Work Text:
"It was completely unnecessary."
Mai's cellmate turns over in her sleep, the bedframe rattling and groaning as her body moves, sounds Mai's not had time to get used to. From the mattress over Mai's head comes a mutter, probably another variation on "Shut up, I'm sleeping."
Mai can't be bothered to care. That woman's in here for an actual crime. All Mai did was save her ex-boyfriend from his psycho sister. Whatever. She has it easy in here, she guesses. Her cellmate isn't a lowlife type, she's some important man's rebellious daughter. Probably Mai's father matched them up to make some obvious point. Boring, really.
Being in prison is boring. There's literally nothing to do for hours on end. But that's always been Mai's life.
Working for Azula was interesting. Mai misses it. She didn't want ... "Completely unnecessary." She's repeating herself. Nothing's as boring as that. She should sleep.
Every time she closes her eyes, though, she sees Ty Lee throwing away... everything... for her.
Mai's eyes fly open again. This time she doesn't say it out loud, she doesn't want to disturb Miss Petty on the top bunk. Her lips shape the words silently. "Completely unnecessary."
...
Ty Lee's making friends. That's how it works everywhere she goes. The latest pals are even newer than her, two of the Kyoshi Warriors who were brought to Boiling Rock prison after their leader, Suki, escaped.
That escape had been when Ty Lee became a prisoner. They had already become tentative friends before she told them about how their leader escaped. She enhanced her own part in it, not much, only a little. To make it a better story, of course!
One of the girls has a boyfriend back home, the other is always flirting with a firebender prisoner called Sheng. Ty Lee doesn't have a boyfriend. There are boys she thought were cute! She definitely knows that. But she's only had girls as friends, really.
And the closest of those friends is Mai. She started to like Mai when she realized how difficult it was to get Mai to be interested in anything at all. Ty Lee loves a challenge! Mai had been a major challenge. And since Ty Lee is the best, she had met that challenge and overcome it with flair and grace.
Working together for Azula had been okay. Not Ty Lee's first choice, but tolerable, mostly because Mai was there with her.
Working for Azula without Mai, though... the prospect had loomed, terrifying, for that one split second. And Ty Lee had made her decision without hesitation.
Even though it got her thrown in prison and marked her a traitor to the Fire Nation -- which wasn't that bad, new friends, after all, though it had to be admitted the food was awful -- saving Mai's life had been one hundred percent necessary.