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Chapter Text

 The sailor carries along a tiny stretcher.

 So small it could fit a child, but not much else.

 Light, smelling like overcooked meat.

 Like charred skin, like an accidental battlefield.

Her name is Yua, but that does not matter. Not here and not now, for, in that night, not much matters.

The woman-named-Yua is carrying up an infirmary stretcher, along with her coworker.

 His name doesn't matter, and neither does the glint in his eyes, the tense lines of his face, the features lit up by moonlight, white-bathed disgust. 

 Not much matters but their positions, working as sailors in a Banishment Cruise.

 Dropping off the unwanted in the remote shores of the Earth Kingdom's southern province.

Sailors have a tendency to search for reasons to drink. The suspiciously covered, mysteriously light stretcher might be one of them.

 A part of her is scared to look down, even as they enter a more well-lit part of the city.

"Who the fuck banishes someone this tiny?" her friend mutters, staring in disgust at the face below him. 

Yua doesn't want to look, but she does. Up at her, stares a tiny, skinny face, swathed in bloodstained bandages.

 It - he - reeks of burn cream and pasty medicine, but the stink of burned meat is there, in the background.

"Poor kid. Must've pissed somebody off real bad." she says. It's the reason most people end up on the Sunnyside. They're inconvenient. No longer useful, but ignorant enough not to warrant an execution. 

Maybe he isn't even banished, a part of her thinks, maybe he's being sent away for some other reason. 

 But Yua doesn't have it in her to think that, so she scraps it like she's scrapped the letter the boy came with earlier.

They walk out of the old doctor's cousin's home, where they had come to pick up the castaway - an odd practice, but not unheard of -, reaching silence as they pass through the Caldera streets.

Their ship is decked, an old vessel, long since retired. It is dark, and there's nobody in the deck. No tobacco chewing, no alcohol stench. 

 They probably went to a bar or something, Yua thinks and shrugs.

No procession for the disgraced. No witnesses.

A gentle breeze drifts past them. The board is lowered, and they both know how inconvenient it will be to go up there.

Maybe Yua should convince her friend to throw the boy into the ocean.

"How long do you think he's gonna last?" he asks her, right as she's about to ask him the same question.

"I hope the doc puts him down." she says, gently, ignoring the curious, cruel part of her that wants to see what is behind the bandages. Unwrap the gift, before throwing it away.

"Yeah." he whispers back, as if saying words that the wind won't carry away would stir up angry spirits "It would be the best thing to do."

As they talk, the boy stirs ever so slightly, but doesn't break his opium-induced sleep.

"Shh, lil' fella." she whispers, with a kindness that she usually reserves for pretty women and cute puppy-lizards. "It'll be fine."

That isn't a thing they usually tell banished people. Mostly because they don't deserve niceties, but also because it's a lie. And a bad, cruel one at that.

The boy, who had once been a prince, ascending in the line of succession with his cousin's recent death, drifts back to a fitful sleep, reassured by a voice that, to his delirious mind, sounded like his mother's.

-

Reiki is just a doctor. One might ask why her name is here, if she is just supposed to be a mere bystander to the story.

And that is because she doesn't plan to be. That option, it passes through neither her mind nor her heart.

Because there's a nameless child - no documents, no anything, not even a letter - gently laid on an infirmary cot that night. He doesn't even twitch, as she pokes and prods.

 Painkillers. For now, a blessing. His goodbye kiss from that nation.

He doesn't look a day over ten, and most of his face has been burned off. Swiped, erased.

 He looks like he was treated by a Fire Healer, actually. She'd only known one of them, in all her life. Curious.

Of course, that doesn't erase the damage. Removed eyeballs, an infection setting into the ugly, twisting wound. It is almost shaped like fingertips, at the corners, before fading into explosions of angry red scabs and white pus.

"They didn't warn me that they were sending off someone this injured." she tells the woman, who was to join the crew for that voyage. "We've got no fucking painkillers. None strong enough for this, at least."

"Yeah, me neither. Didn't even look at its face 'til I got told he was a kid." she says, as Reiki analyzes the wound.

"It's so fucked. Who the hell banishes a kid without even sending off painkillers?"

"That's ya line? The painkillers? Not the child?" 

"Well, that too, buddy." she forces out "But still. No painkillers? It's... Weird."

"Don't talk to me like I know jackshit, doc." she says "I sneaked some booze into my cabin earlier, but I can afford to share, if you wait a minute or two."

Reiki doesn't grieve yet, as she applies a generous layer of burn salve, one of the few things their ship is fully supplied with, to the whimpering child's face.

She's glad whoever took care of him shaved the hair off of the wound. Makes the job easier for everybody, even if it looks really ugly. It's gonna grow back uneven, but she argues that the kid won't even be there to see it.

She'd seen many of the inconvenient before. Indebted men, prostitutes, a dancer or two. Overall, nobody much too important.

But she'd never seen anybody that young. Not in all her years.

Maybe she should find that strange. But she's long grown desensitized to that sort of stuff. 

"What happened to you, though?" she can't keep the intrigue off her voice. It's morbid, but it's curiosity nonetheless.

She wants the kid to survive to tell her the story.

And, if he stays like that, Reiki can see that he isn't going to get far.

They're setting sail next morning. In two weeks' time, they'll drop off those people at some neutral areas and colonies.

Reiki isn't gonna ilude herself. That kid isn't living for long, especially after he leaves the Sunnyside. But she can't just let him die, can she?

"Hey, doc!" the woman from earlier whisper-yells, setting foot into the tiny infirmary. "Got ya some good shite!"

"It smells like shite, just not the good kind." she states, as she is handed a half-full bottle of some wine, the kind that not even cheap chefs try to use for cooking. 

 It's gonna serve, though, if its alcoholic enough to put him to bed. And, since it's coming from a sailor, it probably is.

The kid stirs again, his nose contorting when he smells the syrup.

"See, even this kid has better taste in alcohol than you." Reiki jabs, playful for a second. It feels forced, though. Stupid.

Hit with a sudden wave of guilt, she puts the drink down on her desk, the only thing separating the two infirmary beds. The boy just sneezes and goes back to sleep, no more movement of him. 

"I'm keeping it." she tells the woman, not worried about how suddenly serious she must seem, and sets it aside. 

"D'aw, doc-" she says, lightheartedly "If you change your mind, tell me. That's my favorite."

"Why didn't you bring another one, then?" she gestures vaguely, and then starts re-wrapping the bandages around the kid's face. She can't help but be exasperated at the woman, even if it feels like she's just taking it out on her because of the situation.

"Hey." she drawls "Is he gonna be fine? Like, sure, I'mma miss my stuff, but can you tell me he'll be a'ight?"

She could lie, but she won't. Reiki doesn't have it in her to do so.

"Hopefully. But he's unresponsive right now." she admits, shoulders sagging. She doesn't like the concept of losing someone that young. "Not even painkiller-still. I'm talking borderline earth -oma."

"He looks sturdy, doc. Like a little rock." she gets a pat in the back from the woman. "He'll be fine."

Reiki takes a look at the kid. He breathes out, in a stable, controlled fashion, and the unbandaged part of his face twitches.

She hopes he is stronger than a pebble. La will be rough on him, and even the strongest rock can be eroded by the steady currents of the sea.

-

He comes to in a panic, as they leave the shore. He's been on and off for the whole nigh, and his screaming's already gone hoarse, and Reiki's ears have long grown used to it. 

 He was loud, a couple hours ago.

"Kid, calm down." she tells him.

"Where am I?" his voice's barely there, as he trashes around blindly, grabbing onto anything he can get to. "Doctor-"

"Are you in pain?" she asks, getting up from her stoll. She had been occupying herself with watching him for a bit, now.

He shakes his head fervently, in a clear lie.

"No?" she asks.

"No." he says, and turns back. "Are you the housemaid? Didn't they tell you to leave me alone?!"

"Yes you are." she takes a hand to his neck, to feel his pulse. "And you're drinking some tea. It'll help with the fever, too."

"No!" he barks. "I am-"

"You're hurt as fuck, and we're leaving shore. I won't stay with you during a month-long trip while you scream nonstop."

She goes to her desk, and opens the cabinet, as he screeches at his greatest capacity. It's of great luck, that the infirmary is, for the moment, empty. 

 His screaming, coupled with his condition, would be enough for some guards to take matters upon their hands.

Reiki's wonders how much of his condition he is aware of. But, for now, she can't ask him many questions. He has little energy, and his infection has come back - yes, it is minor, and mostly around the eye cavities, not in them themselves -, so he can't be in much more strain than what is needed.

The bottle is in a cabinet. She poursa small dose of it along with some ground-up turmeric, glad the boy won't see the unapetizing color it turns into.

 She has to cut the usual dose in half. He isn't an adult, too much would be wasteful.

"Open up the way, royalty incoming." she can't help but say that, because she can't pretend, for even a second, that he is anything but a child.

"I'm the Prince of this nation and you will obey me-" he starts, panting heavily.

"Sure thing." she doesn't even give the lie a good look, because she knows how delirious people can get. Fever can drive a man mad.

"Now come on, open up."

"N-" and it's down his throat. Reiki reasons that it's what her mother would've done.

He coughs, but swallows it down eventually.

 "Why did you do that?!" he growls out.

"Because you, little fella, are running a fever high enough to pass as an oven." she resists the urge to give his nose a little boop.

  "I'm not a little fella!" he gestures wildly, especially for  a little oven fella "I'm Prince Zuko of the fire nation!"

"Would you like to give me your actual name?" She sighs, suddenly realizing that she is incredibly sleep deprived right now. "I'm Reiki, and I'm the ship doctor. We're going to the earth kingdom."

"We're what?!" he yells "Change courses, now!"

She isn't a firebender, but there's a reason they teach breathing exercises at school.

"Kid. Please. Just tell me your actual name."

"I told you!" he gesticulates wildly "I'm Prince Zuko!"

"Fine, if you're not telling me your name, can you tell me if you're a bender or not? We have special care regimens for benders, because they need more sun and more food."

He flinches. With his shoulders tense, he trembles out a "No.", as if he expects her to hit him for it.

She doesn't know who that child is. Maybe he doesn't know, either. She's heard of people driven delusional from trauma, but she'd never seen one herself.

But maybe Reiki can help him. 

"It's fine, kid. You want some tea?" 

She has nothing else to say. All that she knows is that life must go on.

-

Recovery isn't always linear, but a part of Reiki thinks the boy isn't recovering at all.

His fever runs hotter and hotter the further they get from the island, and whatever she manages to shove down his throat comes back up nearly immediately.

He barely wakes up, and she has to keep him dosed off every night. It isn't the most effective painkiller, but they're not eqquipped for injuries such as the boy's.

Reiki doesn't like giving up. Yes, he is an annoying, delusional little kid. But anyone with working eyes and half a brain can know what he's been through. Maybe he straight up believes what he's saying.

He doesn't match the portraits scattered in posters all around the city-island of Caldera, even before they were replaced by memorials.

"Hey, doc." the sailor from earlier, Yua, comes in. She's been on and off of the infirmary all the time the kid's been there, and she doesn't even fake having a reason for it "how's the little boulder holding up?"

"He's sleeping right now." she says "But he's getting better."

"You're not a good liar." she tells Reiki "I know he's got a sea-fever, you were complaining about it yesterday. Yesternight. Whatever."

"Well, he's awake for longer now. And the infected area is leaking less." she shrugs "I don't know how long he'll survive once we have to leave him at shore, though. You don't happen to have any earth kingdom friends, do ya?"

Yua laughs. It's a loud, snort-honking sound.

"I'm not into dirt eaters, doc." she sits down on an empty cot. It's on the other side of the infirmary from the boy, but they can both see him, turning on his sleep now. "But maybe you can charm a pretty boy to let the kid in for a bit."

Reiki laughs.

"Too old for that, and I don't have the patience either."

"Oh?" she asks "You're not old, you're charming as fuck, doc."

"He'll wake up soon" she can't muster up any other answer for the woman, even as she winks at Reiki "You can stay here and wait. If you want to, of course."

She hopes that the request for company doesn't go unanswered. Because Reiki hopes for many things. It's a natural tendency, for most people.

-

Fire Lord Azulon dies, suspiciously, the night Princess Ursa of the Fire Nation - soon to be Fire Lady - learns of her son's disappearance, and sees bloodstains on her beloved husband's shirt and smells burned meat in the courtyard.

The disappearance of the boy is announced on the next day. The announcement is made, that anyone matching the child's portrait is to be brought to the palace and identified properly.

It is mysterious. Had anyone known of the boy's interruption of his father's meeting with the Fire Lord, it might've been suspect. 

But to all concerned, it was a secret.

And to anyone but the doctor who found the boy lying dead-still but breathing, it is a mystery, how, the night Fire Lord Azulon died, Soon-To-Be Fire Lady Ursa and Princess Azula disappeared.

The doctor - his name isn't important - cares for the boy. He disinfects the burns, peels away dead skin, and conducts the necessary procedures when the infection spreads from one eye socket to the other.

He grieves for him, as he travels to a shady area of the town and hands that child - so far away from ever being a man - off to a suspicious ship, where his once-apprentice, a woman of the name Reiki, had a steady job.

Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation is announced dead. To anyone concerned, the boy aboard that banishment cruise, is but a delusional child traumatized by his experiences.

 The doctor stands, every night, and wonders what sort of man he would've become.

-

The days pass as a blur, blending together like watercolors. 

Reiki has always found it calming, comforting, to slip into a routine and just stay like that.

Her sleep comes in short bursts, caring for an increasing number of patients. Seasickness, hangover sickness, sickness in general. Lots of it.

And she will check on the boy, constantly.

His infection is giving way, she's going to have to start unwrapping the bandages for longer periods of time to let them get air. He's moving more, and she's been doing exercises with him.

Because they're to arrive soon.

She keeps him awake as much as she can, but no willow-bark tea and no burn paste can get through his thick skull, can make him admit his true name.

For he always tells her, with no variation, that his name is Zuko, and that he is the Prince of the Fire Nation.

And she doesn't know what to do.

Reiki has her hands tied behind her back. The boy is mad.

And she can't give up on him.

Yua becomes a constant presence, there too whenever she has free time.

She calls the boy Little Rock, and looks at Reiki and mutters something about how delusional minds don't change from one hour to the next, even if not in those same terms.

They keep the boy a semi-secret. Nobody approaches him, never directly. They learned not to quick enough.

She doesn't know what Yua told them so that would happen, but she's glad.

And so, the days drift by. La lulls her to sleep, and Agni brings her work every day.

The sea is calm, and slowly, the boy can walk a little bit, can go to the bathroom with only minor aid.

He learns on his own pace. Some days, he can't do much.

He is stubborn, though.

He is a little rock, so that's what she calls him in her head.

Reiki is scared of telling Yua that. Because a part of her wonders if she is going insane, too.

-

 "How bad does it look?" He asks her, when she leaves the bandages off for an hour.

 Reiki's answer comes out far too late to matter.

-

"Shut up, won't you?!" the not-prince tells Yua, as she peppers in an anecdote about how she once faked her identity. "I don't care! I'm speaking the truth, and I do not care for your stupid lack of honor!"

His voice has recovered. The bandages are off, for some of the daytime. But none of that is as important as the sheer vocal range of the boy.

"I've never accused you of lying." even though he can't see it, she raises her hands up. "I'm just saying I faked my passport."

He screams and clearly refrains himself from shoving his face into the pillow.

"You know what you're trying to get me to say!"

"That you're-"

"That I'm not me!" he points to himself. "But I am! I'm still me, alright?"

His voice breaks a bit.

"Nobody ever said you weren't you. Do you want some tea?"

"No." he turns away from her "I don't want your stupid tea."

"All the more for me, then."

"I will not believe that you drink willow bark willingly." he crosses his arms. 

"Oh, she does." Reiki peppers in, from where she had been standing on the doorway "She has horrible taste."

"Hmph." he is ignoring them now.

They don't see him grimace when they fake-shout at eachother.

-

The fact that there is a child on the banishment ship becomes an open secret. The doctor and a particularly burly sailor won't let anyone near the kid, but whoever visits the infirmary can see him.

Even if they could, nobody would visit him. He isn't familiar. He is just a tragedy, another life barely hung onto.

But, in nobody's mind, does it ever pass by the thought of that face, unrecognizable from whatever it was before, having any similarity to one that used to be in a portrait of the royal family.

And if it does, then it doesn't matter.

-

Yua had never been there during one of the boy's nightmares.

But Reiki had left that night, and she decided to cover the shift, as there was only one patient. A stable one, at that.

Maybe the privacy is for the best, even if there isn't anyone but her in there to comfort him.

He is thrashing about wildly on his bed, and, as she comes nearer, she hears his pleas become more concrete. Audible. Terrifying.

"Father, please-" he gasps out "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to, it isn't my fault!" 

"Kid?" when she pokes his arm, he flinches away like her hands are on fire. "Buddy, buddy, wake up"

"Please- Don't- I'm- I'm your loyal son-"

"Wake up!" she takes his shoulders. "Just a dream, kiddo."

He snaps out of it, shaking and gasping for breath. How many times had this happened before?

"Go away!" is the first thing he says when he notices he is no longer in his dream.

"Not going anywhere." she plops down on the bed beside him. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"I don't need to talk about it, I'm not weak." he proclaims, with resolve. "And it won't happen again."

"I'll do something to get him to forgive me." and she knows whatever that is, it's gonna be bad for the boy, but she can't help it.

Yua nods, and hums.

-

They're one week away from the port.

Their time is running out. But the Little Rock, he's growing stronger.

And Reiki can't help but be delighted at that fact, even if he won't ever tell her his real name, or what happened to him, or anything that is true. But that doesn't matter. Not as much as the fact that he's survived this long.

"Good news, kid!" she tells him "Your infection is pretty much gone! You're still going to have to be careful for a while, though. Better safe than sorry."

"Am I gonna be able to cry again?" he asks her.

Reiki would like to think herself decent with people's bodies, but she's far from one that knows much about their minds.

She will just be honest. It isn't like her job is to do anything but that.

"No. Your tear ducts were damaged, but hey-" she nudges him "You're not going to need crying anymore. You're a strong little rock."

He flinches at the nickname, as it slips off her mouth.

Reiki doesn't notice it fully, and thus, doesn't wonder why.

-

Reiki knows homesickness when she sees it.

The boy is homesick. Grieving for what he will never again get to have. It’s a surprise she hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps it had only hit him now, though.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?" she asks him, as he faces the wall, eerily silent.

"What sort of story?" he turns to her.

"Well, I have a lot of medical books. They have plenty of anecdotes." she tells him.

"Do you have a theater scroll?" he asks, anxiously.

"I don't, and I don't think any of the other sailors have either." she shrugs at him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I know there guys. They don't read a lot. Especially stuff for kids like you."

"Not a kid." he grumbles, dejected.

"Alright then. But do you wanna hear medical stories or not?" she resists the urge to ruffle his hair. It's growing back, now, even if unevenly.

"Fine, if you have nothing else." Little Rock says, still disappointed.

-

"Can I go on a walk?" he suddenly asks, one evening, as he reluctantly takes a teacup from her hand.

"Uh?" Reiki had been reading to him, another medical scroll with some anecdotes. There's not much in terms of entertainment other than that, especially for a child like him.

"I want to go walking." he says, his legs swinging off the side of the bed. "I'm bored."

"Oh, I-" she starts. A part of her wonders how the rest of the crew, sailors and banished alike, would react to seeing him directly "As long as you hold onto me, I don't see why you can't."

"I don't need to." he whines.

"Yes you do. You've never walked around before, and I don't want you to bump on every single corner. I've heard of a guy who stubbed his toe so many time that-"

"You've read me that one already, remember?" he grumbles, but accepts and takes her hand. 

"And I'll keep reading it until you get the point." she tells him, as she helps him up. He's really light. Someone like Yua could throw him like a ball. "Do you mind walking around with no shoes? We've got none, sorry 'bout that."

"No." he says, straightening his infirmary robe.

"Where do you wanna go?" she then asks.

"I want to see the sun." he says, and then shakes his head "Feel it. Whatever."

"Then the deck it is. Tell me if you need help with the stairs, you haven't been walking a lot and your musculature is probably weakened because of it."

"Stop blaming me! It's not my fault you don't let me walk around." he says.

"Well, you're also injured. You told me your face still hurts, right?" she asks "And I don't want to risk you falling on it and opening the scabs again."

He shifts uncomfortably at the word scabs. 

"I don't need coddling." he shakes his head. "And you know that."

Thankfully, Little Rock doesn't use "I'm a prince" as an excuse anymore. That is good, if they're planning on bringing him to where more people can see. 

It's okay if she never knows his actual name, in the end, because what matters to Reiki is if he will survive.

And, unlikely enough, if he keeps down like he is right now, he just might.

She is delighted at taking small steps with him, up to the deck. Maybe they should’ve picked another time, she thinks, as she realizes her mistake.

The people are here. It’s break-time for the day shift, and snack time for the ones that are firebenders.

And the people watch.

Nobody's hiding it. Not from anyone, not even from the boy himself.

It's because he is a child. Just a little kid, like their sons and sisters and cousins. And they whisper, behind their hands like that will keep him from hearing them.

"What happened to him?"

"Did he get banished?”

“No, no, there’s no way.”

“He’s my niece’s age, Agni forsaken…”

And they watch, like he can't feel their stares, or hear their muttering. Reiki wonders how stupid they are.

He sits down, feeling the wind on his face. And then, he turns to her, and says:

"Reiki, tell them to stop looking at me!" it almost comes out as a whine.

"Can't make an official announcement, but you're pretty loud. I'm sure they've heard you." she gives the crewmen on deck duty a good glare. Reiki may not be very large or intimidating, but she's still got it in her to scare off anyone with the possibility of them becoming her patients.

"Hmph." he groans, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm meditating now. Don't bother me."

And so, they watch as Reiki too sits down, and assumes the same butterfly stance. She sneaks one eye open, and never tunes out the low whispering of the crew.

And if he smiles a bit, feeling the wind on his face, the comforting smell of the sea and the sand, then it's nobody's business. It isn''t like Reiki can see it, after all.

-

As the Little Rock gets better, Yua’s days gets increasingly nicer. Less unhappy. She hadn’t noticed quite how tense she was.

He still goes to bed with the bandages, every night. Reiki told them both that she can't just let his wounds bleed because he twists and turns so much.

They're scabbing over nicely, but even the grafted bits of skin will scar quite badly. The little Rock knows that too, despite his otherwise delusional little head. He still yells at anyone who asks him too many questions, though.

Maybe he isn't approachable, but he's a cute kid, in all his tantrum-prone, destructive glory.

Yua's visits become an increasingly frequent occurrence. She makes sure to take breaks at the same time Reiki takes him up to the deck, and when her shift's over she always brings him a story or two.

Funny enough, she’d never talked to her fellow crew members quite that much before.

"Do you want some?" is a normal question. She always has snacks on her for a reason. Kids - and he isn't anything but that - need food, and a lot of it.

Yua misses her nieces, back at home. They're the same age as the Little Rock.

He doesn't answer. He's facing the sea, smelling the breeze.

"Don't need it." he says, simply.

"You sure?" she chomps on a bit of the fruit "It's black-blueberrie' raisin."

"No." he grumbles, and turns back, frowning.

"Fine, then." she shrugs "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing!" he says "I'm fine!"

"You're sure not acting like it. It's 'cos we're getting there soon, yeah?"

He stands still, and that's enough confirmation for Yua. That kid, he just left all his family. Of course he's going to be anxious, if he's spent all his time 'til now homesick.

"Buddy, don't worry about it. You'll find yourself a good job, and you'll make yourself a good life. Maybe you'll be a-" she doesn't know what else to suggest. She's never met someone quite like him before "Anything."

He tenses like he's about to scream at her. But then, his shoulders sag.

"You want me to have a normal life, but... What if I don't want to?" he says, finally. "What if I want to do something else- something great?"

"You can do anything, kiddo." she pats his shoulder, reassuringly.

"Then." he truly relaxes when her hand drifts away, and there's a bit of hope in his voice. "Then I can get rid of it."

And she stops, and for once doesn't wonder out loud.

-

They arrive at the Gaoling province at sunset.

Zuko had been antsy for days, longing for earth he can step into. For sun, for things other than cold metal against his feet. For the smell of rain and mud, for the heat of the world around him.

Yua gave him shoes, earlier that day. A gift, she'd said to him, patting his half-shaved head. A goodbye, he'd heard.

He doesn't grieve for anything, anymore. He knows what he did, he knows how dishonorable it was.

He knows what made him weak, it turned him into something disposable.

But it's alright, he now knows. 

Because Zuko has a purpose.

He isn't fully recovered, but if all goes according to his plan, he won't have to fight much to get where he strives to be.

A part of him wonders how life in the streets is going to go. Because out of the luxury of the palace, everything hurts more and more. He will forever live with the pain, sure, but-

But what, at this point?

It's just... He misses his family so much.

But once he gets rid of it, it will be alright.

When he comes back, he’ll be a firebender, one of the greatest, blessed by the lion-turtles themselves, and Father will take him back.

He won't even be the heir again, sure. You can't just have a disgraced firelord, one that's as burned and broken as Zuko is.

But it's his goodbye to that world.

And, as he steps into the earth, he knows.

He knows that he will be going back.

And he will return home without his cursed earthbending.

Chapter Text

This story has an unnatural craving for good people.

And this woman - the one you’re imagining right now, that very one (isn’t she pretty?) - isn’t one of them. People just aren’t good or evil, not to an adult, and not to most children. She lives in a port town, and she watches the ships of her old nation, sometimes.

She works as a saleswoman, in a tiny pawn shop that provides the traveling ships - ashmakers and dirt-eaters alike - with supplies for their journeys, uncaring to where they came from, or to where they're going. She always awaits for the ships that carry off the people.

 The ones a part of her thinks she still might know, despite all the years separating her from those once-familiar faces. That war, it’s left all of them both scarred and scared, and she is always happy to see that she is not the only one forsaken. 

That war, it’s left all of them both scarred and scared, and she is always happy to see that she is not the only one forsaken. 

And, that morning, as she sweeps the area outside her shop, she sees someone. A child, coming out of one of the cargo ships, the ones that hitch rides to that neutral area and drop off banished people.

He walks with a cane, and his low head can’t hide the massive scar, brand new, still scabbed in places, breaking the illusion of his face being melted.

 She looks. Everyone who sees does.

 And, like everyone else, she does nothing.

-

Zuko should’ve guessed that deciding on a goal and reaching it are different things. But he didn’t, not until it was too late, and not well enough for it to make a difference, at least.

His legs will hurt soon. He didn’t ever walk this much on the ship. He doesn’t think he walked this much back in the palace, either. Either that, or he’d just never realized how much things hurt, back then. 

This is horrible. He hates the smell of the earth kingdom, dirt and wet sand and sweat and fish. He hates the weather, too. It was supposed to be summer. It was supposed to be warm and dry, maybe a little too dry.

(Zuko loved summer, before. He loved complaining with Mom about the Ember Island players, and he loved the beach, and he loved the trips and travels and he loved-)

He fears what winter will end up being like, in a place like this. He knows that this is one of the warmer areas of the earth kingdom, but he will have to venture out of it, if he wants to find a cure for himself.

So, he roams. He walks like his life depends on it, because it does.

But, in the end, no amount of walking can erase the fact that Zuko has no idea of where he is going.

He tries to plan. He needs some sort of guru, someone who can help him. Someone who can guide him to a good path.

But there aren’t many gurus. Unless you count spirit-blessed animals and charlatans all too ready to rip someone off.

“What do I do?” he asks himself, but his voice is muffled by the cries of the city crowd all around him. Enveloping him in a blanket  

He walks around, aimlessly. He didn’t have any way to memorize maps, back on the Sunnyside, and he'd never been smart enough to do so back in the palace, either.

He needs help, but he knows that cannot be found in humans. Maybe spirit-animals? But no, those have long since been extinct, hunted down for glory and power and fancy hides and skins.

Maybe when he gets outside of this city, he can find something. He knows of the stories, of good and bad spirits. 

Maybe if he meditates?

But no, he doesn’t have time to do something like that. And it isn’t like anything would think him worthy of an answer.

 (He was lucky to be born, afterall)

And the world, all around him, it’s too noisy. It’s too much. He hates it, with all his force.

It’s all too much, the noise is obnoxious, people all around him, who, despite living their lives uninterrupted, sometimes seem to be calling to him.

Sometimes he thinks he might follow. Answer the call. Like they can help him. Isn’t that an incredible thought? To give in? To give up?

He doesn’t know why or how he’d thought that Yua and Reiki actually wanted to help him.

Zuko noticed far too late, that a cane and some copper pieces wasn't enough for himself. Not for long. He doesn’t know what they had expected him to do. Did they even think about him? Did they just assume he’d let himself die?

He doesn’t even know where to go. And that thought, it makes him want to be home, to have someone to help him.

He knows nothing, and he can’t do anything. Anything but what he already knows. Anything but walking.

-

  “Mother, where are we going?” Her daughter asks her.

“We’re finding somewhere new, Azula.” she tells the child.

She isn’t the one Ursa wanted to save. But she’s lost Zuko, and she’s long lost her love for Ozai. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive him anyways.

Azula is too quiet. Biding her time, waiting for the second to strike. She doesn’t even act like a child. She has long since stopped swinging her legs over chairs, and she doesn’t even think she plays, and Ursa doesn’t know how long it’s been since she did anything that didn't seem downright cruel. She had her father's eyes. She had her father's blood.

Maybe it is evil of Ursa, to think that that child - that child that came from her womb, that she nurtured and grew - is too far gone.

But she’s never dreamed of redemption, for herself or for anyone else. She doesn’t even know what redemption means, anymore.

Her letters to Iroh have gone unanswered. Maybe not even delivered. The normal postal system, she's discovered, is not as good as it should be.

The fake documents she’s forged for herself and her daughter, they weigh too much in her pockets. The fabric of those clothes is too rough on her skin. The world is too loud, screaming all around her.

The sea lashes against the ship, taunting her. Merciless laughter, that makes her want to sob like a child.

“Do you want to hear a story?” she asks her daughter, who looks into the sea just as she does. Her face is controlled, no emotion shows.

“No, mother.” Azula says. She sounds too cold, like a little creature made of metal.

“We don’t have anything to do, though.” she tells her child, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Her daughter is still there, breathing and running too warm, even for a firebender. Like a tiny furnace, spitting cruel words of coal and smoke.

“I am too old for stories.” she shakes her head, her hair tied behind a scarf.

It’s the best disguise, in the closest colors to something that would be wore in the Fire Nation. Her request for it was the closest she’d ever gotten to a tantrum, too.

“You’re eight. Not even people who are eighty are too old for stories.” Ursa feigns a smile. 

Neither of them can properly hide what they’re thinking of. Not now, not ever.

“I’m not like other people.” her hand is shrugged off, and Azula gets up, farther away from Ursa.

 The self-imposed distance, it sometimes hurts Ursa. But she knows it's her fault, deep down. That child, despite not being a good one, never had neither chance nor reason to trust her.

“But that should not keep you from enjoying things.” She says, patting the bench beside her.

She regrets it. Thinking- no, saying, that there was something wrong with that child.

Children absorb this type of thing. They soak up every insult like sponges, until they become what they’d once hated the most. She shouldn’t have said any of that, even if only crazy men would think there is anything normal about Azula.

Because when she sits down beside Ursa, and looks at her with a glint of childish expectation in her eyes, she can think that maybe, she isn’t all that far gone.

-

There is something incredibly grating about the kind of pity these people feel, Zuko realizes.

He hates it. He hates it so much. The expectation that he will accept their malicious, barely-hidden insults. That he will follow them like a lost puppy, that he will let himself be helpless, for even a moment.

He doesn’t need any of that. He doesn't need any of them.

A part of him wants it, though. It wants somebody to rely on. Somebody, something. That part of him, it’s stupid. It is useless now.

He isn’t a child anymore, and he doesn’t need any help.

He will make due with whatever he’s got. He has to. Zuko needs a clue, though. And, surprisingly, he finds it.

As he drifts through the crowds, increasingly irritated and hungry, he hears a discussion. Two people talk, loud even for that place. Like they're trying to be heard, over that crowd.

“Yeah, I swear I saw it!” someone declares. A deep voice, marked by that odd accent that he’d come to associate with the earth kingdom. “You have to believe me, especially if you’re going through that road!

He stops near them, trying to make it seem natural. But he doesn't know where or how to hide, anymore. Not even his silent footsteps can help him, in a place like that.

“You’re telling me… You saw a badgermole.” another man’s voice answers, sounding older, filled with disbelief “And that it - an extinct, giant animal, mind you - was carrying a little kid.”

 Badgermoles have long since been deemed extinct. Much like other spirit-animals, actually. They were hunted down to the very last specimen, and then some more. 

 The Fire Nation always said of how much lesser they were. They used them on circus shows, and they hung their pelts on mansion walls. They weren't even worth glory. Even the dirt-eaters knew that, even them used the things for carrying loads and making coats.

 Zuko remembers when a noblewoman tried having a badgermole cub as a pet. She was the talk of the court, especially when Grandfather banished her to a working mine. “If she liked dirt that much”, he'd said, but not elaborated any further, just letting Father and Azula laugh politely.

 "Yeah, Cheng! You’ve gotta believe me, I saw it!" He exclaims, and then whispers "it was ginormous, and it didn't even try to eat the girl. It just licked her, like she was its cub, until they noticed me!"

 "Aham" Zuko can imagine his nod, and the tilt of his eyebrows, disbelief that isn’t even hidden  "Are you sure you've not gone frog-mad, mate?"

 "I am, and you know it’s true!” he says “And no, I’m not frog-mad, I’m fine and sane!”

 “Are you sure you’re not just lying about it ‘cos you’ll miss me?” the other man says, teasing.

 Zuko tunes them out after that. He remembers what he’d heard about the badgermoles. They were the first earthbending teachers, after the lion-turtles started giving the First Worthy bending. 

They were neither animal nor spirit. They were something in-between, smart and sturdy, silent in their endless patience. They'd help whoever happened to offer them a nice song, and then go about their way.

Maybe he is delirious, but he has nowhere else to go, and nothing but the slight hitch of his breath, the feeling that he finally has a path to follow.

-

Azula doesn’t care for her Mother.

Azula doesn’t need her approval, or her weird looks, or anything coming from her.

Most important of all, Azula doesn’t need her pity. Pity is for stupid people. Pity is for unworthy people. Pity is something Father taught her to never spare for anyone.

And Father is right, isn’t he?

Father is always right, but Azula is still scared of him.

She shouldn’t have let Mother take her away. She should’ve stayed beside the Fire Lord and become his heir. Then, if she never messed up - and she never would, she knew that - she wouldn’t end up like Zuzu.

Zuzu was pitiful, but she has no pity for him. She can’t have it, and she doesn’t need to, because he is dead now.

He is dead. The fact is strange. Foreign, eliciting an odd feeling in her chest. Something ugly, something that makes her scared.

Azula looks over to the sea. She knows the facts, but won’t stop repeating them, even if only to herself. Because Zuzu is dead, and she-

She isn’t even going to be the crown princess. Maybe that shouldn’t be her priority, but she’d always thought that someday she’d ascend enough in the line of succession. Because that's what Father always hoped she would do.

She almost misses her friends, and her school. But Ty Lee and Azula already served out their years of usefulness to her, and she couldn’t stay in the Fire Nation.

She would’ve, if she could. But she can’t.

Because she might end up like Zuko.

She’d heard him screaming, that night. Everyone had. It wasn’t a secret. Even the viper-mice, even the rabbit-sparrows. Even his favorite turtleducks.

She had sneaked to the gardens, curious, never having heard anything scream like that before. She didn’t know anyone could beg that much, could let out that much terror.

And she had seen Father. Standing there, over him, panting and wide-eyed. All his control lost, for some reason she couldn't decipher. Was it the thrill of the kill? Was it the terror of what he had done? Was it surprise at the fact that Zuko was still going on, still pleading?

Whenever she remembers, she has to hold herself tight and hope that her food doesn’t come up. Her stomach feels like it’s about to run away.

But she’s a big girl. She doesn’t get to be afraid.

She doesn’t get to care for the posters of her face. She didn’t get to care for them when they’d left Caldera, and she doesn’t have to care for them now, when they’re already out of the Fire Nation.

Azula’s a grownup now. She tells herself that she was never meant to be a child.

She knows that what she did was wrong, even if it doesn’t fully click on her head, even if she feels numb. She knows, and that’s why she ran away.

Because Father would never forgive her if he knew she saw it.

And she can’t bring herself to tell Mother that she is the reason Zuzu was dead.

Because, when he fell, she ran away. She ran away and let him scream until he faded out and went all quiet.

-

Zuko’s shoes hurt his feet. His back aches, and his legs are so, so cramped. He has no better term for it, he is hurt.

The scar is pulled at every expression he makes, uncomfortably tight. He hates everything. He hates the staring, he hates the people whispering behind their backs, he hates not knowing if they're actually talking about him or if he's just going crazy.

He wishes he knew how to make it all stop.

But he neither can nor will, so he sits down on the floor and swallows down the ugly feeling on his throat.

He can’t cry anymore, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel sad.

He can’t really see light anymore, but he knows it must be night already. It’s logic, at this point.

There’s no way it isn’t night. The streets are more silent, and it’s cold now.

Back in the Fire Nation, it never got this cold. He doesn’t have much to keep him warm, and night’s falling and he got nowhere all day long, he just avoided weird person after weird person and now he’s tired and lost.

And he wants to go back home. Now that he can sit down and think about it, there’s nothing he wants more in the whole wide wild world. He wants his bed, and he wants Mom, and he wants Azula, but-

But he’s scared.

A part of him wonders what Father will do to him once he comes back.

But no, he can’t think about it. Father will accept him. Father will like him, once he’s a firebender and not just a dirt-eating rat.

He’ll sleep for a bit, but once he wakes up, he will find it. He won’t need help.

He knows what he is going to do. But for now, the cold floor and the cold wall are enough for him to rest against.

-

  There's a boy sleeping on the man's front porch.

 He fell at sundown, drifting curled up in a ball, his head against the wall.

 The man did not see his face, and he didn't need to. He did not want to rouse that child, nor did he want him to rob his house were he to be let inside.

 The man did not have space indoors, either, so he did what little he could.

 And, as he went back into his house, a boy sleept on his front porch, curled up against the wall, gently covered in a scratchy blanket.

-

That is becoming it’s own thing.

Zuko doesn’t understand how to talk to people, clearly. Or maybe he isn’t being clear enough, because whenever he talks to them, their pity drifts off and is replaced by confusion.

(“Where did you get that?” a boy about his age asks, at one point.

 "The blanket?" Zuko asks, blankly.

 “No, like, the scar.”)

(“Are you sure you don’t want any food?”)

(“Where are your parents?”)

(“Do you want me to find you a city guard?”)

Zuko is getting tired.

So he will do it by himself. Really, it isn't like he has any other option, is it?

He’s lost, though. He has no way to do things, properly or otherwise. He hasn’t had time to learn, he knows. But that does not justify how stupid he is.

Because really, it is nothing but the peak of stupidity, this trust he'd nearly had in other people.

So, he walks.

He always goes to the less crowded areas, always. Farther from the city center might mean closer to dangerous areas, yes, but it might also mean what he needs:

A way out of there. A way to the path that man had mentioned, where he could find guidance.

And out he will go. Because it isn’t like he has any other option, is it? That's his only clue.

He has to go home, and that is the only way that will happen.

He has to go back to Mom. He can’t… He can’t just live like that. This isn’t what he’s meant to do. This isn’t what he’s meant to be.

He has always had a penchant for finding things, though, even if he would not consciously think that. Zuko has always had a way for getting places.

He walks like he’s going home already. His ache no longer matters.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely realizes where he is-

Or who is calling him.

“Kid?” a man asks. “Where you going?”

“I’m finding a badgermole.” he says, tired of stating it so many times, but hopeful nonetheless. Maybe this person will be something. Maybe they will help.

“Oh?” the man asks. “I heard about the thing. My friend says it dug a tunnel right on the outskirts of this place.”

“Which direction?” he asks.

“I can bring you there.” the man says “It’s on my path already, and I have space on the cart.”

Zuko knows he shouldn’t trust people. Not those people, at least.

But his legs ache, and when he lifts his head up, he hears no reaction. No response. A part of him almost thinks the man is going away. Running away. A kid did that, before.

(It makes Zuko afraid to feel his own face.)

“You need help coming up here? My mule-goat is pretty fast, and you don’t look like you weigh much more than a cabbage.”

“Rude.” he grumbles, but moves closer. 

“Do you want help?”

“No.” he says, managing to climb up. That cart is different from most he’d seen back home. Less study, somehow.

More prone to disasters. It makes sense, though. The earth kingdom isn’t hit with as many earthquakes as the islands back home, ironic as that is.

“Are you gonna charge me?” he asks, settling down. “I have some copper.”

“No need to, buddy. Unless you wanna buy a cabbage, that is.” he laughs, and he can feel the expectation that he will too. 

Zuko doesn’t, instead simply resigning to his inevitable fate.

-

Azula doesn’t miss Zuko.

Zuzu was useless, and Zuzu never did anything right, and that’s why he’s gone.

But Azula did something wrong, too. She went along with Mother's plan. She fled. And now, as the night falls, she is scared. She is scared out of her mind.

Because she feels defenseless, without the sun encouraging her, telling her to keep going, to be unafraid and powerful. And she knows she shouldn’t. She is in control, she tells herself. and thus, she can’t show any weakness.

Despite all that her head is telling her, she can’t just hide.

Even if the room she is sharing with Mother is full of nooks and crannies, all so convenient. And really, Mother is sleeping. Azula knows that she might lose control, if she doesn’t do anything to keep herself going.

And a part of her mind, pressing and growing, it is scared that Father will find them.  That he will kill her like he killed Zuzu. It would be reasonable, she knows. She left him. She left their nation, when she shouldn’t have.

And at every noise she hears, she can’t help it. She can’t help but think that her time is coming.

Azula doesn’t want to die. She’s only eight, but she can’t hide and she can’t run. So she comforts herself. She makes up a story, one that will make Father spare her when she is inevitably found.

Because Azula is not going to die. She isn’t like Zuzu.

So she looks at mom, and she decides how to rehearse it. She will have to do without a mirror, this time.

“I was taken in my sleep.” she begins, whispering and trying to make her voice crack less. “And kept under threat. I have deliberately left clues-”

No, not good enough. Too obvious.

Azula needs something else.

“I was-”

“Azula?” Mother rouses from her sleep, bleary black eyes reflecting the lamp from outside. “Are you okay?”

She tries to close her eyes, to sleep.

“I know you’re awake.” she can hear the smile in mom’s voice, when she tries to turn “You can do most things pretty well, but you still have a bit of tension when you try feigning sleep. It’s probably because nobody ever looks that close.”

Azula opens one eye.

“Uh?” she puts a bit of sleepiness on her voice. Just enough, hopefully “What are you talking about, Mother?”

“You didn’t just wake up.” Mother gets up, and sits down beside Azula’s futon “People who have just awoken aren’t this formal, Azula. Jot it down.”

The last bit is downright playful. Like Azula didn’t just fail the test. Mother is a dangerous teacher. She is a woman of the Fire Court. 

She schools her face. Fear can’t be seen, not by a single person, especially not by someone she already knows, someone who is in a position to punish her however they deem fit.

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

She expects a slap, and forces herself into stillness, trying not to flinch. But all her mother’s hand does is touch her nose. A single finger, poking only once.

Azula does not know what that is.

Mother pokes her nose again. She has never received this sort of disciplinary measure before.

She gets through another one before she realizes that, whatever that is, it isn’t meant as discipline for her mistake.

But she doesn’t know what it is. So she just endures it.

Until Mother gets an odd look on her face, and her head tilts to the side and her hand stops on the sheets.

“You… Don’t know what that is, do you?” and she sounds like she’s about to cry. No, she sounds regretful. Like she herself did something wrong, but that makes no sense.

Azula doesn’t know what that is, but admitting it would be admitting to weakness.

“Of course I do, Mother.” she steels her face.

Ursa smiles.

“Then name it.” And for once, she can appreciate her mother’s capacity to feign emotion, to hide cruelty, to make that smile look perfectly innocent.

And she just cornered herself, didn’t she?

How much can be seen in her face? Should she try to gain time, to flee? No, that would be too drastic of an action.

“It’s a boop, Azula.” Mother smiles.

“Why is it, though?” she asks, eliciting a brief moment of confusion from her.

“It’s because…” and then, she draws her hand, and she knows what to expect. She won’t fight it.

“Boop.” she is poked on the nose again.

“Your explanation does not make this any less confusing.” Azula states, matter-of-factly. 

She accepts the next boop nonetheless. 

-

They travel all night long. Zuko stays awake, scared of the incoming nightmares.

The man - his name is Cheng - chats to him.

“I’m going to Omashu” he tells “It’s out of the Province, and it’s all walled up, and they say the King there is crazy, but a guy told me he’d buy a whole cabbage cart if I went there, so that’s what I’ll do.”

He is silent.

“What are you doing, though?” Cheng prompts.

“Finding the badgermole.” he says “You know that.”

Their conversation is struck by brief moments of silence, as they move through the path all night long.

He tells Zuko that he is a cabbage merchant, along with the rest of his family. His brother is very unlucky, he tells him, not noticing how Zuko flinches at the mention of siblings.

Zuko doesn’t have time nor energy to wonder about it. Is it a strand of luck, all these helpful people he’s found? Is it only pity?

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and that is terrifying.

“How many stars are there tonight?” he asks, eventually, laying back on the cart, against a bed of sturdy greens, swinging his legs out, feeling the wind in them. 

He is tired and his guard is down, and he shouldn't show it, but he does.

“A lot, kid.” the man says. “I dunno how to paint the picture, but they’re beautiful.”

“That doesn’t help, but thank you. Can you see the dragon-bear constellation?” he asks, because that one was his favorite.

“I... have no idea which one is that.” he can feel the shrug “Sorry.”

Zuko huffs, and they go quiet again.

It’s too late into the night, and Cheng said he’d have to get to the self-titled capital of the Gaoling province soon, and that would mean taking some alternative paths. 

The night is no longer filled with conversations, by that point. Zuko refuses to go to sleep, though. He can’t just… do that. He doesn’t want anybody else to hear him, to see him.

Being known is a burden. Maybe it is too late into the night, but that is a good thing to be aware of. 

“Why are you looking for badgermoles, though?”

“Not your business. Where are we?” he grumbles.

“Near where they found the tunnel.” he says, somehow still gentle, despite Zuko’s manners.

“Did they really see a badgermole, though?” he can’t help but try to be sure of it.

“A bunch of people said they did. And it isn’t like there’s anything else that could’ve digged the tunnels.”

Silence, again. The night is empty. No crickets, no bugs, no birds.

Zuko misses the stars. 

“It’s dug, actually. Can you warn me when we get there?” 

“Sure thing. You might not want to sleep now, though. We’re not very far off.”

Neither of them know how to fill silence like that, and Zuko can see they’re both tired. He almost asks the man if he wants to sleep, at one point. But that would be weird. The answer is obvious.

He doesn’t hurry the man any further, though. Anger is a powerful motivator, and it can snap any man out of even the deepest pit of exhaustion.

It doesn’t take long. It doesn’t even take a change in perspective. It doesn’t take much, indeed.

That is good. The mule-goat is tired, but persists, still carrying them. He wants to tell her she’s a good girl, but can’t bring himself to even that.

“You sure you wanna stop here?” the man asks.

“I am, sir.” he says, as politely as he can.

“You didn’t even tell your name, though.” the man asks “May I have it?”

“I don’t have one.” Zuko says. “Not anymore.”

Maybe that is melodramatic, maybe it is exaggeration. But none of that matters.

“Bye, kid. Good luck down there.”

What matters is Zuko, grabbing his cane and his blanket, and going down the tunnel, surrounded by the walls of dirt, encased by them.

It's a burial.

Chapter Text

Toph digs at the patted-down dirt of the tunnel in a ritualistic manner.

 It’s something that’s long since been second-nature to her. As far as she’s concerned, that’s always been her.

She doesn’t want to be a girl, she wants to be a badgermole. She wants to teach travelers and trade goods for songs and she wants to sniff the air and dig huge tunnels and be huge so nobody will ever think she’s weak again.

“When I grow up-” she tells Badgermomle “I’m be big like you, and my nails are gonna be just like yours! So nobody will think I’m small, because if they do, I’ll claw them up all over!”

Badgermomle licks her, raspy tongue going over her face, brushing away the layer of dirt.

“Noo-” she whines. She worked very hard to take off the annoying perfume the maids put all over her earlier that day, and even if it won’t come back, she doesn’t want all her hard work erased.

Her teacher doesn’t care. She knows Badgermomle loves her either way.

Maybe it’s just because she has nobody else to like, a part of her thinks. 

Ever since her mate died she’s been all alone. It hasn’t been a long time, and she knows Badgermomle is still sad over it.

No, sad isn’t the word. Because she’s too big to feel sad.

Sad is small, next to what she must still be feeling.

So Toph gives up, shakes the drool from herself, and nestles in next to the great beast. An enormous chin nestles upon her head, and for once, she doesn’t mind feeling tiny.

She is going to have to go soon, so she can’t fall asleep. But for now, she will enjoy the only thing that’s worth it, the warmth of something that feels alive, breathing and pulsing.

Her slow, rhythmic heartbeat feels like a song. It sings in synchrony with the earth.

Badgermomle has been teaching her how to hear it. The rhythm of the world, of the writhing worms and the crawling bugs and the pulsing, ever-growing roots.

It’s the most beautifulest thing in the world. She can’t understand how other people live without it. How they bear shoes and wooden floors, how they survive without the world’s heartbeat in their ears.

But nobody hears her, when she talks about it. No- Nobody listens to her.

People may hear, but they never listen. All they do is say the same things over and over again. Comments about her supposed wild imagination, about her wish to compensate.

She neither knows nor cares for what any of that means.

So, she listens to the earth, living all around her.

Toph might go home soon, but nothing will ever erase the true fact.

That this is home.

-

Zuko makes his way, the damp smell of the tunnel nauseating, every noise feeling like an announcement of that horrible thing’s collapse.

He doesn’t know what brought him there, but he already regrets it.

It’s something about the stuffy feel, the mere knowledge of what that place must look like.

 It’s the way it wraps and coils and divides itself like a labyrinth.

 It’s the worm-millipedes and the gross, squirmy things his cane pokes into while he feels his way.

 It’s the exoskeletons of long-gone beetle-rabbits, crushed under his feet.

A part of him wishes for a light, despite the knowledge that that would only be inconvenient. It wouldn’t help him, that he knows, but perhaps, that part of him reasons, it will help the Badgermole find him.

But no, its eyes are vestigial. No longer useful. He needs no light. He needs none of the things he longs for.

It had taken him a good couple of days to realize that, both his blindness and his longing for more, when he first woke up in the Doctor’s care. Not Reiki. The one from the palace.

The one who saved him, and the one who, at the time, seemed to have condemned him. He’d argued, there had to have been a way, a way to save what had been shredded, wiped away.

(“STOP THIS!” He’d scream, until he was hoarse. It was unreasonable, but he wanted it all to stop. The deafening pain, the taste of the medicine, sticking to his tongue.

The old man would only sigh. Zuko didn’t even know his name. He couldn’t memorize it, he couldn’t get through his bleary head. Everything felt blurry and wrong and he didn’t know if it was supposed to hurt but it didn’t and he thought he was dying-)

And then, he understood, when the opium faded from his blood and he started thinking straight again.

He’d never even gotten to thank the man, before the night he was sneaked off to the Sunnyside, to Reiki’s care, where there was nothing keeping him from thinking straight.

But when he gets back home, he will find that doctor. And he and Father will make it a holiday, a day where everyone gets to thank him.

Like that might compensate.

Zuko nearly steps on a… Something, and it brings him back to the present. He thinks it’s a millipede-mole, but he can’t be sure. He just knows it has a lot of legs, and it is crawling atop his foot.

“Down, down.” he grumbles.

Hopefully, it isn’t a centipede-spider. They’re known to bite, and he hate-hates them.

He shakes his foot maniacally, but it does not give up.

“For Agni’s sake.” he grumbles. He is tired, and he doesn’t have any other option.

So he lowers himself, and tries to remove it. It feels… fuzzy. He doesn’t know what kind of bug feels fuzzy, but he thinks he’s just found it.

Maybe part moth? 

Definitively part centipede, he thinks, the moment he gets bitten. Centipede bites feel distinct, and he can’t ever explain it beyond the fact that it hurts.

With a scream, he hurls it against the wall. His wrist hurts, now, and he thinks his hand is bleeding. 

That cave… He hates it. Cave, tunnel, whatever it is.

It’s encompassing, stretching for so, so very long. He hates it. He hates the bugs, and he hates stepping on them, and he hates the noises and he hates having to roam around endlessly.

And he just… Can’t find it. He is a failure. He can’t do anything right, can he?

All his luck went towards being born, and if he’d had any left, then it surely didn’t go towards his survival.

A part of him wonders if he was even meant to survive. But no, he was. There is no way he wasn’t. Something just went wrong, along the way. He knows it is how it was meant to be.

It must’ve been Father’s discipline, taking away his title and his name and his everything. 

It’s a second chance, and Zuko isn’t going to give up. He never did before, and he won’t now.

With his newfound resolve, he walks a bit faster, ignoring the strain on his legs and the urge to just wrap himself on his new blanket and sleep.

“Mighty badgermole!” he calls, whenever he hears a noise. It’s his hope, it’s the only thing he has “Is this you, brave creature?”

One must be respectful, to the things that toe the line between spirit and mortal. To one that can teach and discipline with the might of the elements.

And so, he begs for a response. He bows to anything he thinks might be in front of him. It’s the creature’s court, it surely won’t be angry if he shows respect to it.

Zuko can’t fully ignore it, the pressure of fear against his head. He can’t, and thus, he won’t.

And, eventually, he hears something concrete. Something that certainly isn’t just in his head. 

Chittering.

And he feels it. The presence of something mighty.

A wet nose, sniffing him curiously, and a tongue, feeling his face. Something mighty, indeed. Something mighty, that is licking him.

Blind eyes, staring right through him. He can picture it in his mind, the dirty pelt of a creature that’s beautiful and terrifying and absolutely enormous.

He bows to the first master of the earth.

It wraps around him. A burial, indeed.

-

Toph goes back to her home.

Not the one she shares with her parents and the servants and the frilly dresses that seem big enough to have a mind of their own.

The home of the dirt and the writhing worms and the beds of rock that are almost shaped like people.

The spirit-tales used to say that they used to be things in between human and spirit. But they were disrespectful, and they did not do as they were supposed to - whatever their purpose was varies from story to story, but it generally seemed really really, really stupid. -  and thus, became rock.

The home she dreams of in her head. Where she can see with her feet and where she can break the shell of porcelain all around her and where she can pretend there are other badgermole-people like her.

Because she knows Badgermomle is the very last one of them. Ever since her mate died, last year. Ever since she and Toph became all alone against the world.

And so, she inspects the earth, scans it for anyone around, and takes off the overshirt and skirt and the shoes (her parents don’t even know she can do simple things like that on her own) and crawls under the fence and onto the latest tunnel she’d produced with her earthbending.

The world greets her. Blooming forever, living and breathing in synchrony.

She has made that trek so many times, she’s memorized every root and every rock. The familiarity has long since turned boring.

She is going to need another tunnel, soon. 

Or else, they might find out.

They might lock her away, and they might never let Toph be Toph again.

She shivers at the thought, but keeps crawling, hopping on her hands and knees, pretending she’s a frog, pretending she’s a child.

It’s fun. She likes being able to play pretend properly, without anyone watching her.

She drops down when she reaches Badgermomle’s tunnel itself. It’s a noticeable transition, even if she'd tried to mimic the feel of the place when she started digging her last tunnel.

 It's larger, wider, and there's always something she can't quite place about it. She doesn’t know if its natural or it’s just her head, but it feels… Homely. Gentle, somehow. Toph can’t define it, but she adores it.

“Badgermomle!” she calls, her voice echoing.

She expects the same response as she always receives, the chitchat and the thump of a tail against the patted-down floor, but it isn’t what she gets.

Instead, in the odd silence, something echoes.

“What?” a boy voice, with a weird accent. It isn’t like anyone she’s heard before, it’s raspy, and it sounds a bit hoarse, like somebody with a sore throat. “Who is there?”

He sounds like he’s far away, but she can feel him, through the earth.

He is where Badgermomle is supposed to be. No, no, scratch that. They’re together, huddled up.

Her interest peaks. She knows her teacher doesn’t take in just anyone. 

She runs. She is used to running along those tunnels, and she wonders if her new classmate is, too.

She can smell him. He sticks out, sweat and grime and something rancid in the background. 

“You stink.” is the first thing she states upon reaching him and Badgermomle, and, before he can respond, “Who are you?”

“P- Zuko.” he says.

“Okay, P. Zuko.” she smiles “I’m Toph, and that badgermole is my mom!”

“No.” he says “She isn’t.”

“I’m not sharing my parent with you.” she smiles, mockingly “And I’m not letting you steal her away without a fight either.”

“I’m not asking for that, I’m saying that you’re not a badgermole’s kid, because you’re human!” he exclaims.

Toph has an idea. It will fall short, but it will be funny.

“I’m not.” she says “Can’t you see it? I’m a badgermole.”

“I can’t see it, but I know you sure aren’t!” he says.

They are whining at eachother like children, but she has a question.

“Wait, you can’t see either?” she smiles.

“No I can’t!” he yells, like he needs to wake up all the wolf-bats and to make at least one worm-rabbit deaf. “BECAUSE I’M BLIND, OKAY?!”

“No, it isn’t okay that you’re blind.” she says “because I AM and MY MOM IS and WE ARE BETTER AT BLIND THAN YOU!”

She is six. She has never won an argument, but that is because she never had the chance to truly be in one. Not until that moment, that is. And now, she can prove that she is the very best at arguing, once and for all!

"NO YOU'RE NOT!" he screams "BECAUSE THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION, AND I HAVE NO EYES!"

"That's not my problem!" she screeches "BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BE THE BEST EARTHBENDER!"

"EARTHBENDER ISN'T THE STANDARD FOR BLIND!"

She stops, confused.

"What's a “standarde” again?"

He stops, also confused.

They don't need to look at eachother to know that neither of them know what standard/standarde actually means.

“It’s like-” he starts, clearly lying “A standard is who wins a fight.”

“Let’s fight, then!” she announces, because despite him being a terrible, horrible, no good liar, she really wants to be the standard for what being good at blind is.

Badgermomle growls. The boy screams, and she can feel him skittering away.

“Let’s not.” they both announce.

“Sorry, Badgermomle.” she says, and then turns to him “Badgermomle wants you to apologize.”

“I’m sorry, Mighty Beast.” he says. She can imagine his bow. “I have-”

“She won’t listen past the sorry.” she taps his back, and ignores his flinch.

“It’s the honorable thing to do.”

“Not if she doesn’t care.” she shrugs “What’s your name?”

“I already told you, I’m Zuko.”

“No P.?” 

“No P.” he announces, seriously, still not getting up from the position.

She neither knows nor cares for how much weight he puts into those words. The P doesn’t care either, because there’s no P.

“Do you wanna play?” she asks. 

“It is dishonorable to act childish in front of a spirit.” he says, like he’s reciting words off of a script.

“You’re not a spirit, and nobody here minds some fun.” she says.

He stands up, tentatively, his breathing quick in what to her, seems anxiety. And then, as she thinks he’s about to agree, he says:

“I have a goal. I can’t play. Can you understand the badgermole?”

“She doesn’t talk.” she says “But I understand her.”

“Can you tell her to tell me where to find the lion-turtles?”

“You can say it yourself.” she says “She just won’t answer.”

“So.” he breathes, and his voice cracks a little “She’s just an animal?”

She punches him in the face. In her legitimate defense, it isn’t very strong, even if not for lack of an attempt.

“No!” Toph says “She’s the Badgermole, the first earthbender, and she isn’t just an animal!”

“Why doesn’t she understand, though?”

“Understanding and answering are different things. I don’t want to play anymore. You can watch me train, though.”

He groans, and mutters something under his breath.

She doesn’t pay him mind, and just enjoys what little audience she can receive.

-

Zuko sits down, against the tunnel’s wall, and mutters to himself. Because the badgermole got up and is now training with the “Toph”, and the “Toph” clearly won’t tell him the spirit-animal’s secrets.

She doesn’t like him, but it isn’t really different from usual, nobody likes him. And he doesn’t like her either.

He will be alone with the beast soon, he can tell. And if what was said is true, he won’t be punished for disrespecting it - her - territory.

The earth sings around him, as the two creatures lift boulders and dig new tunnels, as they smash down column after column, only to build them over again.

“Thanks.” Toph says, like her stance is being corrected.

The earth around him, loud and graceless and too deep and too large-

He hates it.

“Can you be a little less loud?!” he yells out.

“Sure!” she yells.

Immediately, one change is noticed: It all gets louder.

Were he not a desperate man, he would- He would think of something really mean.

Right now, though, he’s hungry, and he has no food, and his copper is useless in the belly of that beast’s tunnel.

And he’s hungry and lost and nobody listens to him. And asking a spirit for food - and he shouldn’t get it wrong, that isn’t anything other than a spirit, and he can’t deny it- would be rude.

Even if that spirit’s Blessed is rude. Incredibly rude, beyond rude. The rudedest.

But he can’t say that to her face. Yes, a spirit-animal is powerful, but so is its Blessed. 

It’s a symbiosis, both the spirit and its Blessed both gaining something. It’s a dance of power and protection.

He doesn’t know what he expected, when he accepted to stay with that spirit’s lair that last night.

Answers, maybe. 

And he had gotten none. That simple fact had made him want to storm out multiple times. But he couldn’t show a lack of patience, and he couldn’t leave without seeming rude.

So, he’d stayed, remembering how they’d said that badgermole had a child with it. A human child.

A blessed child.

Someone who could answer his questions. Someone who could make it all better. Easier. Someone who could help him go home.

However, he could leave now. But, were he to come back, he’d have to bring along an offering.

Some food, for sure. And something that large would need a lot of it. Both for itself and for the girl.

Zuko gets up, and intercepts their training, bowing low.

“I shall return soon.” he announces. “And I will find my way through this tunnel again.”

“Need any help?”

He needs, but refuses it. Courteously. His tantrum from earlier had clearly been too much on that spirit-animal’s patience.

Knowing fully well that he would soon regret it, he turns back.

“Actually?” Toph asks “I’m going with you. No way you’re not getting lost down here.”

“I don’t need-”

“Yes you do. Shut up.”

He listens in for the beast, as it makes an odd noise, and noses him.

He stands still, being prodded to walk on, but not understanding what he was supposed to do in the moment.

“Badgermom wants to come with you.” she says “So come on, don’t leave her waiting.”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he follows his instructions, and walks.

Toph hops, short legs struggling to keep up with him. He is happy to have that advantage, even if he can’t use it and leave her behind right.

His joy is interrupted by the badgermole’s clear attempts at trodding at a sloth-like speed, so they can keep up with her.

“Has the badgermole actually blessed you?” he asks her, as they walk through the tunnels, all the bugs silent in the dead of that world.

“I have no idea what you mean.” She singsongs, hopping along with no struggle.

“Did she choose you?”

“Yeah.” she shrugs beside him. “I wandered here one day, and she and her mate took me in. They’ve been training me ever since.”

She affectionately pats Badgermomle’s side.

“Where’s he?” Zuko asks.

“Her mate?” she says “It’s none of your business.”

He knows what that means, so he too shrugs.

-

She leaves the custard pie out in the windowsill.

Nothing matters to her at the moment but the need to cool it down fast enough for it to set before her questionably sourced friends’ arrival.

So, she leaves it in the windowsill, and walks away to put on some better, less custard-ruined clothes.

Her kitchen, just like most, is furnished humbly, coated in a permanent smell of baked goods, and incredibly prone to disasters, misfortune, destruction and chaos.

She has already polished everything, just enough for it to look organized but still homey. She knows they wouldn’t mind it if the kitchen was on fire, but she likes pretending that the animal hunters are normal people.

She walks away to pick some new, cute-looking clothes, sure and certain and reassured in her mind that not a single thing will go wrong while she leaves the world unsupervised.

Sadly, if nothing had gone wrong, then she wouldn’t be on this story.

-

Toph wonders if anyone will see her.

More specifically, if anyone will recognize her.

She can’t know, and she shouldn’t be afraid. Her parents never let anyone see her. 

The only people she’d ever known were bland, formal live-in maids and guards. Logically, nobody would recognize her, and that is all that matters.

All that matters beside the delicious smell of a pie.

Last year, the doctor had said that she shouldn’t eat anything too boldly flavored. That included sweets, apparently. That had been enough to cause an outburst on even her, despite how unladylike it must’ve seemed to her family.

“You wanna grab it?” she asks. “It’s on that windowsill.”

“How do you know?” he asks, hushed whispers as they both hide behind a bush.

“Because I do.” she doesn’t feel like explaining her earth sense right now. It was a blooming thing, she was still learning it. Still perfecting it.

“You will tell me later.” he whispers back, nudging her. “But I can’t get it, I have a scar. A really big one. If I took it and someone saw, people would easily recognize me.”

“Fine.” this isn’t fine, because Toph knows she can’t reach the windowsill.

Not without earthbending. And thus, not without making noise, because she isn’t perfectly silent yet.

So, she tiptoes, taking advantage of all that she can. She can feel herself in the shadows, and then close to the wall. Closer to the pie, the objective of their great heist.

It smells delicious. Caramelized sugar and egg yolks and vanilla and butter crust and-

And right as she summons a pedestal of stone, something she can hop up on to reach the goal post, she hears something:

“Uh?” a woman’s voice, and then footsteps. She’s coming closer. “Hey, who-”

Toph grabs it, and it’s hot-hot-hot burning on her hands but she doesn’t care because she’s hungry and she’s running-

“STOP!” the woman screams.

She doesn’t shout for anyone. They’re not in a part of the city that has enough people to help. All that she has are her pig-goats and her cow-geese, and those probably know they’re meant for food, so it isn’t like they will help her.

She screams profanities behind them, as she and Zuko run. He is slow, unused to the activity.

He doesn’t have good breath control. But it’s okay, she doesn’t have much of it either, despite all the “meditating” her parents put her through.

So they both run, holding the too-hot, half-set pie. It smells delicious in her hands, even if it feels like they’re going to be burned off.

She reaches Badgermomle, finally. Her teacher seems anxious. Her breathing is too quick, the earth around her feels odd, as she noses Toph’s hair, like she’s certifying she’s there.

The earth sounds like fear.

“HEY, WHAT-” She can pinpoint that as the moment their (perseguidora) sees the enormous creature.

A small string of profanities escapes her lips. 

The earth sings, and Badgermomle steps forward, protecting them. Her throat rumbles.

The earth sings, the roots twist and turn and the goat-pigs and whatever the other animal is step back.

Toph climbs atop her teacher’s back when she feels it lower itself enough.

“Come on!” she ushers, at a surprised-sounding Zuko, pulling him along.

Badgermomle stands up, and Toph has to be careful not to let the pie down on her fur. It is cooling quickly, but it would be mean to let it burn her nonetheless.

With a small noise, she turns back and runs, the children on her back, the world nice and cozy and unprepared for the upcoming future.

-

Her friends (albeit not quite) come over, as the sun sets. They come with the smell of booze, and they’ve brought their own food. Fresh moose-rabbit, tender and ready for roasting.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened.” she tells them, brushing hair off her face and sighing. “A kid stole my custard pie. A f-”

“Oh?” one of them asks.

“You wouldn’t believe what I saw, though.” She sits them down at the table, even if the food is far from ready for their dinner.

“Yeah, we get it, we won’t believe it. Tell us already.” the gorgeous woman grumbles, across from her, sprawled over a chair.

“Stop being an ass.” one of them, a dark, scarred man, says. He sounds grim, but he’s smiling. It isn’t very intimidating, as far as smiles go. “And tell us, please?”

She doesn’t know if she should. It would mean killing the creature. The endangered creature. But also, it might be the start of a string of incidents. It’s what happens when wild animals get too used to humans.

They turn dangerous.

“The kid had a badgermole.”

Her acquaintances give each other a look. And start laughing.

“I swear to the spirits!” she exclaims. “I saw the damn thing, it growled at me and everythin’!” 

They whisper to one another, but she can still hear them, as loud and clear as her breathing.

“I’d heard in the town, of a kid with a badgermole along with ‘em.” she says.

“How do you know she’s being honest?” he asks, and then, noticing himself quite bad at not-loudness, drops the whispering  “Like, no offense, mate.”

“None taken, it’s a weird thing to say.” she raises her hands, and sighs. “But I saw it, and it saw me.”

“And it… Took your custard pie.” he says. “Are you sure you didn’t just forget to bake it or something?”

“It was the kid. A little girl. Really little.” she says, like it’s a legitimate defense, even if it does not sound like it. “Anyways, she stole my custard pie, and ran off with a badgermole. Any questions?”

“We had a couple of people who wanted to buy exotic animals.” the woman says, getting up. “Live ones. I think that we should go to the woods and try to find the entrance for its tunnel. A couple of people over in the town were talking about it, too.”

“I’ll stay here and roast the meat.” she announces, not wanting to confront living megafauna. “Because I don’t know enough of hunting stuff to actually be of any help. Sorry, boys.”

“Fair, fair. But I, personally-” the man coughs “Think we should wait for the Lis to come.”

“Oh shit, I forgot to bring Skinny Li’s shoe.” the woman says. Everyone ignores the shoe incident, either for or despite it being the reason they fear regarding one another as friends.

“And when they do, we’ll-”

“I get it.” she rubs her forehead “You’ll find the huge, feral animal, and, because a clown told you to, you're going to take it down."

-

The pie is delicious.

Zuko shouldn’t eat that much, but it isn’t his fault that he’s so hungry-

And plus, Badgermomle doesn’t seem to love the sweetness of it.

Either that, or she, for some reason, thinks that he and Toph will finish that whole thing.

They didn’t have any knives, or anything like that, so they broke off pieces of the crust, and dipped it in the filling.

It’s delicious. A bit gooey, and custardy and rich and it feels like the best thing he’s ever eaten.

Maybe not as good as the roast meat of the palace, or the fire flakes of the festivals, but since he’s been... off of his home, this is the best.

But something about the plain sweetness is comforting.

And it’s good, that it isn’t too similar to what he had back home. Because he has to share, this time around.

Toph has stopped trying to grab the crust. She is just-

“Stop getting your crusty hands all over the pie. Please?” he asks.

“Nope.” she grabs another glob of the filling, and shovels it into her mouth.

“Unfair.” he says. “Dishonorable. I will never forgive you.”

“Then eat your loser crust and choke, loser.”

“You’re so childish.” he says.

“And you’re such a grownup, aren’t you?” she jabs at his side. “Stop acting like a baby.”

“Look at who’s talking?” he says. “Won’t you?”

“Nope.” she says, and resumes eating.

They hadn’t really gone back to the tunnel. They were too hungry, and Badgermomle didn’t mind it. The sun, lazily streaming through the trees, and the birds, singing at the end of the evening.

It’s all refreshing. Cutting the richness of the dessert that is all they’d eaten for the day. He wants to kick back, his belly feels full. But he isn’t satisfied yet, he wants more.

He doesn’t know when he’ll eat again. Maybe that’s the case with Toph, too.

“Do you have a home?” he asks her.

“It’s a house.” she says.

Uncle used to say a house doesn’t mean a home. But she’s a little kid, no way she is the type for proverbs.

Their talking goes on and off, as the sun goes lower and lower.

It is nice.

The world feels nice.

Until the world turns silent. Silent, except for something. Someone.

Cutting through the trees, swearing and saying things to one another. And he can’t discern, through the thick accents and the slurring of booze, what they’re talking about.

And yet, as they draw nearer and nearer, and him and the others find themselves paralyzed, he can understand one word, said in a mocking tone, like it’s a joke.

“Yeah, sure thing, a badgermole in the middle of the woods. You go, you stupid little-” the words blend together in his head, as he stands up, but finds his legs locked in terror.

And Zuko realizes, they have nowhere to run to. They settled too far away from the tunnel entrance, and they are on plain sight, and they have nowhere to hide-

And nothing to do, as they enter the clearing.

There is a brief moment of silence. A realization.

“Hello.” a woman says, forced calm and patience “Get away from the-”

Toph interrupts with a growl. Like a child or like an animal, he isn't sure. But what matters is that she’s growling, and standing her ground, despite being cornered.

Someone crouches down to their level. Zuko wants to run, he doesn’t know how many of them there are and-

“Where are your parents, buddy?” Someone asks, from behind him. Them.

“GET AWAY!” Toph barks. “OR ELSE-”

“We’re here to help.”

“Yeah, you don’t know how much danger you’re under, kids.” The man doesn’t even sound like he believes what he’s saying-

“Just get down here, behind me. This is a dangerous creature, and you shouldn’t be this close to it.” the woman’s voice says.

Zuko tries to make a move, but someone grabs him from behind. The woman from earlier is bitten by Toph- he can hear her scream in surprise, and slap her.

That’s her mistake. 

The protection between a spirit-animal and its blessed children goes both ways.

It is all the same, when a creature puts up a fight.

And, with that slap, the ground around them starts to shift.

The girl and the badgermole fight in unison, summoning boulders and creating walls and-

And those people fight back. 

But Zuko can’t do anything, he can’t orient himself, because whenever he tries to run, the terrain shifts around him, Toph and Badgermomle working together to divert the poachers, who try to knock the creature down.

And he can’t breathe-

And it’s all so loud, and the earth is screaming around them and it’s all so overwhelming and horrible and-

And Badgermomle screams, and a sickening crack is heard, as the earth stops moving, and Toph starts gasping for air, despair in her voice as she screams for them to stop, to let her arm go-

Zuko can finally make a move, untangling himself from the man, dropping onto the grass and bolting. He knows what he has to do.

The badgermole is tied, and she's being dragged, screaming and roaring, struggling to keep herself up. He hears the horrible sound of her falling to the ground, and the people screaming, as she tries to take them down before they can take her away.

He does the only thing he can - something that’s far from what feels honorable or right - and he takes Toph’s hand, as she tries to fight, to punch or to kick, and runs.

Chapter Text

 Iroh's pain awakens along with him. He feels so, so very old, like all his years suddenly caught up to him.

 He feels overwhelmingly lonely, despite the chirp and caw of the birds, gossiping all around him and his dead-asleep companion.

 King Bumi and him had formed a truce, forged from fake kidnappings with ransom paid in fresh tea and pai sho games.

 The grief still hurt. More than his back, more than his head, more than anything inside him.

 Nothing could dare to snap him out of that, of his everlasting inaction.

 It all ached, so he got up, and lit the fire again. Intent on getting some idli and tea, he schooled his thoughts away from the hurt.

 He was, to say the least, incredibly surprised, when a hawk landed nearby, a scroll of some sort strapped to its chest.

 It caws angrily, hurrying him along. Impatient as a flame.

 "Sorry, sorry." He mutters, and moves to grab his parcel.

 Perhaps news from Ursa? Something from his nephew and niece, even if the last one summoned only a vague sense of dread.

 His thoughts are diverged from the devilish, daring little girl by the scroll, suddenly heavy in his hands when he reads it.

 The kanji for his brother's name, preceded by the symbol for Fire Lord. 

 Had he been coronated already?

The handwriting of their father's favorite scribe said so.

But that wasn't as important as what it told him.

  The things that made his eyes widen and his skin crawl and turned his head fuzzy.

 He is a seasoned man. A man of the court, brought up between dragon sculptures and cold fire and decomposing dreams.

 And yet, the grief still manages to hit him, hot and hard.

 Like a boulder to the chest.

 He had felt downright glad about the coronation.

 He had never wanted to bear the burdens of his nation, to end that war by his own hand.

 But to Iroh, the events no longer felt fitting. Like there was a piece that had been missing.

 A rock to the head.

 His nephew's untimely death.

-

 Toph fights back.

 "Stop! We have to get back!" Her heart hammers in her chest and the world spins in her head as they run.

 Left, left, right.

 "We can't!" He pants out, pulling her with surprising strength.

 Right, left, then straight.

 Those grounds are unfamiliar to her as much as she is to them. 

 But she doesn’t have time to greet the things down there, she doesn’t have time to do anything but run and cry and try to wring her arm free, to find a way-

To save what is gone.

Because that’s the truth. Badgermomle is gone.

  And Toph can’t breathe deep enough to scream at Zuko, to tell him to stop, to turn back, to do anything.

She can remember it. The sickening crack of her bone. The yowling, still echoing in her ears.

She’d never heard anything that loud, she realizes, as they follow up, right right, behind a bush.

 To the nowhere.

The only thing breaking the silence of their stop is Zuko’s gasping, his loud wheezing for breath, as he sits down on the dirt.

She doesn’t want to stay there, to rest. She can’t feel out of breath, she can’t feel.

Because she let herself be cowardly. Be dragged away.

“You’re why this all happened.” she gasps out, and realizes she is crying “Why didn’t you let me help her?”

“Because you would’ve gotten caught.” he pants out. “And who knows what would’ve happened to us then?”

“You let them take her! You’re a coward, you didn’t even fight!” she doesn’t care for what he’s saying she doesn’t care-

“I know. You’re right, and that’s why I’m helping you.” he says, getting up, in front of her. 

“Go home.” she growls.

But all he does is bow down. Low, slow, with his legs trembling like they hurt, with his breathing heavy like he isn’t sure it will make a difference. 

“I’ll help you.” he repeats “Together we'll find her again.”

“No.” she tells him, gritting her teeth. “No you won’t.”

“I need to.”

“You don’t.” she starts walking away. Blinking away the tears, uselessly. “You’re going home, and I’m finding her.”

And, when she hears him get up, she runs. Rights and lefts blend together in her head, and when she hears him get up, she doesn’t care.

Because nothing he does will make a difference.

-

Zuko kicks stones, and he swears his dirtiest words under his breath.

Painfully growing aware of how lost he is, as he stubs his toes over and over again, as he trips and falls because he can’t orient himself, that none of his child-like swearing can do anything for his situation. Words don’t terraform.

Even dirt-eaters’ words.

“Poop.” he grumbles under his breath. “Another dead end. Poopdangit.”

Poopdangit, indeed.

She left him in the woods.

And he doesn’t know where to go. Not without that odd blind girl, that seemed to know that place like the sole of her nonexistent boots.

He was all alone. 

The realization scared him, and the fear stung his pride.

But he couldn’t help it, with the world growing darker and darker all around him. A blanket once comforting, now eerie. The rustling of the leaves, the faint howling in the distance. The birds, asleep and the bugs, uncaring, all around him. 

No one to hear him scream, when the inevitable reaches him.

That land wasn’t familiar enough with people to like them.

He could feel it, deep down.

He is not welcome there. And so, he walks. Like there’s some way he can make out of that place alive.

He hears something, and stops. Perhaps it had been his step. Perhaps it was something dangerous.

“Anyone?” he eventually asks. Sure, the people of the court could be dangerous.

But most of them wouldn’t be dangerous to a child.

And he had never been taught to fear the people lower than the sun. It isn’t like he needs help. But something in him would like to know that he isn’t so, so alone.

That he isn’t naked, unprotected against the world.

He doesn’t have anything, and he doesn’t need anything.

Zuko is bound to find his way.

He always is, even when he realizes he’s alone. Because he can hear footsteps, in front of him.

She’s stopped running.

He’s always been bound to find a way.

-

The estate grows desperate. All the mice-people know to be desperate, when someone as unreachable as Lao Beifong is shaken.

Toph - their little Toph, the tiny, tiny kid who they never pretended to not want to cherish and protect and keep safe---

Is gone.

There is not a trace of her left in those halls, not a single footprint in those rooms, not a track in the mud. Nothing inside.

And the nothing is broken by a scream. 

It can be comical, how much even someone like Lao clings onto his bits of hope.

“SIR!” A guard calls out, his voice loud, breaking through the concentrated silence of the night. “COME HERE!”

“WHAT?” He asks, not caring that he lets through all the worry, all the need and longing and fear, cold and clogging, through his voice. “HAVE YOU FOUND ANYTHING?”

“Come here!” he calls, but there is no need to. “I can’t explain!”

Lao breaks out like an animal, out of the walls that felt suddenly so much like a prison. But he can’t run. No despair can make a man such as him run.

Through the yard.

Down through the rose bushes.

Going off to the east walls.

“What do you have?” he asks.

Can the earth feel his fear?

Can the woods and the trees and the world and all the things bellow it smell the terror of that man - still a man, still mortal, still reachable?

Toph used to say, when she was a tiny, tiny child, that it could. That if he reached out, it would reach back.

“We found her dress. Sir.” the man-boy tells. “And her sandals. Nothing else.”

Along the fence, behind a bush.

No trace of blood. No sign of a fight.

He wants to vomit.

“Nothing else?” Lao asks, lowering his head, blinking away the panic from his eyes.

“I didn’t find anything. But I can look again, if you have a lantern on you.”

The dusk grows with his terror, the moon coming closer and closer to the center of the sky, persistent in its slow, deliberate climb. Go to sleep, the great blind eye tells him.

Your time has come.

No, no. He can’t let himself be lost in things such as that. Lao can’t lose his bearings.

“I do.” he says.

And the silence grows. Pressing for a single cicada’s song.

But all those creatures, they’re silent.

They’re not looking, they’re grieving in that sudden, inexplicable silent.

Something has been lost, he knows it.

The silence tells him.

Silent but for the rustling of the bushes, as the no-name guard fumbles along the fence.

“There’s- There’s a tunnel.” he says. “It’s old.”

And he realizes. His fears come concrete, crashing down upon him.

It all clicks on his head. His daughter’s lonesome strolls through the garden, to the fence, every evening.

They all pretended not to watch her, as she lost herself amongst rose bushes and tulip gardens.

They all stopped, thinking her safe within their grasp, below their wings, before seeing whoever - whatever - took her.

“Whoever took her has been visiting for some time, then.” 

-

Toph’s feet grow tired. Despite how it felt like she had just eaten, her stomach quickly grew hungry. Walking feels horrible, her legs are all achy and her head hurts.

She feels like she’s been starving for days. She’d never felt that hungry before, she realizes.

But she knows, with a resolve, that she will walk more than whoever took her Badgermomle. Because the best predator is the one who pursuits slowly, persistently.

But, a part of her begs to differ, you need to be faster.

Because there’s no way they’re on foot. They must have something. They must have some way, something beyond what she knows of the world.

Even though she knows a lot.

Toph’s six. She’s a big girl, and she is going to find her teacher, her friend.

Yes, she will find her. But her certainty is shaken by the question:

And then what. It presses against her head, it feels horrible. She has no answers. She has nothing to say.

She doesn’t know what will come next. That terrifies her. Not knowing anything, not having anything to cling to.

Maybe nothing comes next. Maybe she’ll be looking for Badgermomle for the rest of her life.

Maybe she’ll be alone forever.

But no, she’s going to be the best for a reason. And that is because she can do things. She can do everything, because she isn’t scared.

She isn’t scared and weak and she will do it.

(Even though it is past the bedtime her family had set for her.)

Will they miss her, she wonders.

She won’t miss them. She can’t miss anyone.

Because Toph’s strong, and she’s-

She’s tired. She’s growing tired, and she doesn’t even know where she is.

She’s just following tracks. The smell, overbearing, of fear, putrid and like something that’s about to die.

The earth is guiding her, though. Not with words, but with a gentle pull. A magical sway.

Her badgermomle taught her the only kind of reading that matters. The reading of the earth, the earth that’s telling her, wordless-letterless, where she has to go.

And the earth writes itself around her, directions left in the dirt.

They carried her off in some kind of cart. No, no, something bigger.

 Toph can’t guess what, but when she feels the dirt, it’s too big, too heavy, to be something like a simple cart. She’d only ever interacted with small ones, when she sneaked out.

She’s scared, but she knows that grownups like stopping whatever they’re doing to rest. Which is all the time.

Everyone did it back home. Guards and maids and her parents, who liked doing nothing and saying that they were “too old to play around”. That just meant that, instead of playing, they would spend most of their days like fat, lazy pigmy-pumas, sleeping awake.

“Badgermomle, I’m finding you.” she says, with a resolve, jumping over rocks, stepping carelessly over the tracks.

If there is any noise, she doesn’t notice it. Not until she gets snapped out of feeling the earth, by the rude, stupidly familiar voice.

“Hey!” he sounds downright excited. No, maybe hopeful.

“You?!” she asks, despite knowing the answer. 

“Me?” Zuko says, stepping out from the bush he had been hiding behind. He’s surprisingly nimble, silent. She hadn’t even heard him, not until it was too late. “Me.”

“Go away!” she whisper-shouts.

“Not until I restore my honor.” he joins beside her.

Close enough to be tripped, she realizes. It’s a quick movement, not a lot of effort, to make him fall to the ground.

Surprisingly satisfactory.

“I don’t like you.” she points. “And that isn’t changing. Stop trying to sound like a grownup. You’re a little baby. A little coward baby.”

“And I’m not leaving.” he says, pointing at her. “I don’t care if you don’t like me. I did something stupid, and I’m going to do better now.”

“No you aren’t.” she walks again, but can hear him getting up and catching up to her. “You can’t help me.”

“I can try!” he is louder now.

Always louder.

That is concerning, she realizes, as they’re getting dangerously close to familiar land. 

Someone might hear them. Someone important might hear them.

She needs out, they can’t keep arguing. That’s childish, they can’t keep doing it. Not when they’re hitting so close to home.

So, Toph walks. Briskly, fast, almost running. She wishes she had gotten to the good katas, the sets that taught her how to disappear into tunnels, down to the earth. Where nobody could catch her, could trap her.

But she didn’t get to the good katas, and can’t do much more than defend herself. And she won’t be able to learn, not until she gets her teacher back.

And she isn’t going to be able to do that if that idiot keeps chasing her.

He is fast.

She is faster, when she puts up walls and stones.

“Hey!” he calls. “Stop tripping me!”

No response. Maybe, if she keeps going silently, she will be able to leave him behind.

He has to give up. He can’t just-

He can’t just keep going like that. No normal person can.

“You’re stubborn. Too much.” she mutters to herself, and is somehow heard.

“No I’m not!” he yells out, dodging the latest wall of rock like it’s easy. “Mom said I’m persistent!”

And Toph laughs. She can’t help it, not when the other person is that hilariously bad at being.

She tries to cover her mouth, but she can’t keep herself from being mean.

“You’re a loser.” she almost lets him reach her.

“No, you!” she can feel him point at her, a brief swoosh of air.

She likes his spirit, even if she doesn’t like him himself.

Because he’s a big dumb-dumb, a boring dummy. And she is going to leave him behind.

“You’re going back to your mom.” she tells him. “And I’m finding my teacher again.”

He stops. She hears his breathing catch, she feels his stepping stop.

Something about his mom. A sore, weak spot.

One she’s not disrespecting again. Because Toph isn’t that mean. Even she herself has some limits, not even she is that bad.

“Fine.” she says, finally. “But for now, you’ll wait here. I’ll get you later.”

“I’m not stupid.” he says, but stops when she snickers. “Not that much.”

“Then you’ll wait here.” she tells him. “Because if you’re not stupid, you’ll know not to mess with me.”

He snorts.

She snorts back, shows him her tongue, and keeps walking.

Toph doesn’t know why she expected him to not be a dumb. He’s trying to be silent, but she can feel him, sneaking behind her, slowly, steadily.

So, she turns back, and growls at him.

He stops.

“You’re not cute. Stop that!”

She almost thinks he made a pun. S-toph that. But no, he didn’t.

That makes her growl louder.

“That isn’t going to stop me from helping.” he says. “Because my honor-”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR HONOR!” She has withstood ten minutes of him, and she has reached her limit.

Lifting her hands, she does a steady, blocky motion.

Pillars of rock circle him. Not a full box, she has to leave him air. All things need air, even the annoying ones. At least a bit.

 Just enough to make it so he works to get out, she tells herself.

He starts screaming at her. 

“LET! ME! OUT!” and she hears him banging against the rock walls like it will make a difference.

“Just shut up and wait!” she whisper-yells, bonking the rock. “I’ll be right back, take a nap or something.

The second he stops, she feels safer, despite being nearly at her parents’ place.

And, thinking that he will wait, Toph goes back to her walking.

-

Zuko doesn’t take very long to climb out.

He’s blind, but his legs still work. Pretty well if this is to be trusted.

The world is silent but for his tiny huff when he falls onto his knees, jumping off the surprisingly low threshold. He feels the ground for his cane, thrown right before himself, and shivers with the cold wind.

He wonders why the earth kingdom’s so cold. During the days, it isn’t as noticeable. But now, in the dark of the night, when it’s damp and silent?

It’s scary.

The world is scary.

So he wraps his blanket around him. It’s still got a few crumbles, and it feels dirty against his skin, but it’s all he has to protect himself.

But it’s still too silent, and no blankets can help the fact that the earth itself seems to watch him. Deep from within, curiously inspecting.

Like a cat-squirrel swathing without its claws, just to test, just to see if its meal is worth the effort.

But he has no time for fear.

All his time, all his effort, it’s for walking.

To keep going, to keep stumbling and shrugging off the things that land on him.

He cannot call, he can’t orient himself, make sure to keep going, and he can’t give up. Not without a fight.

Zuko will find something to do. He will find a way to keep fighting, and he will fight well. He will help.

He will repent, to his father and to this girl alike.

He wonders if the spirit will forgive him. For letting her be taken away, for upsetting her blessed.

And so, he dodges rocks and maneuvers through the terrain, tricky and damp in a way that squishes under his filthy shoes.

The silence seems unnatural. It was never like this back home, not even in the palace.

Not even the dragon-fire could spook away the countless moskito-crickets, not even the bizarre acting of the Ember Island players could make it so the praying-spiders didn’t bother them.

But if something is watching him, it doesn’t make a sound.

That brings his fear back, the buzzing of the silence on his ears, nothing but a vague tinnitus.

And then, he hears her. Breaking through the sticks, already growing too safe and secure that nobody will find them.

But he will.

Zuko follows, silently, swiftly. He feels with his cane, and he avoids everything that might crunch, that might make a sound.

It’s surprisingly easy, considering how Toph had bulldozed through that place.

Yes, he will find her.

The problem is, he won’t be the first one.

“Hey!” a man’s voice exclaims. “Is that-”

“It’s her!” another man. Deeper, stronger.

Scarier.

Zuko never thought someone else was looking for Toph. Something is wrong, something is very, very wrong.

Footsteps breaking through leaves.

He doesn’t know how, but he has to beat them to it.

No, no, he realizes. Reaching her before them would be impossible. He has to get right to them, and provide a distraction.

He crouches down low, picks up a rock.

They are breaking through leaves, exclaiming out “come back here!” and “Ma’am, you’ll miss dinner!” with a fake worry that’s downright sickening.

They can’t mask their annoyance. Not in the way people back home could.

That makes him curious.

Uncle had once told him that the only thing more powerful than fear is curiosity.

And he is very, very curious, as he reaches the men. Lefts and rights, west and south and east, all in that sneaky silence, hopefully hidden.

 He can hear them, running and running and running, until they stop. They’re not concerned about being loud, he realizes. It’s like they’re trying to be found.

But that’s good. Whenever he can’t help but break sticks under his feet, but crunch leaves and dead bugs and other weird-feeling things, he can count on them.

They still haven’t noticed Zuko, as he hides behind a tree, rock in his hands, but they’ve cornered Toph.

He can hear her panicked breathing, and he can’t help the fear for her.

What did she do?

“Toph.” one of them says, softly. It doesn’t fit his voice, but it’s how he says the words. Softly, pity-filled. “What happened to you? Who brought you here?”

A voice that’s familiar. Someone who knows her. Someone to whom she only gives silence.

“Come on, let’s go home.” the other says.

He throws the rock. He just needs to make noise, he just needs to-

“OUCH!” the same man caws, indignant and angry, all kindness gone from his voice. “Who are-”

He jumps, hopefully hidden behind another tree.

“IT’S ME!” He yells out, pressing his back against the branches.

He can be silent. He must be hidden.

He’s always been good at that, he just has to be confident, and be silent.

They’re looking around. That’s what the silence tells him, and that’s what he believes in.

“Who?” the other one asks, amusement in his voice. But he’s just underestimating him, because he sounds like a kid. He can’t be seen. “Who are you, again, great hidden foe?”

“Me, dummy!” he puts on an Azula impression, and brandishes his cane like a sword. Or a bat. He’ll have to see if he can stab people with it later, but for now, he’ll just stay crouched down, clearly hidden, with his back turned to them.

“Buddy, we can see you.” the other says. “Just come out, and explain what you have to do with the… Situation, alright?”

Oh.

Well, fair, he thinks, and turns to them, unhindered by their yelping.

He throws another rock, hoping it will hit someone. He has to be confident, despite his failure. He has to do this well.

“SCATTER!” He yells to Toph, and turns back to run, his tied-up blanket like a cape billowing out behind him.

Glorious failure.

-

Zuko is sneaky, in the sense of being silent. Could clearly be taught how to hide better, but that doesn’t matter.

What matters to her is that he is sneaky and very, very dumb.

Toph can’t help it, he left Badgermomle behind because he was dumb, and he’s running because he’s dumb. She’s right on disliking him, even if he saved her butt.

She might call him dumb for running, but that’s what she too is doing.

It would be very helpful, if he’d let her reach him, guide him off of the property she’d once lived in.

Because she knows now. And she knows he will get them lost, if she doesn’t reach him.

And, she realizes, Toph can’t go back. Not without her teacher, and not without showing everyone she’s the best.

Then, when everyone sees, she reasons that they won’t try to stop her anymore. Because she knows that, once someone proves that they’re good enough on their own, nobody thinks they need them anymore.

They’re after them, and she can’t say anything, not without making sure that they won’t hear.

It’s like being tracked down by a pack of dog-sharks.

She wonders why they use those, when grownups are just as effective. Maybe they terrify the sighted people more?

But now, she has to shout out, she has to do something so Zuko doesn’t get lost. 

She owes him one, albeit very reluctantly and beyond begrudgingly.

“Hold up!” she whisper-shouts, after her silent not-savior.

He gives in, a single, simple second where he gasps for air, clearly stifling his noise, just as scared as she is.

That is enough for her to take his hand.

“Where are- we- going-” he gasps out, sounding like he’s choking, as she begins to drag him along.

This is their journey, whether either of them want it or not.

“Away.” she says. Brief and low. He is more silent than she is, but once they get a little bit farther, noise won’t be a problem.

After they’re off, she’s finding her teacher, and her new normal is going to be so, so much better.

He isn’t joining her. He’s going home.

Zuko must have a mom that misses him.

He’s fast, and she’s barely guiding him as he pulls along. He’s fast, practiced.

Like someone who got to play with other kids. No, no, like someone who did something else.

It’s like he trained.

Like someone who was taught how to fight like a person, how to growl with words, how to sound like a human, like something she’s never going to be.

Left and right blend together, in that chase. Because nothing matters.

Nothing but that they’re getting away.

Toph finds comfort in the fact that he will want her away as much as she wants him off her shoulders.

The woods can’t even greet them, the worms can’t even say goodbye, as they blitz past.

Over rocks, splashing down puddles.

Mud splutters onto her face.

All turmoil is forgotten. The leaves don’t cover for them, they can’t muffle themselves out anymore, as they enter some sort of clearing.

The wind blows past them.

It’s all so incredibly loud.

Away, away.

But they’re going to leave them behind.

She will make sure of it.

The clearing is a dead-end, but not for them.

There is a rock. A solid thing, willing to help her.

She can feel it, as they stop.

Tiny, grubby hands reach out. She has to be quick, but her work must be sturdy.

She can’t keep running if she is stupid enough to get hurt.

“Hold up!” she tells Zuko, convincing herself that she is giving him a break.

And, with her movements, she makes the earth reach out, hands of rock building them stairs, making them something to climb upon.

“After me.” she says, and pulls him up.

One step at a time can’t do it for them. They can’t be that slow, she realizes.

They can’t, not until all is left behind.

“Faster, sneaky!” she chides him, and pulls again and again.

Come on, come on, she wants to tell him.

The earth’s stairs crumble after they step on them. Soon, that too will be a dead-end.

She feels tired. Her legs ache. And it isn’t just because of how tiring it is, to earthbend that much.

She isn’t tired.

Toph wants to cry, suddenly. Because it’s all so incredibly silent, and she’s never been that far from home without Badgermomle before.

But she can’t. It’s like whispers would deafen her now, like they would call upon everyone else.

Like it all would crumble, like the rocky stairwell.

They reach the top.

A little hill. Roots, trees. Rocks, rocks and more rocks.

It goes down, and then to a river. She can feel the pulse of the currents, beneath her feet, nurturing and loving and making that place damp and muddy.

It’ll be harder to hide her footprints, despite how fun it must seem at the moment, to splash around the mud.

“Are you sure- we left them behind?” Zuko fights not to fall, as they sprint downhill.

“I did.” she says. “Now, you go to the left, back to your house, and I’ll find my Badgermomle.”

He can find a way down, if he goes to the left.

“Nope.” he says. “I was the reason she got lost, I’m following you into this.”

She will find a way to leave him.

But now? Now the night is watching them.

They’re surrounded.

And if they find Zuko, he will tell them where she is. And then, they would-will catch her and she will-would be locked away forever and Badgermomle would be-

There’s no time to dwell on that.

“Look, you can come.” she says “With one condition.”

“What is it?”

“You won’t tell anyone who I am.” she says.

That makes him stop. They’re nearly at the treeline, at the current that separates that new, scary place from the world she had once known.

“And… Who are you?” he asks. “Who are you really? Why were they after you?”

The water is loud.

“You don’t need to know.” she says, jumping onto the first rock, nearly slipping down into the water. “What matters is that there are people after us now.”

“Great.” he says “I love exiting, pursued by a mongoose-bear, from every stage I enter.”

She tilts her head, confused.

They grow into an uncomfortable silence, stilted and hungry as they jump, as they cross the river. 

As they walk, with the comforting company of the current. Against its flow, its gentle ebb to the west.

There are noises, now. Things from the night. Shoebill-frogs clacking their beaks, ringneck-harpies yelling out. 

Things she’d never had the chance to hear so up-close before.

She makes sure not to be too close to Zuko. Because it’s silly, for her to be scared.

Toph’s a big kid, bigger than anything in those woods, that’s for sure.

Bigger and hungrier than anything in that world.

The hunger hits like a pang. Loud enough to break the silence, to make it so her mouth moves again.

“Do you have food?” she asks him. Her stomach rumbles like it rarely ever is able to do.

They have to find something to eat, if he has nothing. Not that that will stop her.

A wind blows around them, soft and chilly.

“Nothing.” he says. “Just my blanket. Do you want it?”

She shivers. 

“I don’t need your loser blankie.” she jabs. “Do you, though?”

“...No.” he says. “I’m not using it. Because I’m not a loser.”

“Fine, then.” she says. “We can use it as a towel.”

She doesn’t know if he nods.

Again, he is a very dumb dumb.

“Did you nod?” she asks, looking at him.

“Oh.” he mutters to himself, before saying a soft “Yes.”

“Good. Now, come on, there must be something in the woods.”

He stops.

She doesn’t. Because she isn’t going to starve just because this boy is being a loser and not going into the dangerous, treacherous, full-of-wild-giant-animals woods.

Maybe Toph will leave him behind now, she thinks. He has to give up at some point.

“Are you dumb?” he asks, as she goes into the thick.

“Not any more than you are.” she gets to jab at his side.

“I’m not stupid enough to go into the woods!” he says, twitching out of her grasp.

“Then starve.” she enters, stepping over roots. 

That soil is rich. She ought to find something, in that place. Not even the vegetable garden back at home was this damp.

There must be something edible around there. Maybe some berries? Maybe a nice piece of meat?

The maids back at home said that they found meat in the woods. 

Toph had never gotten why it was “custom-marry” for only men to go get wood meat, but nothing would stop her from collecting some.

“Fine.” Zuko yells out, and she can barely catch whatever he mutters to himself. Something about having to deal with her.

“Can you look for meat?” she asks.

He starts walking. Towards her, towards their shared goal of a nice dinner.

“I don’t have a knife, though.” he stops behind her.

“Don’t be silly. We don’t need cutlery to eat meat, if you find some finger-sized steak.”

“If I find what now?” he sounds incredulous. She ignores what she’s hearing, for once.

 “I’m pretty sure there’s a steak tree here somewhere.” she preens at her tree knowledge.

“There’s a what now?” he ceases moving at all.

“Meat!” she throws her arms up, frustrated. “I know that they get meat from somewhere.”

“And I can’t hunt.” he says, pointedly, with emphasis “Because I don’t have a knife, Toph.”

Boys and their knives.

They should just grow their nails, she thinks.

“I already told you! You can take some meat from a tree.” she says.

“Does meat grow in trees in the Earth Kingdom?” he shakes angrily, steadily. Like he’s vibrating rapidly.

“Do they not?” she throws her arms up, a sign of barely-restrained anger.

“they DON’T, are you DUMB?” he starts screaming.

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER!” she yells, and then stops. “They’ll find us if we keep screaming, so shut up.”

He stops, promptly.

“Meat doesn’t grow in trees, Toph.” he whispers.

“Then tell me how to grow meat bushes.” she orders, in a whisper.

-

“How are we telling him?” his friend-but-not-quite whispers to him.

This is a story full of people that aren’t quite friends yet. But don’t you worry, disaster brings people together.

“As far as I’m concerned, we found nothing.” he says, and pokes the other man’s side. “Straighten up. Look natural.”

“Are we just supposed to pretend we didn’t find his kid and then lose her again?”

“Yes.”

“No we’re not. It isn’t a question, man.”

“If it’s not a question, don’t ask.”

“You know what?”

“No I don’t.”

“I’m not telling the boss either. No longer my problem.”

And off they walk, mouths closed, secrets locked down, swallowed through gulps of water, down to their throats.

-

“Nothing but these.” he tells her, handing a fistful of berries.

Six, to be more exact. They seemed plump enough to him, and it was all that the bushes had to offer.

Toph takes them out of his hand in a swift motion. Like an animal, scared of sharing things.

“We’re supposed to share them, Toph.”

She huffs, and he doesn’t have to see her to know she’s conflicted.

Silence. She hands him one single berry.

“I’m older than you, and I got all the berries.” Zuko says. “I’m not going to eat just one.”

“Then you’ll eat none.”

“... Two.” he cuts his losses short.

“Good.” she hands him three.

Half of the berries. More than he’d hoped for, considering his track record with dealing with young girls.

“You’re too small to try displays of dominance.”

“And I’m still better at being blind.”

“Shut up and eat.”

And that’s what they do.

The not-quite-ripe berries sting his mouth. He had grown unused to the flavor, but they’re clearly somewhat similar to mangos. Not fully ripe, like amchur powder.

They make him miss his home. The warm chana, served every wednesday night. His favorite, until they became Azula’s favorite too, and started eating all of it, stealing bits from his plate when Mom wasn’t looking.

“Do you like these? They taste just like amchur.” he tells her. “We used it on food back home. It’s the best.”

“What’s that?” she has already finished her handful. It isn’t like they were particularly large, afterall, even if she probably kept the biggest ones. “Beside “the best”.”

“Seasoning.” he says “Are you dirt-eaters too scared of using some ground-up cinnamon sticks to make your food taste like something?”

“Shut up, it isn’t like I cook.” she jabs at him. “It’s a girl job.”

“As far as I know, there isn’t any kind of girl job.” he says. “And you’re a girl, too.”

Back at home, sure, some things weren’t seen as princely to do. Such as cook, or take food from your brother’s plate, or sneak away from breakfast with naan for the turtleducks.

But he’d never really heard of a “girl job”. What does being a girl have to do with anything?, he wonders.

“Again, and I re-peat, shut up.” she says, as he finishes his last berry, hoping the taste will stick to his tongue, lull him into a sleep that isn’t filled with dread and cooked meat.

“It’s a seasoning.” he re-peats. “Like those you use in meat, which does not grow in trees.”

-

Zuko doesn’t sleep.

He can’t.

He’s keeping watch, he tells himself, and ignores the truth. The fact that he’s a coward. That he’s scared of facing himself, his mind.

The things that it summons. 

The things that don’t want to leave. The nightmares.

And he can’t just be weak, let himself be useless again. His scar aches, and his arms tingle, and his legs long for any movement.

But he can’t move. He’s locked in place, watching the world around him for any noises.

Because he’s keeping guard. And he can’t be weak, he can’t move. That might compromise everyone, even if he isn’t sure how.

He feels like he’s about to nod off.

But there’s not a single person who can protect him but himself.

Zuko suddenly misses his mom. She would’ve protected him, and she would’ve let him sleep. She would keep guard, and wouldn’t even let him offer to take her place.

Azula would make fun of him for missing her, would say that it was obvious, that a baby like him would want his mommy.

And so would anyone else, because true people, normal people, they don’t feel scared at anything. Normal people don’t want their moms.

Toph twitches and turns. She’s wrapped herself up in the blanket, no longer his but theirs.

“How will we reach them?”

The question isn’t aimed at anyone but himself. Because nobody else would hear him, and nothing that could hear them would bother to answer him.

“Uh?” she stirs, just a bit far.

He doesn’t answer, and hopes she will just drift back to sleep.

“Hey, loser mango.” she groggily mutters. “Whaddyu said?”

Zuko doesn’t have any lies to tell, so he says the truth.

“How will we reach them? The evil people and Badgermomle.”

She sits up, and he can hear her stretching, like an animal uncurling from its sleeping position. She moves like a badger, he realizes.

“I was thinking we’d walk. Like pur-suit predators.” the way she sometimes enunciates words is a bit weird, he will admit.

Suddenly, he realizes that she’s younger than Azula. 

Less worried about how other people perceive her, too. Something about that gives him a vague sense of dread.

“It’s pursuit.” he corrects. “One single, big thing.”

“How many times do you have to shut up?”

“More times than you thought this over.” he groans, and then, louder, not just to himself  “We’ll find something we can use. We can’t reach them by foot, not unless we want to- to arrive late.”

He can’t muster up better words. It’s so, so late already. At this point, any arrival would feel late.

“... Fine.” she begrudgingly admits. “We’ll find a nice cart, something we can push until we reach them.”

Zuko just wishes there were an easy way to do things. An easy way to get places, an easy way to do anything at all.

But he wasn’t lucky enough to have easy things, and he won’t ever be.

“Tomorrow morning? We can go into town to find something.” he says, longing for any excuse to nod off.

“Someone will see me. No way, then.” she says. “I don’t want to fight my father’s guards.”

Suddenly, he realizes she never told him who she really was.

And he can’t bring himself to care, anymore.

He just sighs. 

“I’ll wait by some road. We can pretend we’re the bad guys, and steal a cart from someone passing.”

That, at the moment, sounds like a good, sensible idea.

“We’re not bad guys, though.” he amends, when she doesn’t answer. “It’s like playing pretend. Not that I play pretend. I’m not a kid.”

He can feel her incredulous stare.

“You’re not a kid, you’re just dumb.” she says.

“Why, this time around?”

“Just had to remind you.”

-

He is a complex person, he’d like to think, despite his name not being disclosed.

He is young, handsome, and has a complex personality. Oh, and he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have a big, fat wagon pulled by a nice, plump emu-mule.

What matters, as you might have guessed, is that he was up late, journeying through a dark road, with little illumination other than a small lantern beside him.

People do that oddly often here.

Despite how often he makes that path, he can’t help it, the fear in his gut. He is too young to be robbed and die, that part of his brain thinks.

But he pushes onward nonetheless. He doesn’t have anything to entertain him other than his dark thoughts.

Anxiety is very nerve-wrecking and, on his legitimate opinion, entertaining! Incredible. He just can’t wait until his very worst wishes come concrete!

He smiles, with a mouth full of teeth that are very much not gritted, when he starts hearing noises.

Oh. 

He can recognize them now. Child-like bickering.

“Anyone lost?” he looks around. Better notice the weird spirits before the weird spirits notice you, his mother had once said. 

His mother was already senile when she’d said that, but he’s ignoring the facts.

They go silent. Not even the rustling of the leaves.

Maybe he’d imagined it.

So, he hurries his old emu-mule, hoping she would be a little bit faster.

He has a bad feeling, suddenly.

“You go first.” a tiny voice mutters. Now closer. Oh, fantastical. The evil children are closing in.

He keeps walking. Well, pushing.

A part of him wonders if there are spirits trying to hunt him down for sport now. But no, spirits aren’t meant to sound like children.

“No, you.” someone a bit older says. 

“I can hear you guys.” he stops again.

And, when he looks through the trees, he can make out silhouettes, behind the bushes.

He is a trustworthy adult, and those are two tiny, perfectly human-looking children.

One of them starts running. Not away, but towards him.

“THIS IS A ROBBERY!” A tiny boy yells. He’s scrawny and not much else can be distinguished, with the faint illumination.

“Aw.” he says, disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t want a slice of cheese?”

A rock is thrown at him.

“OUCH” He can’t help it, his reflexes are horrible and it is very late, so his wits are quite dim.

“ROBBERY, GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE!” The boy points at him.

“I’m not being robbed by a toddler. Go back to your parents.” he can’t help it, the slight rudeness.

“I’M TEN, SHUT UP!” He yells. “TOPH, THROW MORE ROCKS!”

“That would be more effective if you made it a surprise.” he notices, as he dodges another tiny stone.

And then, he looks to the other direction. To the treeline, where the “Toph” is.

And he doesn’t even have time to make sense of the enormous boulder before it hits his head.

Some things are sudden, and beyond stupid, he thinks, through the pain, before drifting off of conciousness.

Chapter Text

  It took them all of two minutes and one cart crash to decide that certain things are, quite simply, not projected for a pair of blind, bickering children, even if one of them can kind-of-see sometimes.

 “I still stand on building a cart out of rocks.” Zuko says, as they get off the high horse that are the remains of their semi-chosen, mostly just stolen, method of transportation.

He can feel Toph’s glare upon him, strong and mean enough for it to make the hairs on his arm stand on end.

 “Please don’t misuse earthbending that much.” she mis-uses her brand new words, and leaves him with nothing but new questions.

 “How much is that much?” he is thinking now. What else could they do?

 He wishes he had an inventor around. Or a particularly inventive servant girl with a knic-knack for fixing up toys.

 “Do not.” her impression of stern sounds suspiciously like him.

 “I’m not do-noting anything!” he objects, raising his hands and feeling himself flush.

 Toph starts walking away, and leaves him there for a few more seconds, before his brain fully catches up to him.

 Breathes in, breathes out.

 He wants to scream, because he can’t do anything.

 He’s useless against the world. He can’t do anything for himself, he can’t even bring himself to drag his feet.

 Zuko knows that his thoughts spiral like that for a reason, but that doesn’t make them any less upsetting.

 “Weren’t you begging to come?” he hears, from farther away than he’d expected, just realizing how long he spent there, waiting, opening and closing his hands like there’s something to use them for, something to grab.

 Nobody can see him, but he nods anyways, before remembering their stolen steed.

 The trashed cart sits in front of them, destroyed against a rock.

 The not-ostrich-horse calls out, pitch not of despair but of mere annoyance.

 He had been exhilarated at not having to walk everywhere - his legs ached, his knees seemed to almost snap under the pressure -, and then so very disappointed, and now, he’d forgotten the creature. 

 Its noise, a low, humming thing, is not something he’d heard from any of the other ostrich-horse variants.

 Maybe its an emu-mule, then?

 A commoner’s animal. Good at carrying loads, domesticated enough to be friendly, a hassle to deal with most of the time.

 And so, he approaches, much to Toph’s impatient sighing.

 “Hold up!” he yells at her, barely turning to face her.

 “What are you going to do now?” she asks, and even though he can no longer hear her footsteps, he still thinks she might be going away.

 “We’re taking our brave steed, Cabbage, on a walk.” he says, victoriously stupid.

 “...”

 Silence. Not even a cricket to keep them company on the stage, the two actors of that neverending play stare at the creature.

 And then, clearly ringing out in the clearing, an ironic question comes out:

 “Who’s that again?”

-

 The stars shine beautifully. 

 A hundred thousand little beauty marks glinting in the sky, no clouds even attempting to hide them. White freckles on dark blue cheeks, so small and far away, yet so large and reachable.

 Ursa is stunned by her tiny glances of them, constellations swimming above her.

 She’d rarely seen things so incredibly beautiful, things that make her gawk and admire like a child.

 The shaking of their cart on the road, almost lulling her to sleep. The gentle cover of the blanket over the remainder of the cargo, the way it hides her from the world, keeps her safe and warm.

 “Azula, did you know that the people of the southern water tribe worship the moon?” she asks her daughter, trying to keep her awake, snapping away from the gentle night’s grasp.

 She knows that, if both of them fall asleep, they might be found out. And if one’s nightmares gets loud enough - and they will, they always will be all too loud -, they’ll have no further way to hide until they get to their destination.

 “The northern one is more spiritual, ,Mother.” there’s barely a trace of the typical apprehension, the almost-fear, through the drowsy voice of her child.

 Ursa shouldn’t keep her awake, but she does.

 As long as her dreams were kept loud, she would have to stay awake. To stay safe.

Azula’s safety meant her own, too. It was not really selfish, though, even though it was convenient.

 “Despite the separation between the tribes being because of their different approaches to spirituality, the south still holds their spirits and tales close.” she says, gently. “They aren’t much different from us.”

 “How do you know anything about barbarians?” The snarky question comes just as they pass the first cloud she sees that night. “You’ve never been among them, so I don’t think you know what kind of-”

 “Don’t speak like that.” she resists the urge to tug at either cheeks or ears. That isn’t how discipline is made, be it for good or bad children. “You need to know plenty about the world, and that includes its different people, because you never know who you’re going to deal with.”

 “While that is indeed fair.” Azula says, now sounding more clear and awake. “It isn’t like they even speak in civilized tongues.”

 “They speak just like us - well, most of the remaining tribes do -, because of the trading before the war.” She chides gently. “What is the school curriculum like these days, if you don’t know about the fascinating history of our languages?”

 For a second, Azula stops. A deep breath taken in, but no matching exhale.

 They stay like that for a brief moment that stretches through years, before her answer comes.

 Ursa feels slightly relieved, perhaps thankful, that she had not fallen asleep amidst their conversation.

 “If that is true, then our curriculum is currently incomplete. We don’t have much on our textbooks about times before the war, and a language unification act is something that should be taught about.” her daughter says, a bit of something in her voice.

 A start.

 A string she can pull upon, a curtain she can open up.

 “Do you want me to tell you more about the tribes?” Ursa offers, her tentative words breaking through the silence of the world around them. “They’re quite a fascinating subject.”

 Cicadas sing, grass and leaves rustle. The ostrich-horse’s heavy footfalls fill the air. The girl’s breath picks up, and Ursa can almost see the thoughts, swirling in her little head.

 But she can’t see what she is thinking. In those regards, she’s as blind as a badgermole.

 Unlike one of those things, though, Ursa is small against the world. Dwarfed by its glory, stomped by its might.

 As small as what Azula says next, a tiny “Yes, mother.”, the usual fear of court children replaced by a fascination, a genuine curiosity.

 A real start.

-

 Toph does not think the emu-mule is a good decision.

 She can feel its talons, scraping against the earth, sharp as metal.

 It does not think Toph is a good decision either.

 “Come on, Cabbage likes you.” he says, already sitting on his little spot on her back. His legs swing, and she wonders if he will be able to stay riding the thing without a saddle.

  “I’m not riding that thing. Remember, earth sight?” she waves a hand over her own eyes, a brief illustration that neither of them can see.

 “Weren’t you the one going on about us needing to keep up with the thieves?” he asks her, a hand reaching out to help her up.

 She doesn’t take his hand.

 He’s probably already petting the emu-mule’s soft, fluffy neck. What a loser.

 Toph shows a tongue his way, but it goes unanswered. And then, she thinks:

 “Well- I can run along.” is eventually said, as she scratches her chin.

 “Not for long.” he says, clearly biting back a sigh. “You’re a little kid, Toph-’

 “Not a kid.” she says, taking the thing’s so-called leash in her hand. Admittedly, it feels unfitting. Like she’s all too small for the thick rope her hands wrap around.

 “I meant that you have stubby little legs, alright?!” his words come out eerily loud compared to their previous whispers. Startling enough to make Cabbage tense up, pulling slightly at the rope.

 The earth reveals itself around her. Old roots and old mud and writhing things, deep bellow that earth.

 That is unfamiliar territory, something tells her.

 It’s not a terrain fond of humans like her, but it shows her the blurring tracks, growing farther and farther away, fading from her sight.

 She gulps down something, shakes her head, feels her mouth quiver.

 Toph nods.

 “I’ll go with you and the bird, but we have to come down once in a while so I can scour for the right direction.”

 She refuses to take Zuko’s hands, and tries climbing upon the emu-mule on her own.

 There, she finds a minor-major issue.

 An issue much bigger than her, it seems.

 Toph is not asking for help. Toph is very much not asking for help, she decides, the moment she lifts herself on a pillar of rock.

 And then, the mule actually starts walking away.

 Toph does not sigh, and Toph does not give up without a fight.

-

 Ever since they’d left the ship, they’d been all alone. All alone and together, Mother had said. 

 She doesn’t believe the woman.

 Azula simply can’t help but wonder when she will get used to a world where there are no servants caring for her, no people caring for her.

 No people watching her.

 Mother doesn’t care for her, afteral. She spends all day with red, puffy eyes, and as much as Azula tries, she can’t ever be the one to make her upset.

 She can’t ever be the one to make her put up a fight.

 Azula can’t even sleep. She can just keep her eyes half-open, barely peeking from where the wind lifts up an end of the rag over them.

 All she can do beyond wonder is listen.

 “So… You’re saying the spirit of the world - something that is no more than fiction, mind you - is the thing that helped shape our common language?” she pretends to be taking notes, to be believing her current teacher.

 “Azula, it’s the truth.” she says.

 Azula breathes in, out.  Her face schooled into a smile, unseen and forced.

 “I don’t see how you believe your own statement.” she snarks.

 “It’s okay if you don’t.” Mother breathes out a sigh. “But you have to talk like a commoner- a normal person in here, alright? And you have to remember your new name.”

 “Kiyi.” she says, biting back the whine. “I know. When are we ar- getting there?”

 “Soon enough.” Ursa says, and Azula can hear the smile in her voice. “It’ll be nice. I bet you’re going to like the camp.”

 She very much isn’t.

 Her mother does not like telling her any truths. Nobody gives away the truth for free.

 They both know that she’s smart enough to figure out things by herself.

 And she can figure that Mom is forcing them into treason easily enough.

 Into riling rebellions and setting fire to homes and taking innocent civilians' lives, all in the name of destroying the Dragon’s Throne.

 Smooth sailing, but for the uneven gallop on the patted-down dirt road. 

 Dark, if not fully for the slight stream of fading moonlight, the only sign of the approach of the early morning.

 The silence, the only thing absolute, that stretching out over them like the half-ripped rags covering the rest of the cargo.

  Is that what disgrace feels like?

-

  The world wants to lull Zuko to sleep. Gentle arms he can almost feel caress his skin, brush back his hair.

 The steady footfalls of the emu-mule against the wet soil, the way her fluffy neck feels like a pillow when he leans too far forward.

  The crickets, chattering bugs and a thousand other things in the blooming bog.

 The sound of Toph, snoring softly against his back, unbothered by the way his spine sticks out against her cheek.

 However, he can’t sleep. Even though he wants to, he has more than enough reasons to push back the exhaustion, to carry on with soreness and a heavy head.

 It would be a good idea, a part of him is tempted to say. Just stop for a minute, just lay down for a second, just let it all drift by.

 But the journey can’t be stopped, not while he has a-

 It doesn't matter. What matters is that he has a plan, and he doesn’t need to sleep. 

He wishes he had a game to play, anything to take him away from the foul-smelling land.

 Something to make it feel like he’s there, like he’s awake and alive and seeing and-

 He shivers, shakes his head, and rushes Cabbage to go faster. Northwest, Toph had said.

 A straight line, through the patted-down earth that circled the swamp.

 He twitches, twists and turns.

 “Uh?” She murmurs behind him, soft voice slurring as she lifts her head, leaving a cold spot on him.

 A cold, wet spot.

 Ew.

 “You drooled on my back. That’s-” Zuko grits his teeth with the realization. 

 Are all people that slobbery? He doesn’t think he is.

 “And I’m going to drool again.” she slurs, slumping back against him again, bringing her arms up around him this time.

 Like a little blanket snake, a delirious part of him says.

 “Don’t lean on me that much.” he says, shaking off the warmth. “We have to check the terrain again, remember?”

 She grumbles something unintelligible, but doesn’t move beyond that.

 “Tophhh” he whines. “I don’t know where to go, so wake up or we’ll get lost!”

 She raises up a hand, tries to cover his mouth.

 “I’m crashing the cart.” he warns her in a muffled voice, for no force of nature can stop him.

 “Not a cart.” she says.

 “I’m going to crash the lemur.” he says, despite stopping Cabbage, who, he realizes, is very much not a lemur. “Emu. I am going to crash the emu.”

 She groans deeply, and hauls herself gracelessly off the great high horse.

 “How fallproof are you?” Zuko can’t help but ask, upon hearing her flop onto the muddy earth with no groans or grunts.

 “More than you.” she grumbles, getting up like she didn’t just take that large of a fall.

 He hears her tapping the floor, stomping all over it, puddles of dirty water and wet earth. And then, she stops.

 A sudden silence.

 Zuko breathes in. Breathes out. Something makes his hairs stand on end, makes him want to grit his teeth and pull the leash and run-

 And then, Toph finally says something.

 “Her tracks went through the swamp.” she whispers. “Zuko, the tracks are fading out to the north. They’re going further into the foggy swamp.”

 Something about that makes him swallow down something in his chest, his throat suddenly so, so very dry.

-

 Night is giving way to the new day.

 To the sounds of the world, to the cricket-wolves and wombat-bees, to the infinite bog around them.

 As the sun blooms, Zuko takes his turn to slump forward, to take shelter and bed on their brave steed, Cabbage.

 Toph has, sadly, to stay awake now. It’s way past the time she’d ever spent awake, and she just wishes she could close her eyes, snore a bit.

 She feels like she’d just slept for a few minutes, and now, she’s stuck there, awkwardly leading the train to the “whatever comes next” town.

 Cabbage doesn’t like Toph very much, but she lets herself be led nonetheless, reigns awkwardly in her hands.

 She should’ve let Zuko on the back, because even the risk of him falling off would be nicer than having to stretch her arms  that much for that long.

 Toph’s hands tremble, so she hops off Cabbage again. Scouring the terrain is the only rest she gets, for her spinning head, her heavy eyelids and sore bones.

 She reaches out to the world. To the writhing worms, to the things deep below the earth. To the half-buried tunnels and the decomposing roots.

 To the bones and to the rivers, all crossing their path-to-be.

 She wants to curl up in the ground, but she shakes her head, forces her eyes back open. She’s unprotected, she tells herself.

 Not even the cockiest creatures sleep without a den or pack to watch over them.

 Plus, the world is awakening, beautiful and terrifying. 

 She has people after her, and she has the weak early-morning sun, a comforting warmth over her cheeks to keep her awake.

 The trees are so tall that they hold back the sun, when she climbs onto Cabbage again.

 “You’re probably really tired.” Toph realizes. “We just have to keep going for a bit.”

 And so, Toph sloppily makes a stone ladder.

 But then, right as she’s about to climb up, something goes wrong. It’s in the way Zuko tenses up - she can feel him, suddenly unmoving, almost unbreathing.

 It’s in the way he flinches when she touches his leg.

 “Hey, Shoutyhead?” her hand hovers above his, and she can hear it when he sobs.

 It’s in the way she can’t manage to figure out just what is happening.

 “Why are you-” Toph can’t really say it, because well, what if he isn’t really crying?

 For all that she knows, he might be trying to prank her.

 “What are you doing?” she can’t help it, she’s loud. “Is this a prank-”

 But no, it can’t be.

 He isn’t answering - she hasn’t known him for long, but she knows he isn’t just silent. Ever.

 He’s having a bad dream.

 She doesn’t know what to do, suddenly. Toph shouldn’t falter, though.

 So, she slaps his face, ignoring the odd, rough, stretchy feel of his skin. The little scabby spots that she doesn’t linger on.

 “HEY!” she shouts. “Wake up!”

-

 Her child’s smell has long since faded away.

 Gone off to the distance.

 Her keen cries and her despaired sniffing brought up nothing but fruitlessness. Her child’s smell has long since faded.

 Her cage is not enough of a nest. It’s bare and empty, suspended from the earth so fully that she’s left all but blind.

 The only comfort is the music.

 A cheerful tune, upbeat and merry. She isn’t one to know the names of what makes a song, of course, but she’s capable of appreciating something that makes her sleep.

 Sleep and sleep.

 Her wakefulness brings her nothing but a hazy blur of repulsive smells and the overbearing cold cold cold of the metal walls.

 The great creature wants to sleep.

 But, this night, in the full silence, she can’t.

 Not until she proves it, not until she figures if her cage can break or bend.

 If her little one can’t find her, she’ll make her own way back.

 Badgermoles can’t smile - not in the way you do, at least - but they can plan quite well. They can do plenty of things, even when locked away in their cells.

 Spirit animals are called that for a reason, you know.

-

 Zuko’s nightmares are far too obvious, he realizes, after the ensuing fight.

 The dream was too loud.

 And yet, their fight was louder, the shouted squabble, now seemed childish. Even though it ended up with Zuko nearly falling off of Cabbage’s back.

 Now, they’re drifting through the early morning, deeper and deeper into the swamp, away from the road around it.

 The world is silent, as their steed’s steps grow more and more unsteady, slogging through the muddy terrain.

 She’s as tired as they are. And just like them, she can’t sleep.

 His insides feel empty, from both hunger and emotion.

 Zuko’s arms are sore, and his back hurts. The lack of a saddle is now even more unpleasant, growing into a cacophony of sensations in his head.

 The smell of wet dirt and animal droppings, the silence, the emptiness. The way he felt dirty, like his scar was bare again, like-

 The rumble of Toph’s stomach is the first thing they’d heard in what felt like ages, filling the space where their previous silence now gladly left.

 Something pangs in his chest. A part of him can barely remember that she’s a kid.

 “Are you hungry?” he turns back to ask her.

 “Do you have any food?” she asks back.

 “I…” he starts. “I don’t.”

 “Then I’m not.”

-

 They have no meal to eat, but her hunger won’t let her sleep.

 Her stomach roars. She wants to hunt down, to find something to eat.

 To her mind, it feels like she’s starving, but, over it, there’s something else.

 Something that makes her feel sluggish, slurred down and both too heavy and too light.

 Boredom.

 The steady gallop of Cabbage is almost enough to lull her down, almost a solution to the ted-ium.

 She groans, slumps against Zuko’s back again. The mid-morning sun is all too hot against her back whenever it streams through the trees, and the contact with him feels feverishly hot, even though she can’t really get away.

 Riding Cabbage - as sweet of a little donkey as Zuko says she is - hurts her legs. The blanket they'd put on her back isn't enough of a saddle, never was, never would be.

  Toph wishes she had somewhere else to go, something else to do.

 Running this way is boring. The song of the unfamiliar earth isn’t something she can hear from her spot above-ground, and the brief moments of contact are unbearably brief.

 Mud, mud. The world is full of good things, and all she gets is mud drying at the soles of her feet, as she swings them aimlessly.

 The silence washes over them in the way no stream would ever dare to.

 So much for so little. The emu-mule’s pace feels too slow, dragging through the motions. Like Cabbage is about to collapse, like Toph isn’t the only one.

 “We need to find clear water.” Zuko says, eventually. His voice is hoarse, so very hoarse.

 His heartbeat thumps hard enough for Toph to feel it from his back.

 She groans out something, licking dry lips.

 He turns, displacing her, forcing her to open her eyes.

 “We need to do something.” she says, mumbly words sounding delirious to her own ears. “But no showers.”

 She feels like she’s overreacting significantly, but hey, it’s honesty.

 “We’re already doing something.” Zuko’s voice sounds dumbfounded. “We are finding both Badgermomle and clear water. And you’re taking a shower, don’t argue about it.”

 The last sentence makes her grin, pure menace. A warrior, getting ready.

 “Fine, I surrender!” she exclaims, readying herself to hop off the emu-mule. “But first-”

 She wraps her arms around Zuko, causing him to flinch and yelp something, grabbing for his cane the very moment she drags him down with her.

 Cabbage neighs at them curiously, as he flops around in the mud and she laughs, pointing at him.

 He screams something at her, but the game has already started.

 Toph grabs a glob of mud, and throws it at him.

 And then, the treck begins. She can use her earthbending to help her run, of course, but she doesn’t. He’s just a non-bender, and all wars have their rules.

 She’s six and bored, not six and war criminal.

 “HEY, HOLD UP!” he screams after her “What does it mean?!”

 “IT’S A...!” she starts her announcement, climbing atop a nearby tree root. And then, as loud as she can “MUD FIGHT!”

 Zuko sighs, and then-

 “No, Toph.” a somber set of words, as he breathes deep, in and out.

 Her eyes widen.

 “IT’S A MUD WAR!”

 And that’s the moment Toph knows.

 No, no- maybe not the exact moment she realizes. 

 Maybe that’s the very next, when she’s hit in the face with a glob of mud, and proceeds to fall onto the water.

 They’ve found an efficient distraction, something to keep her from the half-sleep.

 A mud war, of course. What else would it be possible for them to do?

 Run, hide?

 The answer, to her, is fight.

 Through the mud and water puddles, tripping over roots and tree husks.

 They give into a chase against each other, screaming and throwing globs of mud.

 But the thing that’s the most fun is the fact that he puts up a fight, his voice sounding motivated instead of angry-scared.

 The grin hurts her cheeks, and she can almost forget what they’re after, as the swamp grows around them.

 A world blooming around her. Plants growing in all shapes and sizes, yearning for the sun’s attention. Giant worm-bats, writhing in trees. Moss, creeping its way up the rocks.

 She can feel it all, and Zuko’s projectiles are no exception. Globs of haphazardly thrown mud, little sticks and rocks. All dirt-covered enough to be easily thrown back at him.

 Toph’s are incredible in aim. Mostly because of her earthbending, although also because it’s her.

 “HEY, HOLD UP!” He screeches after her, amidst panting for air.

 That, for a second, breaks them back into the world, into how it’s really supposed to be, beyond grinning and chasing through the mud.

 Toph manages to stop, though, despite the slight twinge of disappointment, dragging her heels on the mud.

 “What brings you to request a truce?” she puts on a gravelly voice.

 “I-” he pants “I think we’re going to get lost like this.” 

 “But Cabbage followed us.” she objects, pointing in her direction. She caws, clearly accepting in a begrudging manner that her role is now mount, sidekick and supervisor. Or maybe she just wants to get rid of the blanket, the closest thing they had to a saddle.

 “We’re getting off the tracks.” he comes closer to her, slow steps, tired yet silent.

 “Oh.” Toph gives in, sitting atop the root of a tree. “We’re going to get back on track soon, though.” 

 Finally, he plops down beside her, breathing out a sigh as he stretches his back. It cracks, like he’s an old man and not a child like her.

 “Agni, we’re filthy.” he says.

 “Are you praying?” she asks, poking his shoulder.

 He snorts, but doesn’t flinch this time. 

 Their silent is calmer now. The world feels more like it’s supposed to, to Toph. Her exhaustion feels earned, even though, as the thrill fades back, she feels sluggish.

 “I should do that.” he eventually says.

 And that makes her laugh.

 “Spirit matters are not a thing to be laughed at, Toph.” he bonks her gently with his cane.

 “Oh no-” she starts, flaring dramatically “Zuko has become… A grandpa!”

 And she laughs, but he doesn’t.

 “You really have no idea what the world is like, uh?”

 “Nope!”

-

 The sunshine streams through the man-made clearing, filtered by the tall trees. It’s a well-hidden place, a tiny settlement that Azula can barely call a camp.

 Little tents sprinkled around, far enough from each other and the trees for fires to not spread easily.

 Logs and little tables, a thousand things that make Azula think she’s in some kind of exposition, some kind of exhibition of the long-forgotten past.

 The emptiness doesn’t help her impression.

 “So…” she starts. “This is the great place you were talking about?”

 Mother’s warm laugh rings in her ears, almost cruel in her exhaustion.

 “It’s close enough for you to walk to the nearest colony, if you’re worried about that.”

 “Oh, I’m not.” she says, resisting the urge to rub at her eyes. “It’s… sufficient. Exotic. Fantastic.”

 “Indeed.” Mother quips, like she hasn’t noticed the obvious irony in Azula’s voice.

 Nobody ever ignores her irony. It’s meant to be dangerous.

 But she isn’t a princess anymore. She’s just a girl in a tiny camp, empty but for a single man trodding up to her.

 Handsome with a too-wide smile - must be forced, or he has an enlarged mouth, possible sign of further deformities-, dark skin, short hair. Not a military cut. 

 “Hello, m’lady!” he bows to her mother, his body language otherwise relaxed.

 Ursa bows back to him, eyes half-closed with a smile.

 “Yes, I am Noriko.” she says, the tension of a lie on her face barely visible. "And this is my daughter, Kiyi.

 “So, you’re the lady who needed a new place!” he says “We can probably hook you up somewhere on the city-”

 “No, no.” is the last thing that’s said that Azula can hear, before their voices fade into whispers.

  She huffs, and tries coming closer. No information will be denied from her, may she be-

 “OH” the man lets out, bouncing back on the balls of his feet. “Well, that’s an exciting development! We rarely get wanted people here.”

 “Not wanted.” Mother says, softly. “Just hiding.”

 Azula huffs.

 “Either way, my name’s Li Wei!”

 “So, little lady.” Li Wei starts, smiling still a bit - just enough to be noticeable, almost consciously - forced. “You’re probably excited to see other kids!”

 “Trust me, dear sir.” she smiles politely, letting her eyes crinkle around the edges in just the right way “I am very much not.”

 “Oh thank- Friction, we’re out of children.” he waves his arms excitedly. “Well, do you want some breakfast jook?”

 Mother smiles and gives the young man a bow. 

 “Yes please.”

 “Jook and what?” she asks, curious and unnassuming, giving him her own little bow. Angled just like Mother’s, so it looks like a perfect mimicry.

 For now, she is a secret agent. 

 (A fun trick for times of need, her teacher had told her. It’s like playing pretend.)

 And her role is of a small child.

 “Jook and the burnt jook at the bottom of the pot.” he walks into a tent, grabs a couple of bowls.

 He’s away for just enough time for the perfect agent-to-agent communication.

 Azula makes a grossed out face, and crosses her arms.

 Ursa gesticulates wildly, which prompts her daughter - herself, princess Azula of the Fire Nation, future crown princess - to show her tongue.

 It’s a brief, yet necessary, gesture, considering their situation of imposed silence. Plus, it’s gone before Li Wei can even fully get out of the tent.

 He balances a pair of bowls on his arms, an uncalled gesture, which, coupled with his joyful singing, indicate a false joy.

 Afterall, there is no way he doesn’t quiver at their sights, for they are perfect examples of the lethality a real fire nation woman can display.

 He walks to the campfire, scoops up two measures of the icky substance.

 A slimy sound is made when they fall onto the tiny bowls.

 Azula decides that she will object when she is no longer hungry.

-

 Zuko is guiding cabbage gently, the rope of her leash a rough texture on his already hurt hands.

 She clucks softly, hooves stampeding over the puddles of muddy water.

 They can’t even ride her right now. She doesn’t seem to like trekking through the terrain anyways, and it’s clearly hard on her legs.

 She must be so hungry, and Zuko can’t do anything about it.

 His shoes - they were supposed to be almost-brand-new, supposed to be a gift - are soaked through, his feet doing a wet, unpleasant sound that makes his brow furrow.

 He wonders for how long they will last. He’s lost all his other gifts, they’ve all been left behind.

 And then, Toph, whose drag on his other arm was a now-familiar tug, suddenly stops, leaving his hand behind.

 It’s sudden enough to make him flinch and look around, expecting to detect whatever made her stop. His arm’s hairs stand up, suddenly missing the warmth.

 There’s nothing. He can’t hear any sound, he can’t find anything that could have made her go quiet and still.

 “... Toph?” he asks, but she doesn’t seem to hear him.

 The stillness lasts one more second.

 No other sound but for her quickening breath, but for the tiny sound she lets out.

 It’s barely audible.

 “Zuko- she’s here.”

 No stillness lasts forever, he realizes, when she bolts.

 It’s easy to track down the sound, for once. 

 She isn’t very silent. She doesn’t have the proper form.

 Neither does he, though.

 All he has to follow is the desperate breath, the quick step, the way it gives way to her dragging her way through the stream.

 She’s found water. But he can’t rejoice - even though it doesn’t sound like it’s high enough for her to sink.

 Yet.

 “Toph?!” he shouts out. “Come on, what are you doing?”

 He wonders if that’s some kind of new trick. If she hasn’t been tired out yet.

 “This isn’t a game!” Zuko screams out, waving his hands as he, too, falls into the water. A pool that barely goes up to his waist.

 Yet, it slows him down.

 The Fire Nation people are used to swimming. He is almost thrown back by the feel of algae brushing against his legs.

 Almost.

 He can hear her, until he can’t.

 She’s stopped.

 She isn’t sinking.

 “Zuko, come on, she’s over there!”

 “She what?!” he spits, mouth twisted into a grimace.

 “I can feel her!” Toph screams, even though he’s nearly where she is. “Whenever I touch the ground, I can feel her at the other side of the river!”

 And suddenly, it all feels very wrong.

 He feels like he’s supposed to see something, hear something.

 But there’s… Nothing?

 “Toph…” he says, the moment he stops, feet flapping about like they used to back in the sea, back when he could go to the pond and swing his feet over the edge.

 “Come on!” she is still swimming. Further away.

 He can’t bring himself to fully catch up to her.

 “Toph, there’s a reason this is called a spirit swamp.”

-

 And that’s just the way it starts.

 There’s no fight to be put this time. There’s just the trekking through shallow water, the feel of earth moving under her feet.

 Something is wrong. 

 Her sense is not working like it’s supposed to.

 She’s never truly met dangerous terrain. She doesn’t think many people get to meet that kind of oddity either.

 The earth is lying. It’s telling her of people, under the soil, around the edges of her vision.

 It isn’t trying to hide its temptations anymore.

She can see them clearly, figures oddly familiar, their warmth echoing through the chambers.

The worms underneath her feet, ginormous monsters, the creatures stepping over the bog, crushing vegetation in their search for something.

 She can picture soft fur and slimy scales, almost like she’s touching them.

 So very clear, so nightmarishly unreal.

 And she knows it’s all lies. She knows and yet she doesn’t, because what if it’s true and what if-

 Toph takes Zuko’s arm in hers, and tries to navigate the terrain. If she is getting lost, then she can’t imagine what he is feeling.

 It’s all heavy. Her head spins, and there’s something in her throat.

 Her feet lag behind, dragged down by the mud, as they cross the stream. 

 She can almost see a little bridge, but what if it isn’t there? What if, when they come to it, it’s just a pit?

 Their silence is the only thing heavier than their footsteps, in the end.

 The quick breathing, the panicked pulse she feels in hers.

 Silent.

 Not even Cabbage makes a sound, not when Toph reaches back to touch her, to prove she’s there, and not when she keeps leading them, taking them away.

 Are Badgermomle’s signals even really there, a part of her wonders?

 But she can’t voice her concerns. She can’t make any sound.

 She can’t do anything but let the silence cover them, like the blanket they’d used as a saddle, like the-

 Like the giggling.

 The rustling of leaves.

 “Toph?” Zuko asks, a quiver in his voice as he swallows down something.

 “You can hear it too, can’t you?” she asks, feeling her wide eyes unable to properly close.

 Something in her is hammering.

 Run run run, says everything in her body.

 Maybe something outside of it chants along too, wordless, mouthless.

 More powerful than anything else.

 Run run run, get on your horse and get out of here.

 Crickets and bugs, and the thing - things, maybe? - Below the earth.

 She isn’t going to give in.

 So, Toph smiles. She won’t let the eyes of the earth get the satisfaction of seeing fear in her face.

 She’s already given enough of her heartbeats to that place.

 “Do you wanna play again?” she asks Zuko, voice dripping with false confidence, her smile all too wide, even for faces that can’t see.

 “No- Are you stupid, Toph?!”

 “Not as stupid as you, funkiller.” she spits out back, not able to help snapping under the pressure.

 “I’m not doing anything wrong!” he objects. “I’m just warning you against getting us lost again!”

 And then, over their bickering, another noise makes itself known.

 A noise that breaks their surreal terror.

 The hitting of paddles against the water. Someone is making their way through the stream, her ears say.

 But that world's hands are all over the place, all over her ears, all over her feet. Making her see and hear everything but the truth.

 “Is this another vision?” her voice comes out tiny. She shouldn't have asked that, she didn't even need to, but-

 She doesn’t know what would be the worse option.

-

 Azula has nothing to do.

 Mother doesn't need to tell her that firebending is not an option. But she has nothing to do, she wants to argue.

 What is a princess without a nation to call hers? What is a firebender with no fire?

 She wonders how long it will take for Father to find them. 

 She wants to go home, suddenly. She wants to see Father again - and that makes her feel like a kid, suddenly, even though it’s the truth -, she wants to see him helping her bend, helping her learn to rule.

 She’d always been meant to be the heiress.

 And she has to do something. Anything.

 And so, she goes away from their spot, dishes already dried and cleaned as much as possible. She’d never thought she’d be helping with chores, but there she is.

 Empty camp, empty world.

 She suddenly feels… Alone.

 But it’s better to take one step forward than two steps back, even if back there is family.

 The dry grass crunches between her boots and the soil, as she opens up a pathway, quietly leading herself away.

 Beggar ticks sticking to her clothes, as she resists the urge to burn it all away.

 Her body language is relaxed - maybe it’s conscious, maybe it’s genuine, as she settles down on the roots of a tree, far away from view.

 Eyes closed.

 Deep breaths, in and out. For the moment, Azula will rest, let the bark of the tree dig into her thin shirt, let the grass brush up against her boots.

 And then, right as she feels herself drift away, something brings her back.

 A clicking noise. Deep, loud. Guttural, right to her left, roughly twelve phoenixes and a half away.

 It sounds like a bill, of some sort. Maybe like some kind of two-part tool?

 Either way, Azula makes sure she is ready to fend off the threat. Whatever that is.

 The sound is a bit too far for most people’s comfort, but she is far from most people. Her head tilts to the side slightly, and she can’t help but let her step pick up.

 She can see it from the distance now. A fluffy tail.

 Some kind of animal with a beak, then. Possibly predatory.

 Predators that big end up being easier to deal with than herbivores of the same size, afterall.

 Azula had never played with a creature like that before. 

 She wonders what other noises it could make?

 Step, step.

 Careful, silent.

 (Not as nimble as his used to be, but-)

 She feels like walking back, until the creature’s yellow eye catchers hers.

 Long legs, four of them. Thin like sticks. Easy to break, if need be.

 The gray pelt, the long, puffy tail.

 The shoebill-cat clicks at her, like the textbooks had said it would.

 It’s so big, she bets Z- Someone else would’ve loved having it around.

 “Greetings.” she greets the creature.

 Most animals do not bow.

 Shoebill-cats are not an exception, even if she plans on making that one her very own servant. 

 She beckons it with a hand.

 “If you come closer, I can make you a general.” she offers.

 Oddly, it comes closer and closer, gray pelt pulled back, curious and scared.

 And then, its head brushes against her hand.

 Azula indulges in her very first servant, when she manages to drag General Cucumber back to camp.

-

  Their canoe finds nothing but an emu-mule and two shaking children, running through the mud.

 Cais is not sure what they’re supposed to do about the children. Or their mule, even if the creature is particularly stupid-looking and surely would not mind becoming dinner.

 “Hey.” Giang says, gently, waving his hand. 

 There’s a look of awe in his face, and a kind of inflection in his voice that speaks wonders to how much he would not mind being some creature’s dinner either.

 The two children look at eachother. The two individuals on the boat decide simply not to mention that, for people who are supposedly whispering, they are quite loud.

 A little smile is aimed Cais’ way by their brother, the very which turns to a look of wide-eyed confusion the very moment the little-r one - a girl so small she almost looked like an abandoned doll - screeches, at the top of her lungs:

 “HEY, ARE YOU ANOTHER VISION?” is a thing that foreigners do, indeed, ask often.

  Turns out, outsiders aren’t very polite.

 “TOPH, NO-” the boy half-yells out, slapping his own face with a mud-covered hand.

 “Well, I’m sure you just shoed all the actual spirits away, so no.” Cais says, softly as they try to get their ears to stop ringing.

 “Don’t be rude!” their brother says, palming his own face. “Either of you! Now come on, what y’all doing here?”

 “Looking for a badgermole.” the boy says, ignoring the fact that his face - a scarred mess of half-peeled scabs and shiny skin that was never going to not look angry and red - is covered in mud. “Did you see any crossing by?”

 Cais looks at Giang. They both have the same exact expression, and not really a clue of what is going on, what just happened, nor what might happen next.

 “I- I don’t think we did. Sorry.” Giang says, reaching out a hand. “Do you want a ride out of here?”

 “How do we know-” the boy stars, the moment his little sister shoots up a hand and shoves it into his mouth.

 “Yes!” she says, taking the hand off the little lion’s mouth before he can snap down. “Can we-”

 “What about Cabbage?” the boy asks, pulling the “Toph” back.

 The aforementioned beast caws softly, ears pulled down.

 “Oh- Sorry, she can’t come.” Cais starts.

 “She can, if she behaves.” Giang says, giving his sibling a thumbs up.

 The boy looks at his steed - well, her vague, general direction -, and asks:

 “Cabbage, can you behave?” very, very softly. 

 “No pooping on the- whatever that thing is.” Toph says, ever the wise little girl.

 “This is a waterbending-pulled canoe.” He says, clearly proud.

 Yes, he holds that thing incredibly dear.

 “And I’m assuming you two are being led around by the spirits, yes?” Cais diverges the subject.

 “Yes… Please-tell-me-about-the-spirits, fair sir.” the boy bows down low, long, untidy hair falling a bit into the water.

 Giang smiles at Cais, and they sigh, slapping their face in resignation, and yet, reaching out a hand.

 The girls yelps, and looks like she regrets all her decisions the moment her feet leave the ground.

 Only when she comes up onto the canoe, they finally get a true chance to look into her eyes.

Grey, unblinking, unseeing.

 “Oh, you’re one of those, right?” Giang asks “I know it’s scary, but come on, you’re not falling.”

 They nod, even though they know that she can’t see it - there’s no way her abilities are that advanced yet, of course -, but can’t help the furrowing brow, the budding doubt, the building question.

 What, in the name of the spirits, are two blind children doing in the middle of a haunted, hallucination-inducing swamp?

Chapter Text

 Had they been spirits - or a machination of one’s feeble mind - it would’ve been a relief.

 Cais had seen plenty of spirits. The remnants of long-gone people, the impressions they left behind in that world, were something one could deal with.

 Something they knew, something that had never had the chance to be unusual.

 Cais could easily accommodate spirits in their mind, make simplicity out of their confusing words, of their sparkless eyes and dulled faces.

 However, these were decidedly not spirits.

 These were something far harder to get used to. These were children.

 Tiny, dwarfed by everything yet standing fearless, never having known better than vulnerability.

 Too much of them there, watching, nonetheless giving off death.

 To them, someone yet to be swatted down by the hands of war, a face damaged to that extent couldn’t help but feel surreal.

 At least their brother could take comfort in knowing his own horrified confusion was in someone else’s wide eyes, in someone else’s white-gripped hands, trembling grasps.

 The subject of their attention seemed to neither notice nor care, as he settled down onto the skiff, damp wood now stained with muddy shoeprints.

 A permanent frown, engraved into the lines of his bony face, into the fleshy red mass where his eyes had been, maybe not so long ago.

 Pain in his tense movements, nonetheless the impression that he was fine remaining, his whispers far too loud for Cais and Giang to pretend they couldn’t hear.

 "We’re going to find her after this, Toph, so shut up and follow along.” he tells his sister.

 They can pretend mistrust doesn’t hurt, as their voices fade off once more.

 The boy shakes his head, plastering half-chopped, greasy hair once more into his face.

 "Shush. Badgermomle first." His sister interrupts, shaking a little still. Her tiny hands, muddy yet still white with the grip.

 Orange splotches on faces soon to be sun-kissed, the tiniest bits of sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the trees.

 Their swamp is held together by the great roots, protecting the earth from landslides and protecting them from the world outside.

 They dodge past the fallen branches and rising roots, the world tinted with a bit of warmth, a warning of the sun’s setting light, a tiny gift of goodbye.

 Muddy faces and dirty clothes, shivering, trembling hands holding onto the sides of the boat like it is a lifeline.

 Every movement from it brings out a gasp or two, a fearful sign of unfamiliarity, of reality.

 Spirits never pretend like that.

 Their fears are never truly there, in the remnants of their destroyed faces.

 “You two twerplings need a shower.” is the half-minded observation Cais makes as their gentle dance rows the boat forward. It sounds strained to their own ears.

 The bending tingles at their fingertips, the feeling comfortable, familiar, reassuring in a way nothing else can be.

 It is a defense waiting to be raised, it is an attack yet to happen.

 “I don’t.” the girl says, stretches out legs covered in half-dried layers of mud. Her blind eyes stare off just a bit to Cais’ left.

 They let out a snicker, just under their breath.

"Do you have clean water?" the eldest asks with a raised hand. “She does. The royal guard dogs could track her down by smell. Easily.”

 And back to the table of whispering yet to be made inaudible, in the silence of the sun-bathed wilderness.

 “You shouldn’t trust strangers. You told me so.” she says. “And I don’t need a shower! I’m fine!”

 “We have nothing else to trust, and they know how to leave.”

 Something tense in the boy, a memory flashing under the surface of his blistered visage.

 She pokes his arm.

 And Giang says, before siblings can do what siblings do and make the trees fall down

 "We can give you kids dinner.” He offers, not exhausted enough from the couple of minutes interacting with a child.

"And spiritual knowledge. We must be imported it!" The boy says.

 Words blabbered from his lips, stumbled out with the lack of proficiency of someone just so learning.

 Giang chuckles, and they stop him before he can ruffle any heads of unruly hair, shake off the discomfort he surely must be feeling.

 Hand in hand, calluses in calluses, eyes in eyes, the message ringing out clear and loud.

 Children and spirits alike are things to feel cautious about.

-

 Zuko has grown familiar with the way peasant’s clothes feel.

 Thick and scratchy yet soft in their own merit, smelling like river water and freshly baked food.

 He holds back his apology.

 The woman was wrong trying to help him into the clothes.

 He doesn’t need help. He never needed it, and he would never, ever need it.

 The fabric is nice under his fingers, loose and rough.

 When did the new familiarity of third-hand clothes become comforting?

 The thought that he resigned too much of himself comes up with the lump in his throat, the persistent voice saying that he’s given up, that he’s let them all down.

 “D’you like that?” the woman asks, her voice raspy and soft with age, irritation long since having faded from her words.

 The words are unfitting, as if it is all misplaced in his brain.

 It would be a lie, it should be a lie.

 “Thank you.” he says, bows in a not-too-low way that won’t make his heart jump out, slip away from him.

 It is unfitting, it should feel wrong.

 Servants shouldnt be thanked. They should thank him.

 But that is not his kingdom, that is not his palace and neither is it the place for him to be.

 The words fit better than the clothes, even if they slip and leave him feeling like he’s done something wrong.

-

 Nightime.

 Gentle song of the crickets, voices drowning everything out.

 Crackling campfire and complaints about firefly-mosquitoes.

 It’s right after dinnertime.

 Dishes he couldn’t clean, clothes stained with droplets of half-dried soup.

 Zuko’s meal coming up his throat, as the words ring out clear and sudden, drown out the crackling fire he’s done so much to get away from.

 “Can I touch it?” a girl asks.

 A voice so young, cruelty yet to touch the words, impart its own accent.

 He can feel the hands begging to reach out, the curiosity ready to be sated by desperate fingertips.

 He can nearly feel her hands, he can imagine the way they will poke and prod and shove and pop blisters that shouldn’t be there anymore.

 Maybe it is his mind, maybe it isn’t even that.  It is just the memory, the way it comes along with a wish.

( A play - his favorite of the ones with puppets - about a thief who could stop his heartbeats. 

 He would act it out in his bedroom, rehearse with himself, silly in a toga of bedsheets.

 The dragons engraved on his walls never clapped.

 His audience was solely in the mirror, smiling delighted at the moment but soon-to-be disappointed. )

 Becoming capable of stopping his heartbeat, playing dead so convincingly nobody would ever have an option other than leaving him alone.

 “Please?” she asks, a bit of whining in her voice. “Pretty please!”

 Before he can scream - he needs to scream, he needs to make sure nothing touches the burns and he needs to make sure-

 Toph interjects.

 “You really shouldn’t.” she says. “The burn’s gross, and smelly.”

 “It looks cool. Don’ think you can’t tell that, though.” the girl says, shrugging through her voice.

 “Not any more than you do, princess.” Toph says.

 “You don’t need to-” he tries to interrupt, because he can yell for himself, he can-

 “Shut up, stinky.” she says.

 And Zuko puffs out, pretends he can flush properly, look angry and passionate and not like a kicked dog as he screams.

 “You’re the stinky one here, you mud-dwelling, elongated earth-rat, e-”

 “Shush.” Toph simply says. “Or I will poke the stinky eyehole.”

 Zuko crosses his arms, tries to swallow down the taste of ash in his throat, the song of the silence that takes over the campsite.

 “Good luck making any friends, with that face.” the girl says, like her name escapes no minds, like her presence will be remembered.

 A sudden burst of self awareness.

 Something that makes him want to throw up, will his heart to stop beating.

 (Nobody will clap anymore.)

-

 Ursa stares down on her daughter, stained with filth, the barrier of organization broken through yet what it protected unhurt.

 The stare is retributed, the imitation of her face quirking up a single graceful eyebrow.

 Beside her, the child-sized abomination clicks its beak and then meows, almost laughing at the way she flinches at the sound.

 “General Cucumber demands breakfast.” Azula says. “And so do I.”

  “Azula, put the- the thing away.” Ursa’s voice comes off desperate.

 The little demon seems to smile, and her daughter follows suit.

 “He wants the flesh of his enemies.” she says, ignoring all common sense and uncommon sense. “... And fire flakes.”

 “Fire flakes are a treat, and you’re not feeding the wild animals the flesh of anyone’s enemies!” she says.

 “He isn’t a wild animal.” Azula argues. “He is a general.”

 “Azula-”

 “Mother, I am keeping my general close.” she says. “For, even as I have lost my claim to the throne, I still-”

 “No you don’t, no you won’t.” Ursa says, over the beginnings of a headache.

 “Why not?”

 Ursa looks at it.

 General Cucumber sits down and clicks his beak.

 His little ears twitch, and, as he clicks once more, her daughter claps her hands back.

 Shoebill cats are not usually dangerous, she remembers. Peaceful despite their horrendous appearances.

 “I am not helping you take care of it, and you will have to see Li Wei about where he can stay.” she says.

 “I am plenty responsible, Mother, and I take delight in seeing you give in and accept your superior in the military hierarchy of this camp.”

 “Azula.”

 “I can take care of General Cucumber.” she says, suddenly sounding like any other child would. “And I can convince Li Wei.”

 “Try not to give him too many leads.”

  “General Cucumber will not give up his position.” her daughter argues back. “I can go undercover, though.”

 The shoebill-cat meows once more.

-

 The sun scorches the lands of the Fire Nation.

 Soil turns arid, the rains come far too late.

 In the towns, posters announce them “MISSING” and “WANTED” and speak out “BOUNTY!”.

 In the end, indiscrimating of what they say, the wind blows them away.

 People’s faces, into open doors, spreading all over the narrow alleyways of the portuary district of Caldera.

The neighborhood doctor that flinches away from the sound of the news as they bounce over mouths and ears, as the clouds roll over and leave them no hopes once again.

 There is a reason the woman some of them had once known as Princess Ursa is wanted.

 There is a reason the Heir to the Throne is missing.

 There is a reason Fire Lord Ozai’s firstborn is dead.

-

 Something genuine in her smile, despite all efforts to remain cynical in that battle.

 Azula, as Kiyi, can act the role, play pretend that she is excited to eat one more platter of jook.

 But now, over the misery of the meal, she knows that, with a hunter in her hands, she will never have to settle down on feasts of nothingness again!

 The evil laugh begs to escape her lips, and Azula yells at herself for the childishness of it.

 The smile comes out nonetheless, as she sets down the platter of jook in front of General Cucumber.

 With a graceless sniff, he turns his head to the food and to her grimace alike.

 “Come on, eat this. It’s sustenance.”

 She suddenly finds herself wanting to stomp her feet, as General Cucumber turns away from her.

 “Eat it!” she commands with the fierceness of a real Fire Lord.

 And, suddenly, her hands want to light up.

 The tingling in her throat, in her fingertips, telling her you should be the instructor he needs, shouldn’t you?

 “That’s your lunch, young lady.” a voice interrupts.

 Li Wei.

 Azula nearly tenses up, but smiles instead. Forces down her shoulders, settles for a small bow.

 She can hear the tension through his grin, like he knows something she doesn’t.

  “If he eats, his strength will be replenished, and he will hunt for us.” she says.

 “We can get him some leftovers. Meat, maybe- or some bones from the broth.” says the man, settling down beside her. “He’s a carnivore, jook would make his stomach upset.”

 She didn’t know that, and a part of her wants to call it a lie for it.

 Nonetheless, she looks up at him, and then at General Cucumber.

 His back is to her, and he doesn’t seem to either know or care for what she just got close to doing.

 “He trusts you, see?” Li Wei says. “He’s shown his back.”

 Trust is out of her league, and so is whatever comes up on her throat, snuffs out the sparks of a fire soon-to-be.

 She wants to burn the feeling, but not the inciting animal.

-

 (“He can’t eat the jook, but you can.” he says, later.

 The girl smiles.

 “I am an obligate carnivore.” she says. “Do not make me resort to anything drastic.”

 It is the first time, Li Wei would soon learn, that someone laughs at Kiyi’s attempts to threaten.)

-

 The roots snaking their way. Jumping out of the murky water like coiling serpents, giving birth to the bodies of ancient trees.

 A thousand trails, a million roads, all leading to the same place.

 The banyan-grove tree.

 The eternal infestation, the source of the energy vibrating within their people, propelling them into motion.

 Despite the life it brings, it stays still amidst their dance.

 Huu’s stiff movements, to a song never sung, echoed by Giang and Cais, guide their boat into the center, the centerpiece of the world they know.

 Its branches obscure the sky, its leaves fall gently on the water, blown by breezes none of them can truly feel.

They wonder how much of it the children, staring up with blind eyes, can understand.

 Nonetheless, the skiff stops, in front of a wooden body ready to flake under trembling, tiny hands.

 “This…” Huu takes in a sharp, long breath. “Is the great banyan-grove tree.”

 “Feels like a tree to me.” Toph notes, soft but incredulous nonetheless.

 “It is much more, youngster.” he berates gently. “It is alive in a way none of us can grasp. It is ancient, and its glory stretches far beyond the confines of our understanding.”

 “Your understanding.” she says, and reaches out a hand.

 Her brother grabs it mid-air, almost possessed.

 “Nope. Don’t you even try it.” a shout hushed into being a whisper. And then: “Tell us more. Let’s say… Perhaps this is the lion-turtle of trees?”

 “There is no comparison, for the banyan-grove tree lives on.” Cais recites.

  “It did not separate us, like the lion turtles did when they gave the first benders their abilities.” Huu says. “Instead, it ties us together, like roots entwining.”

  The boy nods, scratching his chin with a bony hand.

 “How does it tie you together?” Comes sharp and yet not in any way mean.

 Only curious, in the way only children can manage to truly be.

 “It gives us purpose.”

 “It-”

 “I’m touching it.” the girl says.

 And jumps into the bog water.

 (Those are her brand new clothes, they will think later, after the laughter is done with.)

-

 There are no words to ring on her ears.

 The earth below does not speak a language Toph can hear.

 Nonetheless, as she touches the tree, feels the rusted old bark below her hands, she can allow herself to be tiny, dwarfed by the glory stretching out.

 The first contact.

 She sees how far that all stretches, the banyan-grove’s land.

 It is an infinity of creatures, a thinning spot separating the world she knows from something else, something unspeakably terrifying.

 It is glorious.

 The word will escape her for many years, though.

 For now, she can only swallow dry.

 The direction.

 The path they took her through.

 A root Toph has to intertwine with, a road haunting her.

 A goal that can nearly make her pull away.

-

 The dream will come up again, turn sleep into a battle.

 And thus, Azula spends as long as she possibly can awake. 

 She will not let the blood-soaked nightmare be stronger than her, she will not allow the fiery hands to drag her under once more.

 The face soon to decay, forever burned into her eyelids.

 The smoke, forever locked in her throat.

 She should be stronger than it, but shutting her eyes seems like giving in.

 (The way it consumed him, the despaired way he called out.

 The delight she saw taken, the slow process.)

 Azula shakes her head, swallows down the lump in her throat.

 It is like she will vomit out the memories of what happened, shake out the incident like it is just a fruit of her mind.

 When she turns to the side and latches a hand to the thin blanket, she feels fire under her fingertips.

 Right below the skin, the gift that now felt like an infection.

 The pull of her blessed bending no longer felt like comfort.

 So, with a deep breath and a straight back, she sits up in her mat.

 Even blinded by the darkness, Azula cannot pretend that place resembles her home.

 It blooms around her nonetheless, as her eyes get used to the dim moonlight coming in through the tent’s open flabs.

 Scattered belongings dodged by tiny dancer feet, the cool breeze of wind making hairs stand on end.

 Gracefully stepping around her Mother, careful not to pull at the loose, silky hair.

 Her face vague, grainy in the darkness. A glorified, expressionless silhouette, a lady-shaped dead star.

 The wind ruffling the shirt that was now her sleeping gown, the puff of air she lets out as smoke.

 She can barely notice she is out.

 The fireplace has been blown out, and now it is only a small pile of wood.

 Fumes still escape, blown away like the leaves and flowers from spring.

 For a second, she can revel in the silence, imagine herself in a world where she is ready to bend again.

 Azula can be nearly there, even if only in her imagination, when she hears it.

 The purred chirp, the barely-audible steps.

 She clicks her tongue at him, and out of the darkness he comes.

 Huge and soft and adorably disproportionate, his tail raised high in the air.

 She reaches out a hand, and General Cucumber rubs up against her.

 The childish comfort, a privilege she can’t deny herself.

 He rubs up against her, and she sits down.

 Grass on sunburnt legs, a smile on her face.

 Azula doesn’t need to say anything, as her General lays down beside her, allows tiny hands to be run over wild feathers.

 The silence of the night feels alright, maybe just right.

-

 A part of him - the same part that is okay with the feeling of a lump in his throat, the same part that wants it all to be homesickness - can nearly imagine what the tribe must be like, bathed in the dim orange fire he stays away from.

 Greens and browns, leaves and leather straps.

 Vines falling atop the tiny huts, built up on foundations of wood sticks.

 Like the lowest parts of his old nation.

 Like the fishing villages he had visited as a prince, where the water levels could rise high enough to flood in the houses. 

 He wonders how different those so-called skiffs are from the canoes back home, and shakes his head.

 Curiosity would mean not knowing.

 Ignorance would mean weakness.

 Zuko has seen what happens when one is weak.

 But the time to leave is coming, and he won’t ever be there again.

 A single night of rest, one he can’t bring himself to fall into.

 He closes his hands, opens them again.

 There is nothing in the grip of his hands, there is nothing on the grasp of his mind.

 “Hey, little guy.” Giang’s nearly-familiar voice comes up, right from his left.

 Zuko jumps.

 “You should go to bed.” he says. “You and your sister said you were leaving early. Your parents must be missing ya, I’now.”

 “Go away.”

 His voice comes off raspy, the words grown useless to even his own head.

 He doesn’t want Giang to go away.

 “It will be okay.” he says, and something settles down beside Zuko.

 “Oh, really?”

 “It will.” he ignores the irony in Zuko’s voice. “I’ve been there. Without anyone, just a little sibling.”

 “She-”

 He is cut short.

 “Just. Know you will stick together. You aren’t alone, and there are more things than spirits to guide you”

-

 Their things are packed, loaded carefully, supervisioned by eyes that can’t really judge anyways.

 Nonetheless, inspection makes the feeling of glares hurt less, tones down the sound of mumbling, of people whispering under their breaths.

 “They’re children. We shouldn’t let them leave like that.”

 And, as Zuko gives a loud instruction to make sure that there is enough space for one of them in the saddle, one says

 “The spirits will guide them.”

 Huu.

 Defensive, odd old Huu.

 “But-”

 “The two of them have a calling.”

 “Send someone to go with them, then.”

 “The roots still link us. They have a path to follow.”

 “Spiritual?”

 The tingling in his hand, from feeling up the leather, making sure he knows which of the straps in the saddle makes it all come loose.