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“Coming, Toph?” Aang asks, hand held out open towards her, a small contented smile on his face. In the background, through the smells of burning wood and waxy tropical leaves, looms the large Fire Palace.
Toph feels sick.
No more than a week later than her arrival in the capital, Toph is named official ambassador from the Earth Kingdom to the Fire Nation.
She leans heavily against the marble column behind her at the ball - as usual she is out of the way - with a glass of wine in her hand. A small, bitter smirk crosses her face as she can feel Aang dip Katara in crowd, feel her giggles and her laughs and can practically taste her hollow happiness –
“Hey,” a soft voice murmurs next to her, a shoulder bumping casually against her as the Fire Lord adjusts to leaning next to her.
She laughs lightly as he replaces her now-empty glass with a full one, setting hers on a tray as a server walks past. “Good evening,” Toph greets Zuko, lifting her glass to meet his in a toast. A soft clinking sound reverberates from the crystal glasses as they touch.
“Mmhm,” he mumbles absently as his eyes watch the dancing figures in the distance. “They tend to pair off over time, huh?” he asks rhetorically, and Toph can hear the familiar sound of bitter regret in his voice.
“Yeah,” she agrees, “they do.”
“It’s not surprising that you love her, really,” she says one day during a game of Pai-Sho with the Fire Lord. Zuko startles and knocks a tile haphazardly off the board. As he leans down to pick it up, face burning red (with embarrassment? anger?), Toph continues. “It’s practically inevitable.”
After the tile is placed carefully back on the board, his face still an unhealthy shade of red-pink, but calmer than a moment ago, he asks in a small voice not befitting of the leader of the Fire Nation, “Is it that obvious?”
She chuckles at his antics and moves her white lotus tile forward, taking out one of his jasmine tiles. “I just recognize the symptoms, that’s all,” she whispers softly as he places the tile in a pot on the side of the table.
There are always balls going on the Fire Nation, Toph thinks, and shudders at the uncomfortable feeling of the silk that her dress is made out of – green, of course – and at the prickly pain of the hair pins holding her long locks in an elaborate hairstyle.
This time there is no wine, but only champagne, and champagne never sits well in her stomach.
She downs an entire glass anyways.
Toph smiles, with only a hint of bitterness in it, as she can feel her ball-time companion coming to join her. Turning her head in his direction slightly, she asks – “Won’t people gossip if you come over here every time there is a ball?”
When he speaks, she can hear the smile in his voice. “No, they’re much too busy watching the Avatar show off his airbending tricks outside. After him comes Katara, the master waterbender, and her ice show.” By the end of his sentence, the smile is gone.
“Hm.” She replies, turning her head to face the dance floor again.
Zuko shifts closer to her, warm breath fanning out across her neck. “What did you mean,” he begins, so close now that his breath rustles the hairs at the nape of her neck, “earlier, when you said that it was inevitable?”
The earthbender smiles, leaning her head forward to let her bangs cover her eyes, “You always want what you can’t have.”
“Congratulations, twinkletoes, sugar queen,” is all she can choke out, with her usual smarmy grin, seafoam eyes sparkling in the bright lights of the room.
Their happiness is palpable in the air, his smile and her jubilant thank you, practically suffocating her -
Toph leaves not long after she arrives. Her sandals and the delicate silk of her dress make sibilant hissing sounds and she walks quickly out of the large room and makes her way outside.
He finds her, hours later, tucked away in one of the gardens. The earthbender sits beneath one of the trees, a lantern hanging precariously from one of the branches. Her head leans back to rest against the rough bark of the tree, the intricate bun her hair had been in earlier now just strands of long black hair down her back.
The firebender pauses for a moment, staring contemplatively at the blind girl, knowing full well that she can sense he is watching her. After she opens her misty eyes, beckoning her fingers at him in an untention come-hither move, he smiles and moves to sit next to her.
“How did you like the wedding?” He asks, not as bitterly as you’d think, lowering his eyelashes as he gazes over to see her reaction.
It is as he expected: a grimace of pain, and then a shrug of acceptance. “It was okay,” Toph tries to say, but the words are soft and travel lightly to his ears. Zuko sighs at her answer, moving closer to her so that their sides touch and his back can also lean against the trunk of the tree.
Zuko’s hand moves unfalteringly toward hers, capturing it in an instant. Toph twines their fingers together.
Neither leaves the courtyard until late into the night.
The scent of jasmine tea lingers in the room when she wakes. Sniffing delicately, the earthbender sits up, only to immediately recognize the musky fire scent of the other person occupying the room.
“You look so sweet when you sleep,” the Fire Lord says, tone teasing, and she can practically hear the smirk in his voice.
“Shut up,” she remarks, in the gravelly husky voice one generally has after sleeping for many hours. Toph stretches out her hand for the tea, and Zuko hands it to her, watching as her small fingers curl around the cup.
She takes a sip. It is slightly bitter.