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Chapter Text

Zuko couldn’t stop glancing at his bride. Her small frame was weighed down by the heavy wedding kimono, her hands lost in the large sleeves. The garment was identical to the one Zuko knew his mother had worn for her wedding to his father: shiny white silk except for the red and gold embroidery on the sleeves and hem, and for the flame sigils adorning the shoulders. The young girl’s hair was twisted into elaborate folds and kept together by ruby hairpins—had Zuko still been the crown prince, there would have been a small golden flame headpiece there too. Her head was bowed, making it difficult for Zuko to see much of her face, or her eyes. Her dead eyes, spirits help him.

He was still reeling from the echoes of the shock he’d felt when his father had announced that he was going to get married.

“Married,” he’d repeated, feeling slow and dumb—as dumb as Azula was fond of saying he was. “Me?”

Azula had been there too, and Zuko had caught her sniggering from the corner of his eye, like she knew something he didn’t.

“Yes, you.” His father’s voice was tinged with annoyance at having to explain himself. “You will be eighteen at the time of the wedding, which is older than I was when I married your mother.”

“But, Father—”

Why couldn’t he ever stop himself from arguing? Had his ruined face and subsequent exile taught him nothing? Maybe he really was as stupid as Azula thought.

“Zuko,” Ozai said in a low, soft tone that did nothing to cover the iron-wrought authority in his voice. “You will marry this girl. Her family is extremely rich, and money is needed for us to continue on our path. You will serve your country the only way you’re still capable of.”

His face aflame, his stomach churning with a mix of shame, fear, and anger, Zuko had directed his eyes to the floor and murmured his obedience. It was only later that he’d learned more about his bride-to-be: Toph Beifong, fourteen, the only daughter from a rich family of the Earth Kingdom. Not Fire Nation nobility, as she should have been for someone of his rank, and, to add insult to injury, blind since infancy. It was fitting, in a way, Zuko thought with bitterness: a cripple to go with a cripple.

A discrete cough from the chief ritualist officiating the wedding wrenched Zuko from his thoughts. Oh, right, he thought as he came back to himself: it was time for his pledge of love and loyalty to Toph Beifong. He forced himself to turn to her and look at her as he said it, trying to put meaning into the words, even though he had never met Toph before and had little hope for their marriage. He tried to console himself with the fact that there was barely anyone with them inside the Agni shrine where many generations of his forefathers had married before him: only himself and his bride, the chief ritualist, and, as per tradition, a court lady and an unmarried priestess. At least he didn’t have to feel the burn of Azula’s mocking eyes on the nape of his neck while he was doing this.

Toph slightly turned in his direction as he started reciting the pledge, probably following the sound of his voice. She had a small delicate face, pale skin, and her green eyes were dull, as though covered with a veil. They also weren’t fixed on him, but rather somewhere slightly to his left. The effect was a bit disconcerting, but of course she had no need to look at him. When Zuko was finished they both drank the sacred sake, sealing their union for good. The burn from the alcohol became a numbness that spread to his whole body. When he stood up, Zuko had to shake his legs to get some feeling back into them, although that also might have had something to do with how long he had remained kneeling.

His new wife didn’t seem to have the same problem. She got up to her feet in a fluid and practiced motion, and then raised an arm. Zuko looked at it for a few seconds before he realized that it was now his job to guide her out of the shrine, just as the court lady had led her in. After the hushed quiet of the shrine, it was a bit of a shock to face the crowd that had gathered in front of the palace, waiting for them to come out: dignitaries from the colonies and the various Fire Nation islands, generals and nobles with their families, they were all present to see the new royal couple. Zuko saw Mai, standing with her parents and her brother; he wished she had some expression for him, maybe an encouraging smile, but it was a ridiculous thought. Even at the best of time, Mai rarely smiled, and, although they had broken up a while ago and this wedding wasn’t his idea, it couldn’t be easy to watch him marry someone else.

By custom his father wasn’t present, but his sister was. She was smiling, but it couldn’t be called encouraging by any stretch of the imagination. The Beifongs were there too, the only spots of green in a sea of red and gold. They were too far away for Zuko to really piece out their expressions, but they seemed to be looking intently at their daughter, probably because they wouldn’t be able to see her again for a long time. The thought suddenly struck Zuko that Toph couldn’t see them, so he said, “You parents are here. They’re looking at you.”

Toph froze, pinched her lips, and said, “Good for them.” It was, Zuko realized, the first time he’d heard her speak in the hour he’d known her. She had sounded stronger than he’d expected.

---

The rest of the day flew by like a dream. The banquet, the endless congratulations, Azula stealing the show as usual. His uncle’s absence, stinging like a newly reopened wound—the thought occurred to Zuko that he hadn’t spoken to his uncle in almost eighteen months, since his last visit to the prison before Uncle escaped, and that Uncle hadn’t spoken to him for even longer than that. As much as Azula insisted that their uncle was the one who had betrayed Zuko and not the reverse, Zuko still wasn’t fully convinced by that line of argument.

Come the evening, and the dream felt like it had suddenly been shredded to pieces. Zuko was painfully brought back to reality when he found himself in his bedroom, alone after a few servants had helped him change into ceremonial nightclothes. He was supposed to go to his wife’s bedroom so they could… consummate their union. The mere idea had Zuko’s heart start pounding and his hands start sweating. He had drank a bit during the day’s celebrations; not a lot, but enough to still feel dizzy from it—he didn’t hold his alcohol very well, despite having lived on a boat with soldiers for three years. The reality of what was coming was enough to accelerate the sobering process, and Zuko felt more lucid than he had the whole day; ironically, though, he wished now that he were back to his former dreamlike state.

He drew a deep breath to settle his nerves, then left his room and followed the corridor down to his new wife’s chambers. He felt a bit like he had when he’d walked to the Agni Kai that had cost him his face: trying to feel confident about it, but knowing that any false step could be his downfall. It wasn’t that he was… inexperienced on the matter. Mai and he had done things with each other, on more than one occasion. But it was very different, because they’d known each other and none of them had been forced into it. They’d done it because they wanted it, because it was fun. Tonight wasn’t about fun at all.

The servants still in Toph’s room bowed and left as soon as Zuko entered, leaving the newly wed on their own for the first time. Toph was sitting on the bed, wearing only a light cotton gown, her hair down and falling over her face. Her hands were clutching at the fabric of her gown. She was turned almost opposite from him, and Zuko was sure it was intentional, because there was no way she hadn’t heard him come in, or the servants leave. If she had been blind almost all her life, her hearing must be pretty sharp.

“Um,” he said. “Hey.”

She didn’t say anything, or made any encouraging gesture.

“So…”

Her shoulders tensed, and he realized she was as nervous about this as he was, maybe even more. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do if she didn’t go with the process willingly. Should he hold her down or something? She was so tiny that it probably wouldn’t be too difficult. Zuko wiped his sweaty hands over his pants. He knew she was fourteen years old, but she looked younger, child-like, and it made the whole situation even more repulsive. She was scared, young, and helpless, and he was supposed to—to rape her. He thought about his mother; was it how it had been for her? Had she hated his father—had she ever stopped hating him?

The words were out before he could think them over. “We don’t have to do this,” he said.

This part triggered a reaction: Toph whirled around to face him with unnerving accuracy. “What?”

“All this.” Zuko waved a hand between the two of them and then flushed when he realized what a pointless gesture it was. “I mean, we don’t have to actually consummate our union. If you don’t want to. We can just say we did.”

Her shoulders sagged a bit, probably in relief. “Yeah, okay,” she said, and then turned her back on him again, dismissing him.

The next silence stretched for a little while. “Uhh,” Zuko said after a few minutes. “I have to stay here anyway. Stay the night. If I go back to my room now, it will look suspicious.”

Toph sighed heavily, then crawled up the bed and slid under the covers on the side the furthest from the door. Zuko took it as an invitation to come too, and he settled as far from his wife as he could. The bed was big enough that they could both toss and turn and never bump into each other, but he still scooted over until he was almost clinging to the edge.

The situation was so uncomfortable that he thought he would never be able to fall asleep. As soon as his head hit the pillow, though, exhaustion from the long day rushed over him and he was swallowed by darkness.

---

When she woke up, Toph only needed a few seconds to remember that she wasn’t asleep in her childhood bedroom. Except for the trip to the Fire Nation, she’d never slept anywhere else, so it only took the slightly unfamiliar feel of the sheets and the off smell in the room for her to realize the difference. Then, she felt the bed move and she tensed, anticipating the prince trying to talk to her, or touch her. Could she get away with breaking his wrist? Probably not.

Prince Zuko, however, didn’t do any of this. He merely slid off the bed and left the room without a word. He moved so quietly that she could barely hear him walk, and was only sure he’d left when she heard the door click shut. This was one of the things she’d noticed about her new husband: he moved like a shadow, and that put her on edge when she wasn’t in contact with the ground, like now, and therefore couldn’t keep a tab on his movements through vibrations.

She waited a while longer to make sure he wasn’t going to turn around and come back, then sat up in the bed and threw away her covers with a loud sigh. The day before had been long, exhausting, and excruciatingly boring, and she’d told herself the whole time: if I can only make it through the day… But now that she had, all she could do was wonder how she was going to make it through the rest of her life. Being away from home made her want to jump out of bed and get dressed by herself, but she knew she wasn’t going to be allowed to do that here anymore than at home. She’d only exchanged one golden prison for another, and this one had an added edge of danger: at home at least she knew her parents wouldn’t really hurt her; whereas here, in the heart of the Fire Nation, she’d need to keep her earthbending even closer to the chest.

She summoned servants to bring her breakfast, and suffered through their murmured comments about the prince’s conspicuous absence. Well done, Zuko, she thought ferociously, and quite uncharitably, because she hadn’t wanted him to stay either. Fortunately, the fact that the bed obviously looked like two people had slept in it was enough to assuage suspicions, and the servants seemed mostly appalled by their prince’s lack of manners.

Eavesdropping turned out to be Toph’s number one occupation for the next few days. She wandered around the palace, trying to get a clear map of it in her mind and to avoid her creepy sister-in-law and frankly terrifying father-in-law, and she had many occasions to listen in to the servants’ conversation. Most of them seemed to be under the impression that her being blind also meant that she was either dumb, or a bit deaf too. Having played into people’s expectations all her life, she didn’t try to disprove them of that notion, and spying on them was both easy, and an eye-opening—ha!—experience.

Although they despised her for being both blind and Earth Kingdom, at least it was mingled with pity—because she looked so young and helpless, and blah blah blah. Ugh. More interesting, though, was the way they talked about their prince. Before the wedding, Toph had known very little about Prince Zuko. She’d heard that he’d been ill for a long time, so she’d imagined some kind of sickly weakling. But upon meeting him she was surprised to find that he didn’t feel sick: his heartbeat and breathing were fine, and he moved without problem, if only in a freakishly quiet way. She’d thought at first that she’d had her information mixed up, but the way the servants talked about him made it sound like he was somehow defective. The defect was maybe something that was too taboo to speak of, because Toph couldn’t get any clear idea on what the problem was. The tone the servants used when they talked about it made Toph bristle, though, and feel almost defensive of the prince.

Her first-hand experience of her new husband was that he was awkward and tongue-tied, and that his idea of couple bonding was to take her walking around the palace garden and feed baby turtle ducks for hours while making barely any attempt at conversation at all. By the third week, Toph was ready to fling herself off a window from sheer boredom. At home, at least, she had the Earth Rumble Tournaments, where she could kick some butt and release some of her pent up frustration. Here she had nothing, and the pressure had nowhere to go.

One morning, she found herself walking along the garden’s paths on her own, as Zuko was occupied with some princely formality that his fragile wife wasn’t obliged to attend. Toph had shamelessly pretended to feel unwell, because if she had to slog through another formal meeting with a bunch of dusty fossils, she was going to bash someone’s head in and there was no way it would end well for anyone.

Seeing that she was on her own, she let herself walk a bit faster and more confidently than she usually would. It was early in the day, but the sun already burned hotter than it ever did at home except in the middle of summer. The breath of wind caressing her face was barely enough for her to refrain her urge to tear her clothes down and run around in her undergarments. And the shoes! They were the bane of her existence. At home, her going shoeless was treated as an eccentricity, but here…. Why did she keep thinking of home, anyway? Her parents had sold her away; the Fire Nation was her home, now.

Toph paused, and hesitated for a moment before kicking off her shoes. Aaaaahhh. She dug her toes into the dirt. Good old earth, solid and reliable. She was always home as long as she could find solid ground. With a kick of her heel she extended her awareness of her surroundings, further than she could while wearing shoes, and way further than a seeing person could use their eyes. She could see the entire garden, the trees, the bushes, the insects and worms crawling undergrounds, and… Damn it. Someone was coming in her direction. She kicked the ground one more time to refine her perception: from the person’s size and their gait… Double damn: it was Azula, and Toph was pretty sure she had now seen her because her walk felt more purposeful. One, two, three—

“Toph! Dear sister.” Azula’s voice had an oily quality to it that made Toph’s skin crawl. “What are you doing out here so early? Aren’t you cold?”

Toph refrained herself from scoffing. “Not at all! It’s a lot hotter here than what I’m used to. This early in the day is as hot as I can bear.”

“Hmm.” Toph felt Azula move. “Is there something wrong with your shoes?”

“No, I just like the feeling of earth between my toes. You know.”

Azula let out a trill of laughter. “I wouldn’t know, not really. But I guess you are Earth Kingdom, after all.”

Toph gritted her teeth. Azula had injected the comment with enough mocking contempt to make it a veiled insult. To calm herself Toph pictured a spear of stone bursting from the ground and throwing Azula down on her butt, and maybe herself kicking Azula’s teeth back into her mouth for good measure. She knew that Azula was a firebending prodigy, and that the fight wouldn’t happen so smoothly in real life, but the mental image soothed her irritation somewhat.

She gave Azula her sweetest smile. “I guess I am.”

She had come to expect that kind of cruelty from her new sister—although so far she’d heard it directed more often at Zuko—but there was something else in Azula’s voice, carefully concealed behind the jab, and Toph felt wariness settle in her bones. The princess seemed to be smart, or at least smarter than her brother was. If she figured out that Toph was an earthbender, she would… Would do what, exactly? Try to make her marriage with Zuko null? Toph couldn’t care less, and she wasn’t sure it was something Azula would want. But maybe she would tell her father, and he would make her parents pay for concealing the fact. Toph shivered at the idea.

“See?” Azula clicked her tongue. “You’re cold. Let me take you back inside, and I’ll ask the servants to make you some tea.”

She grabbed Toph by the elbow without asking for permission, and Toph’s hand instinctively curled into a fist. Azula made Toph put her shoes back on, before guiding her to her chambers like an unruly child. In her short life, Toph had never hated anyone with that kind of intensity.

---

Azula’s little jabs and snide comments became a daily occurrence in Toph’s new life as a Fire Nation princess. Something had definitely shifted in her view of Toph that day in the gardens. Maybe she’d seen something. It was always hard for Toph to tell whether people were looking at her or not, and it could be that Azula had noticed something about Toph’s body language as she earthbent that had tipped her off. It was kind of annoying, but as Toph took to playing hide and seek with Azula in the palace and to find ways to reply to Azula’s insults just as subtly, she realized that she found it almost fun. It was telling of just how bored she was that being preyed on by her sister-in-law amused her, but she’d take every little bit of fun she could have.

“Dear sister, please have some more lychee nuts,” Azula said. They were all sitting at the breakfast table—Azula, Toph, Zuko, and the Fire Lord himself. Azula slid the plate on the table until it bumped against Toph’s hand. “You need all the fuel you can get,” she added with exaggerated sweetness. “You’re so frail and tiny.”

“Thank you, sister,” Toph answered in the same tone, helping herself with a few nuts. “I have always been in poor health, unfortunately. It was such a toll on my parents.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it as a criticism. I envy you, really: you look so delicate. Firebending training has made me almost boyish in looks.”

“I would say you’re wrong, but then I have no way of knowing how you look,” Toph replied, and she and Azula both started laughing at once.

It was a laugh too shrill to be natural, and it must have been unnerving enough to others that even Zuko seemed to pick up on it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, a hint of puzzlement in his voice.

He hadn’t commented on the way Azula had treated Toph for the last few days, either because he didn’t care, or was too dense to notice, or maybe because he was so used to this kind of behavior from his sister that it didn’t register to him anymore.

“Nothing’s wrong, Zuzu,” Azula said in the special acidic tone of voice that she reserved for her brother. “Eat your breakfast.”

Zuko said nothing, but Toph perceived a hitch in his heartbeat that told her that he minded the nickname. Lord Ozai, who hadn’t uttered a word so far, said, “I’m glad the two of you are getting along.”

Toph couldn’t see who he was turned to, obviously, but the sound of his voice seemed directed toward Azula. Which made sense, because he hardly ever took note of Toph’s existence. She might have been a walking and talking piece of furniture to him.

“Toph is such a darling,” Azula said in a simpering voice, while Toph entertained herself with murderous fantasies. How much would Lord Ozai mind if she wrung the neck of his daughter in the middle of breakfast? She wouldn’t even have to reveal her earthbending—using her bare hands would feel so much more satisfying. “I've always wanted a sister,” Azula continued, “so this is perfect.”

“Excellent,” Lord Ozai said. “Zuko.”

Toph had still been listening to Zuko’s heartbeat—she’d taken up the habit of monitoring every member of her new family when they were close, just in case—and she felt it speed up when he was addressed by his father.

“Yes, Father?”

“Are you enjoying marital life?”

Zuko’s heart was now pounding so hard that Toph puzzled no one else at the table could feel it.

“I am. This is—thank you. This really was the right thing for me.”

It was obvious to Toph that her husband was lying his ass off, but also, interestingly, that he was badly frightened. What was he scared of, exactly? That he would get a scolding if daddy discovered Toph and he hadn’t really—well, consummated their union yet? The more Toph got to see him interact with his family, the more it seemed to her that Zuko was kind of a wimp. Lord Ozai wasn’t the warmest father ever, and he was a rude asshole to Toph, but Zuko was a prince and an adult, so surely he was safe from getting a spanking, wasn’t he?

“Of course it was the right thing,” Lord Ozai said. “You’re finally learning to listen to reason.”

Zuko murmured another thank you, and it was all anyone had to say on the subject. Toph wanted to ask them if they cared what she thought, but she’d learned at home that her point of view on things was worth very little. It was probably truer now than it’d ever been with her parents.

Zuko disappeared immediately after breakfast without a word and Toph was left to her own devices. Not that she minded, because her husband was dull as a bowl of plain rice, but she didn’t have a lot to amuse herself and thinking about the uneventful day that stretched in front of her depressed her enough that she almost wished it was already bedtime. Azula had said that she was going to train. Everyone said she was so talented, maybe it would be interesting for Toph to spy on her and see it for herself. In an ideal world, she would be able to find a place to practice her own bending, but she had yet to find anywhere private enough.

She’d lived in the palace long enough by now to know where the royal family’s training grounds were, so she headed that way at a leisurely pace. When she was close enough, she extended her awareness of the ground to try and see where Azula was exactly. She found her easily enough, a light figure that barely made contact with the ground in that hopping way that firebenders had. But what made Toph pause was the other person training a little further away: Zuko himself, going through similar firebending forms. Why hadn’t he said that he was going to train when Azula had said it? Feeling curious, Toph chose to go to him rather than to Azula.

The training grounds were a series of open spaces surrounded by galleries with columns. Toph approached quietly and hid behind one of them. This close, she could hear Zuko’s huffs and puffs from the effort. He sounded singularly out of breath, like he was getting back into shape, but he didn’t move in the careful, stilted way of a beginner. Not that it would make sense for him to be a beginner: as a Fire Nation prince, he’d probably been tutored at it since he could walk.

Something didn’t feel quite right, though. Toph wasn’t as familiar with firebending as she was with earthbending, but a persistent feeling of wrongness was nagging at her. She kept watching for a few more minutes before it hit her: there was no fire. She couldn’t feel the heat from the flames or the whooshing sound they made when they erupted. Zuko was making all the right moves, as far as she could tell, but he was shooting blank. Was he a non-bender? This would explain some of the contempt she’d heard directed at him: it probably didn’t sit well with the Fire Nation jackasses that their prince couldn’t firebend. It would also explain why he wasn’t the crown prince, even if, from what Toph had gathered, he was older than Azula.

Just as Toph was mulling this over, she heard Zuko let out a groan of frustration. He stood in place for a moment, breathing hard, and then went to get something from the edge of the training ground, opposite from where Toph was hiding. Some kind of weapon, she understood when Zuko fell back into a fighting position. A blade, probably—she could hear the hissing sound it made when it cut through the air—or, rather, two blades. Zuko practiced with the swords for a little longer, moving once again with the ease of long-time use. Toph didn’t know of any bender who used a weapon—their element was their weapon, after all—so it fit her idea that Zuko was a non-bender. It was weird, in that case, that he kept going through firebending forms like he hoped for a miracle. Was he an idiot, or what?

Toph was pondering whether to keep watching or make for an exit now, when she saw someone come down in her direction. Azula, damn it. If Toph went around the column to hide from Azula, Zuko would probably see her. There wasn’t much to fear from that scenario besides embarrassment at being caught spying on him, but Toph still would have liked to avoid it if possible. Azula was distant enough that Toph didn’t think she could see Toph yet, so Toph quickly moved to another column, one that was situated at Zuko’s back, and crouched behind it on Zuko’s side.

When Zuko stopped training, Toph knew he’d caught sight of his sister’s arrival.

“Zuzu, there you are!” Azula’s teasing voice echoed in the covered gallery bordering the training space. “Oh, I see you’re still practicing with the Dao swords? How cute.”

“Get lost, Azula,” Zuko snapped. The venom in his voice startled Toph a bit. She’d noticed that the siblings didn’t get along, but she’d never heard Zuko speak that way in the weeks she’d known him.

“Now, now, I hope you don’t speak to your little wife like that. Does she know how much of a temper you have? Besides, I meant no criticism. It makes sense that you would keep honing your skill with the swords. They’re all you have left, after all.”

“You’re wrong! My fire will come back. I can feel it—the chi flow has improved, and—”

“Have you managed to make a flame yet?”

Zuko didn’t answer. His heartbeat, already racing due to physical effort, sped up a notch rather than slow down now that he wasn’t exercising anymore.

“That’s what I thought,” Azula said in a cool, yet very satisfied voice. “The Avatar really did a number on you. Who would have thought he would be so powerful at only 12?”

“That was your lightning he was diverting when he hit me.” There was a deep undercurrent of anger in Zuko’s voice, but he was speaking in a hurried, hushed tone, like he was afraid of being overheard. “This is all your fault.”

“Is it?” said Azula in a normal conversational voice. “Why haven’t you said anything about it to Father, then? Not that it would matter much. I’m sure Father would find the loss of your bending an appropriate sacrifice for the capture of the Avatar. It’s not like you were that good at it before.”

“Go away! Leave me alone!”

“Oh, very well. You’re so touchy.”

“Leave!”

Azula started laughing, but her echoing footsteps and the far away sound of her voice let Toph know that she was indeed leaving. “Mind your poor heart, Zuko!” were her parting words to her brother.

Once the sounds of her walking off had almost faded, Zuko let out a roar of unarticulated fury and Toph heard a clinking noise when he threw one of his swords and it bounced on the ground. She decided that it was her cue to leave, but when she peeled off from her column Zuko’s voice made her still.

“Toph?”

Toph bit the inside of her cheek and said as casually as she could, “Oh, hey, Zuko. You’re here. I think I got lost. Where am I?”

“The training grounds. Um, did you hear any of—did you hear Azula and I talk?”

“I heard some yelling, but—was that you? Were you and Azula having a fight?”

“No, we—” He walked away from her, back to where must be the rack he’d gotten his swords from. “It was nothing. Azula, she—she gets on my nerves, sometimes.”

Toph thought back to the conversation she’d just overheard. There was a lot in it for her to untangle, but one thing stood out to her: contrary to what she’d assumed a few minutes ago, Zuko was a firebender, but he’d somehow lost the ability to use his element. The mere thought of losing her touch with earth made Toph sweat, and for the first time she felt a twinge of sympathy for the prince.

“Yeah, I know.” She wasn’t heartless; she could throw him an olive branch, or however that metaphor went. “She can be a real bitch.”

There was a pause, and Toph worried for a moment that she’d gone too far; that, despite his rocky relationship with his sister, family loyalty would kick in and make Zuko retaliate against the insult. Instead he burst out laughing, a sound of startled but genuine mirth.

“Yes, she can be—yeah. Do you want me to take you back? Oh, do you want to go for a walk in the gardens?”

Walks in the gardens with Zuko frequently made her want to stab something, but they’d just had a patented moment for the first time ever and she didn’t want to ruin it by saying no. She was, after all, going to spend the rest of her life with him, unless she found a way to run away without endangering her parents.

“Yeah, sure. Sounds fun.”

He went to take her arm and she had to bit back annoyance. She’d initiated that behavior, so she only had herself to blame, but it didn’t make it less grating to be led around like an invalid. As they walked together toward the gardens, Toph thought over the conversation between Zuko and Azula, especially what they’d said about the Avatar. She’d heard about the supposed Avatar’s capture in Ba Sing Se, but didn’t know that the prince and the princess were the ones responsible for it. What had happened there?

Chapter Text

It wasn’t all bad, Zuko tried to tell himself. Sure, he wasn’t making any progress with his firebending, although he was getting out of breath a lot less quickly, so at least his training wasn’t totally useless; and yes, being fireless meant that his father still wasn’t happy with him even though he’d captured the Avatar. But, hey, at least he wasn’t in exile anymore, and now it looked like he’d made some headway with his new wife.

He’d done his best to bond with her, trying to spend some quality time with her even if it looked like they had very little in common. He might not have been very enthusiastic about this union, but it wasn’t her fault. In fact, he felt bad for her: she was only fourteen and she’d been torn away from her home, thrust into an unfamiliar and unwelcoming place, married against her will to the prince of a nation that had conquered hers. An enemy—Zuko had spent enough time travelling through the Earth Kingdom to know that it was probably how she thought of him. Azula, smelling blood, had started needling Toph, and Zuko wasn’t sure how to stop it: if he showed it bothered him too much, he’d probably only make it worse.

But yesterday Toph and Zuko had bonded over that fact and Zuko couldn’t help but be happy about it. He’d never heard anyone call Azula a bitch, even when she couldn’t hear it. It was… refreshing. Maybe he should try to build on that moment and talk more to Toph. Should he ask her about her home? It might be cruel, though, since chances were that she would never go back again. Maybe she would cry, and then Zuko wouldn’t know what to do with himself. What did she like to do? She hadn’t seemed to respond very well to the walks in the gardens with him and the baby turtle ducks hadn’t even wrenched a smile out of her.

Deep in thoughts, Zuko didn’t realize someone was running opposite from him in the hallway until they almost colluded. He yelped, stepping back to avoid the crash. The person, a young woman who Zuko vaguely identified as one of Toph’s servants, immediately folded into a bow as soon as she recognized him.

“Prince Zuko! I apologize.”

“It’s fine,” Zuko said awkwardly. Even having been back home for a year and a half, he still couldn’t get used to having servants again. “Why are you in such a hurry? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, my prince! I was just looking for the princess.”

“Azula?”

“No, my prince.” The servant shot him a dubious look. “I was talking about your wife.”

“Oh, right. I was thinking about going to see her, actually. Why do you want her for?”

“Nothing you should trouble yourself with, really. It’s just that she’s forgotten her shoes.” The young woman’s mouth pulled down a bit. “Again.”

“Oh, is that it? Since I was looking for her too, I could just give them to her when I find her.”

“No, no, my prince, I would never dare—”

“But I’m offering.”

“Really, Prince Zuko, you shouldn’t have to—”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. He was getting annoyed at her dithering, but he was better at not blowing up at every little thing than he used to be. Being sick for a long time had forced patience on him.

“If you don’t mind, then—Oh, here she comes. Princess Toph!” the servant called imperiously before dashing, leaving Zuko stunned by the abrupt end of the conversation.

He looked in the direction the servant had ran off to and saw Toph, who had just turned around the corner, being scolded by the servant like a disobedient child.

“Really, princess, why are you always leaving your shoes in your room? You can’t be walking around like a common peasant. You are Fire Nation royalty, now. You can’t—”

Toph’s delicate face was scrunched in distaste as she listened to the servant rain admonitions over her. Her dead eyes were directed to the side, making her look like she was ignoring the woman.

“All right, I’ll put them on,” she simply said when the servant was done saying her piece.

There was an edge of annoyance to her voice, but the servant didn’t seem to pay it any mind and even insisted on putting the shoes on Toph herself, kneeling at her feet. The look on Toph’s face when she did that made Zuko pause: it lasted for half-a-second, but for a moment an expression of pure anger, the all-consuming kind that Zuko knew all too well, flitted over her face like a shadow. Then the servant got back to her feet and walked away, with the satisfied look of someone who had accomplished her mission. She was almost at Zuko’s level when she stumbled, and she would have fallen on her face had Zuko not been fast enough to catch her in time.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The woman’s hand was clinging to his forearm, and when she realized how familiar her position was she gasped, pulling out from his grasp in a hurry.

“My apologies, Prince Zuko! I’m perfectly all right, thank you for catching me.”

She rushed away, her face crimson with embarrassment. Zuko looked over to where Toph had been standing, but she was gone. Zuko frowned at the empty spot she’d occupied a moment ago. It had happened very fast, and Toph’s robe was long enough to reach the floor, but he could almost swear that he’d seen her spread her feet and kick down just before the servant lost her footing. He’d seen enough earthbending to know what that meant.

He broke into a run and went around the corner after Toph, calling her name. “Toph! Hey, Toph, wait up!”

She hadn’t gone very far and she stopped, but didn’t turn around to face him like a seeing person would.

“What is it?”

“Do you want to—” All his thoughts on how he should go about trying to connect with her got jumbled, and he suddenly couldn’t think of anything. “Do you want, uh, to take a walk in the gardens with me?”

“Okay.”

He took her arm out of habit, then had the thought that she walked on her own all the time, so maybe it wasn’t actually needed now that she knew the palace. It would be too awkward to disengage now, so he kept holding her. Besides, married couples walked arm-in-arm all the time.

“So,” he said once they were walking down the alley that followed the exterior wall. “You don’t like shoes.”

He face-palmed on the inside as soon as the words left his mouth. Why was he so bad at making small talk? Or at bringing up serious topics, for that matter, because what he really wanted to ask was whether she was an earthbender. But if she was, then obviously Father didn’t know and it was potentially sensitive information. On the other hand, how could he ever get closer to his wife if she kept that kind of secret?

“Shoes are annoying,” Toph declared in a tone that meant that he was stupid if he thought otherwise. It was a tone Zuko was very familiar with.

“Hmm, okay,” he said.

The silence that followed felt singularly tense to Zuko. He wasn’t the best at reading the mood, but he couldn’t remember Toph talking to him in that peremptory way before. Had she figured what he was getting at, or was she simply annoyed that he would comment on her eccentricity?

“Are you an earthbender?” he blurted out.

“What?” she said, but she sounded on edge rather than surprised.

“I mean, when that servant stumbled, I saw you—”

Toph stopped dead, letting go of his arm. “You saw me what.”

Zuko looked down at her: her jaws were clenched and her shoulders square. So frail and tiny, and yet she didn’t look frightened at all. And, bitter truth to be told, if she really was a bender, then no matter her size she might very well have the upper hand on him. A firebender who couldn’t form a flame was worse than a declawed lion vulture.

“I’m not trying to—” He broke off, wondering how he could convince her he meant no harm. “I don’t want to make problems for you, I swear. I was just wondering.”

She had no reason to believe him, so Zuko was slightly taken aback when she seemed to relax at his words. “I know the basics, that’s true, but not much more. Master Yu, the earthbender teacher my parents hired for me, didn’t teach me anything beyond beginner’s moves.” She made a half-amused, half-disgusted sound. “I think that my parents were afraid I might get overwhelmed or something.” She tilted her head, angling her body toward him in a way that gave Zuko the feeling that hadn’t she been blind, she would have looked at him in the eye. “Are you going to tell your father? I don’t think he’d be too happy with the news.”

“I wasn’t intending to tell him about it, but I’m not sure why—”

“Can you imagine a Fire Nation prince having earthbender children?”

“Oh.” He hadn’t considered it under that angle. “Well, I won’t say anything. I promise you.”

“Thank you.”

They resumed their walk, and this time the silence between them felt lighter, more confortable. Maybe Zuko wasn’t so bad at bonding, after all, because it definitely looked like something had shifted between them. Maybe it was just the perspective of a shared secret, giving him the sentiment that there was more between them than half-hearted wedding vows.

Over the next few days they fell into a routine of a sort: in the mornings when it was still cool—or in the evenings if Toph hadn’t managed to get out of bed early enough—they went for a walk together, and told each other of their respective countries. Toph described Gaoling, her birth place, from the perspective of a blind person: she told him of the bustling sounds of people walking the streets, the rattle of ostrich horses’ hooves and wheels against the paved roads; of the lingering smells of spring lilac, incense, and ginseng in the air; of the sweltering heat during the long summers and the cool showers of rain in the winters.

“Not that my parents let me leave the estate very often,” she added with an edge he’d come to recognize as bitterness. It was another thing they had in common.

In exchange, Zuko told her of the Fire Nation, trying to pass the message that there was beauty and pleasure to be found here. He started by describing the colors of wild flowers dotting the rough grassy plains, until she pointed out that those words meant nothing to her, who’d lived in the dark all her life, so then he talked of the sweetness of purple berries, the caress of the wind coming from the sea at the harbor, of the rumbles of the volcanoes, their anger always barely contained under the ground. Toph always listened in silence, never reacting much to what he told her. It was a locked silence that made him wonder what she thought, whether him talking about his home made her miss hers all the more fiercely. He remembered what it was like to miss the Fire Nation so badly that the hole it left in his heart felt hungry, burning away any happy thought, and he wished that feeling on no one.

They spent the rest of their days separately, unless there was some event they were obliged to attend together. Zuko didn’t know what Toph did with her time, and it felt like an intrusion to ask, but he spent it training, practicing with his swords and going doggedly through firebending forms, hoping for the telltale tingle of chi flowing through his limbs and sparking his fire. And if his relationship with Toph looked like it was improving by tiny increments, the training was becoming more frustrating by the day. In a general physical sense, he felt better than he’d had in a very long time, almost back to what he’d been before he got hurt. He didn’t get short of breath as quickly and he almost never experienced chest pains anymore. It perversely made his frustration and worry grow exponentially, though, because the better he felt, the more he feared that his condition might not be a side effect of poor health but a permanent condition. He knew that his father and Azula already assumed that it was, but he’d kept clinging onto hope all along, just as he had when he was traveling the world for the Avatar. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if it failed him.

It didn’t help that Azula seemed to always wander by whenever he was training, and to feel the need to stop and deride him.

“My poor Zuko,” she said one day when she found him catching his breath after a particularly difficult session. He had taken his shirt off at some point and could feel the sun pound against his sweaty back. “You really seem to make up in pig-headedness for what you lack in intelligence.”

“Go away,” he mumbled, too exhausted to muster the usual level of exasperation that Azula could spark in him. His chest felt tight in that new way that meant he’d overdone it and he hated that Azula was there to witness his weakness.

She ignored him, of course. “It should be obvious by now that you’re never going to get it back. Why fight the inevitable? You’re only hurting yourself.”

The words might have sounded compassionate coming from someone else, but Azula didn’t do compassionate. She was looking at him, leaning against a pillar with her arms crossed over her chest, and her mouth was pulled in a way that betrayed that she was refraining from a smile. The whole situation amused her, even though she was the one who—she’d—Zuko closed his eyes, trying to breathe against the fury that bubbled in his chest, making his poor battered heart pace too fast.

“Why don’t you concentrate on things that are still within your reach?” Azula was clearly on a roll today. “Like marital bliss. It’s heart-warming to see that you and Toph seem to be getting along. Well, Uncle would find it heart-warming, I guess. Too bad he didn’t show up to your wedding.”

“He would’ve been arrested!” Zuko ground out, and immediately regretted it. All his sister ever wanted was for him to dance to her tune, and he had yet to learn how not to.

“And it would’ve been well deserved! Or have you changed your mind again? You did the right thing, joining forces with me in Ba Sing Se. Don’t ruin the one good decision you’ve ever made by defending a traitor.”

Traitor. The word still echoed painfully to him—treason was the reason invoked for his exile, and to hear it from his father had hurt almost more than the burn itself had. That his uncle was now finding himself in self-imposed exile was a never-ending throb of agony in Zuko’s heart. Surely there should have been a way for him to content everybody, to keep his family whole, but he still couldn’t see it.

Zuko forced himself to open his eyes and look at Azula’s smiling face. “Let’s not talk about Uncle,” he said, trying to sound as composed as his father and sister always did.

Azula uncrossed her arms to wave a hand, like she was swatting at a fly. “Oh, all right. You’re so sensitive. Would you rather we talk about your wife? As I was saying, it’s nice that you two seem to have found common ground.”

The thought that Toph and he had first connected on their united annoyance at Azula almost made Zuko smile, but he contained it. Looking too happy was as sure a way to attract Azula’s mischief as looking miserable.

“We talk about a lot of things,” he said.

“Do you ever talk about bending?”

The words made him freeze. What was Azula getting at? “Why would we talk about that? Toph isn’t a bender.” He knew he wasn’t a good liar, and he fervently hoped that he hadn’t sounded as awkward to her as he’d sounded to himself.

“Isn’t she? What am I saying, of course she isn’t! Father would never have let you marry an earthbender. Imagine the scandal! Still, there’s hidden depths to this girl.” She looked Zuko up and down with a slight smirk, as though she was assessing him, and, as usual, finding him lacking. “I think she’ll prove to be more than a match for you.”

On those words she walked away, like she’d said her piece and didn’t need to talk to him any longer. He watched her go, dread pooling at the pit of his stomach. Did Azula know that Toph was an earthbender? What did she mean by “more than a match”? Azula was always very careful with her words, crafting them with just as much precision as her blue flames and her lightning.

Wiping the sweat off his face and neck, Zuko summoned the memory of Toph earthbending to make the servant trip: he’d recognized the movement for what it was, but hadn’t thought about it much more. Toph had admitted to being an earthbender, and that was the damning element. What else would she feel the need to hide? But thinking back to the subtle way she’d moved her feet, the barely there thud of her heel, too discrete to be identifiable by someone who wasn’t used to earthbenders, he realized that there was no way that Toph was the novice she claimed to be. Subtleness was difficult; he’d learned that the hard way. A beginner should be incapable of such control.

The thought that Toph had lied to him troubled Zuko for the rest of the day. He felt hurt by it, which was probably childish, because the lie was a show of distrust and he had thought that Toph was starting to open up to him. That night, after dinner, as the sky turned to blue velvet and the air started to cool down, he quietly padded his way to his wife’s room, feeling like a thief the whole time. It was stupid, because it was well within his right to visit her whenever he pleased—it was, in fact, his duty to come to her at night—but he so rarely did so that he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was doing something wrong. Then again, maybe the fact that he had taken his swords with him had something to do with that feeling.

He knocked on the door, and didn’t stop berating himself for the few seconds it took Toph to answer: what was he doing? How was he letting Azula get to him once again? No doubt that all she wanted was to make things complicated between him and Toph, for Zuko to doubt everything and everyone around him. But, paradoxically, that was why he had to do this: now that his uncle was gone he had no one to trust, and if he wanted to be able to trust Toph, he had to get to the bottom of who she was.

“Who’s that?” said Toph from behind the door, sounding deeply mistrustful.

“It’s Zuko. Can I come in?”

A pause, then she said, “Sure.”

Zuko had feared for a moment that Toph was already in bed, but when he opened the door he saw her standing in the middle of the room, angled toward the door that Zuko had just come through. She was, however, wearing a nightgown and her hair was loose, most of it hanging in her face. Her feet were bare, too, but Zuko was starting to understand that it was more a matter of personal preference than a sign that she was about to go to bed.

“I’m, uh,” he said, unsure where to go from here. “Do you want to go take a walk with me?”

“Now? Isn’t it night? I mean, I don’t care, but I assume you do.”

“The sun is setting, but there’s still some daylight left.”

“I’ve been dressed for the night,” she said, tugging at her nightgown.

“Can’t you—” He couldn’t summon the servants now, or their escapade would be the talk in all the palace. Maybe he could help her… At the thought, Zuko immediately felt heat rise to his cheeks and was thankful that Toph couldn’t see him blush.

“I can get dressed on my own, no worries,” she said to his relief.

She didn’t ask him to turn around as she undressed, but he did anyway. She possibly didn’t care if he saw her naked, but it would have felt disturbingly like he was being a peeping tom, watching her when she couldn’t watch him.

Once she was ready, dressed in a green and gold tunic that he’d never seen on her and wearing no shoes, she followed him willingly in the gardens. Still, something about her body language let him know that she was wary of him. That was fair enough—he was actually surprised that she’d accepted to go out with him.

He led her deep into the gardens, as far as he could from the outer walls where the guards would be watching, to a vast stretch of grass bordered on their right by a few rocks.

“So, what’s going on?” Toph asked.

“There was something I needed to ask you. Where we, well, where we couldn’t be overhead.”

“Yeah?”

The pale ribbon of sky still lit by the dying sun didn’t give away much light, and all Zuko could see of Toph was the darker outline of her small figure. She was barely more than half his size. Surely he was wrong, and she really was the frail little girl she looked to be. Before he could overthink it, Zuko swiftly drew both of his swords and swung them at her.

The swords never reached her, because a wall of earth sprung from the ground between her and Zuko and the blades skidded against it. Zuko instinctively stepped back, but found that the soil behind him has loosened, making him lose his footing and fall on his ass.

“What was that about?” Toph barked. “You have five seconds to explain yourself, or I bury you alive into the ground.”

Zuko gave himself two seconds, the time for his heart to slow down to a normal pace.

“I wanted to check something,” he said. “I had no intention to hurt you.”

“You lure me at night to an isolated place and you attack me, but you don’t want to hurt me? Are we even speaking the same language?”

“You said you were just a beginner earthbender, but no beginner could have done what you did to that servant, not that subtly.”

“Huh.” Toph was still mostly hidden by the earth wall she’d erected and Zuko wouldn’t be able to see it if she made a move to attack again, so he took care to remain very still. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I asked you?”

Toph huffed a laugh, and the wall between them was swallowed back into the earth. It seemed to indicate that she didn’t perceive him as a threat anymore, but Zuko didn’t want to test it yet by trying to get up.

“Why didn’t I tell you? I don’t know,” she said. “My parents don’t know what I can do either. They think I’m a poor helpless blind girl.” In the semi-darkness, Zuko could see her prop her hands on her hips. “The truth is, I’m the greatest earthbender in the world!”

From his prone position he had to crane his neck to look at her, as if she were three times her actual size. Gone was the fragile, demure girl he’d thought her to be on their wedding day. With the reveal of the extent of her earthbending skills, Toph had finished shaking off the disguise.

“Er, okay,” Zuko said, unsure what attitude he should adopt in the face of such confidence.

“But since we’re being honest and all, Prince Zuko, can you tell me why you didn’t attack me with fire?”

The question made Zuko’s hands close reflexively on a fistful of dirt. He hadn’t expected the interrogation to be turned around on him.

“I can’t,” he murmured.

“Because the other day I actually listened to your conversation with Azula,” Toph went on as though she hadn’t heard him. “You were talking about getting hurt, and about the Avatar, and since now you know my biggest secret, it seems only fair that I would know yours too.”

Zuko sat up in a more dignified position, crossing his legs. “It’s hardly a secret,” he said in a low voice. “Everyone in the palace knows about it.”

“Everyone but me, apparently.”

“What do you know about the Avatar?”

“I heard the usual stories: master of the four elements, yadda, yadda, vanished a hundred years ago. I heard the rumors a couple years ago that a kid was traveling around pretending to be the Avatar, but that he was captured by the Fire Nation when Ba Sing Se fell.”

She spoke in a neutral voice, not betraying any of her feelings on the Avatar or on the fall of Ba Sing Se and the subsequent subjugation of the Earth Kingdom. He wondered again if she hated them, hated being here, not just because she’d been forced to leave her home but because they were her country’s enemies. The thought of her feeling for him the same sort of hatred he’d faced when he was traveling the Earth Kingdom gave him an unexpected pang of sorrow.

“Well, that kid really is the Avatar, I can tell you that much,” he said, looking down to the pale spots that were his hands in the darkness. “He couldn’t firebend, and his earthbending was pretty basic, but he’d mastered airbending and waterbending already.”

“You captured him. You and Azula.”

“Yes. We fought him in Ba Sing Se, and… Azula hit him with lightning, but he managed to divert most of it and it was redirected toward me. I don’t even think he was trying to hit me. My uncle taught me a technique to redirect lightning—but I didn’t see it coming, and I was struck. My heart suffered the brunt of it, and for a while they didn’t even know if I was going to make it. I was sick for a very long time. I’m better now, but I can’t—I can’t firebend anymore.”

“Well, that sucks,” Toph said, and Zuko was surprised by how sincere she sounded. He’d been bracing himself for a disappointment similar to the one on his uncle’s face when Zuko had joined forces with Azula in Ba Sing Se.

“I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I swear I will.”

“Oh, I know you mean it,” she said. At his puzzled silence, she laughed. “I can feel the vibrations of your heartbeat through the earth. I can tell when people lie to me. Told you I was the greatest earthbender ever!”

She was scary, Zuko realized. Forget frail, fragile, helpless, and every other adjective he’d associated with her before. Toph Beifong was a menace. It probably said something about him that he found it rather comforting.

---

It was a relief, Toph found out, to have someone who shared her secret for the first time in her life. The Earth Rumble fighters didn’t really count, because they hadn’t known who she was or how she was perceived by her family. They hadn’t cared either, beyond trying to kick her ass—and failing miserably—and until now she’d thought that was the nicest feeling in the world. It was such a simple and straightforward kind of relationship. Now that Zuko knew, though, she had to admit that this was pretty nice too, being able to talk to someone without posturing or pretending that she was someone she wasn’t.

Her opinion of Zuko had been amended too: he wasn’t stupid, really, just very impulsive and a bit of an awkward turtle duck, and he wasn’t a weakling but actually a very skilled fighter. She’d been surprised when he told her that he’d learned how to use his Dao swords before he’d lost his firebending. It seemed like a waste of effort to her, but she had to admit that now that he couldn’t use fire anymore, it certainly came as an unexpected bit of foresight.

“Why did you decide to learn how to use weapons?” she asked him one day.

She could sense him hesitate. “No matter how hard I worked, Azula has always bested me when it comes to firebending. This, at least, is mine only.”

She could tell he still missed firebending, and she couldn’t blame him. Even if he didn’t rely on it the way she relied on earthbending, using your element and modeling it to your will was a feeling like no other, and he would have to be brain dead not to miss it. That day, Toph made a decision: she’d been idle since she’d arrived in the Fire Nation, with no other objective than trying to become familiar with her new environment. Now, her goal would be to help Zuko get his firebending back.

“I’m gonna train you,” she told him during one of their daily walks in the gardens.

He didn’t respond at once. “You’re an earthbender,” he said slowly, like he was expecting her to suddenly reveal that she actually was the Avatar.

“Yes, I am, dumbass, and I’m not going to teach you how to firebend. You already know that. But until now, you’ve just been going through the forms on your own and praying for a miracle, am I correct?”

“Yes. I mean, what else could I do?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to have worked so well for you, so you need a different approach. Hear me out: maybe what you need is a challenge. Something to shock your system out of whatever block you’re having. I can’t firebend, but what I can do is throw rocks at you until something gives.”

“And what if this something is my bones?”

She waved off his concerns with a hand. “Oh, you’ll be fine. I told you about the Earth Rumble, right? I fought a lot of guys there, and none of them died.”

She expected him to protest that he wasn’t comforted by the flimsy assurance that he wouldn’t die, but instead he said, “Okay, but we can’t do this at the palace. Someone’s bound to notice you earthbending, and then…”

“Then we’ll do it elsewhere! We’ll say we’re going out on a… picnic or whatever, we’ll find somewhere isolated, and then I’ll throw rocks at you. Don’t forget I’m an earthbender: I’ll be able to tell if someone gets too close.”

That took care of Zuko’s reluctance, and the next day they were off to a lonely place at the bottom of a volcano. It was supposedly one of the wonders of the country’s main island, or so Zuko assured her. Another proof, if Toph needed it, that people in the Fire Nation were crazy.

“The soil here is very rich, and there are all kinds of rare plants. Like here, fire lilies. They’re my uncle’s favorite: they only bloom for a few weeks a year, and they make those bright red flowers. They’re such a vibrant color, and—”

“Do I look like I care about colors? Keep your mind in the game, fire lily. We’re here to train, not to sightsee.”

“Yeah, sorry, you’re right. I just—I haven’t come here in a long time.”

Zuko sounded melancholic, and Toph had the nagging feeling she was supposed to do something about it, although she couldn’t figure out what. What was the big deal about flowers, anyway? She reacted the only way she knew: she kicked the ground and made a spear of earth spurt between Zuko’s legs, causing him to lose his balance.

“Hey!”

She turned both of her hands to the sky, closed her fists, and pulled up. Zuko was right on one count: the earth here was different, and there was something very malleable about it that made it easy as breathing for her to do whatever she wanted with it. She heard Zuko yelp when the ground rose up and sent him tumbling a few yards away.

“Your purpose is to make me stop tossing your around!” she shouted over the sound of rumbling earth. “Get to it, Zuko!”

She’d allowed him to bring his swords, since they were the only weapons he had for now, and she heard the telltale sliding sound of Zuko pulling them out of their sheaths. He rushed toward her; she blocked his way with a wall. He avoided it, barely—she heard him make a sound that was half-pain, half-frustration—and, not leaving him time to breathe, she punched a few rocks in his direction. Two made contact but he dodged the rest, and didn’t let the shock or the pain slow him down any.

“What’s the matter, Prince Zuko?” she taunted him. He had a temper, she remembered from his conversation with Azula. Maybe the key to his firebending was to make him mad. “Can’t reach one little girl? I’m right here! I haven’t moved an inch.”

He grunted, but didn’t respond to the provocation. He’d gotten closer to her, so she peppered the ground with a few more earth spears, trying to slow his progression. Suddenly, he jumped, and vanished from her perception. She kept a hand out, ready for him as soon as he would reappear. There, one foot on one of the walls she’d erected earlier—he was using it to give himself momentum!

It was only the sensation of air moving that helped her dodge in time. Zuko landed behind her, and without turning around she made the ground rise up to try and trap his ankles. He managed to avoid it for one, but not for the other, and let out an unarticulated cry when he found he couldn’t move.

“I have to say, well played,” she said.

He was breathing harshly, but she was monitoring his heartbeat and although it was understandably fast-paced from the exertion, it was also strong and steady, so she wasn’t worried about inadvertently giving him a heart attack.

“But not quite well enough,” she added with a smirk. “Ready to give up?”

Giving up, she realized as the training went on for the rest of the afternoon, was not part of Zuko’s vocabulary. He kept going at her, bruised and bleeding, without asking for a break or for her to go easier on him. He became better at dodging her attacks and blocking the rocks she threw at him with his swords, and came close enough to her a few times that she had to move from her spot, but he never even made a single spark. In the end, she had to be the one to call it a day.

“Okay, that’s enough for today!”

“There’s still some daylight left!” Zuko protested. Clearly, she’d underestimated him: he was a total madman.

“And you know that doesn’t matter to me, but we have to get back at some point, before your father call on the army to look for the runaway prince and princess. Besides, I’m hungry.”

She earthbent away all traces of their passage and walked up to where he was standing, bent in half with his hands propped on his thighs, trying to catch his breath.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I’m all right.”

She frowned; his heart was thumping a bit erratically in his chest, and she hoped they hadn’t overdone it. She didn’t fancy killing her husband three months into their marriage.

“If you faint here,” she said, “I’m leaving your ass in the mountains and going back on my own.”

“I’m not going to faint!”

He sounded outraged at the idea, as if by suggesting it she had insulted his princely honor. He smelled faintly of blood, so she asked, “How bad is it? Is your face banged up? Any visible tear or blood stain on your clothes?”

He snorted a laugh, and straightened up. “Your concern is touching.”

“Hey, we’re supposed to have been going on a picnic. People are going to ask questions if you look like you lost a fight with a mountain.”

“I have a few bruises, but it’s not going to be noticeable in the rest of the mess. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

The rest of the mess? She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but he’d already sheathed back his swords and walked away to gather their stuff. She shrugged—she could always ask him later. It was probably just Zuko being weird, anyway.

---

They made a habit of going out on a “picnic” a couple of times a week. Sometimes they went back to the volcano, sometimes to other places in the mountains that Zuko always made sure Toph knew how interesting they were. There seemed to be a point to Zuko’s tourist guide routine, but it was harmless enough and Toph couldn’t be bothered to try to figure it out.

Those sessions were tons of fun, and as Zuko became better at fighting back it got even more fun. Having this outlet to her frustration at being a caged Fire Nation princess made Toph realize just how tightly wound up she’d been before. Without Zuko to beat up on a regular basis, she probably would have ended up blowing up in a nasty and destructive way and that would have been such a hassle.

Where the sessions were not successful, however, were in helping Zuko firebend again. She wasn’t a healer by any means, but she always paid close attention to his heartbeat and breathing when they trained, and it felt to her like he was back to peak physical shape.

“Maybe the chi flow has been disturbed in some way,” she hazarded one day. She was at her wit’s ends on ways to cheer him up. “A waterbender healer could probably do something about it.”

“We don’t have any waterbenders in the Fire Nation,” he said bitterly.

“Yeah, right, ‘cause your people have been killing them off.”

Instead of rising up to the provocation he sighed, and his voice was weary when he said, “You’re right. We have.”

“What’s up with that, anyway?”

“Supposedly, firebending is superior to any other kind of bending. We don’t need the others—shouldn’t need them.”

“Well, this is blatantly wrong. You certainly could have used a waterbender healer when you got hurt. Might not have taken you this long to get back on your feet.”

“I know. I guess the real reason is to keep people from fighting back.”

“Hmm, makes sense.”

A silence settled between them, as it did sometimes. They were walking around the gardens, arm-in-arm like a dutiful little couple, and Toph could see that they were approaching the pond with the baby turtle ducks Zuko was so fond of. The not talking didn’t bother Toph, not anymore. At first, when it had happened after Zuko and her had started getting along, she’d wondered if she was supposed to say something to fill the blanks. The only people she’d spent time with before coming to the Fire Nation were her parents and the servants, who never had much to say to her, the badger moles, who didn’t speak, and Earth Rumble fighters, who favored a kind of trash talk that was probably frowned upon in a palace. She wasn’t exactly an expert on chitchat. But with time she’d found out that silence could feel nice, a comfortably inhabited space for two people who didn’t mind being with each other. And anyway, when Zuko had something to say he generally blurted it out without prompting.

“When I was traveling the Earth Kingdom,” he said as they stopped at the side of the pond, “I met a lot of people who—well, who didn’t like the Fire Nation very much.”

With a kick of her foot, Toph sent vibrations through the ground to discourage the turtle ducks from coming near her before she sat down. “It’s not so surprising. The Fire Nation has been harassing us for a long time, caused a lot of destruction. Gaoling was protected from the worst of it, and my parents were always going out of their way to pretend everything was okay in front of me, but they forgot I have ears. During Sozin’s Comet, especially, the Fire Nation destroyed miles and miles of forests, fields, and villages.”

Zuko, who had been feeding the turtle ducks, stopped mid-motion. “What did you say?”

“What part? Destruction? Ears? Forests? Sozin’s Comet?”

“What happened during Sozin’s Comet?” Zuko sounded odd, speaking in a flat, strained voice she’d never heard him use before.

“The Fire Nation attacked? Seriously, how can you not know about this: firebenders—acting on your father’s orders, I guess—took advantage of the boost the comet gave them to burn down as much as they could. I heard it could have been a lot worse, too, if not for the resistance fighters who stopped some of the war balloons.”

“After Ba Sing Se, I was in a coma for months. I didn’t know about this.”

“What does it matter; it’s done, now.” Toph kicked at the dirt with a shoeless foot—Zuko had made the servants stop pestering her about shoes. Not that she needed his help, but it was nice of him anyway. “I guess that’s why my parents signed me up so easily to marry you. Wouldn’t do to anger the Fire Nation.”

“Is it that bad? Being married to me?”

He was such a fragile flower. “Nah,” she said, and punched hard him in the arm. “You’re okay.”

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Don’t whine. This is how I express affection.”

He grumbled a bit, and she heard the rustling sound his hand made as it rubbed against his clothed shoulder. She laughed, thinking of how he endured her throwing him around and hurling rocks at him with fire-forged determination, but made a fuss over one little punch.

“What?” he asked, his voice veiled with the suspicion of someone who was used to being mocked.

“You’re an idiot,” she told him, before giving him another punch to show him she was kidding.

He started laughing too and the sound startled the turtle ducks, who scattered away in a concert of quacks. This made Toph laugh even harder, and they both kept at it for a few more minutes, their amusement clearing the air from the dark topics they’d been discussing. At least until Zuko’s laughter died suddenly, and Toph felt him angle away from her.

“What is it?” she asked, sensing a strange tension emanate from him.

They’d been alone so far, but for the last few minutes Toph had been aware that there was someone else in the gardens, too far from them to be within earshot. The person didn’t seem to be walking in their direction either, so Toph had deemed them unimportant, but they had to be what Zuko was looking at, unless there was something flying that she had no way to perceive.

“Hey, Zuko!” she tried again, poking him in the side. “Are you listening?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s nothing. Mai was walking by.”

“Who’s Mai?”

“She’s, uh, she’s Azula’s friend.”

Toph frowned. It didn’t precisely feel like Zuko was lying to her, but she didn’t think he was telling the whole truth either. She’d learned that Zuko didn’t respond well to being confronted head on, though. His stubborn nature would kick in and then you couldn’t get anything from him. She would have to let it fly, for now.

“Because Azula has friends? Wow, the things you learn.”

“More like minions, really,” Zuko murmured. She had a feeling that his eyes were still trailing after that Mai girl.

“I think I would rather be friends with canyon crawlers.”

Zuko chuckled weakly. “Try being her brother.”

“You know, there were times in my childhood when I daydreamed about having siblings, but boy did Azula and you cure me of it.”

“Azula calls you her sister, though.”

“Ugh. Hold my hair, I’m gonna puke.”

Azula was the sort of person who only got scarier the nicer she acted. Upon learning that she had friends—or minions, as Zuko put it—Toph wondered if she shouldn’t start barricading her door at night. Who had said that married life was boring?

---

Toph didn’t have much time to wonder how to get more information on Azula’s friend Mai, because she ran into the girl the very next day.

She’d seen her coming long before Mai turned around the corner—she recognized the tall, gangly figure from the day before—but hadn’t really planned on saying anything to her. Mai, though, seemed to have a different idea: just as the two of them were about to walk past each other, Mai stopped and said, “You’re Toph Beifong, aren’t you.”

She had a deep, throaty voice and spoke in monotones, like the conversation bored her to tears even though she was the one who’d initiated it.

“I am. And who are you?”

“My name is Mai.”

“Oh. You’re Azula’s friend.”

“Is that what he told you?” Mai’s tone never varied, but Toph could tell that the question was designed to provoke a reaction.

“Is it a lie?”

“I guess it isn’t,” Mai replied cryptically. “But I was also Zuko’s girlfriend.”

Girlfriend? Well, that explained Zuko’s reaction. The thought had never occurred to Toph that Zuko, being a few years older than her, might have already had relationships that would have been thwarted by the wedding. She wasn’t sure why he would hide it from her, though.

Mai was still standing next to her in silence like a menacing statue. Was she expecting some sort of reaction? Toph had to suffer enough mind games with Azula, and her patience for them was wearing thin.

“What do you want from me?” she asked. “Should we fight over him or something? Because that would be ridiculous.”

Mai was quiet a bit longer, then asked, “Is he happy with you?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?”

Mai made a sound that might have been a sigh or a chuckle. “You’re different from what I expected.”

Toph was about to ask what exactly Mai had expected, but stopped herself when she saw another person come over, someone whose steps were light and bouncy like those of a dancer.

“Mai!” called a high-pitched, female voice. “Azula’s waiting for us. Come on!”

“And we shouldn’t keep her Majesty waiting, should we,” Mai murmured, in a voice so low that she probably didn’t expect Toph to hear her. “Well,” she said more loudly, “pleasure meeting you.”

She didn’t sound pleased—or much else, really—and she walked off before Toph had the time to come up with a similar pleasantry. Toph followed the two girls’ progression for a moment, assessing that they were both heading in the direction of Azula’s room. Being Azula’s friend must be a really high-pressure job, she mused. She didn’t envy those girls at all.

Later, when she caught up with Zuko a little before lunch, the first thing she told him was, “Hey, I met your girlfriend, by the way.”

She’d calibrated her sentence for maximum effect, and wasn’t disappointed by the result: Zuko spluttered, tripped on his own feet—hilarious, for someone who was usually so graceful—and managed to get out a garbled question after a few tries. “What—who—what do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, Zuko. Mai, your girlfriend. Or you ex, I guess.”

“Of course she’s my ex! I wouldn’t—”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I know you wouldn’t—you’re way too honorable for that. Is it why you didn’t tell me? You thought I would be—what, jealous of her?”

“I don’t know. It just felt awkward to mention it. We’re married, after all.”

It was strange that, given her current situation, Toph sometimes forgot about this tiny fact. Marriage had sounded like a prison, when she’d first been presented with it. And it was, in many ways, but Zuko being her husband had turned out to be the most bearable part of it. Was she supposed to be jealous of Mai? She tried to picture Zuko and Mai together, but couldn’t muster much feeling about it.

“I’m not jealous,” she said. “You could still be with her, if you wanted. I wouldn’t mind.”

“She’s the one who broke up with me. And I don’t think she’d be keen on being the—the mistress.”

“You could always ask her. Maybe she thinks I’m the obstacle, and that’s why she tried to corner me this morning.”

She hadn’t thought that Zuko would dare—to survive being Azula’s friend, Mai would have to be a pretty tough girl—but once again she’d underestimated his lack of self-preservation.

“She doesn’t want to,” he told her the next day, as they were making their way to a solitary meadow in a nearby forest for one of their “picnics.”

“That what she said?”

“She punched me. I think that means no.”

He sounded so disgruntled that Toph couldn’t help but laugh, and then felt bad about it—it had been her suggestion, after all.

“I still mean what I said,” she offered to make up for her reaction. “If you find someone else you want to be with.”

“Same goes for you,” he said. “Neither of us had a choice—but if you meet someone you like, you—You don’t even have to ask me.”

Toph had never even paused to wonder what that would be like, meeting someone she liked that way, someone she would want to be with. The notion made her cheeks go warm. Then she thought that, no matter who she or Zuko might meet down the road, they would eventually need to have sex with each other and make royal babies. This was what it meant to be a princess. Like Zuko had said, they had no choice. Her face burning, she shook off the idea and barked at Zuko, “Get ready, fire lily! I’m gonna beat you to a pulp.”

She was particularly brutal on him that day, but he took it like he always did, getting back to his feet and asking for more. Sometimes she wondered what made him fight so hard. It felt like he was getting ready for something.

---

When he was away Zuko had missed the hot, humid climate of the Fire Nation. The bitter cold from the Poles had been hard on him, and some of the arid areas he’d traversed in the Earth Kingdom, back when he was on his own and resourceless, had come close to killing him. Since he’d been back, though, he’d had trouble getting used to it again, the same way he had trouble getting used again to a lot of things. The air felt stifling—too dense, like he could choke on it. Zuko punched through it, feeling sweat trickle down his bare back.

He was training alone on the palace’s training ground, while Toph was having some sort of tea party with Azula and her friends. No doubt she would get out of it feeling murderous, and the thought almost made Zuko smile. Azula circled Toph like a hawk, but he wondered if she had an inkling of who exactly she was dealing with. A fight between the two of them would probably cause a destruction of epic proportions.

Zuko joined his hands together, completing the form. He then stood there for a moment, breathing deeply into the thick warm air. The heat was making him a little dizzy, or maybe it was just that, despite Toph throwing rocks at him on a regular basis, he was still too weak.

Destruction. The word kept running around in his mind since Toph had told him about the destruction his father had rained over the Earth Kingdom. He felt… so stupid for having known nothing of it. As if it had been a secret that had been kept from him, too, even though he would just have had to ask if anything of importance had happened while he was unconscious. He thought about the people he’d met in the Earth Kingdom, about Lee and his family, about poor gentle Song, whom he’d stolen from, about that young couple on the side of the road who had been expecting a baby. Had any of them—all of them—died in the attack? Intellectually, he knew that the war had cost the lives of many since its inception, but it made a difference to have actually met those people, talked to them, glimpsed into their lives, and to know that they may have been killed or at least had their homes destroyed.

He grabbed the towel that he’d brought with him for training and wiped the sweat off his neck and face. His thoughts diverted to the Avatar and his companions: to the girl he’d met in the caves of Ba Sing Se, who had offered to heal his scar, and her brother, the easily excited guy with a boomerang; and finally to the Avatar himself, his round face and wide gray eyes, looking so young. Zuko wasn’t sure what had happened after he’d been hit by lightning, but given that the boy had been facing Azula, it probably hadn’t been pretty. Where was he held, by the way? What had happened to his companions? Zuko didn’t think they’d been captured too, but he had no other information. And, although he wasn’t sure why he should care, he felt a sudden need to know.

He stretched, glancing up to the sky to check on the sun’s progression, trying to gauge how long he’d been training. The scar on his chest from Azula’s lightning pulled a little as he did so, but it’d been a long time since it had actually ached. Seeing the gnarled knot of scar tissue just below his sternum gave him a chill every time, the renewed realization of just how close he’d come to death always sobering.

He put his shirt back on and started heading for the wing where he knew Azula was having her tea party, hoping to catch Toph on her way back. According to his calculations, the party had been going on for a couple of hours, and if Zuko knew Toph at all, he had to assume that she’d had enough and bailed out as soon as she could. Right when he was having that thought, he saw her come in the opposite direction. She obviously had identified him, because she was walking toward him at a decided pace that she would never use in front of anyone else.

She threw her arms up in the air and called his name. “There you are! I can’t take anymore of this.”

He fell into step with her. “I take it that it didn’t go very well, huh?”

“Mai was fine, I think I actually like her. Ty Lee was super creepy—no one can be that chipper all the time, right? Azula was—ugh.” Toph mimed wrapping her hands around something and giving it a harsh twist.

“I know.”

“How did you handle growing up with her?”

“I don’t know.”

She sniffed in his direction. “You smell. Were you training?”

“Yeah.”

“And? No, sorry, if something had happened you would have told me already.” She stopped and raised her face to him, something she almost never did. Her dull eyes were hidden by her hair. “We’ll find a way, okay? Even if we have to go hunt dragons or something to get your fire back.”

He smiled, feeling better already from Toph’s absurd pep talk. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She resumed her walk, and they followed the length of the western wing in silence for a moment. “Azula talked a bit about your uncle.” She hesitated, and Zuko felt his stomach drop—Toph wasn’t the faltering type. “She called him a traitor. Said he’s run away from prison.”

Zuko had only ever mentioned his uncle to Toph in passing, noncommittal comments about things he’d said or enjoyed. He’d never had the heart to bring up what had happened to him in Ba Sing Se and since then.

“He has,” he said, his voice rough. “He—he was in Ba Sing Se, but he didn’t want me to join Azula. I think—” He lowered his voice to a murmur, knowing that Toph would still hear him. “I think he wanted me to join the Avatar.”

“And did you want to?” Toph asked, not quite as softly as he had, but still in a low voice. They were definitely flirting with treason by discussing this, and she must have realized it.

“I don’t know.”

He’d definitely given up on chasing the Avatar for a moment there in Ba Sing Se, when he and Uncle had settled at the teashop. He’d renounced the idea that he would ever see the Fire Nation again. But joining the Avatar? That was a whole different story. What would have happened that day, if he had decided to fight against Azula rather than at her side?

“Zuko?”

He would have been killed, for sure. He’d already almost died being on her side.

A harsh kick to his shin abruptly brought him back to the present. “Ow!”

“You with me, now?”

“Yes. I was just thinking. You don’t have to hit me all the time!”

“Oh, I know. It’s fun, that’s all.”

And then she grinned, flashing her little white teeth. He huffed and walked faster, knowing that, with her shorter legs, she would have to start running to catch up with him and that it would annoy her. She did, and bitched about it the whole time it took them to get to the eastern wing of the palace. Zuko refrained from openly laughing at her, but it still surprised him how—nice, for lack of a better word, it felt to bicker with Toph. He wasn’t used to being annoyed with someone without feeling at the same time so angry that it scorched him black from the inside out.

“Azula’s birthday is coming up,” he told her once they were alone in the safe space of Toph’s room.

Toph had foregone all the chairs in the room and was sitting on the floor, cleaning up between her toes. If the servants could see her now, they would probably have a heart attack. They were already up in arms about the fact that they had to wash the princess’s dirty feet everyday. Nothing would convince them that the princess could perfectly take care of this matter on her own.

“So what?” Toph said. “Do we have to get her a present or something?”

“It means that there’s going to be a big party. She’s the crown princess,”—he thought he did a pretty good job at containing his bitterness here—“and she’s turning sixteen. This is a huge political event. There’re going to be a lot of important people.”

Toph arched an eyebrow. “And you’re worried I won’t behave? I have impeccable manners, you know.”

“I know.” He remembered her perfect poise on the day of their wedding.

“Right, so you don’t have to fret. Unless you want me to ruin it? Because that could be fun.”

Zuko let himself entertain for a moment the idea of just how much chaos Toph could wreak if she put her mind to it, before firmly pushing it aside. It wouldn’t be worth the retaliation. That particular lesson he had learned the hard way.

“No, please don’t. I just thought you’d like a heads-up, because Azula is going to be unbearable for a few days.”

“As opposed to her usual charming self, I guess.”

Zuko flashed a smile she couldn’t see. “Fair enough,” he said.

It turned out that nothing could have prepared them for just how annoying Azula got in the week preceding her birthday party. The year before Zuko had still been too weak to participate to any festivities, and before that he’d been in exile for years, and it seemed that time had indeed toned down what he remembered of her behavior during that period. Or maybe she had only gained in arrogance with the years and with the switch of status between her and Zuko.

Whatever the reason, Zuko spent that period contemplating fratricide. It wasn’t enough that Azula kept putting him down even more viciously than usual, reminding him that she was the future Fire Lord and he was nothing, but she also wouldn’t leave Toph and him alone and they could never escape for one of their training sessions. She apparently needed them, as well as Mai and Ty Lee, at all time to discuss the decoration, and the food, and the guest lists, and what all of them would be wearing. Zuko didn’t know anything about fashion, but he gathered that it was important for her to make sure that none of them would overshadow her for the big night.

Azula’s whims also had the unfortunate consequence of making sure that Zuko saw Mai everyday, when he had done such a good job of avoiding her. They were never alone together—thank the spirits for small favors—but Zuko swore he sometimes could feel the cool weight of Mai’s gaze on the back of his neck. At least, as Toph put it, he had yet to feel the cool slice of one of her daggers.

Once, though, as Azula was prattling to Ty Lee and a bored Toph about what shade of red would suit them, Mai sidled closer to Zuko, quiet as a ghost.

“Kill me now,” she said in her best deadpan, and it startled a chuckle out of him.

“I, uh. I don’t think that Azula would let me live this down. Literally.”

“Mmm.” Mai’s eyes were on Azula rather than on Zuko. “I guess she does still need us to go on missions for her.”

“What do you mean?”

She slanted a look at him. “She’s had us looking for the Avatar’s Water Tribes companions. It seems that they have joined some sort of rebel group, so they could still be a threat, but I think this is more about Azula not liking anyone fighting back against her.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” It looked like the amount of what he didn’t know about the state of the world just kept piling up.

“Well. Marriage and convalescence took a lot out of you.”

“Yeah.” He glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking in his direction anymore. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?” Zuko could hear the strain under the usual layer of emotionlessness.

“This whole situation. And about—what I asked you. It wasn’t fair of me.”

Two colored spots appeared on her pale cheeks. “It was humiliating.”

“I know, and I apologize for that.” He almost said that it had been Toph’s suggestion, but it seemed cowardly. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“You always were an idiot.”

They lapsed into silence, both of them looking at Azula draping Toph with a length of rich gold and red brocade. Ty Lee was chirping excitedly about how pretty she looked, and Zuko saw one of Toph’s fists close in a gesture reminiscent of her earthbending forms.

“I think I’m going to have to go rescue her,” he said, already taking one step in that direction.

“Are you happy?” Mai asked, so quietly that he almost missed it, intent as he was on the scene before him.

He turned around, and the sight of her long gloomy face made his heart constrict. It was a mask that she wore to pretend she was indifferent to everything, but it didn’t quite hide a hint of vulnerability in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, because he wouldn’t lie to her. “I’m trying to figure out what it means.”

“Don’t we all,” she drawled.

She gave him a slight nod and he took it as permission to go rush to Toph’s help. He managed to wrench her out of Azula’s grip before a disaster occurred and they both made their exit under Azula’s scowling disapproval. Zuko didn’t get another occasion to talk with Mai the whole week—but then again, he wasn’t sure what he could say to her that would make things better.

Chapter Text

Toph had been ready for the whole evening to be a bore. It wasn’t that big a deal—she’d survived her own wedding, and it had been an entire day—and she had to laugh at Zuko for being so worried about it. He’d seen her behave at the dinner table. She’d managed to handle his father and sister for months, and surely this deserved a medal.

The worst of it was the endless fitting sessions, where she had to stand still for hours while the royal tailor turned her into a pincushion and Azula made caustic comments. Zuko had some of those too, but they didn’t last nearly as long as Toph’s even though he was bigger than she was. He was so lucky to be a guy. It wasn’t like Toph cared about the way she looked. Unfortunately, Azula or one of the servants would say, it mattered not what Toph thought of herself, but that she represented the royal family now. She would have never thought that she would miss the fact that her parents pretended she didn’t exist to the outside world, which had the fortunate effect of sparing her that sort of nonsense.

Toph blew a breath, making a strand of her hair fly then fall back in place. She was leaning outside one of the windows of her room, enjoying the tiny suggestion of wind that made the foliage of the trees rustle in the garden down below. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in months. At first, she had been too angry to properly miss them. They’d shipped her to the Fire Nation without even asking her about it, had never stopped to wonder how she felt about things, what she wanted to do with her life, what she liked. The fact that Zuko had turned out okay didn’t really let them off the hook, because surely they had no idea who the prince was. For all they knew, he could have been like his genocidal great-grandfather, or like his pyromaniac dad, and they’d been ready to marry their only daughter—who they thought was so fragile and helpless—to that kind of person.

She sighed again, and brought a fist down on the windowsill. Okay, so she was still kind of mad at them, even though she got that they didn’t have much of a choice. But a letter from them had come the day before—a relatively sweet letter, if a bit generic, probably because they knew someone would have to read it to her—and obviously she needed to think of a response. They were her parents; whether she liked it or not, they were her only family. She knew Zuko would accept to write her answering letter for her, that wasn’t the issue. She merely needed to make up something reassuring—because they had to be worried about her, right?—and not too angry.

Dear Mother and Father,

How lovely of you to remember you have a daughter!

Yeah, that part needed a bit of work. But not right now, because she could see Zuko coming her way to pick her up for the party. He knocked on the door, even knowing that she was already aware of his presence. She liked that about him, that he would give her the option of not letting him in.

“Yeah?”

The door whined softly as he opened it. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?” she shot back, and he groaned.

“Let’s get this over with.”

When you’re part of the royal family, as Toph found out, you couldn’t simply sneak into the ballroom and zone in on the food. No, their names had to be loudly announced, so that everyone could gawk at their entrance.

“How do I look?” she couldn’t help but whisper urgently to Zuko.

“Huh? You look very pretty.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah.”

It didn’t feel like he was lying, and Toph allowed herself a pleased rush of warmth. Even if she didn’t really care, and Azula’s talks of colors and cuts and patterns went way over her head, it was still nice to know how she looked to others. No one had ever told her she was pretty before. Pale, delicate, fragile—all those things, she’d heard about herself, but never pretty. She bit back a smile.

The endless round of being introduced to people as Prince Zuko’s new wife started right after their entrance. Some of those people she’d already met on her wedding, and they all expected her to remember them.

“Oh, yes, how are you doing, Ambassador Tono?” This one she actually kind of remembered, on the strength of him being the Fire Nation envoy in her part of the Earth Kingdom, as well as the person who’d negotiated her union to Zuko.

“Very well, princess, thank you for asking. You look resplendent yourself. Married life does seem to suit you.”

There was a blank in the conversation, and Toph could only imagine that the ambassador was looking at Zuko and making some sort of face. She was used to always missing parts of the discussions going around her for that reason.

“I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with your parents a few weeks ago,” the ambassador said.

Toph’s grip on Zuko’s arm tightened, and anyone else would have probably hissed in pain at that point, but the only sign he gave her that she was hurting him was a brief muscle spasm.

“Oh,” she said at last. “How lovely.”

“They seem to be missing you very much.”

Toph swallowed hard, pushing down words of fury. Zuko gave her arm a little shake, for comfort or maybe to signal to her that she was supposed to give an answer.

“Well, if you have the occasion to see them again, give them all my love.”

There, perfect pre-made bullshit answer. The next round of guests coming to salute them was a blur and Zuko took care of most of the conversation, which Toph would have probably found entertaining if she had been paying attention. She felt a little bad about it afterwards, because social encounters weren’t Zuko’s forte.

“Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula!”

“Here it comes,” Toph grumbled, and Zuko elbowed her in the ribs.

The whole room quieted. It was impressive, really, how sudden and complete the silence was, not a murmur or even a cough in the assembly. Then, on a cue that Toph had no way of catching, everyone started clapping. She followed suit with moderate enthusiasm.

Fire Lord Ozai made his way through the crowd, which parted in front of him as surely as if he had cleaved through it with an axe, to a platform that had been built at the other the end of the room with two seats on it, one smaller than the other. Contrary to the throne room there was no curtain of fire, and Fire Lord Ozai turned to the room, not sitting yet, to address the guests. Azula climbed up after him and stood by his side.

“People of the Fire Nation,” Fire Lord Ozai said. He wasn’t speaking in an overly loud voice, but it carried well in the quiet of the room. “Pillars of our great nation. You have been gathered here to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of my daughter and heir, Azula. Named after her grandfather, Azula has proved time and time again worthy of her namesake, her crowning accomplishment being the fall of Ba Sing Se, and the capture of the Avatar with the help of her brother Prince Zuko.”

The crowd cheered at the reminder and Toph muttered to Zuko, “How nice of him to remember you,” but then regretted it when she felt him flinch.

“On this day,” Fire Lord Ozai went on, “I want you not to dwell on the past, but to envision our future: a future where the Fire Nation will finally take its rightful place, leading the world into progress and modernity. No matter how hard the road, no matter the resistance from petty foes who don’t understand what we’re trying to accomplish, we will overcome. We will bend the other nations to our will, and paint this world in red and gold. This is our path. This is our destiny!”

The crowd was in rapture, everyone in the room drinking in their Lord’s words without so much as a whisper, and Toph felt a shiver run down her spine. They all believed it. No doubt that the guests for the party had been carefully screened, but there were a lot of people in this room and it seemed like they all believed in that destiny nonsense Fire Lord Ozai was sprouting at them. They were eating it up with a spoon. Upon the last word of his speech the crowd exploded, clapping and roaring their approval, loud as thunder. Zuko held himself very rigid, and Toph wondered where he stood in all this.

“What’s that ‘hard road’ he was talking about?” she asked him once everyone had calmed enough they could hear each other talk. “Seems to me like everything has been sailing pretty smoothly for the Fire Nation.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Zuko said, his voice a tensed murmur. “But a hundred years of war have put a strain on our finance. This is why I had to marry you.”

“Oh.” She’d understood why she hadn’t had much choice in the bargain, but she’d never stopped to wonder what was in it for the Fire Nation. “I guess that makes sense.”

She opened her mouth to change the subject, but Zuko pulled on her arm and said, “Azula’s coming in our direction.”

With that many people in the room it was hard to keep track of everyone, but Toph focused and managed to catch Azula’s descent from the platform she’d shared with her father and her advance toward them.

“Damn it.”

“Brother, sister,” Azula said once she was within earshot of them. “How are you enjoying the party?”

Zuko mumbled something indistinct, and, in her best fake-enthusiastic voice, Toph said, “Great party! I’m not used to being around this many people, but it’s nice to be out in the world sometimes.”

“You look fabulous, Toph.”

“Thank you. I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t look so happy, Zuzu. What’s the matter? Didn’t you like Father’s speech?”

“This is nothing I haven’t heard a thousand times.”

“So what? Don’t you think it’s true?” Azula’s voice had taken on a dangerous edge. “If you’re still moping about our treacherous uncle, a word of advice: keep it down. You don’t want Father to doubt your loyalty. You might not get away with just exile this time.”

Toph frowned: what was she talking about? She knew Zuko had travelled extensively, but she’d never heard anything about exile. But Azula had no reason to be lying right now, and Toph could feel Zuko’s heart thump in a way that meant he was getting angry.

Instead of blowing up, though, he said, “I wasn’t thinking about Uncle at all.” He was trembling minutely, but was otherwise doing a great job of containing himself. “Father’s mention of the Avatar made me wonder about something, though: where is he being held? No one actually told me.”

“That’s an interesting question. Why do you care? Oh, are you worried about the boy?” Azula sounded teasing, but in her it was always a sign of bad things to come. “That’s sweet. He seemed to worry about you too.”

Zuko tensed. “What do you mean?”

“Right, I never told you about that part: after he diverted my lightening and it struck you, the poor boy actually looked upset over it. He made it so easy for me to knock him down. Ridiculous. He should’ve known better than to turn his back on me.”

The hubbub of the crowd of people mingling around them sounded distant to Toph, focused as she was on the two siblings. Zuko was being silent, his heart still pounding like thunder, but Toph didn’t know if his face betrayed anything.

“As for your question,” Azula said, sweet as honey, “where else would he be but at the Boiling Rock?”

Toph waited until she was sure Azula was too far to hear them before she asked, “What’s the Boiling Rock?”

“Only the Fire Nation’s highest security prison.” Zuko was silent for two more heartbeats. “I don’t understand why he cared.”

“Who?”

“The Avatar.”

“Because he’s a nice person?” Zuko sucked in a stuttering breath, and Toph pinched him hard. “Look, I don’t know. I’ve never met the guy, and I’m not an expert in all-powerful bender’s psychology. But I don’t think you should get upset about it. You wanted to capture the guy, didn’t you? Well, he was captured! End of story. Don’t let Azula get to you.”

“I’ve let Azula get to me since she could talk.”

“All the more reason to break from the habit now.”

They didn’t have any more time left to themselves after that stolen bit of conversation, because they were forced into mingling by the whirlwind of generals and admirals and ambassadors and governors who wanted to talk with the prince—as well as, Toph suspected, to have a look at the new princess. A few hours into the party, and she had heard enough compliments on her beauty to make Zuko’s comment that she was pretty feel common place.

More interesting than the terribly dull chitchat from the Fire Nation’s best, were the snippets of conversation that she caught throughout the evening. They ranged from superficial comments on Azula’s dress to more serious considerations on the war effort and what the Fire Nation should do to crush the last bastions of resistance in the Earth Kingdom and the North Pole. A lot was about Zuko, too, and about whether the Fire Lord had been right to make Azula his heir rather than Zuko.

“Is firebending really useful to be a good ruler?” a man was wondering.

“Even if it’s not,” someone else said, “I think Prince Zuko lacks the necessary strength of will. Everyone knows that the fall of Ba Sing Se was mostly thanks to Princess Azula.”

Toph gritted her teeth. What did this old coot know of Zuko’s strength of will?

“The boy has spent too much time in exile,” the man went on. “Who knows what corrupting influence he’s been exposed to?”

The voices moved away, and Toph couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation. It was a good thing too, because she wasn’t sure how long she could have refrained herself from encasing those men into stone.

“They make a cute couple,” was the next comment to reach her ears. “She’s very pretty. He’s—well, I supposed he would be handsome without that thing on his face.”

“Oh, I still think he’s pretty handsome, if you look at him from the right angle.”

Toph tried to get more, but the voices got lost into the general background chatter and she didn’t want to risk getting separated from Zuko. They needed to have each other’s backs to escape the situation unscathed.

“What’s the matter?” Zuko whispered to her.

“What?”

“You’re pulling on my arm.”

“Can we get to one of the balconies or something? I need some air. Quick,” she added in a lower voice, “before I kill someone.”

With a put upon sigh Zuko dragged her to the edge of the room, toward one of the window. The first balcony they tried turned out to be occupied by a couple making out. Zuko’s reaction to it was pretty funny and it lifted some of Toph’s bad mood.

“So what’s going on?” he asked once they were alone, leaning against the guardrail from the balcony.

“Nothing,” she said, unwilling to relay to him what she’d heard. “Just, you know, tired of all this.”

“This hasn’t been as bad as I expected, actually,” he said. “The people I talked to—anyway, it could have gone much worse, but I can understand it if you’re bored.”

“It’s not that I’m bored, I’m just—never mind. It’s nice to have a moment to relax.”

They didn’t talk for a moment, and it was nice not to have to make forced conversation. It was cooler out there, and a refreshing breeze carried with it the fragrance of wisteria from the garden. The muffled sounds from the ongoing party felt otherworldly, sheltered as they were by the quiet of the night. Toph leaned in a boneless slump against the guardrail. The anger sparked by the comments she’d heard about Zuko had abated, leaving only a speck of smoldering ember in the center of her chest. She thought back to what that other person had said about Zuko’s face, and behind the anger she felt a prickle of curiosity. Zuko had implied that there was something wrong with his face too, but hadn’t elaborated, maybe forgetting that she had no way of knowing what he was talking about. For the first time, she wondered about his appearance. She was indifferent to what most people’s faces were like; their voices, stature and gait were enough for her to identify them. But Zuko had become such a fixture in her life, it made her want to know more.

“What’s up with you face?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Huh?”

“Something you said about it once is making me wonder: you called it a ‘mess.’”

“Oh. Oh, you don’t—but no, of course you don’t know, you can’t—”

“Yeah, I can’t see, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Zuko chuckled softly. “Sometimes I do forget. Well, it’s—I have a scar, that’s all. A burn scar.”

“Really? That’s kind of cool. Can I see?” She raised her hands and wriggled her fingers. “I mean, can I touch your face?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, and Toph was about to retract her request when he said, “All right. Come here.”

She knew how tall he was from her earthbending and didn’t have to fumble to find his face. She started from the chin and slowly made her way up, each hand on one side of his face. On the left side, her wandering hand soon found that the skin there was rougher, so she let it explore curiously to see just how far the scarred tissue spread. She reached his left eye and felt that he had no eyebrow over it. Following the apple of his cheek she found his ear, or rather the shrunken piece of mangled flesh that was left of it.

“Can you see from this eye?” she asked, brushing the hairless arc of his brow ridge with the tip of her finger.

He released a breath that she realized he’d been holding the whole time she was exploring his face.

“Yes,” he said shortly.

“Who did that to you?” The burn was extensive, and she could only imagine how much it had hurt. He was a firebender—even when he was still untrained, he should have been able to stop the flame. It couldn’t have been an accident.

In a murmur, he said, “My father.”

“What?” Toph’s hands dropped to her sides. “How—why?”

“I spoke out of turn at a war council, and then refused to fight him during an Agni Kai. He burned my face and banished me: I could only return once I had captured the Avatar.” He paused, and his next words were tinged with self-depreciative irony. “Which I did—I don’t think he expected that. Of course, Azula did most of the work and I lost my firebending in the process, so it wasn’t a complete success. At least I was allowed to come home.”

“That’s—” Toph stumbled away from Zuko, stunned, and leaned back against the guardrail. She thought of the painful deference Zuko used when he addressed his father and how she had thought less of him for it, back when they barely knew each other. But it was no wonder, if speaking out of turn would get him burned.

“Toph?”

Now she understood what Azula had been talking about when she’d mentioned exile, why Zuko had wandered around the Earth Kingdom, why he had joined forces with Azula in Ba Sing Se even though Toph had a hard time imagining the siblings fighting side by side. Every comment Ozai had ever made to Zuko in that deep confident voice of his took on another meaning, shed in a violent, ugly light.

“Toph, please say something?”

“This is—” All of a sudden, a new feeling tore through Toph’s confusion: she was thoroughly pissed off. “This is so messed up! And here I thought my parents were bad—but—but.” She jerked away from the guardrail. “That asshole! I’m gonna—”

“Hey, hey, slow down.” Zuko took hold of her shoulder, keeping her in place. “You’re not going to do anything, okay? It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”

“Oh, so that makes it okay? You—tell me you don’t think it’s okay, Zuko?”

“I—I used to think that I should have known better, that it was my fault for not—And that if I could just do what my father asked of me, then everything would be all right. Now, I don’t know.” He lowered his voice, and inched closer to Toph. “I can’t help but think that what we’re doing is not right. I mean, as a nation. We’re supposed to bring enlightenment to the world, but I’ve been into the world and people hate us. You hate us, don’t you.”

Fury still sizzling under her skin, Toph tried to cool it down and think of how to address the tangled mess of Zuko’s worries. “I don’t hate you,” she eventually said. “And from what you told me your uncle sounds kind of cool. But I certainly hate your father. I want to drop a mountain on him!”

“Well, don’t.” Zuko’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “Think about your parents. Do you think my father would hesitate to hurt them?”

Toph’s anger was snuffed out by a cold rush of fear. Someone who burned his own son as a lesson, who tried to destroy an entire country, would stop at absolutely nothing.

“Okay, fine,” she said, moving away from his hand. Attacking the Fire Lord head-on probably wasn’t the best idea. She could be reasonable. “I won’t do anything stupid, I promise. But,” and she pointed a finger at him, “you didn’t deserve this, okay? No one—how old were you when that happened?”

“Thirteen.”

“No thirteen-year-old boy could deserve this! Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. She wondered if she should get offended that he sounded vaguely amused, but decided she would reserve all of her anger for his family.

She sighed, suddenly exhausted. “I guess we should get back to the party, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah,” he said with about as much enthusiasm as she felt. “Let’s go.”

She took his arm, and Zuko opened the window. Sounds became exponentially louder, almost like a slap to the face.

“Thank you,” she heard Zuko murmur before they stepped into the room together.

---

Summer turned into fall, and Zuko realized that he’d been married to Toph for six months now. Half a year—it felt both so short and so long. Having someone at the palace who was unconditionally on his side had been invaluable, and he was almost thankful to his father for pushing him into this.

He still wasn’t firebending despite Toph’s best efforts, but he had come to accept it as a fair retribution for everything he had done wrong. Because he had done a lot of wrong, he knew it now: threatening those Water Tribes people in the South Pole; burning a village on Kyoshi island; turning his back on his uncle; capturing the Avatar.

And even though his life now was objectively better than, say, when he’d been a starving wanderer in the Earth Kingdom, those thoughts kept nagging at him and making him restless. He needed to do something; he just wasn’t sure what it should be. He was grateful for Toph’s company, but everything else about the palace felt like a prison.

“What’s the matter with you?” Toph asked him. She was aggressively throwing pieces of bread at the turtle ducks. The shockwave when they touched the water would scatter the birds, but they would always swim back curiously to the impact point and end up eating the bread anyway.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Sure. You’re broodier than a brooding badgermole. Your funk is getting me down, so spit it out.”

He sighed heavily. “I sometimes have the feeling that I should—that I need to leave. It’s funny, I spent so much time trying to go home, and now I find myself wanting to leave it again.”

“Leave it to do what?”

Zuko opened his mouth, then closed it, looking for the right words to describe the antsy feeling burrowing under his skin. “I need to do something to balance everything I and my country have done, and I can’t do it locked up in the palace.”

Toph was silent for a long moment, unseeing eyes turned to the ground. “You want to help the Avatar.”

“I—what?”

“You asked Azula about where he was detained. You feel bad about helping Azula capture him.”

“He’s in the Boiling Rock. It’s in the middle of a volcano. No one has ever escaped from that prison.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was a smart idea. But, in your heart of heart, this is what you want to do.” She threw another piece of bread, making the turtle ducks quack and flit away. “Do it,” she said brusquely. “If I could go with you, I would.”

Her rueful tone sidetracked his thoughts from half-assed prison escape plans. “What do you mean, ‘if you could’?”

“I mean that you were right, the other day: anything I do to anger your father will put my parents in danger. And, well, I’m mad at them, but they’re my parents. So I can’t run away with you.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t really been thinking about whether she would come with him or not, because he hadn’t been sure what he even wanted to do. But now that she was telling him she couldn’t come, he realized that he’d unconsciously assumed she’d be at his side always. “But—” A terrible thought struck him. “That means I can’t go either. My father wouldn’t hesitate to take his revenge on you.”

All this time Zuko and Toph been focused on hiding the fact that Toph was an earthbender, but the fact that they had gotten closer was probably obvious to all and could be used against them.

“Wait, what? That’s ridiculous. Why would he—”

“You’re my wife,” Zuko pointed out.

“He forced you into that marriage!”

“Yeah, but things have changed between us, and he’d have to be blind not to see it.”

She lifted an eyebrow and him, and it took his brain a couple of seconds to catch up with what he’d just said. He felt himself blush. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you. I get your point.” She let out a put upon sigh. “That sucks.”

It did. Zuko felt like his heart had taken a nosedive into his stomach. “This was a stupid idea, anyway,” he said, but the words had trouble getting through the tightness in his throat. “Without my firebending, I’m pretty much useless.”

That earned him a violent slap at the back of his head. “Ow!”

“You’re not useless! Shut up.”

“But—”

“What did I just say? Anyway, I promised I’d help you and I will. You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No,” he murmured, fists clenching in his lap. “I’m not, but—”

“Okay, so, physically you seem fine. I’m no healer, but that’s what I think. I’ve assumed for a while that the problem was psychological, which is why I thought challenge and danger might do the trick.”

Zuko huffed a laugh. Given the number of times during their training sessions he’d thought that he would end up crushed or buried alive, it was safe to conjecture that Toph hadn’t been correct about that assumption.

“Obviously I was wrong,” she said, an edge of threat to her voice that dared Zuko to comment on it. “Maybe we need to ask ourselves different questions. Before Ba Sing Se, what fueled your firebending?”

Zuko’s mind flashed back to Azula and he growing up, training together in firebending. The praise she got from their instructors and Father; the criticism and reproaches and barely veiled contempt he got in return. The way it had made him feel, burning with humiliation and the need to show them, to make them all take another look at him and admit that they were wrong in their judgment. Even his mother’s words of comfort on how hard he tried had added to the sting. And years later, roaming the seas on a goose chase, set for failure—a tiny, barely there voice inside him screeching at the sheer unfairness of it all—that blazing fire inside his chest that never let him breathe. When he finally caught up with the Avatar, he would—

“Anger,” he said. “Hatred.”

“Ooookay. Maybe that’s what failing you right now. If I made you angry—”

“I don’t—I don’t want to rely on that anymore.”

“Mmm, okay. Then maybe you need to get back to the original source of firebending. Like, for earthbending, the original earthbenders were badgermoles. I actually learned my earthbending from them—and not from that moron Master Yu—which is part of the reason I’m so awesome.”

“You—what?”

“Yeah, I was little and I ran away, and that’s when I met them.” Toph shrugged like it was no big deal. “They taught me how to use earthbending as a way to interact with the world, and not just as a martial art.”

“Well, that doesn’t help me. The original firebenders were dragons, and they’re extinct.”

“Oh. Never mind, then.”

“But—” The wheels inside Zuko’s mind started to spin, and he felt a flicker of hope. “The Sun Warriors were the first people to learn from the dragons. Their civilization died off thousands of years ago, but they left ruins. Maybe we could learn something if we went poking at them.”

“A field trip?” Toph asked, perking up. “Eh, that sounds fun. I’m in.”

The next morning they packed for the day, and Zuko obtained from his father the permission to use a balloon to get to their destination.

“And where are you going?” Lord Ozai asked, his amber eyes coolly pinning Zuko.

Zuko was on his knees, the cold marble floor hard and unyielding under them. His father’s gaze was usually enough to make him spill all his thoughts, but for some reason he was reluctant to tell him of his real purpose, even though there was nothing wrong about trying for new ways to get his firebending back.

“I want to show Toph a few tourist spots. I want her to see what wonders our country has to offer.”

“But she can’t see,” his father said with the hint of a sneer.

“I know, but I’ll paint a picture for her. And she’ll enjoy the time away from the palace. She likes it when we go for a picnic. Her parents didn’t let her go out much.”

“I suppose there’s no harm in that.” Zuko thought he was going to be dismissed on those words, but, to his surprise, his father contemplated him for a few more seconds and said, “You seem to be doing better, Zuko.”

Zuko bowed his head. “I am, Father, thank you.”

“You’ll need to get back to your duties soon.”

“My—what?” Not so long ago, his father had said that the only way Zuko could still serve his country was by getting married. What kind of duty was he talking about?

“You are still a prince of the Fire Nation. You will have to get involved in state matters, now that you’re healthy enough.”

Was he hearing this right? Last time Zuko had tried to get involved in state matters, he’d—But his father was no longer looking at him, dismissing him for real this time, so Zuko bowed again and made his exit.

As if the encounter hadn’t rattled him enough, Zuko and Toph crossed paths with Azula as they were heading toward the hangar where the balloons were kept.

“You two look ready for a trip. Are you going on a romantic escapade?” She eyed Zuko’s back suspiciously. “Why are you taking your swords? Going somewhere dangerous?”

“None of your business, Azula,” he retorted sharply.

“We’re going on a day trip!” Toph said in that fake sweet voice that she used on Azula. “I asked Zuko to take his swords. I’ll feel a lot safer that way.”

Azula’s smile could have cut something. “I can’t say I blame you. Are you sure you don’t want to take a few guards with you for protection?”

“I can protect my wife!”

He was handing out Azula ammunitions, he was aware of it, but he didn’t want her to know where they were going either and there was no safer misdirection than giving her more openings to mock him. It worked well, too: she offered a few more jabs and then went her own way, finally leaving Toph and Zuko alone.

What he hadn’t told Azula was that they were actually bringing a guard with them, because the hot air balloon wouldn’t work without a firebender onboard. It had been so long since Zuko had lost his firebending that he’d thought he had the longing under control. He was lethal enough with his swords that he could hold his own in a fight, and that was what mattered most. But to be faced with something he was unable to do because of his infirmity reopened the wound, and it took a moment after they’d left the ground for him to realize that Toph wasn’t doing well either.

“What’s wrong?” Zuko asked, diverting his attention from the mesmerizing swirl of yellow and orange that Zen, the firebending guard, was injecting into the furnace.

Toph’s naturally pale face had taken on the color of the Poles’ expanses of snow, and she was holding onto the edge of the balloon’s gondola with a white-knuckled grip. “I can’t see—” She shuddered violently. “—anything from here.”

“You can’t—”

Of course, she couldn’t use her earthbending from the balloon. It would be like getting suddenly plunged in darkness for someone else, all the while knowing that you’re suspended in the air.

He made a move in her direction. “Do you want me to—”

“I’m fine!” she snapped. “I can handle this.”

“All right.”

He took a few steps toward her anyway, making sure to be noisier than usual so she would know where he was, and settled an arm’s length away from her—not so close that she would think he was trying to coddle her, but close enough that she could draw strength from his presence.

The view from the balloon once it was high in the air was magnificent: a tapestry of greens, browns, and ochre, the mountains becoming a pattern of bumps and wrinkles as though the earth were a crumpled tissue. Zuko’s enjoyment was considerably ruined by the discomfort he could feel pulsating from Toph in waves, and Zen’s presence made it difficult for them to behave the way they did when they were alone with each other. Maybe giving him a few punches would have made Toph feel better, but he didn’t want Zen to come back from that trip with rumors of the princess being abusive to the prince to spread around the whole palace.

As a consequence, he was just as relieved as she was when the journey came to an end. Toph brightened immediately once she came into contact with the ground and she could feel the extent of the towering stone ruins.

“Could you stay here and wait for us?” Zuko asked Zen. “We’ll be back in a few hours, no more.”

The guard looked torn. “Those ruins don’t look very safe, Prince Zuko. I probably should—”

Zuko glanced to make sure that Toph was out of earshot, and leaned into him. “The princess and I would like, um, some privacy.” He was blushing hard, knowing just what the guard would assume. “I promise you we’ll be careful.”

“Oh.” The guard’s lips started to curve into a smirk before he remembered his place. “Of course, my prince. Take all the time you need. I’ll wait for you in the balloon.”

“Isn’t he going to get bored?” Toph asked as they entered the ruined city. “We could have taken him with us.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to earthbend to your heart’s content if he’d been there,” Zuko pointed out.

“You’re right. He’ll be fine.” Head bowed to the ground, she grinned. “This place is amazing, by the way. All those stone pyramids and pillars and stuff! It’s huge.”

“It’s pretty great, isn’t it?” Zuko said, Toph’s enthusiasm making him feel warm inside. He’d never heard her get excited about anything in the Fire Nation.

He’d never been to the Sun Warriors ruins, but his uncle had described them to him before. Words didn’t do justice to the wonders of the ancient city, though. As they walked through the ruins, their footsteps echoing hollowly, Zuko didn’t have enough of his two eyes to take it all in: even the most crumpled pyramid dwarfed them, and the ones that were largely intact culminated at hundreds of feet. Cracks and crevasses were filled with greenery, and vines had coiled around the pillars, their tendrils creeping over the stone in twists and turns and sometimes hanging over their heads, stretched between two sections of wall like a nature-made bridge. The buildings’ architecture looked familiar, reminding him of the Fire Sages’ temple in the geometrical shapes of their entrances and columns.

It wasn’t quiet—birds of all sizes and forms were chirping and cawing, and when the wind rushed into a corridor it moaned like a beast in agony—but Zuko might have found the lack of human noises unnerving if he hadn’t traveled through much more lonely places. Toph didn’t seem to mind as she sauntered gaily, her bare feet slapping against the stone.

“Hey,” she said, “how come there’s no more dragons? It would have been so cool if we’d gone actual dragon hunting.”

“My great-grandfather Sozin started the tradition of hunting dragons for glory. My uncle killed the last of them; that’s how he got the title ‘Dragon of the West.’”

“Man, your family sucks,” Toph said.

Zuko was so used to her bluntness by now that the statement barely fazed him. “Tell me about it,” he murmured, although the mere thought of his uncle made his chest ache.

The streets—or what was left of them—were getting wider, and Zuko knew that there was some kind of temple at the center of the city. He’d taken the lead, confident that they were moving in the right direction, but Toph barked a warning “Stop!” and he froze.

“What is it?” he asked, hands on the hilts of his swords, eyes darting around.

“There’s something—”

He swiveled around without moving from his spot, and saw that she had spread her feet and arms, hands open and palms turned to the ground.

“There’s something off about the floor. I think it’s a trap. Look for a trigger.”

Zuko observed the area in front of him from the top of the crumbling walls bordering the street to the cracked stone that paved it, and there he found a tripwire pulled taut at ankle-height. When he plucked at it, part of the ground ahead of him opened up into a pit full of spikes.

“That’s… weird,” he said, examining the wire. It didn’t look old or frayed, but rather new and solid, and the trap had worked without a glitch. “This booby trap shouldn’t be working so well.”

“We’re not alone,” Toph said, her voice tense. “There are people here—a lot of people.”

Zuko didn’t ask her if she was sure—she wouldn’t have said anything if she wasn’t. “Maybe some bandits are squatting the ruins.” He looked back at the pit of spikes gaping in front of them. “And they’re keeping the traps working so they won’t be disturbed.”

“Do you want to get back?”

He looked at her. “Do you?”

Her chin went up. “Lead the way, fire lily.”

They passed the pit without breaking a sweat—Zuko jumped over it, and Toph used stone to bridge the gap—and went on their way, but with all of their respective senses in alert. Zuko had taken his swords out, ready to fight if need be.

“They’re pretty far away,” Toph said. “And they’re not moving in our direction, so I don’t think they know we’re here.”

“Good. We might be able to do what we came for without alerting them to our presence.”

Eventually they reached the huge pyramid that served as a hub for the city. A thousand of steps led them to the top, and they were welcomed there by the sight of a sprawling carved mural.

“This is amazing,” Zuko whispered.

Time had washed out the colors, leaving only the faintest hints of red and yellow, but it was otherwise mostly intact, which was extraordinary in itself.

“What is it?” Toph asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

“There’s a beautiful mural on the wall in front of us. It’s, uh. There’s a figure at the center of it, circled with flames. The flames are breathed by two dragons who are facing each other with their paws joined. They look—” He frowned. “They look pretty angry.”

“That sounds cool, but if the key to firebending is to have angry dragons breathe fire at you, then you’re out of luck.”

“There must be more to it. Let’s move on.”

They walked around the building that crowned the top of the pyramid, passing beautifully sculpted statues of dragons at rest. The sight gave Zuko a pang at the idea that he wouldn’t ever see one of those majestic creatures. On the other side of the building was a round entrance closed by two golden gates, and a large open space with a tall vertical column topped by a sunstone. When Zuko tried the gates, he couldn’t open them.

“It’s locked,” he told Toph. “There must be a way to unlock it…” He looked back and realized that the circular carving on the ground was a celestial calendar. Combined with the way the sun caught on the sunstone…

“Don’t strain yourself,” Toph said, and marched to the gate. Instead of going for the door, though, she planted herself next to it, stomped a foot, and an opening hacked itself in the wall.

“You coming?” she asked Zuko, before stepping through the newly made doorway.

He followed her inside and they emerged into a wide room. The only lighting came from the sunlight flowing through the opening Toph had made, but it was enough for Zuko to see that the center of the room was occupied by a circle of statues. They all had the same fearsome grimacing faces, but their positions were different, some of them crouching, some standing on one leg. As Zuko looked more closely at the statues he noticed that there was a pattern to the statue’s postures, and that the two halves of the circle mirrored each other.

Zuko smacked a fist into his open palm. “I think this is some sort of firebending form!”

“What?”

Starting at one half of the circle, Zuko worked on mimicking the statue’s positions. There was a fluidity to the form that felt a bit like dancing, but it wasn’t actually that different from the many forms he already knew. Some of the stones he stepped on yielded under his weight, making him wonder if this wasn’t also the key to activating some sort of mechanism, but when he came to the end of the form, right where it met the other half of the circle, nothing happened. Maybe someone else needed to mirror him on the other side for whatever it was to work.

“Zuko!” Toph called as he was straightening up. “People are coming!”

Zuko immediately pulled out his swords. “Where are they coming from?” Maybe they could sneak around the temple and go down the opposite way.

“Everywhere—they’re surrounding us!”

“Damn it!”

Unwilling to get trapped inside the room—he couldn’t see any other way out than the gate they hadn’t been able to open—Zuko slipped through the opening. Outside he could already see people coming in their direction, some climbing up the stairs, others making their way around the temple. They didn’t look like bandits at all. They wore red and gold, like Zuko himself did, but the style of their clothing didn’t match his: they wore loincloth and heavy jewelry, golden necklaces and armbands and circlet around their heads. Their faces were painted and part of their heads were shaved, the rest of their hair gathered into high ponytails that resembled the style Zuko had used for his own hair, back when he was cruising the world on his ship for the Avatar. That last detail actually cinched it for him: he knew who they were, or at least who they were supposed to be, because he’d found his hairstyle looking at pictures in history books.

“They’re Sun Warriors,” he murmured to Toph, who had trailed behind him.

“I thought you said they were all dead,” she whispered back.

“Well, obviously I was wrong!”

One of the newcomers advanced toward them, walking with the confidence of a leader. His outfit was a bit different, too: his heavy golden armbands, necklace, and belt were more ostentatious than anyone else’s, and he wore a headdress of gold and red fabric and feathers. He seemed to focus on Zuko, maybe because Toph was half-hidden behind him. Zuko sheathed back his swords—there were too many of them, and he didn’t actually want to fight those people.

“Who are you to come and defile our city?” the chief asked in a booming voice that was clearly meant to intimidate.

Defile? Did he mean the opening Toph had made next to the entrance?

“Toph!” Zuko hissed under his breath. “Get rid of that opening!”

She grumbled something under her breath—Zuko caught the words ‘so touchy’—but in a second, the wall was just as it’d appeared before: solid stone that had weathered thousands of years.

Zuko turned back to the chief. “My name is Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation. I was formerly the Crown Prince, but—” He closed a fist, feeling his fingernails bite into the flesh of his palm. “I lost my fire after having been struck by lightning. We meant no offence. I only wanted to learn more about the original source of firebending.”

“Prince of the Fire Nation, huh?” A disapproving murmur ran through the crowd. “Your people have distorted the ways of firebending until it became fueled by anger and rage, a tool only fit for destruction.”

“I know,” Zuko said, keeping his voice calm even as he felt an instinctive rush of anger at the obvious contempt in the chief’s voice. “I know this, and I have come here meaning to change my ways. I had no idea your civilization was still alive, and I am truly glad for it.” He bowed his head. “Please, teach me.”

He didn’t look up until another voice said, “What about the earthbender?”

The man who’d just spoken was whip-thin, which was especially striking when standing next to the chief’s larger bulk, and he eyed Zuko and Toph with suspicion.

“Hello, my name is Toph Beifong,” Toph said, stepping up to stand at Zuko’s side. “I come from Gaoling, in the Earth Kingdom, and I’m the greatest earthbender in the world.”

The declaration was met by a scowl from the thin man and a surprised blink from the chief. “Why did you come here?” the chief asked, just as the other man was whispering to him, loud enough to be overhead by Zuko and Toph, “Is she blind?”

“I am, but I’m not deaf,” Toph said, scowling back. “And I’ve come here because I’m his wife.” She inched even closer to Zuko, until her shoulder bumped into his arm.

“His wife?” Obviously, the chief hadn’t been expecting this. “An earthbender?”

“Well,” Zuko said. “My father didn’t know she was an earthbender.” He wasn’t sure how to analyze the chief’s reaction—surprised, for sure, but was he disapproving too? “I didn’t mean to offend by bringing her here—”

“Hey!”

“—but she’s integral to my journey.”

“I see,” the chief said in a neutral tone of voice that gave Zuko no inkling on what exactly he was seeing. “If you want to learn the ways of the Sun, you need to be examined by the masters, Ran and Shaw. If they find you worthy, they’ll teach you.” He took a step toward Zuko, who swallowed. “If they don’t, they’ll destroy you.”

“Understood,” Zuko said, his heart thumping hard in his chest.

“Follow me, then.”

He walked off without looking back to check if Zuko was heeding him. Some of the other people followed, including the thin man who was still staring daggers at Zuko and Toph, but some simply wandered away, maybe uninterested in what was going to happen to the intruders now that it was clear that they meant no harm. The chief led them to a sort of altar, an opening shaped as a flame where a fire was burning hot and bright.

“You’re going to bring the masters a piece of the Eternal Flame,” the chief explained. “The dragons gave it to man, and we’ve kept it going for thousands of years.”

Zuko stared at the dancing fire, awe blooming in his chest. He could feel the heat from where he stood, but even though he was intimately familiar with fire since early childhood, something about the enticing warmth of this thousands-year old flame triggered a painful longing, and made him want to get into the inferno to become one with the fire.

“You must bring a piece of it to the masters,” the chief continued. “You will need to maintain a constant heat.”

“What about me?” Toph said. “I’m not a firebender. I can’t maintain a flame.”

“Maybe you should wait here for me,” Zuko said, but without conviction.

Unsurprisingly, Toph’s response was a firm, “No. I’m coming with you.”

“Well, if you can’t maintain a fire, then you can’t go,” the suspicious man said haughtily. “This is for firebenders only.”

“Ham Ghao,” the chief said. “Shut up.”

“Chief, you can’t think of letting this—”

“Shush! I’m intrigued.” The chief graced Toph with a very intense stare that she ignored, although it was probably just that she wasn’t aware of it. “A Fire Nation prince married to an earthbender? This could mark the beginning of a new era. You can go, Toph Beifong the earthbender. But you must remain quiet, and not disturb the masters in their examination of your husband. And of course, you will not use your earthbending under any circumstance. Do I have your word?”

Toph frowned, obviously not liking the conditions very much, but she eventually nodded. “Okay. No talking, no earthbending—got it.”

The chief turned to the fire and reached into it, splitting a small flame from the whole that he made spin between his two cupped hands.

“Are you ready?” he asked Zuko.

“Uh,” Zuko said, feeling sweat cling to his brow. He hadn’t manipulated any fire since he’d been struck by lightning. What if he couldn’t even do something as simple as maintaining a flame? “I don’t know if I—if I can do this. Since my accident I haven’t been able to do any firebending at all. I don’t know if the damage is physical or—”

“If you can’t maintain this flame, then there’s no hope for you,” the chief said bluntly, and Zuko’s heart sunk. “Hold your hands out.”

Zuko did as he was told, and the chief passed the flame to him. The warmth from the little flame he now held between his hands was gentle and vibrant, like a small living animal. Zuko had to fight back tears, the full weight of just how much he’d missed this hitting him all at once. He focused on the flame, willing it not to die, and when it didn’t go out he felt a wave of relief flood him. It looked like there was still hope for him, after all.

The chief pointed to a mountain whose top was shaped like two horns and explained that the masters would be found at the summit. He reiterated his warning that Toph shouldn’t use earthbending and that Zuko should keep the flame going, before he sent them on their way.

The path to the top was steep and uneven, but Zuko didn’t even feel the strain, focused as he was on keeping his little flame alive without losing control of it. The flame became his whole world, narrowing it down to a single point of heat and light. It undulated softly, frail and yet so bright, and sometimes he almost thought he caught the sound of a low murmur, like the fire was trying to talk to him. He was so absorbed by it that he didn’t notice how quiet Toph was being until she called his name.

“Zuko!”

He stopped. “What?”

“There’s something wrong about this mountain.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, unable to hold back his irritation. The flame in his hands jumped a little. They were almost to the top, almost there, and after two years he was so close to getting his firebending back that it hurt to wait a second longer.

“Something—no, two somethings are living inside.”

“Well, I’m supposed to meet with two masters, so…”

The line between Toph’s eyebrows only creased deeper. “If they’re the masters, then they’re not human at all, because no human can be that huge.”

“I need to get up there anyway. Toph, please?”

“Okay, okay, but I’m warning you: if these things attack, then I don’t care what the Sun dude said, I’m earthbending.”

“Yes, fine. Let’s go, now.”

When they reached the top they walked into a paved circular space, where a group of Sun warriors, including the chief and Ham Ghao, were already there, seemingly waiting for them.

“Ugh,” said Toph. “I bet they took a shortcut!”

“This is a trial,” Zuko said. “They can’t make it easy for me.”

Across the large space there was a narrow staircase that went up to a bridge joining the two vertical rocks they’d been able to see from afar. The Sun Warrior chief told Zuko, “You will face the masters’ judgment. But heed my warning: given that your ancestors are responsible for the dragons’ disappearance, they might not be very happy with you.”

Standing one step behind him, Ham Ghao looked positively gleeful at that statement.

“Are you still sure you want to do this?” Toph said under her breath.

“I have to,” Zuko said. His heart was still beating too fast, and not from the effort. “Are you still sure you want to come with me?”

He got a sharp little elbow in the ribs for his trouble. “Like you could even do this without me. Don’t worry, if the masters try to attack, I’ll protect you.”

The chief was holding a staff crowned by a small golden sun, and when he rooted it to the ground all the Sun Warriors dropped to their knees. When Zuko and Toph began ascending the stairs, the sound of beating drums started to echo in the air.

With each step he climbed Zuko felt a bit more light-headed, reminding him of when he was still convalescent and something as strenuous as walking from his bed to the window left him short-winded. It might have been the altitude, but it was probably just stress. He couldn’t stop the thoughts spinning around in his head like one of the Avatar’s whirlwinds: what if the masters didn’t find him worthy because of what his family had done? What if they didn’t find him worthy because of the things he’d done? Or—worse, maybe—what if them finding him worthy or not didn’t matter because he was too broken to be capable of more than maintaining a fire?

They got to the top just as the setting sun was disappearing behind the horizon, bathing everything in gold. Each side of the bridge sprouted out of a cave, and Zuko saw Toph tense up again.

“They’re here,” she said. “Whatever they are, they’re waiting in those caves!”

From down below, the chief shouted, “Present your flame to the masters!”

Zuko hesitated for a second, not knowing toward which cave he should turn, then chose one at random and bowed, holding out his flame over his head. He could feel Toph standing at his back, facing the other cave. Someone blew a horn, the sound scaring off a flock of birds. Zuko did his best to keep still, feeling sweat run down his back.

A minute passed, and just when Zuko was raising his head, wondering if he should do anything else, he caught sight of two red glowing lights in the cave, before something sprung out with a roar so loud it felt like the whole mountain trembled with it. A twin roar answered it, and when Zuko spun around he saw that it was coming from the other cave and that a long, sinuous body was flowing away from it. The sun made the blue scales covering it gleam, and its large leathery wings cast dark shadows over the bridge. Zuko gasped.

“Zuko? What’s this? What are those things?”

Something about the panic in Toph’s voice shook Zuko from his trance, and he looked to her just in time to see that she had spread her feet apart and closed her fists.

“Toph, no! Don’t earthbend! Stay put!”

“What?”

“They’re the masters. They’re dragons!”

“Dragons?”

The two dragons, a blue one and a red one, were doing loops around the bridge, flying close enough that Zuko and Toph’s hair and clothes flapped from the wind they created. Toph raised her face to the sky, probably chasing the sensation, the only clue she had on the dragon’s positions.

“What are they doing?” she asked, her voice pitched higher than usual.

“Just—flying. I think they’re waiting for something.”

The dragons kept flying, and Zuko’s sense that they were expecting more from him grew stronger. What was he supposed to do, though? The Sun Warrior chief hadn’t given him any instruction. It might have been on purpose, actually. Maybe the chief wanted him to fail, and this was his way of making sure he would. Zuko clenched his teeth, a familiar anger swelling in his chest.

“Are they still flying?” Toph asked. “What’re they waiting for?”

If they were waiting for Zuko to make a firebending demonstration, then they were at a stalemate. But the memory of the dancing statues flashed through his mind, and Zuko thought, Well, I don’t have anything to lose.

Closing his eyes to help bring back the image of the first statue he took a deep breath, then lifted his knee so he was standing balanced on one leg. He opened his arms, palms to the sky.

Toph asked, “What’re you doing?” but he ignored her, tuning out everything that wasn’t the visual and muscle memory of that firebending form. The first few movements were halted and clumsy as he hesitated and faltered, second-guessing himself, but once he got passed that awkwardness and every one of his movements flowed into each other, the form felt so natural that he didn’t have to think about it anymore, almost like he was touching to the very essence of firebending.

When he reached the end of the form he opened his eyes, and startled so hard he almost fell off the edge of the bridge.

Toph let out a strangled, “Zuko?” Frozen in place, he couldn’t turn around to look at her. “Zuko, it feels like the dragons are breathing in our faces. Tell me it isn’t so?”

The wind from the dragons’s wings flapping was now strong enough that it was a struggle to keep standing, and Zuko’s entire vision field was filled with the blue dragon’s enormous head: the yellow eyes were fixed on Zuko, intense stare piercing him to the bottom of his soul; its mouth was half-open on what Zuko would have said to look like a smile on another creature, and the curved fangs peeking out of it were as long as his arm; its nostrils flared, and it was the only warning he got before both dragons landed heavily on their hind legs, making the bridge shake. They opened their mouths and a torrent of flames surged from both sides at Zuko and Toph.

Toph screamed; Zuko probably did too, but he couldn’t hear himself over the roaring flames. He covered his face with his arms, hunching against the fire in a ridiculous attempt to protect himself, and thought, at least I’ll be killed by a dragon.

He knew first hand how badly getting burned hurt. It didn’t matter how much you braced yourself for the agony, nothing could ever prepare you for it, and even though a dragon’s fire was probably hot enough to kill them quickly he knew that each of those seconds would feel like an eternity. But the pain wasn’t coming, only a gentle sort of warmth that enveloped him like a cocoon, and Zuko lowered his arms warily.

He looked up, and stopped breathing. They stood at the center of a fire vortex, but the flames whirling around them weren’t just the usual yellow and orange: they were also red and green and purple and maroon, a palette of changing colors that danced in front of his eyes.

Toph was pressed against his back and not saying anything, and at the thought that she couldn’t see this, couldn’t share it with him, he felt an urge to try and describe it to her: “There are so many colors in the fire,” he said. “Colors I never imagined—it’s like, like a rainbow but brighter.” Then he shut up, feeling like a fool for babbling to a blind girl about colors.

“It’s so warm,” murmured Toph, sounding dazed. “Like we’re standing in the heart of a sun.”

Zuko reached back and took her hand, curling his fingers around hers. Eventually the fire died down, and the dragons whirled back and disappeared into the caves again. The quiet that followed felt like turning deaf. Zuko and Toph went down the stairs and were welcomed at the bottom by the chief, whose face betrayed no feeling.

“I understand, now,” Zuko said. “The colors, they were—I saw life, harmony. Energy. I thought I understood fire, knew its power.” He realized he’d raised his hand to his face and forced it down. “I was wrong, I know it now. I understood nothing at all, but now I see. It’s like—the sun, but inside of you.”

“The masters have judged you worthy,” the chief said, “and given you visions of the meaning of firebending. This is great honor.”

“Do you think I can—” Zuko hesitated, looking at his closed fists. If he still couldn’t make a flame after having touched the heart of real firebending, he wasn’t sure he would be able to bear it.

For the first time, the chief smiled. “You won’t know until you try.”

Zuko swept his feet apart and punched the air; a flame shot out, bigger and brighter than he remembered ever blasting. Zuko blinked, unwilling to trust his sight or the sensation of heat fanning out in the air.

“Hey, Zuko!”

Zuko turned around, right in time to catch 80 pounds of enthusiastic earthbender running at full speed into his arms.

She threw her arms around his neck and shouted in his ear, “You did it!”

“We did it,” he said, his voice trembling, and held her tight.

They left the Sun Warriors with a solemn promise that they would take their secret to the grave, and made their way back across the ruins and to the balloon, where Zen the guard was still waiting for them. He must have read the satisfaction on both of their faces and drawn his own conclusion because he smiled slightly, and, to Zuko’s horror, actually had the gall to wink at him.

“What’s wrong?” Toph asked him as he spluttered from indignation.

“Nothing!”

“Because you sounded like you were choking. If you choke to death when we’ve just gotten your firebending back, I’m going to be very annoyed.”

“I wasn’t choking!”

Zen had the grace to behave normally once they were on board, but even if he hadn’t there wasn’t much that could have put a dent into Zuko’s happiness, and Toph seemed to be excited enough for him that it helped her go through another trip in the balloon. When they landed at the palace, surrounded by a velvety night, that feeling of deep contentment still hadn’t diminished.

It all got smashed to pieces when they got the letter from Gaoling.

Chapter Text

Zuko’s silence was starting to get on Toph’s last nerve. They’d come back late from their trip, and as happy as she was for Zuko, all she wanted to do right now was to go to bed. But as soon as they’d arrived they’d been assailed by servants demanding to know where they’d been and why they were coming back so late and why they were covered in dust, and, oh, here’s a letter for you, princess.

She couldn’t read the letter herself, of course, and had to go through the humiliating process of asking Zuko to do it for her. She knew he didn’t mind it, and, in truth, she didn’t mind it half as much from him as if it had been anyone else, but it was still grating to have to rely on anyone for anything. To make things worse Zuko had opened the letter a minute ago and still hadn’t read anything aloud to her, probably skimming through the content. She couldn’t help but feel like he was stalling, and her mind was whirling through the possibilities: were her parents annoyed that she hadn’t responded to their last letter? Were they writing to tell her they were finally washing their hands off of her?

“Come on, Zuko, read it already! What are my parents saying?”

Zuko sucked in a breath and Toph’s heart started beating faster. “What is it? Just tell me!”

“The letter wasn’t written by your parents. It was written by a lady named ‘Lin’.”

Lin was the servant who ran the house. She was old as dirt, and Toph couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been at her parents’ service. She used to give Toph sweets as a kid, and was the one who had made her parents stop getting on her case about shoes. Maybe she was just missing Toph and that was why she was writing. But deep down, Toph knew she was lying to herself.

“Zuko, please.”

“She—she says—I’m sorry, Toph, but she’s saying that your parents are dead.”

Toph’s mind went blank. “How?” she heard herself say, although she didn’t care much about the how. What she wanted to ask was why, but she knew it was a ridiculous question.

“She says that there was an accident: they were going to a party held by one of your father’s clients, and they passed a building in construction, and—”

Toph let Zuko’s voice wash over her, not really listening. Knowing how her parents had died wouldn’t bring them back. Nothing would bring them back. She had made her peace with the fact that there was little chance she would see them again—or had she?—but there was a world of difference between knowing that they were going on with their lives back home, and knowing that they simply weren’t there anymore.

“Toph? Toph?”

She realized that Zuko had been calling her name for a while. “Can you leave now?” she asked, and she didn’t recognize how calm she sounded. “I want to be alone.”

“Yes, of course.”

She heard the screeching sound of his chair’s legs scraping against the floor as he pushed it back. He stood, walked to the door, and stopped there. Suddenly she didn’t want him to go, but she also didn’t want him to stay and watch her fall apart, so she said nothing and kept her back to him. She knew that seeing people took this as a sign of dismissal.

Softly, he said, “Good night,” and she heard the door click shut.

Left to her own devices, she didn’t know what to do. Something was bubbling inside her chest—anger, grief, she wasn’t sure—and it was all she could do to contain it. It wasn’t safe to let it out here, because she was in enemy territory, trapped in a palace led by a madman. The urge to just go, go, go led her to the window, and she easily scuttled down the wall, using earthbending to make herself good holds. She had practice making quiet escapes from back when she regularly sneaked out at night to go to the Earth Rumble, or simply to explore the city. Since she was in the Fire nation she had stayed put, at first mindful of the fact that if she were caught it would get her much worse than a scolding, and then finding enough satisfactions from her outings with Zuko that she didn’t need it. She had forgotten the intoxicating feeling of pure freedom she got from going wherever she wanted to simply because she wanted it. As she quietly made her way to the outer walls, carved herself an exit while watching out for the guards, that feeling came back to her in full force.

She wasn’t sure where to go, didn’t know the city well enough, so she just ran for the mountains with no particular destination in mind. The quiet night enveloped her like a shroud, making her feel both safe and so alone that she could choke on it. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think, don’t think.

When she stopped and tried to take stock of her surroundings, she was surprised to find herself at the spot of her first training session with Zuko, that place at the bottom of a volcano with the supposedly beautiful flowers. She dropped down on a rock, exhausted by the long day and her run here.

But to stop moving was to start thinking, and now she couldn’t stop the flood of thoughts and feelings surging at her: bewilderment—that such a good day could have turned so bad in a handful of minutes; anger—at her parents for abandoning her once again, and for good this time; at herself, for not taking the time to write back to them before they ran out of it—and loss, finally, so sharp and brutal that she could barely breathe through it. She never got to show them who she really was and know how it would feel for them to accept her. She never got to tell them that, in spite of everything, she loved them.

She dug her toes into the ground, that rich volcano soil Zuko had raved about, and poured all of her consciousness into the ground, following the wispy roots from the flowers and the longer, thicker ones from the trees, feeling the life swarming under the surface, insects and worms and a few bigger animals. Then she let it all out.

She tore through the ground and flipped it over like a carpet. She raised walls and punched holes through them, broke rocks into pieces with her bare hands. She built her grief into fury and let the fury destroy everything around her. Why was this happening to her? Why were all of her choices ripped from her hands? She felt like she was being punished for not writing to her parents sooner, like even that hint of rebellion was enough that she needed to be crushed for it. That was so unfair.

Slowly the anger and pain were drained from her and she stopped, breathless and worn out, her throat raw like she’d been screaming. She felt moisture on her face and wiped it hurriedly, but more tears leaked from her eyes and ran down her cheeks, independent from her will. She sat back on the rock that she’d already used as a seat and that had been miraculously preserved from her rage, and let the tears ran their course, shaking with sobs that racked her whole body.

She couldn’t tell how long she stayed there, crying in the middle of a mess of rocks, but when her feet let her know that someone was coming she startled, then relaxed when she realized it was only Zuko.

She let him come to her, bracing herself for a comment about the destroyed landscape. He sat down next to her on the boulder and said, “Are you okay?” Then, before she had the time to formulate a reply: “Sorry, this was a stupid question.”

“Sorry about the mess,” she said, and winced at the painful raspy quality of her voice. “I’ll clean it up.”

“It’s fine.” He was silent for another long moment. “I keep wondering what I can do to make it better. I tried to remember what I wanted from people when my mother went missing, but this was a very different situation.”

She held her breath, expecting him to tell her more—he’d only talked about his mother once, because she’d assumed the Fire Lady was dead and had asked him what happened—but the only thing he said was, “What can I do?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to stay or go?”

She wished she was strong enough to tell him to go, but what came out instead was a pitiful whisper. “Stay.”

“Okay.”

They sat shoulder to shoulder for what felt like a few more hours. Toph didn’t want to talk, about her parents or about anything else, and Zuko didn’t try to make her. Eventually birds started to get on with their morning songs while animal day life scurried at a distance. Toph couldn’t sense the sun the way Zuko claimed firebenders could, but she could feel its timid caress and knew that it was rising.

“We need to get back to the palace,” Zuko told her quietly.

“I don’t have a family anymore,” she said, the realization breaking her anew. “I’m all alone.”

“You’re not!” Zuko nudged her with a shoulder. “You’re not alone. And—I know it’s not the same, I’m not claiming it is—but you do still have family.”

It took Toph’s tired mind a few seconds to parse his meaning, and when it did she felt her sore, puffy eyes well up with tears again and she started sniffing.

“Oh, Toph, don’t! Don’t cry, I didn’t mean—well, I did mean it, but not—You’re my best friend.”

She uselessly rubbed at her leaking eyes with the back of her hand. “And you’re my only friend. How pathetic is that?”

“You’re not pathetic.” She felt him pat her awkwardly on the shoulder, like he wasn’t quite sure how it should be done. “You’re the greatest.”

She took a long trembling breath. The tears were under control for now, but she felt like she was wavering on the tip of a blade.

“You’re such an idiot,” she informed him.

“I know.”

“I just thought I should point it out.” And then she shoved him off the boulder.

---

The next day was a hassle to go through. At the breakfast table Zuko and Toph were both nodding off, none of them having slept a wink during the night, and Toph’s eyes were red and her face blotchy from crying. This was, of course, too good an opportunity for Azula to pass.

“Oh, Toph, darling sister!” she exclaimed, and rushed to Toph to grab her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

Toph stiffened at the contact. “What?”

“We heard about your parents.”

Zuko looked to his father, whose eyes lingered on Toph for a moment before he said, “On the behalf of the Fire Nation, you have our condolences.”

Toph mumbled her thanks, obviously uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but Zuko’s attention was mostly on his father: he wondered how he could have never noticed the cool glint in his father’s amber firebender eyes, the ever permanent detachment on his features. It seemed foolish now to have worked so hard to gain his approval and love, because it looked like a lost cause. What he’d always taken for a mask of royal reserve was just plain lack of caring.

They settled at the table, and Azula kept asking Toph questions about what had happened, even though she must have known everything already from the same source she’d heard the news in the first place. There was a cold calculated cruelty to the questions, as well as something even darker: suspicion, like Azula wasn’t sure how this new turn of event would influence Toph and was a bit worried about it.

“Do you have any other family left?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Azula reached across the table to pat Toph’s hand. “I imagine you’ll be going to Gaoling for the funeral.”

“I—”

“I’ll be going with you, of course. As a representative of the royal family and the Fire Nation.”

“I can fulfill that role more than adequately, I think,” Zuko cut her off, thinking of how little Toph would enjoy having Azula at her parents’ funeral.

“I’m sure, brother, but with your poor health I thought—”

“Azula,” Father said, and the simple enunciation of her name was enough to shut Azula up. “Zuko can go. I have other tasks set for you.”

“Very well, Father,” Azula said diffidently, but she slid a glance Zuko’s way and he felt his stomach contract. He knew his sister inside out, and that particular look never meant anything good.

According to the letter Zuko had read to Toph, her parents’ funeral would be held ten days from now, and the first few of those days were spent in a cloud of uncertainty. Toph was subdued, speaking very little, and Zuko didn’t how to talk to her, so he didn’t even try. The thought had occurred to him that Toph had nothing restraining her anymore but he wouldn’t utter a word to her about it, lest she thought that there was any part of him that was glad for what had happened to her parents. He couldn’t help but wonder what she would do now: would she take advantage of that new freedom and run away, or did she still want to go with him if he got on with his mad plan to free the Avatar?

This single thought had matured until it became inescapable: now that he could firebend again, not only could he try to break the Avatar from his prison, but he could also teach him firebending. It was this idea that kept him from telling anyone else about his miraculous recovery. He kept it close to the chest, like he did Toph’s earthbending, thinking of it as his—their—secret weapon.

Meanwhile, without talking to Toph about it, he tried to work out the cricks in his escape plan. He discreetly procured himself a blueprint of the prison—by breaking into a room where he had no business going—and gathered information on how many guards there were, what sort of defenses it had. He learned with some surprise that the director was Mai’s uncle, but from what little he knew about the man, it wasn’t really good news.

Azula was watching him and Toph like a hawk, so he couldn’t find out much without getting her attention. He would bet that some of the servants were spying on him for her, but he didn’t know which one exactly. He’d tried to warn Toph to be careful but she’d shrugged it off, like she was beyond caring. The apathy scared him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Four days before the funeral, his father announced to Zuko that he was expected at the war council this afternoon. Taken aback, Zuko didn’t know at first how to respond.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Father said. “Now that you’re recovered—at least as much as you can hope to be—I need both you and Azula to get involved in that kind of thing. We need to present a united front.”

“Of course, Father. Thank you,” Zuko said, bowing his head.

Walking to the council later that day, Zuko reflected on how delighted he would have been at this no so long ago. Being acknowledged as a Prince of the Fire Nation other than in name, being given responsibilities, had been his dream for so long that it actually hurt to let go of it. He had gathered his hair in the traditional topknot and put on the heavy semi-armored costume he’d last worn for his wedding. Dressed like this he felt like an impostor, like he was masquerading wearing the skin of the long dead Prince Zuko. He tried to shake off his discomfort, and entered the room.

Everyone else was already there, seemingly waiting for him. At the far end of the room his father was sitting on a platform under a canopy of gold and wood. A curtain of flames danced at his back instead of in front of him, like in the throne room—here, he needed to be able to conduct a meeting more than he needed to intimidate his audience. Azula was sitting on their father’s right, as was fitting for the crown princess, and her eyes followed Zuko climbing up to reach his own seat like she was hoping he would stumble and fall on his face.

Once settled, Zuko had a good view from his vantage point of the long table the generals were kneeling at, and of the world map that was carved upon it.

“Welcome, Prince Zuko,” his father said. If he was annoyed that Zuko had arrived last, it didn’t show on his face. “We can now proceed. General Shinu, your report.”

General Shinu, a strongly built man with a proud forehead, stood up at his Lord’s cue.

“Thank you, sir. The Earth Kingdom is entirely under our control, for the most part. However, there are still pockets of rebellion that must be dealt with. The rebel organization, which calls itself “the White Lotus” has a strong hold over this region—” He pointed at a spot on the map’s representation of the Earth Kingdom. “—as well as this one, and that one.”

“What do you recommend we do about this?” asked Father.

“The White Lotus are able to escape us because they have the support of the population, and the population support them because they use the Avatar’s name. The Avatar’s continuing existence gives those people hope, and that hope pushes them to keep fighting.”

“We’ve had this discussion before. If we kill the Avatar, another one will take his place. If you’re right and hope is the only thing that sustains the population, then it won’t matter to them if they have to wait years for the new Avatar to grow up.”

“Indeed, my Lord,” General Sinu said. “But we’ve recently come upon a piece of information that might change the tide: if you kill the Avatar when he’s in the Avatar state, then the cycle is broken.” General Sinu smiled in triumph as he hammered down his point: “It means no more Avatar. It means that their hope is definitely shattered.”

Zuko went cold with dread as his father hummed thoughtfully, obviously giving the statement thought. If this was true, it meant that the world’s balance would be broken for good. There would be no more recourse, no more last chance to make things right. Zuko dug his fingers into his thighs to stop them from shaking. He didn’t dare look in his sister’s direction, because he didn’t want to see if she was checking on his reaction.

“You have given me much food for thought, General Sinu,” Father was saying. “If this be indeed the truth and not a warped piece of lore, then our long-awaited victory would finally be secure. However, finding a way to trigger the Avatar state and control it won’t be an easy feat.”

“I am well aware, my Lord, and with your permission I will start working on this. We might need to move the Avatar to a more—secure, and more isolated location before we start experimenting.”

“I will think about it. In the meantime, you can prepare a list of the locations you think would be suitable for the experiment.”

General Sinu bowed and murmured his thanks, then sat back to let another of the generals speak. The meeting veered onto other considerations—troop movements and supplies and whether or not another attack should be led on the North Pole now that they’d rebuilt from the last one—but Zuko’s mind was entirely on what had been said about the Avatar. He needed to take action now and stop waffling about it, because there was almost no time left. Toph would do what Toph would do, but he couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

He found her after the meeting, sitting at the turtle ducks pond by herself. She wasn’t feeding the birds—Zuko didn’t think she found it as relaxing as he did—or doing anything else, really, and the sight of her sad hunched over form made Zuko’s heart constrict. It felt wrong to see Toph brought so down and made anger spark in his chest, but it was an impotent, aimless sort of anger: there was no one to blame for the death of Toph’s parents, as much as it might have made both of them feel better.

He sat down next to her. She didn’t acknowledge his presence, although there was no way she wasn’t aware of him. She didn’t ask him to leave her alone either, and he decided this was the best opening he was going to get.

“Something came up at the meeting,” he said. No obvious reaction. “It was about the Avatar.”

Toph lifted her head, not turning it to face him but rather leaning to the side so as to better listen to him. This was all the encouragement Zuko needed to tell her the whole thing.

“I can’t let this stand. I have to take action,” he said, not daring to say we until he knew where Toph’s mind was. “It has to be before they move him, because when they do he’ll be even more difficult to break free.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Toph said, and the sound of her voice startled Zuko just as much as her words. “We need to take advantage of the leave we’re given to go to my parents’ funeral, and instead of going to Gaoling, we’ll go the Boiling Rock and break the Avatar out of prison.”

“My father isn’t going to let us go there on our own. We’ll be given an escort.”

“We can get rid of an escort, you and me. Together, we’ll be a force to reckon with.”

“You’re not suggesting that we kill them?” Zuko said, lowering his voice to a horrified whisper.

Toph snorted. “Don’t be so dramatic. We can knock them out, or I can keep them trapped in stone. We have a range of options other than just slaughter them.”

He looked at her, amazed that she’d been thinking about this while he thought she was entirely focused on grieving for her parents. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was fiddling with the hem of her sleeves with a nervousness that was unlike her, but he noticed a focus to her that he had missed dearly. At the relief he felt knowing that she was with him in this mad endeavor, he realized how much he’d dreaded doing this on his own. He would have if he had to, but it was good to know someone had his back.

“We need a plan,” he said. “I started collecting data on the prison, but we need to have an idea of how we’re going to get in here, get to the Avatar, and get out without getting killed. And preferably, have some of idea of where we should go afterward.”

They rehashed some ideas for a while, and as the discussion progressed Toph became more animated, acting closer to her usual self. Action, danger, and adventure would probably do her good, Zuko thought. She wasn’t made for a life of idleness in the palace, and it was a good thing because they wouldn’t get a lot of this once they were on the run with the Avatar.

“Thank you,” he said during a blank in the conversation.

“What for?” she said offhandedly, but there was a tinge of pink to her cheeks. “The Avatar is going to need an earthbending teacher, isn’t he?”

Zuko smiled. “He’ll be lucky to have you.”

“For sure!” She nudged him in the side, a bit more gently than usual. “He’ll be lucky to have you too.”

Zuko let himself savor that moment of confidence and optimism. He knew all too well from experience how quickly things could get out of hand.

---

To say that Toph wasn’t a fan of flying would be an understatement. She understood how convenient hot air balloons and airships were, she absolutely did: they made it easier to travel long distances in a shorter time, and for a nation that was always at war, it was certainly an incomparable advantage to be able to shoot fire from the sky. This was, after all, how they’d ravaged the Earth Kingdom during Sozin’s Comet. Nevertheless, she didn’t like not being aware of her surroundings.

The airship they used to go to Gaoling was a lot bigger than the flimsy hot air balloon they’d borrowed for their trip to the Sun Warriors’ ruins, and the one good thing about it was that they weren’t exposed to the open sky. The structure was mostly metal and Toph explored it uncomfortably, thinking of how the Boiling Rock prison was going to be entirely made of metal too. She’d downplayed it to Zuko, telling him that earthbending wasn’t the only way she had to orientate herself—she hadn’t always been able to do it—but in truth it had been so long since she’d had to rely solely on her other senses that she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle it. She was so scared of being a liability to Zuko that she almost told him she couldn’t go with him to the prison, but in the end she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d find something; she didn’t have a choice.

Stupid firebenders and their stupid fascination for metal, she thought as she followed the corridor that started from her assigned cabin, her footsteps echoing against the metallic surface. She had a hand on the wall to help guide herself, and that was just humiliating. What was so cool about metal anyway? Wasn’t it just earth that had been purified and refined? Oh.

Could she—Toph caressed the floor with the sole of her foot, trying to get a feel for it. If metal really was a sort of earth she should be able to sense it, shouldn’t she? She focused until her head started to hurt, and there, what felt like tiny particles—

“Princess? Do you need help?”

It took all of Toph’s will power not to blow up at whoever had interrupted her. Did she look like she needed help?

“I’m all right,” she said. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Do you need to go somewhere?” the man asked—she thought he might be the same guard who had come with them on their day trip. “Or do you want me to get Prince Zuko? I think he’s with the pilots.”

Good old Zuko, she thought fondly. He was probably trying to glean tips for piloting this thing once they’d have stolen it. It would be a sad thing if their adventure ended with them crashing and burning.

“Actually,” she said, “would you mind taking me to him?”

“Of course not, princess.”

He took her arm and she shoved back a surge of irritation. It was a good thing that she was seen as a helpless little thing: they wouldn’t see it coming when she and Zuko turned against them.

She heard Zuko’s voice echo before they even got to the cabin, as well as someone else’s, explaining things to him: “See the air valves here, my prince? That’s how you control the pressure.”

The guard leading Toph opened a door that squeaked aggressively, and Zuko said, “Oh, Toph, here you are.”

“Here I am indeed,” she said. “Did you learn anything interesting?”

“Yes, this is fascinating,” he said, but he sounded guarded. Maybe the whole airship operation was revealing itself harder than he’d thought. It certainly sounded like flying that thing was more complicated than operating the hot air balloon.

Toph stayed to listen to the pilot’s explanations to Zuko, or at least she pretended to, because a lot of it was flying way over her head—pun intended. Instead she focused on the piloting crew that was milling about, until she could see them move around the way she did through usual earthbending. It demanded more concentration than ordinary earth did, like trying out a new sense, but it was definitely there and her heart fluttered with excitement as she bit on her tongue to keep herself for blurting out her discovery to Zuko.

It was hard to wait until they were both alone in their cabin, but as soon as the heavy metal door shut down with a clunk, she exclaimed, “I can metalbend!”

A silence. “What?”

“Well, I haven’t really tried bending metal—yet—but at least I can see through it, like I can see through earth!”

“I don’t—”

“It makes sense, after all, metal is a form of earth. I can’t believe no one has thought of it before, but then we don’t use metal in the Earth Kingdom as much as you do in the Fire Nation, and—”

“Toph, wait, I don’t understand. How can you metalbend? The Fire Nation has used metal prisons to keep earthbenders powerless for generations!”

Toph clucked her tongue, annoyed with him for being so slow. “First, your country is really the worst. Second, I just told you—metal is earth, sort of, so it makes sense that it would be possible. It’ll need a bit of experimenting for me to be able to use it as easily as regular earth, but I know I can.”

“Well, I guess this is good news.”

“Are you kidding, this is awesome news! It means I won’t be a dead weight to you at the Boiling Rock.”

“Oh.”

She realized she hadn’t actually shared her concerns with Zuko, and she bit her lips, waiting for him to comment on her slip-up. He didn’t, bless him.

“How do we get this airship under our control?” he asked instead. “I don’t want to risk a fight while we’re in the air, and we don’t want to keep them with us in the airship while we’re traveling to the Boiling Rock.”

“We need to get them to land, lure them all out, and take off with the airship.”

“All right, but how do you propose we do this?”

It was depressingly easy to persuade their escort that Toph was so uncomfortable with flying that they needed to stop for the night. They’d left early enough that they could still stop and make it to Gaoling in time, and Toph knew how to play the scared little girl well. It helped that she was a bit uncomfortable, even now that she’d started to figure out metal. It also helped that everyone but Zuko pretty much always underestimated her.

They stopped in a clearing, and the guards made a big campfire for all of them to gather around. Toph had never camped outside and found it actually kind of nice, which made her feel bad for what they were about to do.

“Are you ready?” Zuko whispered to her.

She nodded, and he rose from his spot by the fire, his arm hooked behind hers.

“The princess and I are going to take a walk,” he declared, in a tone that suffered no questioning. It was the most princely Toph had ever heard him sound.

They got a few steps before one of the guards protested, “Wait! One of us should—”

Toph sighed, clenched her fists and pulled. Exclamations of surprise and dismay, swearwords and cries of anger erupted as they all found their ankles trapped in earth.

“Sorry!” Zuko shouted before Toph and he started running to the airship.

“I made the earth crumbly enough that they’ll eventually manage to free themselves,” Toph explained. “So we need to get out of here fast.”

The airship felt huge and echoing with only the two of them. When Zuko started fiddling with the control board, a fluttery nervousness to his gestures, Toph felt unease pool at the bottom of her stomach.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked, although it was probably a little late to worry about it.

“In theory,” he said snappishly. “But there were several of them, and there’s only one of me.”

Toph opened her mouth to voice more of her doubts, but snapped it shut almost immediately. This was something she couldn’t help him with, as much as she hated to admit it, and she better let him concentrate.

The takeoff was abrupt: at first they were rising slowly, the gondola swaying in a light back and forth Toph was pretty sure she hadn’t felt when they’d left the palace, and then much too quickly, before there was yet another change of speed that made Toph’s stomach lurch. Once they were in the air, though, the airship started sailing a lot more smoothly.

“Taking off and landing are the hard parts,” Zuko explained, sounding a bit more relaxed now that they were up and away from the guards they’d just tricked. “Now I just need to make sure the pressure remain constant.”

“You’re the expert,” Toph said.

While Zuko took care of all the piloting stuff, Toph decided to experiment a little more with metal. She closed the door that led to the cabin where Zuko was and lay her hands over the surface. Once again she could feel the tiny particles there, just within her grasp. She pushed against the door and felt the particles respond to her. Here goes nothing. Taking a deep breath, she punched the surface. It hurt and she hissed in pain, trying to shake it off, but the door had caved from her fist and triumph largely overrode the pain.

She threw a fist up in the air. “Toph, you rule!”

“What happened?” Zuko exclaimed from the inside the cabin. “What was that?”

“It’s fine!” she shouted back. “I’m experimenting.”

“Do not punch holes through the walls while we’re flying!”

She sighed heavily. “I’m not stupid. I’ll only dent the doors.”

It was a few hours before Zuko alerted Toph that they were approaching the prison. From that point, none of them uttered a word to the other, and the silence between them was unusually uncomfortable. Waiting was nerve-wracking for Toph, reminding her of her trip to the Fire Nation, right before her wedding with Zuko. Everything had been about to change for her, as it was about to do now, except that it was her own choice this time. Still, she allowed herself a tiny moment to entertain the fantasy of asking Zuko to turn the airship back, and—do what, exactly? Go to Gaoling and attend her parents’ funeral? It would be proper of her to be there, her last job as a daughter, but her parents were gone and she expected no relief from the ceremony. Nor could she and Zuko go back to the palace after the stunt they’d just pulled. There was already no turning back, nowhere to go but forward, and instead of panic Toph felt a quiet resoluteness settle in her bones at the thought.

“We’re almost there,” Zuko murmured, his voice even rougher than usual. “Are you ready?”

It wasn’t the right mood for a snarky quip. “I am,” she said.

---

Their plan was quite simple: sneaking inside the prison would have been close to impossible, so they walked through the front door. They had to ride a gondola, dangling precariously on a cable, to get across the boiling lake and to the prison in its center. Heat rose in waves from the lake, heavy and stifling, and by the time they reached the landing point Toph was drenched with sweat.

“I hate this place already,” she mumbled.

“It wasn’t exactly built as a vacation spot,” Zuko replied.

The guards awaiting on the other side scattered like a flock of sparrows at the sight of their royal visitors. Some were sent to get the warden at once, while others babbled a litany of excuses at Toph and Zuko for not having prepared for their arrival.

“It’s all right,” Zuko said to reassure them. “This is an impromptu visit. You weren’t supposed to expect me.”

The two guards who had remained with them shuffled, probably not feeling very reassured, and neither Zuko nor Toph tried that hard to be more comforting: it was best to keep everyone here on their toes.

They didn’t have to wait for the warden very long, but when he got there he sounded like he was in a foul mood. He greeted Zuko with all the right forms, but there was something haughty in his voice betraying the fact that he didn’t think much of the prince and was extremely annoyed with the visit. As for Toph, he barely acknowledged her, and she would have minded it more if it hadn’t been for the perspective of how much havoc she and Zuko were going to wreak: the warden could treat them with contempt all he wanted, but they would have the last laugh. If they managed to do what they’d come here for, of course.

“Prince Zuko,” the warden said, doing a good job at reaching the exact inflection saying that Zuko was barely a prince in his eyes without outright insolence. “What a surprise. The announce of your visit must have gotten lost in the mail.”

“There was no announce,” Zuko said, “because I was sent here by my father on a surprise inspection of the prison.”

“Really?”

The warden’s tone indicated disbelief, but with a wary undercurrent. He knew better than to dismiss the notion out of hand, because if Zuko was really here on his father’s behalf, any affront to him was an affront to the Fire Lord himself.

“I will need a tour of the facility, an access to all the prison’s documentation, and you will gather the guards in the courtyard for an inspection.”

“You—this is ridiculous! We didn’t have the time to prepare, we—”

“This is a surprise inspection, warden,” Zuko countered icily. “You weren’t meant to have time to prepare. But if you don’t want to comply, I’ll just go back to the capital. I’m sure my father will be very understanding of your predicament.”

Toph could swear that she heard the warden swallow before he said, “There will be no need, my prince. Follow me, I will show you around.”

He barked orders to a couple of guards so they would get everyone ready for the inspection, and asked again for Zuko and Toph to follow him. As they went down a flight of stairs, Toph stretched her new sense of metal to get an idea of the prison’s layout—Zuko had seen blueprints, but ink and paper meant nothing to her. It was a layered hexagonal structure, empty in the middle, and entirely made out of metal. The cells were easy enough to spot, as they were small rooms with exactly one occupant, while guards roamed about freely.

The warden was a sucky tourist guide. He never offered more than a few words of purely informational value—“this is block D,” “here is the guards’ restroom”—and everything he said sounded like it was uttered through gritted teeth. Two guards were trailing behind them, but Toph was pretty sure they wouldn’t be much of a problem. As annoyed as the warden was with their presence, it didn’t feel like he was considering them a threat.

“I would like to see the Avatar,” Zuko said, and the warden stopped dead.

“Is this part of your father’s orders?” he asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

“No,” Zuko said calmly, even as Toph could feel his heart beat faster. “This is personal. As you’re probably aware, I oversaw his capture with my sister. I just want to see with my own eyes how he’s been secured.”

“The Avatar has been in our walls for two years,” the warden said coldly, although some of his suspicion seemed to have subsided. “I think we have been more than adequate in keeping him.”

“I have no doubt, warden. But I would like it if I could see it for myself. Remember: I’m going to report to my father when I’ll get back.”

There was a silence charged with aggression, until the warden broke it with a curt, “This way.”

To get to where the Avatar was kept, they had to walk past the gen pop blocks and the guards’ quarters, to an area that was secured by a heavy door adorned with several complicated locks. It took the warden a few minutes to open them.

“We don’t keep any other prisoner here,” the warden explained as he locked the door behind them. The loud bang the door made as it closed would have been distressing if not for Toph new found metalbending.

The warden had been truthful in his statement that there was no one else in that block. Toph could only feel one person, arms and legs heavily chained, but something about that person’s heartbeat gave her pause. It was so slow that each heartbeat felt like it might be the last, though it was regular enough that it didn’t feel like the Avatar—had to be him—was dying. Still, it was arresting. What had the warden done to him?

The door to the Avatar’s cell was as thoroughly locked as the previous one, and they had to wait again several minutes for the warden to go through them. When she entered the cell, Toph took the time to press a hand against the door to get familiar with it. The warden went in first, but the two guards who had shadowed them remained outside.

Zuko gasped. “What have you done to him? Is he drugged?”

“There was no need for drugs, my prince. We didn’t do anything. The Avatar seemingly entered a sort of trance as soon as we chained him inside this cell. At first we thought it was a healing trance—he was hurt from your sister’s lightning when he arrived—but he hasn’t been out of that fugue state for two years. We manage to keep him fed, but he hasn’t reacted to anything else.”

Well, that was inconvenient, Toph thought. They hadn’t counted on a dead weight for their prison break. They’d assumed he would be at least able to run, even if he couldn’t fight.

Zuko hummed thoughtfully and let Toph’s arm go. She’d gotten so used to him holding her that she barely noticed it anymore, and when he released her she couldn’t mistake it for anything but a signal. He pressed a hand at the small of her back, like he was urging her on, and she stepped toward the Avatar. It was only when she touched the wall right next to where one of the Avatar’s chains was anchored that the warden called out, “Princess?” He sounded slightly puzzled, like he hadn’t expected her to be able to move independently from Zuko.

“It’s okay,” she said, which of course alarmed him more.

“Princess, you shouldn’t get too close.”

The tense way he said it didn’t betray worry for her as much as an uncomfortable sense that there was an element to the situation that he didn’t control. Fortunately for them, he didn’t realize that it was already too late.

Toph focused on the metal’s weaker points, where it had been melded together to make the chains. The warden and Zuko were both talking at the same time but Toph paid them no mind, trusting Zuko to distract the man for the split second she needed to reach, pull, and snap.

There was a rush of flame at her back as Zuko fought to keep the warden at bay while she dashed to the Avatar and ripped the chains off his limbs. He didn’t react to anything she did but just sat there, unmoving, the pace of his heart never wavering as though he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings.

“Get the warden out!” she barked to Zuko. “Close the door!”

The door slammed shut, and immediately the warden started hammering on it from outside. It lasted for ten whole seconds before flames roared again, the sound muffled by the heavy metal door, and Zuko let out a pained hiss.

“He’s trying to melt the metal!”

“Amateur,” she spat out, and walked to the back wall.

What the warden didn’t realize was that, even though she’d never been here before, she knew the layout of his prison just as well as he did. Behind the wall that she faced ran another corridor that led to the central courtyard on one end, and to a staircase that would take them up to the gondola station on the other. Zuko grunted again, letting Toph know without words that she needed to hurry. She lay both palms flat on the cool metal, bowed her head, and punched a hole into the wall.

“Zuko, let’s go!” she shouted, jumping into the hole without waiting for him.

He grabbed the Avatar, broken remnants of the chains clinking as he hoisted the boy, and followed her. She dashed down the corridor, aiming for the staircase, and he trailed after her, not slowed down any by his burden. Distantly, Toph heard confused shouts as the warden barged into the cell and realized they were gone but she ran faster, made a sharp turn—they were almost there, almost there, and she could feel no guards ahead of them because they were all gathering in the courtyard as they were ordered to—Wait a second.

“People are coming our way,” she warned Zuko, and focused on the newcomers: there were three of them, slender frames—girls, all too familiar ones.

“Azula,” Toph bit out.

“What?”

They were going to get stuck between the warden, who was still struggling to get through the hole Toph had created, and Azula and her two lackeys. The only question was, what was the lesser of those evils?

“Azula’s coming this way,” she explained. “With Mai and Ty Lee.”

“Of course she is. Damn it!”

Zuko adjusted the weight of his Avatar on his shoulder with a sharp intake of breath that spoke of physical discomfort, and Toph asked, “Are you hurt?”

“I burned my hands on the heated metal. It’s fine.”

Toph didn’t push it—he probably knew his own pain threshold better than most. “What do we do? Azula, or the warden?”

The sound Zuko made was close to a growl. “We get back! Go, go, go!”

They ran back the way they’d come, right into the warden and the two guards’ path. Toph’s feet told her they were running too, and that they would run into Toph and Zuko in three, two, one—

Toph shredded the floor under their feet. One of the guards almost tumbled into the hole and was caught in time by the other one. The warden avoided it entirely, though, and blasted fire at them; Toph heard the thump the Avatar’s body made when Zuko dumped the boy to block the flame. He and the warden started fighting and Toph forced herself to stay still, pay attention to the fight, take pain to isolate Zuko’s slighter stature from the warden’s bulk, and wait for the right moment, wait, wait, wait—Now.

She sent a piece of metal flying and it hit the warden in the temple. The hit was so well-aimed that the man barely made a sound before he toppled, crashing on the metal floor with a resounding bam. Toph didn’t wait for one of the guards to get their bearings together and she rushed forward, sparing only a fraction of her attention to make sure that Zuko was following suit. The rest of her focus was ahead, trying to find them the shortest route to get back to the gondola station, and behind, following the advance of Azula and her friends. The short time Toph and Zuko had wasted fending off the warden had allowed the girls to gain ground on them.

Toph almost shouted to Zuko that Azula and the others were getting close, but she didn’t want to make it too easy for them to pinpoint Toph and Zuko’s position—although, to think of it, the girls had probably heard the fight and would have no trouble following the sound of their echoing footsteps. Toph gritted her teeth. What was Azula even doing here? Wasn’t she supposed to be on some stupid mission for her father? Her chest burning with the effort, Toph started to run faster.

The humid, swelling heat that rose from the boiling lake hit her in the face when they emerged outside on the catwalk that crossed the central courtyard and led to the square tower they needed to pass to get to the gondolas. Surprised and confused shouts erupted from below when the guards who had gathered in the courtyard caught sight of them. Flames exploded in the air when some of the quicker guards realized what was going on, but the catwalk was too high for the attacks to reach them. In a minute, Toph thought, Zuko and her would be at the tower. They’d have to climb to the top, cross another catwalk and finally get to the gondolas.

“Hey, brother!”

The sound of Azula’s voice rippling through the heated air made Toph falter, and when she bowed her head, focusing again on what was behind them, she felt the rush of air from a knife swishing past her face. Zuko stopped running, so she stopped too, breathing hard, and even though she didn’t really need to she turned to face Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, who were walking up to them on the narrow stretch of metal.

“Oh, Zuzu,” said Azula, a shortness to her voice betraying the fact that she was a bit out of breath too. “I wish I could say that I’m surprised, but I’m actually not.” She sounded delighted.

“Weren’t you supposed to be on a mission?” Zuko asked, putting down the Avatar a little less unceremoniously than earlier. “What are you doing here? How did you know?”

“I know you better than you know yourself, Zuko, that’s all there is to it. I knew you were up to something foolish, and now that your little wife’s parents are dead, there’s nothing holding you back. And don’t worry about my mission. I’m sure Father will be understanding when I tell him what you were about to do.”

Toph felt a flash of pain, and realized that she’d closed her fists so tightly that her fingernails were digging into her palms. How dared Azula mention her parents’ death so casually, she thought, trembling with fury.

Azula must have seen that she’d struck a nerve, because she focused on Toph next. “Toph, sister. I have to say I’m a little disappointed. I’d hoped you’d be smart enough not to get roped into my brother’s dubious schemes.”

Toph opened her mouth to shoot a reply, but she was interrupted by a surge of fire shooting from Zuko.

“Shut your mouth, Azula,” he growled. “Shut up and fight.”

“Very well,” Azula said.

The catwalk was just a little too narrow to allow two people to fight side-by-side without hindering each other. It wasn’t really a problem for Toph, though. Zuko and Azula could hurl fire at each other, and she would just work her metalbending from a distance. What worried her was that whoever was the knife thrower of Mai or Ty Lee could also get to her. So she focused on the two girls, who were standing a few steps back from Azula, and took note of their body languages: Ty Lee was gripping the guardrail and not moving into an attack stance for the moment, but Mai was hunched, her arm raised at head level. She wasn’t throwing yet, probably trying not to hit Azula, and it suddenly occurred to Toph that knives were metal, which meant that Toph should be able to feel them the same way she always managed to feel earth projectiles coming for her in a fight.

She breathed in, then out. Focus, Toph. Leave Azula and fire to Zuko. Feel it coming. Wait for it, wait for it.

She stepped aside, and two knives whooshed past her in quick successions. She allowed herself a smirk before focusing on what Ty Lee was doing, because there was no way Azula would have taken Ty Lee with her if she didn’t have any useful combat ability. She found that Ty Lee was no longer holding to the guardrail, but actually climbing on it and making her way toward Toph, balancing herself like an acrobat on a tightrope.

Oh no, you don’t. Toph pressed her fists together and then broke them apart, tearing down the guardrail Ty Lee was walking on. The girl yelped in distress and Mai called out her name before rushing to catch her before she fell to her death down below.

The heat from the firebenders’ flames died down for a moment. “What was that?” Azula exclaimed. “This is impossible!”

“There’s nothing impossible when it comes to the greater earthbender in the world!” Toph shouted to her.

Azula uttered a disbelieving sound in response, but before she could reply anything Zuko punched fire at her.

“Hey, you’re fighting me!” he growled, and the firebending fight started again with renewed energy.

Down in the courtyard the confused shouts had become more purposeful, and Toph saw that a cluster of guards were making their ways up the tower Zuko and her were aiming for. The fight between Zuko and Azula didn’t seem like it was coming close to a conclusion and in a minute they would be caught between a rock and a hard place.

“Zuko!” she yelled at him. “There’s no time!”

“I know!”

Mai was hauling Ty Lee back onto the catwalk and very soon the girls would be able to join in the fight again. Toph might not be a firebender, but maybe she could use metalbending to disrupt Azula’s fight. But if she tried to bend the catwalk, she needed to it in a way that didn’t send her, Zuko, and the Avatar plummeting down too.

Zuko’s breathing and heartbeat were racing, letting Toph know that he was getting tired although he was still fighting as hard as ever, meeting every one of Azula’s searing flames with a flare of his own. The guards were rushing up the stairs, their shouted orders reaching Toph’s ears. She had to act fast.

She let her world narrow to Azula, tracing her every step and jump. She saw Azula step back from one of Zuko’s flames, and, for a moment, resting part of her weight on the guardrail. When Toph broke it apart, Azula teetered for an instant at the edge.

Ty Lee shouted, “Azula!”

“Zuko!” Toph called. “Get the Avatar!”

Azula fell over and disappeared from Toph’s perception. Ty Lee yelled and dashed to the edge, while Zuko threw the Avatar over his shoulder again. Mai was standing in the middle of the catwalk, not making a move toward where Azula had fallen.

“Zuko.” She didn’t shout his name, but it still made Zuko stop in his tracks.

Toph tugged at his hand, feeling that the guards were almost there. “Come on!”

“Are you happy?” Mai asked, her voice low and even.

The few seconds Zuko took to answer felt like an eternity to Toph. “Yes,” he said. “I’m finally doing what’s right.”

Ty Lee shouted something incomprehensible, and Toph pulled at Zuko’s hand once more.

“Go!” Mai told them. “I’ll hold them off. Go now.”

This time, Zuko followed after Toph and the both of them ran toward the tower. The staircase was echoing with the noises of the guards’ progression, and they must have caught sight of Toph and Zuko because the narrow space suddenly heated up with fire. Zuko managed to break it off, and, fortunately, the guards couldn’t fire all at once without hitting each other.

When they reached the top Toph slammed the door open and rushed out, the wind making her hair fly in her face. She waited until Zuko was with her before she bent the door, twisting to make it harder for the guards to open it. From the catwalk leading to the gondolas she heard the guards’ angry reactions to her trick, and she couldn’t help but smirk in triumph. They were going to make it! They were almost there, and once they’d gone across the boiling lake, they’d just need to get their airship back and then be on their way.

But just when they’d almost reached their destination the guards managed to crash the twisted door open, and they gushed out in a common roar of fury. Zuko shoved the unconscious Avatar inside a gondola and said to Toph, “Get inside. I need to pull down that lever so the gondola starts, and then I’ll destroy it so they can’t stop us.”

“But how’re you going to—”

“Toph! We don’t have time! I’ll jump in; it’ll be fine, I promise.”

Zuko was right, they didn’t have time to argue, so Toph went into the gondola without another word of protest. The cabin shook before it started gliding forward with a sound of tortured metal. Toph poked her head out, listening for the sounds of Zuko running to give himself momentum before the jump. She held her hand out, hoping he’d be able to catch it.

“Zuko!”

---

For a second, Zuko was air-born. He could see Toph in the gondola trying to reach out for him, her aim off by a small margin. He managed to catch the edge of the window, and the gondola swayed from his body’s impact. Fresh pain flashed from his burned hands but he held on while Toph fumbled for him and grabbed his arm, then helped him hoist himself inside through the window. Zuko gave himself a few seconds to catch his breath before he looked back to the platform. It was swarming with guards, but Zuko couldn’t see Azula, or Mai and Ty Lee. He knew Azula hadn’t died from the fall—he’d seen blue fire shoot off from her feet and help her levitate—but Mai had said she’d try to stop her, and Zuko didn’t know Ty Lee well enough to guess whose side she would take. Would Azula kill Mai? He kept staring at the diminishing platform, but neither of the girls showed up.

“I can’t wake him up,” Toph said, drawing his attention to her.

She was kneeled by the Avatar’s side, shaking him with both hands on his shoulders. She had relieved the boy from what remained of his chains, and the pieces of bent metal lay discarded on the floor.

“Stop shaking him,” Zuko said, joining her on the floor. “I’m sure they’ve tried everything at the prison. Maybe he needs to feel he’s safe.”

“Good luck with that,” Toph said, rocking back on her heels.

Zuko examined the Avatar, checking to see if he hadn’t hurt him by dumping him left and right. The boy looked thinner than Zuko remembered, and his once bald head was covered with a fuzz of brown hair. After two years the hair should have been longer, and Zuko wondered if someone at the prison had periodically taken to shaving the Avatar’s head—unlikely—or if the trance he was plunged in was slowing down his metabolism.

The gondola came to a stop and Zuko had to carry the Avatar down the volcano. Anchored next the airship Toph and he had stolen was a smaller-sized war balloon, probably Azula’s mode of transportation.

“Let’s take the balloon,” Zuko said. “It’ll be easier to manoeuver than the airship.”

Toph shrugged. “You’re the pilot.”

They flew late into the night, because Zuko couldn’t shake off the feeling that Azula was right on their heels, even though there was no one else in the sky as far as his eye could see. He kept throwing fire in the furnace, relishing in his ability to do so while Toph slept fitfully and the Avatar didn’t move an inch. Despite his reassuring words to Toph, Zuko didn’t know what they’d do if the boy never woke up. Keep carrying him around and feed him like a baby bird?

They finally landed on a small desert island that Zuko had had the vague notion they could use for hiding when they’d set up their plan. Toph and he covered the balloon with tree branches so it wouldn’t be too visible from the sky, and then they curled together inside with the Avatar, both of them too tired to even discuss what they should do next.

Despite the pain in his hands Zuko slept soundly, and it was sunlight tickling the edge of his eyelids that woke him up early the next morning. Toph was still sleeping, curled into a ball, so Zuko went to gather wood to make a fire on the beach. He lay down the Avatar next to it, hoping that the warmth from the flames would lure him into waking up. Toph joined him not too long after and sat down next to him, her toes furrowing deep lines into the white sand.

“What’re we doing now?” she asked, and Zuko was at a loss on what to answer. He’d figured before that the Avatar would be awake and would have a destination in mind, some sort of goal, even if it were just learning earthbending and firebending. But you couldn’t teach a comatose boy how to firebend, so Zuko didn’t know what to do.

“This is so annoying,” Toph groused, her thoughts probably moving along the same lines. “Should we dunk him into the water? That might do the trick.”

“No! What if he drowns?”

“Then a new Avatar will be born!” Toph replied, but Zuko knew she didn’t mean it seriously.

He stood up and crouched by the Avatar, who was breathing peacefully, his face smooth and slack.

“Avatar?” he called, then winced. It sounded so impersonal. What was the boy’s name again? “Aang? Aang, can you hear me? You’re safe, now. You can wake up. You’re okay.”

No obvious reaction. Zuko heard the shuffling sounds of Toph crawling up to him on the sand.

“His heartbeat changed,” she said thoughtfully, folding her legs into a kneeling position. “I think he might actually be waking up.”

“Really? We’ll just have to wait, then.”

He mirrored Toph’s posture, letting his singed hands rest lightly on his thighs. The day before the adrenaline had barely let him feel the pain, but now they throbbed steadily in time with his heartbeat. The skin was an angry red color, blistered in places, and they felt stiff and awkward, but he wasn’t too bothered about it. He’d had a lot worse. As Toph and he settled for the wait, though, Zuko’s stomach started to rumble.

Toph snorted. “Yeah, I hear you, buddy. It’s been too long since our last meal.”

They had some dried food and water they’d grabbed from the airship before they left on Azula’s balloon, so Zuko stood up to get it and they both ate in silence, all their attention focused on the Avatar—Aang—as they waited for him to wake up. For a long time there was no change that Zuko could perceive, although Toph assured him that she could feel his breathing and heartbeat quicken. Then his mouth twisted, his eyelids twitched, his head moved from one side to the other, and, finally, two gray eyes opened.

“Aang?” Zuko said, as gently as he could.

Aang’s eyes focused on him. At first, it didn’t look like he’d recognized Zuko. He blinked a few times, lips parting as though to voice a question. Zuko didn’t dare to move for fear of spooking him, and Toph was being uncharacteristically quiet too. But the eyes suddenly widened and Aang gasped, then started shuffling back with a flurry of uncoordinated limbs.

“Zuko! What are you doing here?” His voice was raspy with disuse, albeit stronger than Zuko would have thought. His eyes darted around as he took in their surroundings: the waves lapping the sandy beach, the birds skating over the water, the swaying trees casting their shadows on them. “Where’s here?”

“On an island,” Zuko said. “We’re still in the Fire Nation, technically, but it’s deserted so we’re safe for the moment.”

“Safe?”

“Yes, you—okay, I know this must be very confusing to you right now, but what’s the last thing you remember?”

“I—” Aang’s eyes dulled as his gaze turned inward. “There was—a fight? Your sister—and you.” He pointed his finger accusingly at Zuko. “In Ba Sing Se, you and your sister teamed up against us. She cast lightning at me. And then you—” His eyes slid down to focus on a spot on Zuko’s chest.

Zuko lifted up his shirt to show the scar hidden beneath it. “That’s where the lightning hit me.”

“It was—it was me. I did this.”

“No.” Zuko let his shirt fall back in place. “It was Azula. Aang, this might be hard for you to believe, but Ba Sing Se happened two years ago. You’ve been in a Fire Nation prison the whole time.”

“Two years?” Aang’s eyes narrowed. “How do you I know you’re not lying to me?”

Toph, who’d remained silent so far, seemed to take this as her cue to let her presence be known. “Hey, kid,” she interjected, even though Aang and Toph must be of an age. “We broke you out of that prison, so have a little gratitude, okay?”

Aang blinked at her. “Um, I’m sorry, but who are you?”

Toph huffed. “Who am I, he asks.” She got to her feet, wet sand clinging to her knees, and put her hands on her hips. Aang craned his neck to better watch her, and Zuko groaned. “I’m Toph Beifong, the greatest earthbender in the world!”

Aang’s eyes lit up. “Earthbender? Would you—”

“Be your teacher? Well, yeah, dummy. That’s precisely why Zuko and I went through all that trouble.”

“I don’t understand. How do you two know each other?”

“Toph’s my wife. I know,” Zuko said when Aang gaped at him. “A lot happened in two years. I’ve—I’m not the person who chased you around the world anymore. I, well. I know you have no reason to trust me. I’ve done a lot, uhh, a lot of awful things. I know that. But if you give us a chance, Toph and I can teach you. Toph really is a great earthbender—”

“Duh, I just said that.”

“I know, Toph, but he doesn’t know you and—”

“Are you blind?”

Toph hissed in irritation and kicked at the sand, which rose and buried Aang up to the neck.

“Toph!” Zuko exclaimed as he started digging into the sand with his sore hands.

“What? He’s annoying!”

“He just woke up from from a two years trance, you have to give him a break!”

Toph crossed her arms mutinously, but said, “Let me do this, you’re going to make your hands worse.”

With an abrupt hand gesture she made the sand collapse from around Aang. Zuko waited anxiously for Aang’s reaction as he dusted the sand off his clothes, but the boy looked more thoughtful than angry or traumatized. His eyes went from Zuko to Toph, and then back to Zuko.

“Where are Sokka and Katara?”

“You mean your Water tribes companions?” Mai had said that she and Ty Lee had been looking for them, but Zuko didn’t know whether they’d been caught or not. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I know they joined some rebel group, and I think I would’ve heard about it if they’d been made prisoners, but I can’t guarantee they’re safe, and I don’t know where they might be.”

Aang crossed his legs, resting his hands on his knees. “I want to find them. I know I need to work on my earthbending and learn firebending, and you look—” He looked straight at Zuko, his young face solemn. “You look different. I think I remember the prison, a little bit. If you saved me from that place, then thank you.” He nodded at Toph. “Both of you.”

“You’re welcome,” Toph said. She pointed a finger at Zuko. “But this was his idea. I know there’s some bad blood between you two, but he’s really trying to help, I promise. I have no love for the Fire Nation, but I trust him.”

“I don’t think that what my country is doing is right anymore,” Zuko explained, his face warm for some reason. “Maybe it’s too little, too late, but I want to help you defeat my father.”

Aang sighed and looked down to his hands. “All right. But as I said, the first thing I want to do is to find Katara and Sokka. And Appa, my bison.”

Zuko nodded vigorously, although he didn’t have the faintest idea of where the flying bison might be. “Okay, we’ll do that.”

“You can start teaching me while we travel.”

“No problem.”

It was the strangest thing: a mere day ago Zuko had been safe at home, living in a palace where servants did his every bidding; now his hands hurt, he was on the run with two fourteen-year olds, couldn’t help but worry about what happened to Mai and had no way to know if she was okay, and didn’t know where to even start looking for the Avatar’s companions and flying bison. And yet, looking at Aang running a hand over his hair with a pained grimace, and at Toph explaining to him that yes, she was blind, but could still see better than he could and that maybe she would teach him how to do the same if he worked hard, Zuko felt lighter than he had in years.

“Hey, Zuko,” Toph called. “Think fast!”

“Hmm?” He turned to her, only to find himself with his face full of sand and his ears ringing with Toph’s mad cackle.

They were going to help save the world, Toph and he. He would never have believed it on the day of their wedding but he did now, with a faith that exceeded by far the faith he had in himself. Hand in hand, Earth and Fire, they would be unstoppable.