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The last time Zuko and Mai saw each other was a sunny one, the harsh rays of the Caldera sun reflecting brightly onto the small pond in the center of the palace gardens. This was Mai’s favorite time of year, just as the fire lilies began to bloom for the summer season, their sweet odor pungent in the sticky, humid air.
She often spent the hour between her classes at the academy and dinner with Azula and Ty Lee, but today, she wandered through the gardens alone. Ty Lee was always her loud, chittering self, and Azula was far too preoccupied with her firebending lessons. Besides, she was always so harsh these days - and quite frankly, Mai just wanted some peace and quiet for the time being.
This was her happy place - no one to make choices for her, police her every move, tell her everything she’s doing wrong. Just her thoughts to occupy her, the heat of the sun to feel against her skin, the soft petals of the fire lilies to scatter as she pleases.
And sometimes there was Zuko, too.
He had taken a liking to the magnolia tree that stood at the edge of the pond, its knobby branches covered in pink and white buds just beginning to bloom. Mai would often find him sitting under the little shade it provided, watching the turtleducks swim across for hours on end. He would gesture for her to sit with him, and they would fall into an easy silence. No words shared, no expectations to fulfill - just a hand on her wrist, a head resting on his shoulder.
But on this day, he doesn’t even look her in the eyes as she sits beside him. She shifts her position to lay in the grass, head propped up by her hands, elbows buried in the grass. The boy beside her is evidently deep in thought, dark brows furrowed.
It feels like an eternity before he finally speaks to her.
“I got into trouble.”
She looks at him for a moment, confusion spread across her features, waiting for him to explain himself further.
He holds his head in his hands for a moment before looking up at her once more. “It’s…” He ponders his next words for a moment, sighs. “It’s not good.”
“You’re not making any sense,” she says, stroking a finger across the handle of one of the knives tucked into her sleeve. She’s always like this with him. Straight and to the point. Zuko likes it - he’s never been good with words anyway.
“I was, uh, challenged to an Agni Kai. Tomorrow. For disrespecting the council of generals.”
Her facial expression shifts just enough for him to notice, to register her concern.
Mai has never seen an Agni Kai herself - her parents have never let her - but she’s heard stories, legends, of great victors, flame in their hands and glory in their eyes, and losers, cast off, dishonored and disfigured.
There’s so much she wants to ask him, how, why , but she can’t even bring herself to look him in the eyes.
“I’ve been working really hard on my bending, though, and I know I’m getting better - even if ‘Zula doesn’t think so - and if it’s just some stupid general anyway, I bet I’ll be fine…” Zuko is rambling now, trying to reason with himself, rationalize that he’ll be okay. He’s always had a quiet air of confidence to him despite the way others - especially his sister and father - see him. For his sake, she hopes he’s right.
And though she won’t admit it - for her sake as well.
When he’s finally stopped talking, he holds his hand out to her, and they sit in contemplative silence. Mai almost forgets about her lesson with Azula and Ty Lee, panics when she realizes she’s about to be late.
Neither one of them says goodbye; Mai simply lets go of Zuko’s hand and begins to slink away in the same way she always does. He looks up at her with that gaze reserved only for her as she stands.
Neither know this will be the last time they touch like this for a long, long time. Maybe then, they would have treasured the moment a bit longer.
He thinks about her more than he’d like to admit.
Sometimes, the warmth of her smile, gentle and restrained, crosses his mind as he performs his katas on the ship, drawing his focus away from his technique. He thinks about their fingers intertwining, her already calloused hands in his, the way she understood him like no one else did. The small flame he’s spent the last twenty minutes coddling goes out.
He’s spent the last six months rebuilding his bending abilities, rebuilding himself , and he’s finally regained the courage to wield his flame. It’s small, but it’s a start. His uncle has told him he’s proud, but Zuko’s not sure how much he believes that. He’s gotten it into his head that his newfound fear of fire is because he’s weak-willed, cowardly. He’s scared of an innate part of himself, the flame that has always rested inside his heart and his bones and in his mind weaponized against him.
Over time, he will regrow his flame, and his anger will begin to fuel it.
Azula always lies.
Zuko knows this, he’s not a fool - but yet for some reason, he believes her when she says that Father will be proud of him. She always seems to know what he wants to hear.
But now he is so lost, so confused. He doesn’t quite know who he is anymore; he’s losing himself every minute, every second, every hour.
But at least she’s there with him.
Zuko returns, with some convincing from his sister, but not for long. And now, he leaves her again, with nothing but a letter to mark his absence. Mai stews in anger as her eyes drift across the words written in his neat, tightly scrawled script, but she somehow knew this was coming.
She is seventeen now. Gone are the days where she has time to sit below a magnolia tree with an old friend. Gone are the days when she thinks she knows who the people she has grown up with are.
The boy she spent so much of her childhood beside is not a boy anymore. He is so different from how she remembers him - gentle, persevering, passionate. Now he is hotheaded, angry. Resilient.
To be fair, she is not the same girl anymore, either.
And she’s going to show him that.