sand wall with his fists. Sand, being sand, started to trickle down from the wall and fall out with large clumps. Now Mai had to act. She looked around: There was mud all around her, still wet from building the walls, some water still in small pools under her feet. Mai took a bunch of mud in her hand and threw at Zuko without any real effort and hit him in the shoulder. Zuko looked at her, almost surprised. She shrugged and threw another fistful of mud. That went to his cheek. He huffed in annoyance and continued pounding at the wall. Another and another fistfuls of mud didn’t do anything to his determination, and the sand wall was yielding to the strength of a thirteen year old.
Mai started to feel annoyed. She didn’t care about walls of Ba Sing Se, real or not, but she didn’t want to lose to Zuko. She looked around for better position, and realized that the only good strategic decision would be to retreat behind the next wall. There was enough space to move, better positions and more mud. So she jumped over and got ready. Azula and Ty lee were shouting something, but at this point she didn’t care about anything, except to protect Ty Lee the Earth King and not let Zuko (and Azula) win.
Zuko finally torn through the outer wall and immediately got a heap of mud in his face. That made him stop. He looked at Mai, blinked, then smirked and leaned down to pick up his fistful of mud. Mai smirked back and threw more mud to his head. After that they kind of forgot about walls, and there was nothing but mud flowing in all directions. Mai’s aim was good, and Zuko was all covered in mud, head to toes, but Zuko wasn’t entirely bad, either, and managed to land quite a lot of mud on Mai’s head and clothes, too. She didn’t care. She was ready to keep fighting until all the mud was gone. Which, honestly would never happen. Zuko seemed unstoppable, either, but still Mai wasn’t about letting him to win.
“That’s an interesting game you are playing.” Soft adult voice stopped everyone. It was General Iroh, walking quietly towards them. It appeared he was watching them for a while before making his presence known.
Even Azula looked for a moment as if she didn’t expect him to be here, but she recovered fast. “Just a bit of a practice, Uncle. Someone has to take over Ba Sing Se, and why not start by learning on past mistakes?”
“Yes, Azula, it is indeed important to learn on past mistakes, preferably on mistakes others made than on your own.” He chuckled sadly. “You have to keep an open mind though: sometimes the lesson you learn is very different from the one you thought you were learning.”
“Right now I’ve learned that the brute strength or fire-bending power are not going to get the job done. I need to think of the better strategy.”
“That’s certainly… a lesson, Niece.” He looked all of them over, turned to Mai, and - did a small bow “That was a very good job protecting Ba Sing Se you did.” and left.
Ty Lee jumped back from the center of Ba Sing Se in a couple of spectacular somersaults and looked into general Iroh’s back. “Sometimes it's hard to remember that he is a legend and a great general. He looks so normal… and nice.”
Azula scoffed and walked over to them.
Mai stood not sure what to do next. Was their game over? Zuko also stood there, looking uncertain and confused behind all that mud, as much as she could tell. She decided he wanted to be told something nice, too. “You did a good job, too, Zuko. Broke through a wall and everything.”
He looked at her and grinned. “Yeah… But I’d rather be on the same side with you than against.”
She smiled back. “Maybe next time.”
Of course, Azula, being Azula, looked at them with slight frown and announced. “You two look disgustingly dirty. I’ve already ordered servants to prepare a bath. You two can take it together.”
That was typical Azula. Mai wasn’t even embarrassed anymore, it was easy not to care after too many such jokes. She glanced at Zuko – he was bright red and couldn’t meet her look. Ok, it still worked on him, which made Mai strangely gratified. She rolled her eyes at Azula and said. “I am going home.”
And she strode away, her back straight and proud, without looking back.