Once Burned

Summary: "My mother thought I was a monster, my own brother left me, my friends betrayed me, and my own father abandoned me to go fulfill his dreams of conquering the world. The only one I have left is myself...or am I slowly losing that too?" Mai discovers a diary and ends up exploring the mind of a ruthless killer.

Author's Notes: My first fanfic.What? I know... you're thinking, "Not another Azula redemption story!" Am I right? Well, it just might not end up that way! ;) Who knows? Not even I do...or do I? Let's move on!

Disclaimer: If Avatar had stock, then and ONLY then would I own at least a part of it and its characters. I don't own anything.

Chapter 1

Prologue

Morning. The sun was rising ever so slightly, its light painting a beautiful purplish-pink color in the sky that was its canvas. It was truly a work of art with a life of its own. The sun itself looked like half an orange circle on the horizon with trees poking out on the border. The city looked truly beautiful during this hour, even though on the inside, it was filled with the turmoil of a failing economy, and the outbreaks of riots from its citizens who dare not accept such radical changes that have happened within the past two weeks.

But not even this glorious sight could create a different expression on Mai's bored-looking face.

As she stood there on the balcony of her room staring out at what lay before her, she thought of what had happened in the past that had ended them in a situation like this. At first glance, it seemed like a small scratch, yet another inspection revealed that scratch as a gaping hole. With Zuko as the new Fire Lord, the Fire Nation would finally be at peace with its neighbors. Alliances would be established, and war would be a thing of the past. They knew that there would be a few bumps along the way; in fact, they were expecting it. They just didn't think that it would be this difficult to get it under control.

Poor Zuko. He must be under a lot of stress.

That was an understatement of course. There were times when Zuko skipped meals and even whole nights of sleep trying to find a solution with the leaders of the other two nations on how to deal with the aftermath of the war. Not only that, but she knew that he was thinking of his sister as well. She didn't see why though. She had nearly killed both of them. Why should they give her the luxury of mercy when she herself had never shown anyone else that? Sometimes, Mai wanted to question his way of thinking, but most of the time held her tongue knowing that that would earn her a cold, hard glare from him; something she was used to when it came to the topic of Azula.

She sighed and decided to shove those thoughts away, burying it within the recesses of her mind. Today, she would try to comfort Zuko and help ease some of the workload off of him, no matter how small the task would appear to be.

Mai walked down the long corridor toward two rather large-looking doors that was being guarded by two Fire Nation officers of superior ranking, one on each side. She finally reached the entrance to the library which just might have been the hugest in the entire Fire Nation capital. Well, of course! This was a palace meant for royalty, and if royalty wanted scrolls in a huge room, royalty was going to have scrolls in a huge room. She nodded and spoke with a bored tone.

"So, I'm guessing Zuko's in there?"

"Yes, my lady," responded the guard on the right. "But, Fire Lord Zuko has specifically requested that he not be bothered at this time. He is extremely busy with the affairs of the the Fire Nation, you see."

"Right, and I'm just gonna sit here like a piece of chopped meat and wait 'till he comes out."

"M'lady?" She already missed her name.

After a few seconds of deliberating to herself, she was determined that she was going to see Zuko, now or never.

"Look, I just wanted to see him for a few seconds. That's all. And if he can't at least spare a few seconds of his time, what gives me the guarantee that he'll spare a few hours later in the future? So, could you please step aside? I am the Fire Lady after all."

Hopefully the two guards would be too distracted by her anger to see how lame of an excuse that was.

"O-Of course. Of course." Success!

The guard on the right nodded to the one on the left, and they both opened each door, revealing dozens and dozens of wooden shelves all crammed with scrolls! The ceiling practically looked like it was miles away from the floor! The only light that illuminated the entire room came from the outside. The flooring was all carpet colored in a rich shade of burgundy.

Mai noticed that her eyes were slightly widened and immediately closed them back into its other state. She had never been to the library, well, at least this one. Amazingly, right?

All this time and Azula never mentioned it.

She walked to the center of the library and looked around hoping to find Zuko anywhere. Instead, there was a circular desk with a middle-aged woman wearing glasses sitting down while reading a scroll. Probably the librarian. She looked quite frail and had graying raven hair, which meant that she was a native of the Fire Nation. Of course. Not seeing Zuko anywhere, Mai walked over to where the woman was sitting and decided to ask her where the Fire Lord was.

"Um, excuse me?"

The woman brought down her scroll and let out a small gasp as the realization of who she was talking to just hit her.

"I'm so sorry, Fire Lady Mai!" she said with a bow.

"Actually, it's quite all right..." Why does everyone do that? I'm not married to him... yet!

The woman brought her head up once again. "So what brings her highness to these parts of the palace?" she asked with a smile.

"Well, I was looking for Zuk- I mean, the Fire Lord, and I was told that he would be in here..."

"And he is, just not in this room." She promptly turned to another door Mai hadn't noticed before. "He's in there," she said pointing to it. "You'll find him sitting by a desk buried in paperwork." Then she frowned slightly. "I feel sorry for him. All he wants is peace, and the people give him revolts!"

Yeah, you and me both, lady.

Mai bowed to show respect and thanked her for her kindness. She then quickly turned and headed for the newly discovered room. She grabbed a handle and pulled. Once inside, she found herself having a hard time adjusting her eyes to the light. Unlike the previous room, this one was less illuminated. It was dark and her eyes were drawn to a fireplace already lit up. It sparked and she felt comforted by it. Then she saw a a large comfortable-looking chair in front of the fireplace, except its back was facing her. She could only bet that Zuko was sitting in it reading some paper about the agriculture of the land. She hurriedly walked over to the side of it, making Zuko jump up, spilling some scrolls onto the floor.

"Mai?" he said surprised by her appearance. He quickly picked up the fallen scrolls. "What-what are you doing here?"

What? How could he ask her that? Wasn't he happy seeing her there?

"I just wanted to see how you were doing, that's all."

He looked terrible. He had bags under his red eyes and his clothes were disheveled after at least a day and a half of use.

He enveloped her in a hug after seeing the expression on her face. "I'm sorry. Things... haven't been exactly the same since the riots started."

Riots. There were all too common nowadays. Crime was slowly increasing. It was at an all-time high than it was a few weeks ago.

"I know. I...actually, I came to see if you needed help with anything. Like deciding on which city needed the most repair, or delivering any valuable inventory." The second because theft wasn't that far behind on the list of rising problems. I'm good at that. I used to deliver secret inventory when Azula gave me that job to do. With that name in her head, she shook it vigorously.

"Are you okay?" Zuko asked filled with concern.

"Uh, yeah!...I'm fine." Then a few seconds of silence ensued. Finally, Zuko broke the silence.

"Listen, leave all of this stuff to me. These are my problems that I have to deal with. I am the Fire Lord. I can handle this. Everything will be fine." Another quick hug was exchanged between the two of them.

"If I find a problem I can't fix, I'll make sure to come directly to you." he said with a smile and a wink.

Mai smiled herself. There was no use talking him out out of it. He was always so stubborn. "All right...And I'll make sure to use that against you if you don't." She kissed him on his cheek. "Have fun reading some more scrolls!" She walked out of the room leaving Zuko smiling from the sarcasm that was just thrown at him.

With nothing else to do today, Mai, bored as ever, decided to explore the library. Maybe she would be able to find some interesting scrolls, like journal entries from previous war generals, or scrolls filled with depressing poems that she would love to read.

She looked around on the shelves and picked a random scroll and took it from its position. However, when she did, another scroll dropped opening it slightly. Mai sighed and bent down to pick it up. She glanced at it once, but one glance was all she needed. The first words she saw was: Mai and Ty Lee had decided to...

Mai and Ty Lee? Why would we be in some random history scroll?

She placed the original scroll she picked out previously back in the same spot. Now she only focused her attention on the scroll on the ground. She picked it up and opened it widely. She looked for a name, any name that would identify its owner. After a few seconds, her search had found its target.

Running over to where the middle-aged woman was, she placed her hand on the desk and tried to catch her breath.

"What happened? Are you all right?" she asked quite surprised herself.

The only thing that came out of her mouth was, "Where-Where did you find this?"

She took the scroll and inspected it. She found her scroll identification stamp. "Well, this looks recent."

She took a closer look. "Oh, I remember this! I found this out in the garden one day. Oh, you should have seen it! It was almost about to fall into the turtleduck pond. I thought it was just misplaced by some misfit who decided they could care less about returning it, but... it seems to have, importance?"

She eyed Mai, but Mai wasn't really paying attention. She only stared confused at the bold letters in a familiar writing she recognized right away. It was part of the first entry to the entire diary:

My name is Azula, princess of the Fire Nation.