Forged In Fire || ATLA

Swing Life Away

The Headband - Fin

"Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up? Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck? Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost? I'll show you mine if you show me yours first, let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse. Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words." - Rise Against

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko invited Mai out with him the next morning in an attempt to fix what he had broken. The two sat side by side on a blanketed cliff just outside the city, the early morning sun rising above the horizon, the scene a wash of warm hues. The eldest Prince had apologized once already when he showed up at the Irimi family home early that morning but little more had been said since then.

Mai decided she might as well be the first to break the silence.

"Orange is such an awful color," She scoffed in a manner that she had perfected over the years.

It made Zuko laugh, his stomach lighter at the knowledge that at least some things had remained the same. There had been a time when interactions between the two of them had been easy. Azula may have always been a terror to deal with but her friends had been kind to him nonetheless, even when there were whispers of an innocent crush between the Prince and Mai long before he realized there was only one person that truly dominated his thoughts. "You're so beautiful when you hate the world." Zuko teased her gently.

Mai snorted out a gruff laugh of her own and the weight of the tension between the two of them began to melt away. "You know, I don't hate you," She said after a moment and meant it. Despite the whole chaotic mess they were in, she didn't think she had it in her to hate Zuko. They could almost relate to one another more than anyone else could, both of them chained down and confined by the plans and expectations of parents who didn't really know who their children were.

Too bad Mai knew who she was, suppressed it, and was left to do nothing but guess as she tried to figure out who the Zuko sitting before her now was.

Still, he smiled at her, a soft and bittersweet thing when he admitted, "I don't hate you too."

Zuko wondered if this is the time that he should kiss her. They were shoulder-to-shoulder where they sat, faces pointed toward one another, the scene before them daring either of them to admit the image was that of a storybook romance. The Prince had shared a similar moment with an Earth Kingdom girl too kind for him to ever truly be associated with, and he had kissed her then. He had kissed his brothers' future wife in situations both more and less ideal, even if the memories of those made his stomach lurch.

Zuko could kiss Mai, he supposed. He should, at least. He'd have to one day, he knew that much, but as in denial of his own feelings as Zuko was, it would take a truly ignorant bastard to not realize his future wife was in love with another woman.

Suddenly the Prince felt guilty, as if he was the one that personally pulled Mai into this mess and forced her hand. "You were right yesterday," Zuko admitted after a moment, upset with himself for the treatment she didn't deserve. "I made you a promise and I broke it already. I'm sorry."

"Shit happens," Mai waved off the emotion behind his words, uncomfortable with it all and nowhere near ready to deal with her own feelings or anyone else's. "We'll be fine."

"Will we?" Zuko asked. "Are you really okay with all of...this?" He gestured between them.

"Happy as a clam." She lied. When the Prince stared at her pointedly, she sighed. "It's not what either of us actually wants but we'll do it anyway 'cause we're supposed to, right?"

"I never..."

"You don't have to say anything," Mai cut him off. "I'm not stupid or in denial like you are."