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It takes them three years to learn and grow before either thinks about getting back together. Three years of friendship, of easy talks that wander far too long into the night, and after that, it’s another two before Zuko finally starts bringing up marriage.
He wants it. The Sages want it. The entire world wants to see their Fire Lord happy and with a wife.
The first time he asks, Mai flat out rejects him. The second time she doesn’t speak to him for a week.
“Is there someone else?” It’s his sixth time asking and her sixth time saying no.
Never.
Mai has never believed she held much love. She’s too willing to lie and detach herself from others in favor of keeping her walls up and feeling safe. Once Kei lo had come close to knocking those walls down, of seeing who Mai was. But she ended up breaking his heart because that's what she did. Many years after the war, Mai wonders if those walls will ever tumble down.
It’s not about loving him or being in love. There’s much more to consider when she thinks of marriage, especially with Zuko. Loathe, as she is to admit it: Zuko is different. He's more than just somebody. He was the disgraced Prince who abandoned his nation to save it. Now he’s the Fire Lord who calls the most powerful bender in the world his best friend.
And what is she? Has she ever had the chance to be Mai? Mai has been so many things in life: the daughter of a governor, the friend of a princess, the girlfriend of a prince, a traitor, a sister, and a florist. She has never been something so grand as a consort of Agni forbid, a Queen.
“I love you.” Zuko begs, too willing to shed tears while she stands firm and resolved.
“I care for you too.” Has always and will always until she leaves this world.
“Then why?”
Why won’t she say yes? Why won’t she marry him?
Mai leans into Zuko's shoulder, shocking them both at the intimacy of the action. She stands listening to the beating of his heart, converting energy into the air into breath. At one point, his strong arms wrap around her, pulling her flush against his royal armor, begging her not to go. Not to say no.
“You’re the only one.” Mai leans further into him at the sound of sadness on his lips. If only that weren’t true. The kindhearted part of her she keeps locked away wishes he’d forget about her. Wishes Zuko would find some pleasant rich girl, get married, and live out the rest of his days happily.
But he loves her. He loves her and tells her she’s the only thing he ever missed when he left the Fire Nation.
“You.”
You. You. It’s always been you.
That’s what his lips tell her. Zuko inscribes the depth of his love onto her lips for Mai to obsess over. He kisses his way up her neck to both her cheeks and hesitates on the side of her lips. Mai breaths into him, moving smoothly and lazily in a pattern they long ago mastered.
If they were anyone but themselves, she’d have him in a heartbeat. But their lives have never been easy. Why should their love be any different?
Reluctantly. Painfully. She pulls away from Zuko's warmth and threads her hands through his hair. Maybe this will be the last time? Maybe he’ll finally realize she can’t be the person he needs her to be? Maybe this time he’ll remember the hurt and hate her for it.
She leaves without saying goodbye and ignores his curses.
The people of the Fire Nation won’t like her. They don’t like her. She is the daughter of an Ozai loyalist who stole away their children in the night. And unlike Ty Lee, Mai has not dedicated herself to any selfless profession or cause.
Plus there’s the whole issue of children.
Mai stares at herself, naked in the mirror. She’s always been tall. Always been skinny with narrow hips. She runs a hand over her womb, or what she thinks is her womb, and her thoughts travel to her mother Michi.
Mother always wanted more children. Tom-Tom was a late in life surprise after years of trying and years of disappointment. Would the same thing happen to her? Azula always said she was only good at killing things. Her monthlies were always irregular at best and excruciatingly painful at worst.
Looking in the mirror, Mai tries to imagine herself swollen with a child and her breast heavy. A grimace makes its way across her pale face. The nation would demand she grace Zuko with an heir as soon as possible.
What would it mean to be Fire Lady?
Mai struggles to remember a time when there had been one. Suppose she shuts her eyes and focuses on the wafting scent of fire lilies. In that case, she can almost recall the red silk of a woman whose hair matched northern snow: steely eyes and a heavy gait. Ilah had dutifully walked three steps behind Azulon as proprietary demanded. Is that where her destiny resides? Always looking forward and striving to meet Zuko's impressive actions?
While standing stupidly and naked, it occurs to her that she could quickly put an end to this problem by seeking out Ursa. Still, technically Ursa had only been a princess.
A princess, charged with the occasional arrangement of dinners. But who spent most her days lounging in the gardens with her children.
Unable to look at herself any longer, Mai throws on a few familiar clothing layers and begins putting her knives and arrows where they belong. When she’s finished, she goes to her small vanity and begins to put up the dozens of hairpins that make her presentable.
What if she says yes?
She and Zuko get married and within a year and she is named Fire Lady. Second only to the Fire Lord and sitting in the den of viperroos she’s spent her entire life trying to avoid. What then? Does she cease being Mai?
Accepting the role means willingly sacrificing her right to be an individual and becoming something more extraordinary. A symbol.
Her place in history would be marked down, and hundreds of years from now, faceless children would memorize her birth and death. When she married and what her accomplishments were.
Mai plays with her hair and pretends it’s one of the many brushes she uses to paint her face. Maybe she’s looking at it the wrong way. Mother and father had drilled her to act and look like a doll, never saying more than what was needing and observing the room's flow.
Plus there’s the whole bending thing. Nobody in her family has ever had the spark, and if she gave birth to a nonbending prince or princess. She doesn’t want to think about it. What if she gave birth to a future fire lord who couldn’t bend? She chuckles, just picturing the potential riots in the streets.
Then again..what would a non bender Fire Lord be?
The entire system needed to be reworked from their education to the taxes to the very foundation of their lives.
There were too many army members and not enough farmers. Zuko's advisors were hesitant to relinquish power even after all these years due to his time as a vanished prince. He lacked the gentle fingers needed to nudge egos and personalities towards change.
Mai however knew exactly who to call on when crisis arose. Unlike zuko she had long ago memorized all the advisors' names and the names of those who worked under them.
What would it mean to have a Non bender Fire Lady? Like it or not the populace followed the elite and if someone like her sat on the thrown.
Maybe real, good and actual change could be made. Mai would act as a symbol showing that non benders had a place, not underneath fire but beside it.
It takes a while but she finally comes to the right conclusion.
Days later Mai makes her way back to the palace.
“Ask me again.”
The ink well he’d been dutifully dipping his brush into collides with his hands and tips over. Black sludge soaks it’s way into important-looking documents that he cares little for. Scrambling to his feet, she has to steady both Zuko, and herself incase his excitement sends them tumbling over.
Zuko sends a hurried glance at his advisors, who are, for once, smart enough to take a hint and make themselves scarce. When the last shuffle of their feet disappears behind the large door does Zuko finally turn to look at her.
Mai finds herself smiling. His golden eyes have already started going red while his fingers dance anxiously over her robes silk sleeve.
“You mean it?” His voice tremors out a ghost.
“Ask me again.”
“Will you-“
“Yes.” zuko hadn’t even gotten the whole question out before she answered, and Mai launches herself into his arms.