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Mai was sitting behind her desk. Everything on it and in her study was arranged in a comfortable order. Papers to be reviewed were waiting in a neat stalk on her left, with the reports from the governor of her home province in front of her. The governor believed they had a special relationships, on account of her personally writing to him several times to get him to fulfill his duties and do his job if he didn’t want to be dismissed. Now he wrote long-winded reports full of misused words and bad poetry to show how much he respected her opinion. Mai was a bit annoyed at having to tear trough all the verbal garbage, but the man was loyal, and that was precious.
She started to re-read a paragraph about new employment opportunities for the veterans. The sentences were stuffed with flower metaphors to an extent that she wasn’t sure was he suggesting a botanical garden, fire lily farms, or glass manufactures. She almost got it when a great noise from the halls distracted her. There were sounds of running feet, then more running feet, then it seemed that half of the palace was running to and fro. Mai frowned, glanced under her desk, checked her study, her knives, and then shrugged. Surely they didn’t want her running around, too? They employ all these people to do the running around jobs. The people, however, stopped behind her door and started to argue loud enough for her to hear that they want to disturb either her or Fire Lord, and try to figure out which option is safer. Mai rang a bell and called them to come in, since she already was listening to their argument.
A rather nervous servant appeared and explained that nobody knew where princess Izumi was.
Mai sighed. “And you were still arguing whether to tell me this?”
The servant was looking terrified despite (or because of?) her calm tone. Mai rolled her eyes. “If you had done the right thing and asked me at once, I would have told you that princess Izumi is fine, she is with me, and you could have saved valuable time.” She glanced under her desk again where Izumi was quietly busy playing with smooth rocks.
The servant looked around uncertainly, bowed and disappeared. The crowd behind her doors quieted and dispersed, and it was a good time to go back to work, but Mai was now properly distracted and felt all the little aches in her body from sitting still for so long. She sighed, got up and stretched. Izumi got out under the desk and stretched, too, her three year old body chubby, uncoordinated and unbearably cute.
“Mommy, are we working yet?”
“I think we are done working for now, my little sun. Let’s have a break!”
“A break!!” Izumi started to climb her, and Mai picked her daughter up and hugged her tightly.
“Do you want to sneak into the kitchen and find out if they have cookies for us, or do you want to sneak into dad’s study to see what he is doing?”
“Cookies and daddy!” Izumi said after seemingly careful consideration.
“Great, so we’ll hit the kitchen first, and, then, armed with cookies, will go and check on daddy. Is it a good plan?”
“Good!”
Mai made a step towards the door, then hesitated. She wanted to avoid as many people as she could, right now. Thankfully, she knew the way to do it, so she moved towards pretty tapestry on the wall and the secret door behind it. Fire Palace, being as old as it was, built and re-built by generations of paranoid Fire Lords, had a lot of secret doors and passageways and rooms, and hiding holes. One of advantages to friendship with Azula, or whatever they had, was spending a lot of time in the palace and learning many of its secrets. Of course, learning came with being lost and scared quite a lot, but that’s friendship with Azula for you.
She probably didn’t know all the secret passages yet, but there was enough to move from her study to most important destination – like kitchen, a passage out of the palace, and Zuko’s room. Mai opened the door and holding Izumi tightly walked towards the kitchen. Izumi was getting heavier with every month, and Mai was struggling to remember how tiny and weightless she was as a little baby, but she loved carrying her around even more now. Now that she knew how fast her daughter grows, how soon Izumi would be too heavy and too independent to carry around for long, now that Izumi hugged her back so tightly and covered in sloppy wet kisses and messed her hair with tiny grubby hands and whispered extremely loudly, “Mommy I love you so many times!”, Mai took all opportunities to carry Izumi around she could. They were surprisingly few, since Izumi had a lot of people who wanted to carry her around. And one dragon.
The kitchen was deep int the bowels of the palace, a world almost separate from her regular one, ruled not by a fire lord, but the Royal Cook, Sonam, woman of great stature and great patience with vagrant little princes and little girls who loved sweets and knives. Sonam’s patience and good disposition didn’t change when they grew up to be unhappy teenagers, and then Fire lord and lady. There was something restful for Mai there, in Sonam’s kingdom, where under her benevolent rule armies of cooks prepared delicious dishes for the delight of the Fire Lord and the glory of the Nation. She could feel like a little girl, who would sit quietly, admire the goings-on and get a cookie just for being herself. She didn’t have much time to sit there these days, though. Even now, she took the offered tray with cookies and deserts, thanked, and left with fascinated Izumi in tow. Carrying a tray and a toddler in one’s hands is almost impossible, so now Izumi had to walk by herself. It was a long walk, from the kitchen to the Fire Lord’s rooms through secret walks and staircases, but Mai was set on avoiding people. No conscientious servant would let her carry the tray by herself, and she would still be suspicious of any who would not try to help. Better to avoid the issue altogether.
The door was not locked, Mai noted. She would have to have a conversation with Zuko about dangers of having unlocked secret doors. True, not many people knew about it, but just one Azula was more than enough. And Azula knew more about secret passages in the palace than anyone else alive. And while she wasn’t an enemy, Mai could never fully trust her, either.
They entered Zuko’s study and found him sleeping on the old sofa. Mai smiled and quietly put the tray with food on the table, but Izumi squealed happily and jumped on him, screaming “Daddy!”
Nobody could sleep for long with a toddler jumping on top of them, and Zuko’ eyes flew open, he grinned and caught their daughter in his arms. He threw Izumi up in the air and caught her again, eliciting more laughter.
Izumi didn’t know that it was even possible not to trust her father. Mai smiled at the thought. Her daughter would never have a reason not to trust them. Not if they could help it.
“I am glad that some of your Uncle’s wisdom has finally rubbed off on you… Or maybe you are just growing older and wiser...”
“What do you mean?” Zuko finally paid some attention for her, watching as Mai set up the tea service.
“Napping is good for you. I am glad you took time and lay down for a nap.”
“I don’t think it was me, as much as my brain just shut up and my eyes closed, so I was forced to get out and moved here.”
“It takes some wisdom to actually listen to your body and not force it into inhuman feats. AS YOU USED TO DO.”
“Well, my wife tells me I am wise, I am not going to argue.”
“Therefore proving you are wise, and I am right.”
Zuko looked rather smug at that. “Come over here, and I’ll make tea for us later.”
She came by the sofa and let Zuko pull her on top of him, encircling her and Izumi in a massive hug. She kissed his jaw, the tip of his nose, and his eye, closest to her. Izumi followed her suit and left slobbering kissed over his other side. Zuko looked perfectly at peace, and only squeezed them in his hug tighter.
The moment stretched and stretched until Izumi got bored and screamed “Now cookies!” into their ears. Zuko obediently got up and started making tea for them. Izumi had her milk, warmed up to the perfect temperature, just as she liked to drink.
They sat together at the small low table, enjoying the tea, and milk, and several types of cookies, fruit cut in neat little shapes, whipped cream and some sweets not readily identifiable. Izumi was busy with trying to figure out whether new kinds of desert were edible by staring at them, and then still ate the ones she was sure about.
“How was you day so far?” Mai asked Zuko.
“I managed quite a lot, surprisingly. Before my body made me stop, that’s it. I have a meeting with the war minister in an hour… Had to read on veteran affairs, and the current situation with the navy and such… made some notes to discuss, wrote down a couple of ideas I want to run through him, see if he has anything useful to add, then discuss further.”
“I actually was also busy with veteran's affairs. Another flowery report from Governor Tatsu. But I think we might use some of his suggestions. They are not bad, if you get rid of his style.”
Zuko stared into his cup. “The war was over for what? Ten years. And we are still digging through all that shit...”
“Shit!! Shit!!” Izumi exclaimed happily choosing the exact wrong word to focus upon with unerring sense of a toddler.
“We were at war for a hundred years. Half of the nation ARE veterans, including us. And most of our internal and external affairs are veteran affairs…”
“I hope we’ll leave better legacy to Izumi.”
“We have time to clean up our mess.”
“While Izumi is still learning to make her own.” Zuko looked at Izumi, who was pouring her milk over cookies, in a besotted way reserved for his daughter and Druk.
Mai watched them both smiling. She probably looked rather silly to an outside observer. Good thing there were only three of them right now, so nobody could comment on how silly their family actually was.
Reluctantly she checked the clock. It was to go back to their regular schedule. “I think I’ll take Izumi to her nanny now. I need to finish with the reports and write an answer, then I have lady Chenchen with the social calendar for the next month.
Zuko winced at sympathy. Lady Chenchen and her social calendar were necessary, inevitable and painful to look forward to. “Leave Izumi with me, I wanted to go outside, check on Druk, stretch my legs a little. In a half an hour I’ll return her to the nanny. I think she needs a bit of running around.”
“You are right, Izumi was so very good this morning, people forgot she was with me, and started running and looking for her. Go, take her in the garden.” They got up, and Izumi managed to overturn the plate with leftover milk-soaked cookies on the floor.
“Well, I think Izumi can make a good mess already.” Mai noted, as they tried to clean it up together, succeeding mostly in smearing milk over the floor.
“Well, cleaning up is always much harder and less fun, I think there is an important lesson in here somewhere.”
“Go, play in the garden, the two of you!” Mai nuzzled Zuko’s cheek. “I’ll see you later.” She called a maid to clean the floor, and went back to her study to work on cleaning bigger messes their ancestors left them, and some messes they managed to make themselves while cleaning the previous ones. There was no lesson to it, not really, she thought. Just making mess and cleaning afterwards...