idk how this will work just yet but let me tell you the second i figure it out it’s over for you guys. this literally is born from me deciding that at some point azula dragged ty lee and her to see the ember island play about the avatar and the second yue is talked about mai just knows. and then she has to listen to some bs about how she turned into the moon (which sounds impossible but then again her soulmark is half gray, half full of color which also should be impossible). fast forward to the boiling rock and you have mai dealing with this accumulation of bad feelings. she’s coming to terms with the knowledge that her soulmate was gone before she could even think to meet her, she’s dealing with zuko’s betrayal, and realizing that she wants to go against azula. maybe she should’ve thought of an escape plan before she helped the prisoners escape but she really can’t find herself to care once she’s thrown in a cell. there’s nothing waiting for her outside anyway. her friends are gone. her soulmate’s been gone. (in this au, ty lee is wrestling with her own inner conflict with azula being her soulmate and is too late to help mai once she’s been arrested so you don’t have the scene with ty lee chi blocking azula to help mai - of course she’ll help in other ways later, with slipping into the prison and helping mai to escape, just not in that instance). now that i’m thinking about it this could go two ways. mai becomes a spirit and finds peace with yue OR yue gets a physical form, there’s some crazy adventure they both have to go on because the war still needs to ended, and they find themselves growing closer as they learn to live with one another.
