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Mai was eight years old when she discovered the gaping holes in her parents’ seemingly ideal marriage.
Well, as ideal as arranged matches went.
In the past, before their country launched a large-scale campaign that would go on to set the world ablaze for a hundred years, marrying for love was the common route—even among nobility.
But as the people of the Fire Nation directed all their attention to conquering the rest of the map under one banner, love was pushed to the back burner. Instead of being afforded the time to daydream about the perfect gown and the prettiest floral arrangements, little girls were taught as soon as they could walk that weddings, too, were a matter of honor. When two people enter a life-long commitment in the presence of Agni’s light, it also indicates an alliance being forged between families.
However, whatever feelings are shared between the two parties were never really given much importance compared to the tiles their household can bring to the Pai Sho table.
And like all others, Michi and Ukano’s union was a product of its era. The bride came from a respectable family that has upheld the revered practice of cultivating chili plants for generations, owning vast expanses of fields that raise the crop. The groom, meanwhile, can proudly trace his ancestry back to one of the historical key players directly involved in strengthening the nation’s maritime trade network, with the family now turning towards manufacturing warships.
If Mai were to believe the stories she’s been fed growing up, their wedding apparently drew both envy and admiration among the Caldera elite. A budding politician from a prominent seafaring clan married a daughter of the leading supplier of perhaps the most important agricultural product in the country. It was one of the biggest social events of the season, immortalized in a disgustingly poetic tapestry which depicted her parents’ relationship as a union between land and sea.
The tapestry remains a looming presence in their mansion’s reception room, showing off how the master and lady of the house are a force to be reckoned with. It was a pompous—and in Mai's humble opinion, pointless—display of power.
Everyone who has passed by the room would stop in front of the art piece and sing their praises; about her mother and father matching each other so well, about them being lucky to have built such a perfect family of their own.
The only child born out of that so-called perfect family so far would beg to disagree.
With her lessons finally done for the day, Mai was on the way back to her chambers, wanting nothing more than to sink into her featherbed and silk pillows after having to suffer through her mother’s demanding curriculum.
But as she passed through her father’s study, her attention was drawn to continuous creaking noises coming from inside the room. Mai stood outside the door, frozen.
Before she could deliberate any further, the door opened in a loud bang, with a woman she couldn’t recognize holding the hem of her skirt in a hurry. Mai blocked her way, sizing her up with a hard stare.
The woman had dark brown hair which looked disheveled—a few strands tumbling out of the topknot she wore. Her jade green eyes were blown wide. Someone from the colonies, perhaps, Mai mused, noting the rare eye color.
“Get inside, Mai,” her father called out, the low, rumbling sound of his voice thwarting her plans to question the woman.
“Pardon me, Miss,” the woman squeaked, giving Mai a low bow before scrambling away.
Mai entered the study with her head held high. And if her mother could only see her now, she imagined that Michi would comment on her posture and facial expression being a proper application of her etiquette training.
“Who was that, Dad?” she asked, forcing her tone to remain casual, like she was merely conversing with a court lady about the newly opened shops near Hari Bulkan—another thing she was taught that day.
“Is there anything you want? A new dress? New hair ribbons?” Ukano dodged, scribbling on the desk and not meeting her eyes, treating his daughter just as he would any of his petitioners.
Mai chose not to answer. Despite the silence on her end, her father continued.
“Your mother says you go through your lessons at great speed. That is good. I expect nothing less from you, so feel free to ask for a reward. If you keep being well-behaved, I can give you anything you want.”
The words sounded sweet enough, but Mai was able to take them for what they really meant. Don’t tell your mother about what you have seen today.
Mai was twelve years old when she realized that maybe she and Zuko had more in common than she originally thought.
“I heard some courtiers saying that a random girl fished out of Jang Hui River was in the Fire Lord’s chambers last night,” she said, brushing the trousers of her academy uniform before primly settling down next to Zuko on a patch of grass lining the turtleduck pond.
“Hello to you too, Mai,” Zuko greeted, his lips quirked up in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He looked tired; tired from dealing with burdens and expectations far too heavy for a thirteen-year-old boy to carry.
She could no longer remember the exact time and circumstances which led to their secret meetings in the palace gardens, but she knew that she would never trade it for anything.
Here, Mai found herself spilling out things she never imagined sharing with another person before, and Zuko responded in kind; welcoming her into the one place that held most of his cherished memories with his mother, telling her about his fears for the future, of never being able to measure up to his father’s footsteps.
The secretive nature of the meetings were their little rebellion; thinking that if they kept the time they shared just between the two of them for as long as possible, they could be spared from the unwelcome gazes of others.
Sometimes, a cautious part of her mind would whisper that she was playing right into her family’s hands—that by sticking to Zuko’s side, the two of them would be part of a game much bigger than themselves—that the arrangement is an inevitability they could not control.
They could never be just Mai and Zuko, because if the people around them could help it, they were destined to be so much more than that.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, bringing her back into the present.
“About how I don’t want us to end up like our parents,” she admitted.
“We won’t,” came his immediate reply, and if it were any other girl, she would have been flattered at the thought that he seemed so sure of her—of them.
But Mai had always acted differently. And she was nothing if not cynical.
So instead of being swept off her feet, she asked, “How can you be so sure?”
“Well, for one thing, we actually like each other,” Zuko replied, wearing a boyish grin that lit his face all the way up to the gold of his eyes.
Mai was loath to admit that she felt blood rush to her cheeks at the sight. She scooched closer, burying her head on his shoulder to hide her blush.
Zuko wrapped an arm around her. “And besides, when I’m Fire Lord, cheating on wives will be the first thing gone.”
She wanted to roll her eyes at his idealism, because she could already come up with a list of more pressing national issues at the top of her head. But at the same time, she supposed that his idealism was also what drew her to him.
“Your dad will be the first thing gone, or else you won’t be Fire Lord at all,” she quipped, her voice muffled by his shoulder.
During their first few meetings, Mai would go rigid every time she involuntarily made a sarcastic remark. Ladies must not joke about such macabre things—they should just keep making trite comments about the weather. But as it turned out, Zuko particularly liked her brand of humor.
True enough, he pulled her closer, chuckling as he nuzzled her hair.
“I really don’t understand why you can’t just leave him, Mom,” Mai said over her embroidery hoop, baring her thoughts in a rare moment of vulnerability when it was just the two of them in her mother’s drawing room.
Michi made no sound of acknowledgement, but judging from the stilted way she poked her needle in the fabric, Mai knew that she got through to her.
“Your family is just as powerful as his, and divorce isn’t exactly unheard of,” she continued, hoping that her mother would stop being unreasonable for once.
“You may not understand right now, Mai, but I’m doing this for you,” Michi waved her off, resuming her work on stitching their house crest—desperately trying to sew their web of lies together, as if the action would magically turn them into a more close-knit family.
Mai bristled at the reason she gave, because why? Why would you suffer in silence just for a child you never even showed tenderness to?
“A girl from a broken home couldn’t hope to marry the Fire Lord’s son, could she? What will the court say? What will the sages say?”
Leave Zuko out of this, the words were on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them down.
“I don’t care about Zuko,” she gritted out.
That was a lie. She cared about Zuko more than she thought was possible for her. Zuko felt like home more than the one she grew up in, more than the one she’d known her whole life.
But if giving up on him meant that she won’t have to stomach seeing her father with a different woman almost every week, she would follow through with it no matter how much it hurt.
“I made a vow to Agni, Mai,” Michi implored her to see things from her perspective, but she could only scoff at the futile attempt.
“Please, Mother, we both know that wedding vows mean nothing next to articles within the marriage contract. You said as much.”
Michi smiled like her point was proven. “Yes, and that is why I know he would never push me aside.”
Puzzled, she blinked at her mother. Upon seeing the visible confusion on her face, Michi continued. “Your father can fool around as he likes, but he will have no choice but to always come back to us. You’ll see.”
For her mother’s sanity, Mai can only hope that she knew what she was saying.
“Do you also have concubines, Dad?”
Mai was twenty eight years old when her daughter asked the most hilarious question she had ever heard in her life thus far.
Zuko choked on his tea, sending him into a wild coughing fit.
She bit her lip to rein in her laughter, but a few giggles still managed to escape. “I think you broke your father, Princess,” the Fire Lady rubbed her husband’s back in pity, but she can’t help but smirk in wry amusement at the sound of Zuko’s incessant coughing.
The Fire Lord took a deep, steadying breath. “You're seven, Turtleduck. How do you know about concubines?”
Princess Izumi raised her brows at her father’s question, taking a mental note that he didn’t exactly deny that he had concubines. And if he did have any…
How could he?! Mama's the coolest person in the whole Fire Nation—no, the whole world!
Izumi took a deep breath, mirroring Zuko's move from earlier. Mai watched the exchange, secretly enjoying the show.
“I've read about it,” the Princess responded in a serious tone—which was her best impression of the Fire Lady when a minister was being uselessly stubborn during council meetings.
And to prove her case, Izumi motioned to the book in her hands.
A Comprehensive Timeline of Concubinage in Fire Nation High Society
written by Fire Sage Kyou
It was quite an old text—older than the Hundred Year War, even. Mai was impressed that their little girl was growing up to be an avid reader. And her taste is fairly diverse as well: she had her father's love for plays, being able to quote Love Amongst the Dragons word-for-word, but she also had her mother's interest in history and political theory.
Zuko cleared his throat. “And… did you get to the part where Fire Lord Chaeryu’s irresponsible actions led to a war of succession?”
Mai was really enjoying where this conversation was going. When their daughter shook her head, she took it as her cue to stand up from her place next to Zuko on the settee and move to Izumi’s side.
“The Camellia-Peony War happened because Fire Lord Womanizer had two sons with mothers from powerful noble families,” Mai supplied, her smirk widening into a grin when she saw her husband flinch at the word ‘womanizer’.
Mai leaned towards their daughter conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, Zumi. If your dad has any secret kids that’ll pop up to challenge your claim, you have me and my clan's full support.”
She paused for a moment, considering the logistics. “Getting all the extended family together would be a pain, but I’m sure we can secure the throne for you. We'll give the poets something to write about for generations to come. ‘The Song of Steel’ or whatever.”
Zuko felt a shiver run down his spine as he was hearing his wife lay down her plans for war in the same detached tone she would use every time noblemen’s wives approach her with stupid hypothetical questions like, “What would you do if the Fire Lord were to take another woman, my Lady?”
The Fire Lord groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. “Please, Mai, can we stop talking about wars and secret kids? You know that I issued a royal edict banning Fire Lords from taking other lovers from now on. You were there when I signed the order,” Zuko said with a pout that Mai wanted to kiss off of him.
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed in assent, leaning in to kiss her husband’s cheek while willfully ignoring their daughter who reacted with a prolonged ‘ewww’ in the background. “But teasing you is always fun.”
A few beats of silence passed before Izumi piped up again, seeming to have realized something.
“Wait, so this means Dad isn’t seeing other people, right? And this means I won’t have to keep concubines in the future, too? Thank Agni.”
After seeing the Princess off to her bedroom, the Fire Lord and Fire Lady retreated to their own chambers.
Zuko’s eyes wandered on their walls filled with Izumi’s drawings, noticing a new addition. It was a portrait of the three of them riding on Druk off into the sunset, with the dragon wearing bright pink bows all over his body which could have put Ty Lee’s old circus costumes to shame.
“Oh yeah, that’s a new one,” Mai sat on the vanity, pulling the pins out of her hair. Zuko strode towards her, helping his wife free her hair from the binds and immediately picking up a comb.
“Maybe we should talk with the palace librarian about filtering book titles before Izumi checks them out,” Zuko brought up as he ran the comb through her silky smooth hair. Helping his wife with her nighttime rituals became his favorite part at the end of every day.
Mai twisted on her seat, turning back from the vanity mirror with a playful glint in her eye, regarding him with a teasing smile. “Surely you don’t mean that.”
“No,” he chuckled. “I love how she can always pick up on topics that would’ve been complicated for her age. She's a really sharp kid. She got that from you.”
She stood and wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. “Overly curious, too. She got that from you.”
Zuko pressed their foreheads together. “I’d choose to be banished from the Fire Nation again over being with anyone else,” he closed his eyes, like the mere thought of not having her physically pains him. “You know that, right? We’ve known each other our whole lives, Firelily.”
Bridging the gap, she traced the trail of his scar before capturing his lips in a searing kiss. “So dramatic. Yes, I know you’re obsessed with me, Fire Lord.”
Zuko planted reverent kisses on the pale column of her throat, smiling smugly when he felt her breath hitch.
“The whole court knows it, too,” he said before leaving a mark on her collarbone, then stepped back to admire his handiwork, seeing red bloom in stark contrast against creamy white skin.
“Remember when you told me that the first thing you'll do as Fire Lord is to ban all fathers from cheating?”
Zuko’s fingers paused from drumming on her bare back. “Yeah. I was pretty naive, huh?” he responded sheepishly.
“I think the gesture was sweet,” she looked into his eyes so he could know that she wasn’t mincing her words. “This country has come a long way, Zuko. You're a good leader and a good dad in comparison to what we've both had to grow up with.”
He shrugged. “I mean, there really isn't much to compare. The bar’s quite low.”
“Maybe. But I can see every step taken so we can heal from the past. You've set a new standard.”
Now it was his turn to look at her seriously. “We’ve set a new standard. You and me.”
“Yeah, you and me,” she repeated, smiling as she looked back on their progress.
Zuko nudged her with his shoulder. “I can't help but notice that you haven't mentioned anything about me being a good husband.”
“Really? After everything I just said? That's what you're hung up on?” she deadpanned, but then squealed despite herself when he started tickling her.
“Come on, Firelily,” he laughed, unrelenting in his quest to hear what he wanted.
Mai gave him a challenging stare, her eyes shining dangerously in the firelight. “Make me.”
Not to be outdone, Zuko leveled with a piercing gaze of his own, hands drifting to the curves of her waist.
“Challenge accepted, my Lady. I'll get to work immediately.”