Those Left Behind

Chapter Four: Understanding Truth

The hawk that returned with news about Zuko was not Mai's own, but a squat, aged one bearing the seal of the Fire Lord's service. She recognized her uncle's bird immediately and frowned deeply, opening the scroll with a dignified snap. The rap on her door that came as she scanned the contents with an ever-sinking heart could only be Azula coming to fetch her for a task she was not entirely prepared for. She balled up her uncle's letter and stood, bracing herself.

The door swung open and Azula strode in with a self-satisfied smirk. "I see your uncle has already contacted you with our… fortunate situation. Ty Lee is already preparing for the trip, and I trust that you will be fully prepared to make the journey with us?" Azula crossed her arms under her breasts and her expression told Mai that she didn't have much of a choice. "We will be escorting one of our prisoners to the Boiling Rock as well. Be prepared to depart in an hour." When Mai had nodded numbly, Azula turned on her heel and marched out of the door.

Mai, on the other hand, sunk into a nearby chair and shielded her eyes with her fingers. She had chosen to help the prisoners—had sided with the Avatar in this battle—but she still wasn't sure she could handle Zuko just yet. She had written to him and tried to think of every conceivable reason why he would leave and let her find out from a letter that could only be a cheap replacement for the loss she suffered when he left. It was a matter of time before her treachery was revealed. Mai trembled at the thought of failing at the one thing she had chosen to assert herself in. She inhaled very slowly, and then rose out of the chair. They were escorting a prisoner to the Boiling Rock?

Her heart sank, knowing precisely who would have been selected for transfer, and she stood abruptly. She didn't have much time, if it was Hakoda who had been selected for transfer, as he doubtlessly would have been. The Boiling Rock was reserved for the most significant threats to stability in the Fire Nation, and a leader of an invasion into the Fire Nation capitol would certainly be considered a significant threat when still surrounded by his comrades. She checked the knives tucked into her wrist springs and proceeded to tuck more into hidden folds of fabric. There wasn't much time.

She was quick to the prison, hoping she would have beaten Ty Lee and Azula, both of whom had an annoying habit of being early to everything. Nodding to the guards outside the large prison, she stepped out of the shadows before the large cell. Every prisoner froze and stared at her.

"One of you has been selected for transfer to the Boiling Rock." She announced loudly, ensuring that the guards outside could hear her. "Chief Hakoda, you will step forward."

Several prisoners stepped aside to reveal Hakoda from their midst. "I figured this day would come." He didn't dare to give Mai a smile, but stood calmly as the guards stepped forward to fit him into his restraints.

She walked around him carefully, as though inspecting the restraints, before leaning over to his ear. "You should have no hope where you're going." The whisper was loud enough for the guards to hear, and they exchanged a quick smile and moved back to their stations.

"I will never lose hope in the Avatar." Hakoda told her defiantly.

"Prince Zuko is at the Boiling Rock. Please… Don't reveal me. I need to go as far as I can with this."

Hakoda's defiant smile grew broader. "I will never betray those I have placed my trust in."

Breathing an internal sigh of relief, Mai marched from the room just as Azula rounded the corner, Ty Lee in tow. "I presume you intended their leader to be transferred?" She gestured behind her, where the guards were scrambling to bring Hakoda forward.

Azula's mouth twisted in what could have been a smile, were the disdainful elitism not apparent. "Oh, Mai, you ruin all the fun in it."

Mai's monotonous frown didn't move from her face. "It's a prisoner, Azula, not a toy. Let's just get him to Uncle's prison." She glided past the princess with a blank look.

"Mai?" Azula's tone had the same simper it always did before she was about to move in for the kill. "Are you sure you'll be able to go with us?"

She didn't turn. "What are you talking about, Azula?"

"Will you be able to handle seeing Zuko again, after he left you like that? We never did get a response with your bird, you know…" She trailed off, and Mai could feel the smirk crossing her face.

"Leave Zuko to me. I assure you, I haven't forgotten that my duties outweigh my feelings… Or whatever is left of them after your brother had the courtesy of ripping them up." She strode out of the prison to Azula's waiting war balloon.

The trip was short—shorter than Mai might have hoped, given the swirl of butterflies and movement in her stomach. She stared out across the landscape with nothing more than an emotionless glaze over her eyes, wondering how she could possibly even look at Zuko without some sort of emotion.

When he was deposited before her, the only reasonable one she could manage was indignant anger, and when he left her locked in the cell with nothing more than a hurried apology, Mai wondered why she was even bothering with her treason when Zuko had chosen his over her. She had only so long to stew in her indignation before she remembered that the only reason she had chosen to betray her homeland was because he had obviously seen something worthwhile in this path… So she had chosen it. The matter was living with it, no matter what. If Zuko saw fit to throw away his crown for this new world, she could see fit to keep searching for the reason why it was all so worth it and live with the consequences that came with it.

Locks were never a problem for Mai, but Azula's idea of a place where she and Ty Lee would never be seen by the furious princess again was not the Boiling Rock, but back in the Fire Nation capitol, where they could await judgment. Their past involvement with Azula nearly guaranteed exile, but in the meantime, they were isolated in prison cells adjacent to the ones Mai had spent her time connecting with other prisoners. The walls were thin, and Ty Lee didn't speak to Mai for days in horror of her actions, but Mai could hear the other prisoners whispering in the dark at night, planning for the second invasion, patiently waiting without a shred of doubt that they may ever be betrayed by their Avatar.

She stared at her tattered prison clothes and the dirty ceiling and wondered how long she had to wait with them. Her dreams were littered with split images: those of perishing at Azula's hands in the prison as Zuko and his new comrades failed in their treason and those of success in what she had once imagined impossible, and the release of her darker despair.

Ty Lee tapped lightly on the wooden wall she was sitting against. "Mai?"

"Yes, Ty Lee?"

"Are we going to make it out of here alive?"

"I suppose if Zuko and the others ever come back."

"You mean, if they win."

Mai was quiet for a long time, staring at the ceiling and struggling with fledgling hope which threatened to be quashed by her situation at any moment. "They will." She murmured, barely loud enough to be heard. "And they'll come for us."

"How do you know?" Ty Lee was kneeling by the wall, voice trembling as Mai knew the girl was.

"You just… have to have a little faith in them." She managed, swallowing a growing lump. "That they won't forget the ones they left behind."

There was a soft thump as Ty Lee turned to sit on the dirt floor, leaning against the opposite side of the wall, staring at the ceiling, much as Mai was. "Then they'll come back?"

"And they'll win."

Epilogue

The explosions outside the prison tower rocked even the dark foundation where most of the prisoners were held. Mai could feel the excitement build in the cell beside her, as the war prisoners cried prayers and thanksgiving for the return of the Avatar. She stood, waiting patiently in the otherwise empty cell as the explosions came closer to the prison on the surface, finally bursting through the ground-level entrance, up stairs, down corridors, and finally down the staircase that led to the cells where she and the others waited patiently.

As the ground above them rumbled, destruction and freedom moving ever closer to them, Mai smiled faintly.

End

Note: So, this is the end. I may come back and add an alternate ending, because I don't know exactly how I feel about it. The Boiling Rock threw off a lot of what I had planned, but provided a much neater execution for essentially the same thing as I wanted. The epilogue and the last half of the actual chapter are what I wanted for the end of the story (only considerably more condensed—for better or worse), and the epilogue came out precisely as I wanted… I had just been planning on another few chapters to fill in the space between the message to Zuko and Mai's betrayal. I know it seems like a big jump, but after seeing the episodes this is really all I could manage (the next chapter was going to segue into this anyway). To everyone who has been reading this story: thank you so much for supporting this, even as life in the real world exploded for me! I hope you all will continue to support me in my future writing endeavors (which promise to have less sudden endings).