(Spoiler Alert if anyone hasn't watched that far yet, I know I'm not the only person who got introduced to the series this year.)
They didn't know what hit them.
Of course they didn't know what hit them. Mai's uncle was the only member of the prison staff who knew about her fascination with knives, and she was fairly sure he'd let her keep them so that she could take her revenge - if she wanted it.
"What are you doing‌!"
Isn't it obvious? How did you survive this long as a prison guard, anyway? "Saving the jerk who dumped me."
It was one thing to break up with a girlfriend. Another to do it by letter.
To do it by letter left on the very couch you had snuggled on together with no chaperons not three days prior?
And that wasn't even the depths of what he had done.
A second later she was fighting the rush, doing all she could to keep the guards away from the line, to keep them from killing her uncle and her ex-boyfriend.
She succeeded, somehow.
It was the greatest sign she could have had that the realization she'd come to, that Zuko was right that there was something broken with their nation, and that he needed to be the one to fix it, was correct.
She hadn't expected to be able to do it, not alone. Not without Ty Lee and Azula.
It was the first time she'd really fought alone, no backup possible or expected.
She looked up at him as the gondola moved away, saw the shock and horror on his face.
Saw the scar on his cheek, the greatest symbol she knew of for just how broken the world had become - now that she was willing to recognize it.
Damn. If she'd realized earlier, she could have run with him when he left the Fire Nation.
Things could have been different.
There wouldn't have been the letter from him, or this last silent goodbye from her.
I'm probably going to die for this, she thought at him.
The look in his eyes told her he knew it too.
Make this count for something, please. Make a better world for my little brother.
Goodbye. Good luck.
...
Mai didn't expect Ty Lee to save her when Azula tried to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Mai didn't expect to be shoved into a prison uniform and then shoved into a cell with Ty Lee, far from the other prisoners, until decisions could be made about what to do with them.
And she certainly didn't expect to start crying.
"Mai?" Ty Lee put a hand on her shoulder. "It could be worse."
She couldn't argue with her friend. "It's not that."
"Then what is it?"
"Zuko."
"He'll be all right."
Mai nodded. She hoped he would be. She hoped he wouldn't try to free them.
She wondered what would happen if he ever did manage to return to the Fire Nation, if he ever gained access to the records, if he ever found out what their mothers had done shortly after the day he'd knocked her into the palace fountain to save her from a flaming apple.
She shook her head.
"Mai?"
"The mothers were right," she whispered, choking on the tears she was finally letting go of.
Ty Lee gasped.
They were words she would never hear from her mother, words every young noblewoman hoped she would hear.
(Instead, Mai had found out by listening to her parents' whispers after he was burned and banished, their worries that he wouldn't return before the arrangement had to be announced, their worries about their honor - not their daughter.)
The words that said she had already fallen in love with a man she was betrothed to, and wasn't it grand their mothers had known their children so well so young?
Words of joy, words of celebration.
Words that belonged to another life.
She had to survive in this one, now.
No use daydreaming he'd win soon, and sweep her away into a world where no one would grow up as she had again because no one would need to.
(She soon discovered night-dreaming was another matter.)
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Avatar: TLA, during The Boiling Rock
Date: 2010-10-14 03:36 am (UTC)They didn't know what hit them.
Of course they didn't know what hit them. Mai's uncle was the only member of the prison staff who knew about her fascination with knives, and she was fairly sure he'd let her keep them so that she could take her revenge - if she wanted it.
"What are you doing‌!"
Isn't it obvious? How did you survive this long as a prison guard, anyway? "Saving the jerk who dumped me."
It was one thing to break up with a girlfriend. Another to do it by letter.
To do it by letter left on the very couch you had snuggled on together with no chaperons not three days prior?
And that wasn't even the depths of what he had done.
A second later she was fighting the rush, doing all she could to keep the guards away from the line, to keep them from killing her uncle and her ex-boyfriend.
She succeeded, somehow.
It was the greatest sign she could have had that the realization she'd come to, that Zuko was right that there was something broken with their nation, and that he needed to be the one to fix it, was correct.
She hadn't expected to be able to do it, not alone. Not without Ty Lee and Azula.
It was the first time she'd really fought alone, no backup possible or expected.
She looked up at him as the gondola moved away, saw the shock and horror on his face.
Saw the scar on his cheek, the greatest symbol she knew of for just how broken the world had become - now that she was willing to recognize it.
Damn. If she'd realized earlier, she could have run with him when he left the Fire Nation.
Things could have been different.
There wouldn't have been the letter from him, or this last silent goodbye from her.
I'm probably going to die for this, she thought at him.
The look in his eyes told her he knew it too.
Make this count for something, please. Make a better world for my little brother.
Goodbye. Good luck.
...
Mai didn't expect Ty Lee to save her when Azula tried to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Mai didn't expect to be shoved into a prison uniform and then shoved into a cell with Ty Lee, far from the other prisoners, until decisions could be made about what to do with them.
And she certainly didn't expect to start crying.
"Mai?" Ty Lee put a hand on her shoulder. "It could be worse."
She couldn't argue with her friend. "It's not that."
"Then what is it?"
"Zuko."
"He'll be all right."
Mai nodded. She hoped he would be. She hoped he wouldn't try to free them.
She wondered what would happen if he ever did manage to return to the Fire Nation, if he ever gained access to the records, if he ever found out what their mothers had done shortly after the day he'd knocked her into the palace fountain to save her from a flaming apple.
She shook her head.
"Mai?"
"The mothers were right," she whispered, choking on the tears she was finally letting go of.
Ty Lee gasped.
They were words she would never hear from her mother, words every young noblewoman hoped she would hear.
(Instead, Mai had found out by listening to her parents' whispers after he was burned and banished, their worries that he wouldn't return before the arrangement had to be announced, their worries about their honor - not their daughter.)
The words that said she had already fallen in love with a man she was betrothed to, and wasn't it grand their mothers had known their children so well so young?
Words of joy, words of celebration.
Words that belonged to another life.
She had to survive in this one, now.
No use daydreaming he'd win soon, and sweep her away into a world where no one would grow up as she had again because no one would need to.
(She soon discovered night-dreaming was another matter.)