Avatar: Between Two Doors

[The Laurent]

Chapter 8: Reading Lists, Part 1

Toph still thought the Fire Flakes were a genius prank. She really was willing to help Azula out and send her gifts, but it was funnier if they weren't quite what she asked for. Like the stupid candle clocks she was asked for the other day. She'd decided she'd get one, but she went and asked around, and specifically asked for one that was green and brown. Earth Kingdom colors. But they didn't have any, because most of the people using those sorts of weird candles were Fire Nation patriots or at least Firebenders. So Toph had to order them specially made. Apparently she had a budget, sort of, just laying around. Zuko had just set it up and assumed she'd figure it out.

Honestly, she did, so sure. She would have hated having to rely on someone else's coin for anything important, but why not use it for nonsense like this? When Azula had seen the candles, she'd tensed for a moment and then lit them, and then refused to comment on the colors when she talked to Azula. That conversation had almost hit another one of those sinkholes, like how she couldn't really talk about Zuko without Azula either saying something mean or biting her tongue. Honestly, Toph was fine with mean, but she knew the argument would get old after a while. So she tried to make sure to argue about different, new things.

But she had things she couldn't talk about now. She'd even meditated on it, because she wasn't an Airbender but she knew at least a bit about how to watch and wait. But even with all that, she couldn't figure it out.

She'd had lessons and classes, and not just in how to use the fancy chopsticks, or the makeup of a lady or anything like that. She'd not really thought about it, but tutors had read to her from boring books about accounting and boring books about noble ranks, and boring books about classic Earth Kingdom texts and philosophy, and boring books about other boring books. At the time she'd just thought that she was being given something to do because she was a helpless flower and so she needed to not succumb to boredom.

But, did other people not know all 85 of the Jing?

Had her Dad been trying to teach her information that would be good for more than just sitting around the house all day? Yet he'd all but hidden that she existed from the town and hadn't talked to her about anything like that.

She shouldn't care. She didn't care. It didn't matter. But she had no idea what Zuko would do if she told him. Would Azula decide to mock her for running away from a chance to 'rule' as if she cared about that… if it was even that? Or would she reinforce her desire to never see her Dad again. They were her parents, and it was easy to say that she'd just wait until they apologized.

But her Dad was just as stubborn as she was. It wasn't like Toph apologized for anything unless she was forced into it.

Zuko wouldn't tell her to just make up for them. Aang almost certainly wouldn't, but she could imagine him talking about being the more compassionate party or something. She wasn't sure.

Did she want to tell Azula in the hopes that she'd say something cruel? Did she not want to tell Azula because the possibility that she'd say something in return that would mess up this fun little game?

Toph, after all that thinking, didn't have an answer.

Compared to that, compared to her trying to figure out what she was going to do with her life, figuring out how she was going to give Azula books and also make fun of her for asking the blind girl to bring her books was easy and fun.

The first step was to make like Sokka and spend her time at The Library!

---

The good thing about the palace is that there was very little wood around. Firebenders didn't go for wooden houses unless they had no other choice, and of course plenty of them didn't. Toph knew enough to know that stone was expensive to build with, if you weren't an Earthbender. Even then, plenty of Earthbenders lived in wooden houses anyway, because a house made of material that someone could steal and bend wasn't always the best idea.

So the library building was made of stone. There also were only a few rugs around, here and there, and some of them were so thin they were clearly just there to add some color to the gray stone. Toph did have to walk across an entry mat, which from the way people were moving was also a place to wipe one's feet.

She could also tell that because she got a little bit more dirt and earth on them when she walked across, and she could sense it on the carpeting. She was pretty sure that there was some library policy against coming in here without shoes. Toph didn't care. There were, as far as she could tell, twenty-nine people in this huge library, which had three floors. Good stone, the kind of solid stuff that doesn't crumble easily. She felt several people turn towards her as she walked in.

Their shock was bright and obvious, heart rate increasing, body tensing. She'd never been to the library, but she had a reputation, prolly. She didn't care about that. By the third year of Earth Rumble there were people who went there just to watch her win, and Xin Fu had decided she'd appear in the final round rather than fighting her way up in a different bracket. Something about suspense or something.

"M-miss Beifong," a rather frail feeling old man said. He was dressed in some kind of robes, and his voice sounded like he was in the middle of being hit in the stomach. "What are you doing here?"

"It's Toph," she said. "And I'm looking for a few books." She looked right up at him, widening her eyes in a way she was pretty sure didn't fool him. "I'll be getting someone to read them for me."

"Oh, really?" he said, relaxing. "Well I'm Akorai Tsagaan, and I'm the Head Librarian, so I should be able to help you find anything and everything you'd need." Truth. "I'd be happy to help you." The most obvious lie in the world. She honestly didn't even need her feet to tell her that. He just wanted her to go away, and so he'd give her what she wanted. It wasn't like she was gonna do anything to him, just because she picked fights with Firebenders sometimes. Maybe he was a bender, but she was pretty she he wasn't some Old Master or whatever.

"So, there's three books I want. First, the biggest, longest, more boring book you can find," Toph said. She almost laughed at his shock. "Then, the most confusing, complex book you can find. Long sentences or whatever, dozen clauses, not talking about anything that really matters."

"W-why?" he asked.

"Cause that's what I want. And the last book? Do you have anything on the Eighty-Five Jing?"

"There's eighty-five of them?" Akorai asked, confused. "Are you sure, young lady? I've only been told about five…"

Really? Was it only her and apparently Bumi who knew about the Jing?

"Well there's eighty-five, and I want a book on them so I can refresh myself or whatever," Toph said, not caring whether he believed her or not.

"I suppose… will you require us to find someone to read it for you?"

"Nah, I'll find someone," Toph said, scratching her ear because it was itching. She considered whether there was anything else she wanted for a moment and then added, "Oh, and got a bathroom?"

"Oh, for people who use the library only so… I suppose you count," Akorai said faintly.

---

It had taken a little while to get everything squared away. She had to get one of the servants to wrap them, like they were presents. Then she had to convince the guards that they were allowed to bring them in, which meant unwrapping them to reveal that they were books, and then getting the same servant to wrap them again.

All of that and asking the guards to tell Azula not to open them immediately. All of it was going to pay off as she opened the door, annoyed about both the groan and the shaking of the floor as she stepped in and called out, "Yo, Zappy!"

"Right on time, Beifong," Azula said with a bored drawl. But from the way her head was tilted towards Toph's little present, she was curious.

"Got you another present," Toph said, stamping her feet a little and settling down on the ground, watching closely.

"What is it?"

"You wanted books, I got you books," Toph said.

Azula began unwrapping them, tearing at the paper in a way that almost made Toph giggle. But she knew when to be silent and not give away the trick. Azula stopped unwrapping to stare at what she had to assume was the title of the first book.

"How did you convince the librarian to part with a… is this a combination encyclopedia-dictionary? Why would we even have this?"

"Oh, I said that I wanted to check out some books and have a servant read them to me," Toph said, in her most innocent voice. Then, in a more regular voice she admitted, "I think he just wanted me to go away. Like people are scared of me or something."

Azula snorted, and she knew it was both at the idea that she'd ever be scared of Toph, or something like that. But she thought it was also because they both knew that it could be fun sometimes to be a little scary. Of course, Katara knew that too.

And she knew, yeah yeah, inner Katara voice, that Azula terrorized people and hurt countless people whereas the worst Toph did was make some servants nervous. People had a reason to be scared of her. But Toph wasn't scared of her and was fine with her being a jerk. So what?

As long as she was a jerk on the other side of the door, it didn't really matter? Zuko wanted to make her into a nice, good person so that she could leave the prison and eventually just be safe and happy. And honestly sure, great, she was no longer going to be leading the 'she needs to be beat up a little more' club.

"Oh, I asked him for his longest book, and his most boring book," Toph said. Then, about when Azula reached the bottom. "And a book on Jing. He got those, right? It'd suck if they'd given you the wrong ones."

"Oh, they absolutely did," Azula asked. Lie. "I'm sure you asked for something specific, and not… A Child's Guide to The Earth Kingdom's Barbaric Jing Philosophy."

Toph laughed. She couldn't help it. Of course the only nonsense the Fire Nation would have on Jing is a children's book that no doubt rants about how the greatest Jing of all was lighting people on fire. When everyone knew that the greatest Jing of all was chucking rocks at people.

"So, are you gonna read some of it to me?" Toph asked.

"No. I'm not a servant," Azula pointed out, sounding so affronted that Toph had to bite back a snicker.

"Come on," Toph said.

There was flipping, and then Azula read aloud. "Irritant, noun: A tiny, blind, earthbender girl who thinks she's funny."

Toph barked out a harsh laugh. "You got any more, Sparky?"

Azula stilled for a second, and then cleared her throat. "Vista, noun: A view or scene of beauty, a pleasure to look upon."

That was intentional, Toph had absolutely no doubt. Azula was positively radiating smugness, and Toph decided in an instant to not give her the satisfaction.

"Give me another," Toph said, pushing down any annoyance. "Something from the other book."

Azula spent a full minute flipping through, no doubt trying to find the most annoying and frustrating and boring passage. "Indeed it is to be understood that the participants in a ritual themselves influence and, undoubtedly, one must understand that the same ritual and the same components of the ancient spirit religions done by different practitioners is not the same ritual; one must also know that, furthermore, the ways in which two people interact are the same as an interaction with a spirit in this wise: in the way in which what might be a prelude to hostility in one case is just one prolonged act of understanding, and that by this understanding we might know about the Noble Truths that all Firebenders must know, and by this knowledge grasp the world as it is: a place haunted and indeed consumed by the burning reality that the sun shines above, and all life is--"

"Wait, is that all one sentence?" Toph asked, because Azula hadn't actually taken a breath or really stopped.

"Yes," Azula said. "It's a dull book about spirits and philosophy and more. This is one of the shorter sentences." Toph's nose scrunched up at that.

"Boring," Toph declared.

"Oh, should I read the last one?"

"If you want, but eh," Toph said, kicking her feet. "Want me to just tell you some of the Jing?"

"If you want to, I am a captive audience," Azula pointed out, a little less sourly than she intended.

"Reflexive Jing, dodging and yet not moving, standing your ground and yet not being passive. It is where you do not seem to move and yet the loser's fists don't even touch you," Toph said. "Really fun to do in a fight, kinda hard to describe in a war. Its much cooler cousin is Punishing Jing, it's where you stand still and the other guy breaks their arm punching you. Spikes on the rock wall, conversations made of edges. Someone hurts you, and you hurt 'em back, return everything they did with your own hit that uses their strength. Honestly, that Lightning Redirection thing might be that, or might be Flowing, I dunno?" Toph talked casually, saying whatever came to mind. "Jing are mostly good when you're working on trying to figure out new moves, and boring war strategy stuff."

"How would any of this help with new moves?" Azula asked, but even as she asked, Toph could see that she was thinking about it.

Someone like Azula, she'd think of a half-dozen dirty tricks if you told her a dozen Jing. Toph had gone through them one by one in that second year, before the third year of Earth Rumble where it'd been decided that she'd only fight at the end. She'd covered herself in earthen spikes, she'd caused the ground to crumble when someone tried to charge her, she had tried to make a new, interesting finishing move each time.

(The Third Earth Rumble, she'd decided that since she was fighting only once she'd just easily beat whoever got to the final fight, and that'd be funnier than if she did anything dramatic.)

"You'll figure it out," Toph said. "So, you're welcome for the books."

"They are nothing like what I want," Azula said.

"Oh, well you didn't tell me any specifics. And," Toph said, allowing an edge to enter her voice, "They looked like perfectly good books to me. Great vista."

Toph almost broke out laughing. It was all the revenge she needed, because Azula just froze where she was standing. As stiff as a rock.

"Novels on the Fire Nation's glory and military conquest," Azula grit out, clearly trying to say things that are supposed to have Toph balking. "Works of battle tactics against Earthbenders. Politics. Strategy. And, if they happen to have any, perhaps some of the Adventures of Ikanu Ufuza?"

That last came out with an attempt at nonchalance that wouldn't convince Twinkletoes, let alone Toph.

"Maybe I'll get those," Toph said, and she meant it. Maybe she would. Did she want to? She'd think about it. She shrugged. "So, want to hear more Jing?"

"No," Azula said, distaste in her voice. "Tell me some anyway."

VM AN: Toph is a force of nature, and something of a menace. They're starting to get on a little better, which is something, at least. Naming OCs is a pain.

TL AN: The Palace Library will return as a setting before that long!

 

[veteranMortal]

Chapter 9: Catty Corners

Things were proceeding well, Azula had to think. She had not truly gotten closer to convincing Toph to free her, but she was definitely winning sympathy. The blind girl had gotten her the candle clock, even if it was in those… particular colors. Deliberately, she had no doubt. She was using it to time how long her conversations with Toph went. As week piled on week, they trended upward towards an hour. An hour each time, two visits a week. That was a serious investment of time. Azula was not the best at 'playing nice' but it seemed obvious to her that Toph was getting more invested than she had intended.

The problem was, Azula did not know how to use it. Toph rightfully saw power as the only way to have freedom. Zuko had talked to her about how power wasn't everything, about how a kind heart mattered more, but he was literally the Fire Lord. The Avatar hadn't… beaten Father and stolen away his Bending because they'd had a heart-to-heart, his kind heart… eugh.

No, he'd used his greater power to take something that--

The thought of losing her Bending actually made Azula start to see things again for a time, imagining Zuko coming and saying that once he freed her from bending, she wouldn't be a threat and he could let her go. She'd burned the walls, though she'd made sure not to hit any of the furniture.

The Avatar was all about naked power, used not for the goals of the Fire Nation and civilization, but to oppress it. That, or so the history books said, was what Roku did. He used crude displays of power to protect the backward customs of the Earth Kingdom. Not 'abuses' of power, because that implied the Avatar should be allowed to exist, holding the Fire Nation down. The Avatar could not 'abuse' its power, for the Avatar's power was not meant to exist.

Power was everything.

But Toph didn't want what power got her - except in the sense of freedom - she just wanted power. She'd Bend to Bend to Bend. It was oddly pure in a way, but even if she was willing in a moment of weakness to make an offer she'd of course have to go back on, she knew that being the vassal lord of the Earth Protectorate or anything like that wouldn't appeal to her. As a solution, it was already more power than the Fire Nation would ever want to give up, but she would presumably actively hate the idea of being made to do paperwork.

Though to be fair, Azula had hardly enjoyed paperwork either: she'd been perfect at it, as she was at everything, but sometimes this involved just burning the paperwork and interrogating the person who sent it to get the details.

So what could she actually offer that would make Toph want to sign up for taking over the world and ruling it?

Azula didn't actually know. If she tried to talk to Toph about fighting the Avatar or… that Waterbender, she'd no doubt say she could spar with them anytime she wanted. She hadn't expressed interest in teaching other people to Metalbend - and besides it was already going to be difficult enough to figure out how to control the world and defeat the Avatar without the Earthbenders getting some brand new techniques.

But at the same time… what she actually needed to think about now was what was in front of her. If she could escape, then she could figure out how to win other games at that point.

Which all led to a simple fact: she mostly just talked to Toph. Sometimes they argued, and, once in the three weeks after Toph had 'gifted' her with those dull books that nonetheless were better than the alternative, Toph had stormed out only once. And then she'd come back, the next time she was 'due' for a meeting.

She hadn't apologized, but then Azula wasn't sorry for what she said either. Neither of them really 'did' apologies.

The weeks ground on, and the conversations continued.

*​

Another day, another nickname. This one was even more uninspired than usual. ("Hey, Hairpin.")

But the actual different thing was when, in the middle of a story, she heard a distressingly familiar clank and a sip. Also distressingly familiar.

"Did you bring tea?" Azula asked, horrified and furious and not at all sure why.

"I was thirsty," Toph said. "If you want some, I can get it sent in or whatever."

"Why would I ever want to drink any tea?" Azula asked, wrinkling her nose. She had made it one of those requirements to be among 'her set' that you were not going to talk about or drink tea in her presence. It was, she'd said, tainted by the Earth Kingdom. But even she was aware enough to know that only a brainless sycophant could think that, when the Fire Nation too had a long-standing tea tradition.

It didn't matter, because the Fire Nation had once had a long standing tradition of pathetic deference to the Avatar. The Fire Nation had a lot of worthless traditions, on top of the ones that made them the greatest of all Nations.

Tea was not one of the great traditions.

"Hate tea? Is everyone in your stupid family weird at tea?" Toph asked.

"What?" Azula asked, her voice absolutely flat.

"Well, Zuko likes tea now but always makes it more than it is, a good drink or whatever, and Iroh carries around a tea set to have tea and give advice to random strangers who knock him over," Toph said.

"That last one…" Azula began, trying to keep from tearing Toph apart. The problem was, she had a scheme and also didn't know if she could even successfully do it.

"It wasn't that long after I joined the Avatar. I got into a fight with Katara, and we were angry at each other because you kept on tracking us because of Appa shedding fur, and… all of that. I stormed off on my own."

If only she had stayed stormed off. By this point she was pretty sure the Avatar would have been doomed without Toph.

"So I eventually ran across him and knocked him down and he treated me to tea," Toph said, as if daring Azula to blow up at that.

"And what, he gave you a bunch of advice?" Azula asked, with a snort.

"Basically, yeah," Toph said. "He and Zuko had split up, arguing about something--"

Another moment of vulnerability she had not been able to exploit, apparently.

"I didn't even know who he was, and I didn't really care. We had tea and talked. Honestly, I don't think he knew anything about me either, but he said," and she actually tried to do the stupid voice, that high and mighty 'sage' thing Iroh said, "Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's delights."

Azula wanted to hurt someone. By this point the fire was in her hands and there was nobody for her to hit. "Of course he gave you advice. He's the world's Uncle," she sneered, because she could just imagine it. She hadn't wanted advice or help from a washed up failure like him, but then he'd only tried a few times before she'd managed to drive him away, and make sure she didn't get on the wrong side of Father.

Toph snorted, "You… you really hate him." She was laughing.

"What, you're not going to defend him like you do Zuzu?"

"Honestly, he can fight his own battles or whatever. I like the guy, and I'm glad he and Zuko worked it out and all of that, but he's not here," Toph said, and those words felt as if they were more than they seemed. Azula didn't know how. "If he wants to defend himself to you, he can try. Or whatever messed up family stuff you have going between you."

"You talked to Iroh, surely you have a picture," Azula said. "No doubt a lying picture, but art so often lies."

"And I can't see, so if they painted me a picture I didn't notice," Toph said. "I know the basics, but honestly haven't heard anything about you and Iroh."

"Because there is nothing to tell about," Azula said, gritting her teeth and trying to find a way to attack her back. But the problem was, if she told Toph that the Beifong family was a bunch of worthless morons, she'd agree. If she threatened to kill them, Toph wouldn't like it, sure. But she wouldn't be scared or angry, she'd just shoot back that Azula was the one in prison.

"We were, we are, nothing to each other. Well, I see him as a fat, stupid, sentimental fool and he knows me as a monster he hopes is vanquished… but that's nothing," Azula said. The truth was, she would have been willing to let him go on being a worthless old man if he hadn't betrayed the Fire Nation.

Let him drink his tea and tell his stupid jokes and ramble about music. Let Zuko be the official second heir, behind her, until… some sort of marriage and kids and all sorts of other things she didn't care to think about bumped him out of the spot. Let all of that happen, and she would have shrugged and cared about more important things like the triumph of the Fire Nation.

But that was the kind of dream only a stupid child would have thought worthwhile. She only had that dream for a year or two. The dream that she could just assume they would stay out of her way.

She glared at the door, but doused her flames, as she heard more clatter and sipping, Toph now clearly drinking so fast she could be slurping. Though she wasn't. "Yeah, I get what you mean. Wouldn't really know, of course. My Uncles mostly were just stupid jerks."

"You had more than one of them?" Azula asked with a sneer. "I assume they were all power-hungry?"

"Probably. I remember them talking with Father about this and that and how their kids would inherit when he died," Toph said, distractedly. "At tea ceremonies and stuff. I didn't like the ceremony, but eventually I started liking the tea." Her voice had gone slightly soft, the way she got when she was saying something that actually mattered to her. It wasn't often. It always made Azula want to attack the vulnerability. But even when she did, it often turned out that Toph had some joke or insult to lash right back. She was vulnerable in moments like that, but no doubt there was a Jing for what she'd done herself that one time, when fighting against everyone in that dead village.

It felt more real than that. But not that much more real. "Why?" Azula asked, her voice sharp. Tea was disgusting, and she knew it wasn't just her dislike of Iroh speaking.

"Oh, I don't know, the flavor?" Toph asked. "Duh."

"Dirty leaf water is your kind of thing? Just because you're an Earthbender…"

"Oh, you probably didn't know. I have dirt on my feet all the time, and am fine with a healthy coating of earth. I'm exactly that kinda earthbender," Toph shot back. "But come on, I could get you some tea, and you could put fire flakes in it and keep on being a jerk about it." But she seemed eager, and she knew what that was like, when you just wanted to have a fight. Azula had an idea of how to further her scheme while giving her what she wanted.

Another story. This one, she'd almost forgotten.

"I've done that before," Azula said.

"Be a jerk? Yeah, I noticed," Toph shot back.

"No, it was a year and a half before Zuko got himself exiled. Uncle asked Zuko to go to tea with him, and Zuko didn't want to but eventually agreed." She remembered it, the anger and frustration, the seething resentment. Obviously she hadn't wanted to be invited anyway and would have refused and made sure to be extra mean. But it still annoyed her. "So I snuck into his place and put fire flakes in all the teas he'd set out to show Zuko."

Toph laughed at that, and it was the kind of laugh that was filled with a familiar sort of glee. Ty Lee's laughs were mirthful, joyous at the existence of the world in some way that Azula was not quite able to comprehend but understood was foolish.

Toph's laugh was a little bit like hers. It was about the world being absurd and stupid and worth laughing at. It was about being the last to laugh, and therefore laughing hardest, even when the worthless losers--like, say, firebenders three years older than her who'd just lost a four on one contest to her--were trying to keep from crying.

"Zuko came back after complaining that Iroh had told him he was trying out spicy teas now," Azula said, and she laughed herself.

"Huh. Y'know, I bet he knew. Iroh, that is," Toph said, still chuckling. "If he was a big ol' General back then, who else would dare to prank him and Zuko?"

"So, what, you think it's more likely he knew and was just playing along, as opposed to being a senile old man?" Azula asked, sharply.

"Kinda, yeah," Toph said, and she could all but imagine the shrug. "He disagrees with you about the Fire Nation or whatever." She just waved off the huge differences between them. "But he clearly kinda taught his nephew a bunch. He knows what he's doing."

And… this was true. He'd even broken out of his prison without Firebending, which she realized had to have impressed Toph, considering how she felt about power and freedom. It was, if nothing else, a sign that he was not senile. He may have been a doddering old fool, but he was dangerous and he'd known what he was doing.

Which would then raise the question of why not reveal it was her to Zuko? It would have been a very effective way to try to cement loyalty or at least stoke the rivalry that would let Zuko perhaps try to be competent enough to win Father's grudging acceptance of him as future Fire Lord. Perhaps he had been hoping she'd notice, in order to win her favor? Or… no, that didn't make sense.

Uncle didn't reach out to her, not really. Not more than he was required to.

Sometimes even less than that.

"I suppose," Azula said, letting her voice grow as casual as she could. "That it is true that he's always courted controversy. Even among… tea lovers." She couldn't help the sneer of it, but she could have forgotten this little detail. "Even before… Azulon died, there were controversies because he apparently favored Earth Kingdom teas. Some…' intellectual' had this book out about how the people of the Earth Kingdom had… defective tongues, or something like that, inherently less able to taste good food."

She believed that the Fire Nation was the most civilized country in the world. How could she not, when the competition was a bunch of tribes and a barbaric, barely organized Kingdom that treated women like chattel? But the thing about having inferior taste buds honestly just sounded silly. It was childish. At the time she'd just not cared. It was about food, and Azula mostly just ate because she was required to.

"That's so stupid," Toph said. "Course, I'm prolly the wrong example. I've eaten bugs before."

She blinked. "You what?"

"Well, sometimes when I was learning from the badgermoles, I'd get hungry or skip lunch because food's nice and all, I like it a lot, but it's also not bending, you know? But I'd get hungry and try some of the bugs. They were gross." But she sounded gleeful, and Azula's disgust was no doubt exactly what she was looking for.

"But you ate them anyways?" Azula asked.

"Yep. I was hungry and I didn't want to go back," Toph said. But she sounded odd. She should be angry, but instead she sounded uncertain. "Though the meals weren't bad, except for everything about them besides the food. And tea."

"Right, the tea," Azula groused.

"Sure you don't wanna try it? Complain about it, even. It'd be a new thing to complain about."

She considered it for a moment longer than she should, "Of course not, why would I ever drink tea? It's almost as bad as the book you just got me."

This week it was a book about natural philosophy. In this case it meant a lot of dry, boring words about how the beaver-bear built its dams in order to hibernate.

Azula had only a minute to explain how the book had spent such a ludicrously long time dwelling on how beaver-bear's dams were built to insulate their nests with the dammed water for their hibernation before Toph shuffled in her seat, then started laughing quietly. "What is it?" Azula asked, sharply, and she felt the shift, could feel herself almost getting out of control in frustration as she growled.

"I'm gonna have to go, Princess," Toph said, still laughing.

"Go, why?"

"You see, I drank several cups of tea, and now I have to use the potty," Toph said, snorting.

"Really?!" Azula said, recoiling. Ugh.

"C'mon, Zula, it's funny."

"If you're a child," Azula shot back.

"C'mon, I'll be back in a day or two or whatever," Toph said. "Prolly not with tea, though."

"Good." Azula had to admit it, she would be bored without Toph to bicker with. But she would manage, and no doubt she could take the extra time from the short visit to get in a bit more bending practice.

Really, though. The tea?

---

Another day, and this time one of the old greetings ("Yo, Zappy.")

Azula was quite able to tell when Toph was trying to direct the conversation, because she was not particularly good at it. She just charged ahead and tried to talk about something similar to what she wanted to talk about, and then seemed to just hope that somehow they stumbled across the real topic. She'd only done it once before that point, because usually she just addressed things head on.

Azula had all but said last time that Toph was dancing around the issue like a coward, and Toph had shut down and spat out nonsense. It hadn't made Azula want to hold back at all. This, too, made her want to shatter Toph's earth armor, to tear her out and scar and scratch at her until she was bleeding like everyone else. Azula knew that Toph would hit back. Toph took these things head on, and then lashed back.

So, this time she decided to humor Toph and let her ask about stupid childhood rituals and things that other kids did.

"The dumbest of all of them," Azula concluded after several minutes of noting down every single absurd children's game that she'd known better than to show any interest in, "was the paper crane thing."

"What paper crane thing?" Toph asked.

"Stupid, foolish, giggling girls were supposed to write the name of the boy they had a crush on on a piece of paper, make a crane for it, and either put it in a brazier or ritually light it on fire," Azula said, grimacing. "So that it'd come true. It was pathetic. I stole a bunch of the cranes once and burned all of them in front of some of those idiots." Mai had actually found it funny - this was before she had the stupid crush on Zuko, of course. But Mai had never done anything as silly as the burning love cranes. Azula certainly had never had any interest in nonsense like that.

"Yeah, that's silly," Toph said. "Why would burning it even do anything?" She snorted. "At least a charm bracelet or whatever was something you kept."

"A what bracelet?" Azula asked.

"If you had a friend, or just someone you knew, honestly, you'd make a bracelet of gems and glass beads and sometimes polished stones and so on. It'd have, like, colors on it and patterns of paint and also things carved into some of them. It was supposed to be personal, or something. My cousins all made them for each other, while I listened to them talk in front of me like I was deaf as well as blind." Toph snorted. "Some of them were lying when asked what that bead or that bead meant, just making stuff up because they didn't want to admit they found it pretty or just chose things at random." Toph snorted again, and took a moment to continue, "But it was all meant to be some bonding thing where everything had some deeper meaning."

"Ah, those. I'd say it's all made up, but that's the point," Azula said. It was an effective sort of thing, to have the inside and the out, to have groups that were in on the secret and out of it. She'd experienced it from the other side, and taking over the Dai Li had allowed her to use this feeling. It was amazing, just how many of them wanted simply to be on the 'right' side of the cage, to be the ones who knew the secrets rather than the ones wondering what the secrets were. Those who knew, who understood how to play the game, and those who didn't and were therefore worthless freaks.

It was quite simple, truly. She sat up a little more and waited.

"I've been thinking about my parents," Toph finally said. "My Dad, especially."

"What about them?" Azula asked.

"I was actually thinking, and my Father had a bunch of tutors try to teach me a bunch of nonsense, and I don't remember him ever actually stating I wasn't the heir or whatever. I don't want to be the heir, but is that what he wanted?" Toph asked.

"Why does it matter?" Azula asked, fingers tapping against her leg as she considered it. She stopped fidgeting after just a moment, trying to understand what Toph's point was.

"All this time, I thought he didn't expect anything from me, but if he was actually having me be taught to run things, to analyze reports, read out loud or know the Eighty-Five Jing, on top of all the regular etiquette and all of that… then did he?"

Oh.

Azula knew what she was getting at, now. But did it actually matter? "Why do you even care?"

"What if I was wrong the whole time," Toph said. "And he just hadn't told me how… how."

Azula laughed, "You're really asking me for advice? What next, will you make me a charm bracelet? Offer to braid my hair? Burn a paper crane for me? What does it matter if he had plans, because he didn't tell you them!. He just went along with whatever he wanted and you had to run to catch up… and he didn't even offer you power."

Father had… Father had sometimes made mistakes, none greater than when he did not allow Azula to join him. She could have found a way to trick the Avatar, somehow. She could have…

But he'd wanted her to be strong. He'd acknowledged her strength when it became obvious it existed. He encouraged it. And what, Toph was feeling guilty because her own father might have had some vague good feelings? She was sure Uncle would have been vaguely satisfied if she somehow spontaneously became a pathetic sap, but that didn't mean he actually cared.

"He didn't offer you anything!" Azula said, an edge creeping into her voice. "Sure, he taught you things. I'm sure that most people don't know what the Jing are. But so? Why do you care? Are you really this pathetic?" She couldn't help but laugh, and she knew it was just a little bit loose, a little bit as if she was going to start laughing and be unable to stop. "Greatest Earthbender in the world?"

Toph said, "I am!"

"Sure, sure, and you're afraid--"

Cold, golden eyes, staring down at her. He left, and she had not seen him since. He was alive, but he didn't have his Bending, so he might as well…

Her Father's Bending was his greatest pride. He had lived to improve it. Now it was gone.

Azula had to think it'd be kinder to kill him. But even this much thinking of…

It wasn't something to worry about. But she had gotten up and was now face to face with that stupid steel door.

"I am not! I'm not afraid of anything," Toph said.

"Then show it!" Azula insisted. "So what if he was preparing you for something you didn't want and didn't involve being strong or a bender or who you really wanted to be. Is it that big of a surprise?"

"I… guess not," Toph said, and she could almost feel the shrug. "But, it's weird, isn't it? Me? In charge of a stupid trading Empire?"

"It'd be a waste," Azula agreed, and decided to press. "You could do a lot more than something like that, being a merchant." Money was necessary, of course, but it always got in the way of the Fire Nation's glorious victories. It was for someone else to work with, though of course she still had extensive training in these things as with everything. But there were areas of study she enjoyed, and areas she didn't: the secret was that she had to be perfect at all of them.

"Oh, like what? Running things? Honestly that stuff's stupid," Toph said.

"Stupid?" Azula asked, outraged.

"Yeah. If I wanted I could just storm out of here and leave the Fire Nation and go around kicking anyone's butt I wanted," Toph said. "Couldn't do that if I had to rule something, could I?"

Azula blinked, and for the first time in a while was reminded of the fact that Toph was two years younger than her. "So, you shouldn't just make up with your parents unless you're actually running towards something, but do you even know what you want? I do. Oh, I do. One day I'm going to get out of here, and then we'll see if you can bonebend."

Toph snorted. "I can't even practice with it, because what if I can."

Azula could picture someone's bones tearing themselves away from the flesh. It was a gruesome image, but oddly fascinating. It was, however, something she'd only know about if a series of events happened that would mean she'd first won and then was about to lose. She liked her bones where they were. "I'll be Fire Lord, and the Fire Nation will cease its humiliating surrender. You don't have to have a plan, if you're just a child."

"I saved the world," Toph protested.

"But what do you want?" Azula asked. "What do you need?" I could get it for you, she wanted to say. If you sided with me, we could take on the world. If you were on my side, even the Avatar might tremble. And why not? Why not recruit Toph, if she could find a way to? She had to imagine it, had to imagine that these conversations were going somewhere, that they were useful. "Who are you?" she asked, because that answer was the same, truly. She was Azula, daughter of Ozai, rightful Fire Lord, a prodigy without peer in the art and struggle of Firebending. She was going to escape some day. She could not doubt it.

"Free," Toph said. "I'm free."

Azula did not snort, because it was true, or close enough. Perhaps Toph was trapped, but she at least seemed to be making the choice to be stuck here. So bored she was talking to her mortal enemy. "Well, then there you go. You're free. And you're still here talking to me."

Toph, Azula realized, was lonely. It was the only thing that made sense.

"Huh, I am," Toph said. "Ah well. But yeah, I'm… I'll have to think about all of that. Eventually."

"You don't need to do it now… as long as you're doing something. Are you improving your bending?" Azula asked. If she wasn't improving her bending during all of this, then Azula might as well not bother talking to her again.

"A little. Got a few ideas thinking about how I'd kick your butt, Sparky."

"As if you could," Azula said, and knew that despite the fact that the best secret was one kept, Toph would probably even talk about what she was training.

All the better to understand her capabilities and know when and how to push.

---

​

Azula grimaced at the annoying grinding of the door opening, listening to it and waiting for whatever "Yo" she was in for today. When nobody spoke for a moment, she knew it wasn't Toph. And Ty Lee or Zuko wouldn't be able to help but say something. "Ah, is that Mai I hear? After she said she wouldn't be visiting again. Problems with your little… fling with Zuko? I'm not one for girl talk, but I'm sure I can give you advice."

"I do not need your advice," Mai said, in that same old cold tone of voice. Why, if she wasn't aware that Mai was a worthless traitor who'd chosen Zuko over her, she might even be hurt by it.

"If you are here to gloat, then I'll have you know that the quota has been filled," Azula said, aware that she was being nasty and knowing that Mai would either return fire in her quiet way or leave. "Toph gloats enough for ten girls."

"I am not here to gloat, Azula," Mai said, and there was that tone of hers. Azula had not missed it. Of course she hadn't.

"Are you sure?" Azula asked. "After all, I might give you some small measure of forgiveness for your crimes if you truly need it." If Zuko was out of the way. She was being generous, but she knew that she might have to be with at least a few people… even as plenty of others would be granted no such mercy when she ruled again.

"I did not betray you, Azula," Mai said flatly.

"Yes, you did, you--"

"Did you want to kill Zuko?" Mai asked, skeptically.

"It… was my intent in the moment," Azula admitted, gritting her teeth. "Though it may have become undesirable at a later date."

She could imagine Mai's blank-faced skepticism. "I saved Zuko, and so you tried to kill me."

Mai was always so blunt, but Azula did not have an answer to it. Yes, she had tried to kill Mai. She had done it before and she… she. She took a deep breath and said, "And?" She tried to put everything she had into the word.

But Mai just scoffed. "You're talking to Toph."

"What about it? Don't tell me you're worried about her," Azula asked. The silence told her that was it, and she had to laugh. In fact, she laughed hard enough that for a moment she felt that strange mania falling over her, just a bit of fear that she wouldn't be able to stop any more than she'd been able to control herself in those terrible moments in which the Fire Nation lost.

"Yes," Mai said.

"Worried, why?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Mai asked, and there was not frustration audible in her voice, but Azula knew it was there. "She's following up on your petty grudges."

"They deserved it," Azula scoffed. "Don't be so tediously similar to Zuzu, it doesn't suit you."

"They did," Mai agreed easily.

"Then why… why even come here, why even be worried? Your boytoy was already here and left, and surely he said enough."

"Toph does not," Mai said.

"Does not what? Deserve it? Deserve to have some fools to punish and fight for fun?" Azula asked.

"Get swept up in your games," Mai said. "I'm leaving. But you're going to hurt her. And yourself. Delude her into thinking anything you say is real."

Azula could imagine her turning and couldn't stop herself, "Wait."

She hadn't meant to say it, but now that she'd said it she realized she didn't want Mai to leave. It hurt. It did hurt, and she pushed out her flames, and let them uselessly, pointlessly burning against a door she couldn't get past.

"This was a mistake," Mai said, and then she heard the door closing, the frustrating groan, the end of that hope and maybe all of the hopes she'd… no.

She reined in her fire, and took a deep breath, in and out, and then settled down onto her bed.

It didn't matter.

Nothing had really changed. Nothing was different.

It did not matter.

But she certainly wasn't going to talk to Toph about this.

veteranMortal: Things were always going to boil over at some point. Azula hasn't really, like, processed a lot, since, uh, ever? Azula hasn't really processed anything. Especially since Boiling Rock, but she didn't really grapple with things before that, either.

The Laurent: Can bonebending be a thing? Who knows! What Toph really needs to focus on is who she is and what she wants.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 10: Reading Lists, Part 2

Toph considered actually getting books that Azula asked for. But she figured it'd be more funny to make it a surprise whenever she decided to get around to it. Because depending on the kinda book, there'd probably be a hassle to get it. Or she'd have to explain why she was getting it. With the adventure books, maybe that'd be fine. But, well, she wanted to find the right moment, and it wasn't as if she was getting bored talking to Azula. Not yet, at least. Azula wasn't always interesting, but she was interesting often enough that Toph usually found something to talk about.

So this continued, the weeks piling up like loose rubble at a quarry, and might have continued for a while. Toph was stubborn, and something in her was being stubborn about this too. She didn't bother to question it. Then something changed.

Well, it was honestly the same old, same old. Toph was talking along with a pouch around her shoulder, holding the books she had to turn in. She could have had a servant carry them, but that seemed boring. But this time, there were a few people crowding around Akorai Tsagaan in front of the main doors to the library. Everyone was angry, their hearts racing, their voices loud.

"A new dawn, a new tomorrow, and yet what is it built on. Burning books!" a man loudly shouted, shaking his fist in the direction of the Librarian. Akorai faced them, and she had to imagine he was trying to seem less afraid than he was.

His voice was remarkably level as he addressed them, "That is not the case at all, Lord Nakamura, please understand that this is not at all what is planned. Weeding is a normal part of a librarian collection--"

"What, are you a gardener?" a woman asked, clinging onto the arm of Lord Loser. "Our daughter loves the Ufuza books, and yet you're going to burn them all and arrest the author--"

"We are not going to-" Tsagaan began, frustration clear as he looked at them.

"Going to what? You're destroying Encyclopedias and history books and even tomes on natural philosophy and phrenological insights," a third man said, his voice high-pitched and stuffy, like he was getting over a head cold. "All of that knowledge, burned and destroyed by an administration too afraid of the truth to face it head on."

She had a feeling this ranting and chanting would keep on going, so she called out, "Hey, move outta my way."

Everyone turned to face her, some of them now more worried than they'd been before.

"It's that enforcer," a third man said, his voice soft and careful. The others seem old, or at least middle-aged--so, old--but he sounded like he wasn't much older than Zuko. "I… was just here because I don't want adventure novels to be banned."

"Why'd Zuko ban adventure novels or whatever?" Toph asked, confused. She was pretty sure he loved that kind of thing, adventures and quests and heroic stories. He'd seen the other end of it of course, and now he thought war sucked. He was right, even. Toph liked fights, but wars actually really sucked. Enough that the word 'sucked' started to seem like it wasn't negative enough.

"He didn't," the Librarian said, at the same time as the woman said, "Because he doesn't want anyone in the Fire Nation to think of having an adventure or holding their head up."

Toph snorted. "If you want to have an adventure, I could fight all of you at once." They all tensed at that, even Tsagaan, who no doubt thought he was included. Though honestly, where was her life-changing field trip, anyway? Everyone else had one… This was an old gripe, and she let it go.

"No, thank you," Tsagaan said. "Are you here to return books?"

"Yep," Toph said. "I'll pick up new ones later."

"Aren't you blind?" the Lesser Loser Lord demanded.

"Yes, and he's my seeing eye librarian," Toph declared, gesturing toward Tsagaan. "Also I have servants to read to me." Well, thus far Azula had refused to read more than a few passages, usually to mock her choices or make some sort of point. But it wasn't the same as actually just reading it. Though she hadn't exactly, apparently, given Azula anything good to read. "So, here's the books." She gestured to the book barrier she was wearing and took it off. "I got things to do, so just take the satchel."

She had a Fire Lord to bother.

---

Toph didn't bother knocking. Zuko did not even startle. His office was no doubt full of significance and importance, and he'd once mentioned art so there were some sorta pictures here. But she just focused on the Fire Lord, sitting on a mat. It was a low-slung desk, and people who wanted to talk to him knelt in front of the desk, so they stood on the same level. Apparently that was weird or different, and she kind of got it. (Toph knew all about etiquette, knew how to use chopsticks and what not to do and on and on and on. She'd been taught all that, and more, and perhaps it'd meant more than she thought. Probably not. But the uncertainty was annoying)

"Toph, this is unexpected," Zuko said, and he did sound surprised. Perhaps not as surprised as he should be. "What's going on?"

"Some idiots are apparently protesting outside the library. I happened to be in the area," Toph lied, "And apparently you're going to burn or weed books, whatever that is, and they object? So I figured, I'd bother you about it. After all, you're prolly going to have to deal with that."

"Do you know who they were?" Zuko asked.

"You think I paid attention to that? One of them had a head cold, and talked about natural philosophy--"

"Oh, Ito Watanabe," Zuko sighed. "I see. I've met him before."

"So what's this about weeding?" Toph asked, because she really didn't care about Watanabe or whatever.

"That's apparently what they call it when they take out books that are too old or out of date," Zuko said. "And none of the books are going to be burned. But some of them might be put somewhere out of the way. I'm trying to divide out the collection, because I had this idea… make a library that everyone can visit. But to do that, we need to figure out what we already have. And we need to clear out books that won't be useful, put them out of the way."

"Not useful how, exactly?" Toph asked. She wasn't that interested, but now she was kind of curious. To her, all books were equally useless.

"Oh, like the natural philosophy we're getting rid of is stuff about how Earthbenders are part-animal, or--"

"Don't have the same sense of taste as real people?" Toph asked, idly. Honestly, it'd be pretty cool to be part Badgermole.

"Yes, that too," Zuko said, sounding confused. "How did you know about that?"

"Zappy mentioned it," Toph said. She felt him tense and said, "Honestly even she thought it was kinda stupid."

Zuko seemed shocked that there were evil things that even Sparky thought were dumb. "Really? But, so we were going to remove those books and put them in a different section, and find the books we want to put into the new library for the public. Right now most libraries are under control of one clan or another, or military academies, or a few paid libraries here and there. But if we could have knowledge available to everyone…"

He kept on talking, and Toph didn't quite tune him out, but she let him ramble. It honestly did sound like a good idea. Not the library bit exactly, she'd never cared about books because she could hardly use them, but why should a bunch of nobles be able to hoard information? Imagine if she went around beating people up who tried to learn how to Metalbend because it was supposed to be a Beifong Family Secret or whatever?

(Honestly she could imagine her father wanting to do that.)

Not everyone was amazing enough to be able to learn it, but one day someone would on their own, and then another person, and then another person. If she started offering lessons, maybe that wouldn't happen. Maybe everyone wouldn't bother trying and instead just come to her to beg for scraps. But the thought of that turned her stomach. Teaching people? Great, even if she wasn't sure she was the sort to teach.

But where would people be if they had to rely on someone else for everything? It was fine to count on your friends for some things. And she didn't want to admit it but there were things she couldn't do for herself, though most of them she could do without. She couldn't make her own food or wash her clothes. But if she had to she could just get by with stuff from street vendors and use her bending to earn enough to just ditch her old clothes whenever they got smelly.

It wouldn't exactly be a smart use of money, but hey. Money was stupid. Finally, she interrupted, "What does the Adventures of Ufuza or whatever have to do with that, though?"

"What?" Zuko asked, sounding disturbed, his heartbeat picking up.

"One of the women was saying that her daughter loved those books and they were being taken out too?" Toph asked.

"Well, the book itself is not good, but it's just not going to be in the palace library anymore," Zuko said. "Because it's fiction and we're trying to make sure the palace library stays that way."

"Not good, how?"

"Well it's about this Fire Nation noble girl who goes to the colonies and solves mysteries and gets into adventures fighting…"

Toph had a guess. "Evil Earth Kingdom agents?"

"Yes, or Hidden Airbenders looking to continue the war, or Water Benders who drink the blood of their enemies or… all of that," Zuko said, sounding disgruntled. "But people do like the books, I'm sure they're hardly going to disappear. The authors are still around even, though who knows if they'll write any more."

She understood exactly why Azula would like them. It was honestly kind of embarrassing for Azula. Toph wanted to laugh at her. But she thought it'd be an even better thing to get the books even though they were being removed. "Hey, what do you say I look into this? Obviously I can't do any of the reading, but I can talk to all the idiots, see if I can catch them in any lies, that sort of thing."

Zuko tensed, and said, "Toph, I'm not sure if that's a good idea… though I do have an idea for how you might help out. But I need a little longer to figure it out before I tell you details. But, you want to go around talking to people and dealing with this?"

It was like he didn't trust her to solve problems peacefully through talking.

…he was right, of course.

But Toph could talk if she wanted to. She just didn't normally want to. "Sure, why not? Just give me a piece of paper with your name saying I can do whatever I want to solve this issue as long as I don't fight anyone. Or hurt them. Or whatever." She didn't want to promise that, but why not? She'd talk to them, but honestly they'd get over themselves and complain about something else soon.

People just did this sometimes, got all offended over nothing and yelled about it for a while and then picked something else to grumble about.

But if she had that piece of paper… why, who would know what she'd do.

"Fine," Zuko sighed. "I can do that. But if I hear anything about…"

"Yeah, yeah, if I fight you'll get all broody," Toph said.

Zuko sighed and said, "Okay, I'll trust you."

Well, what a way to make her feel bad. She'd have to actually try to do what she promised, wouldn't she?

Oh well, it'd be a way to pass the time.

---

Azula was just a little bit tired. She was not going to let her weakness show, but she'd been thinking about what Mai said for almost two weeks. It didn't matter, really. Mai didn't know what she was saying, and she was pretty sure that even if she was right, it wouldn't matter. Toph wasn't making the kinds of mistakes she had been sure would happen. She'd been sure when she began the second round of this little game that she'd be able to win it, but she wasn't so sure now. She knew she was getting somewhere, but even those moments of vulnerability didn't mean anything. Toph was perfectly capable of fighting through them to the other side, and they were just as likely lies as anything.

Toph was still as rough as ever, and if this was more amusing to Azula than if she'd been sanded down, that was just Azula's own preferences in… people she knew. Friends? Of course not. The thought of it was absurd. They were acquaintances who could, sometimes, get along long enough for the arguments to be a little less boring than the ones with Zuko.

For instance, there was the joke that Toph was running into the ground where week after week she gave Azula new books that were not the ones she wanted, always wrapped up as if they were a great gift. She thought she was funny and interesting. She was interesting in a funny, strange, childish kind of way. She was funny in the kind of way that Azula would want to laugh at, but which would at least respond back.

But all those ways she was interesting had nothing to do with her stupid little joke.

"Yo, Ufuza," Toph said as the room shuddered and the door groaned. It truly was an annoyance, the extent to which it was clearly in need of maintenance.

"I am not going to be opening your package," Azula said. "You have no ability to make me." She grinned, because she wanted an argument with Toph now. She wanted it to be bruising, she wanted them to get back to raising their voices and stabbing each other with insults and implications, because it was so much easier and less boring than anything that might be…

Real?

No, no need to think about it.

"You really wanna open them," Toph said, but she'd said that a week ago and it'd been because it was an old book about Charm Bracelets or something. She hadn't even bothered to read that, though she was a little bit curious, and might still read it if she got bored enough.

"No."

"C'mon, Sparky!" Toph whined, stomping her feet. Azula could tell because the whole area quaked for a moment. "I'm not getting any younger here."

"If you were any younger, you would be a baby," Azula sneered, but she began to open the package anyway.

And then paused, frozen.

It was… was it? She pulled out a slim red volume, the title on it declaring, 'The Adventures of Ikanu Ufuza, Volume 3: The Frog-Snake In The Well.' And beneath it was a book detailing the campaigns of General Hoto under the reign of Sozin, and specifically the ones during the second decade of the war, and then beneath it was another adventure story, this one a novel, from a quick flip-through.

"C'mon, react in a way more than just a racing heart, will ya?" Toph asked.

Azula had spent a full several minutes just looking them over. She took out the volume, and thought of what she remembered. It was about being stuck in a city, during a brief siege that a bunch of traitors and Earth Kingdom stooges had set up, and meanwhile there was a conspiracy in the city.

It was, apparently, inspired by an Earth Kingdom saying. Though if she remembered it, years since she'd read it, the story reversed it and revealed the lie and the truth at the heart of it… or something? She remembered the story fondly, and she almost wanted to begin right that moment.

She couldn't wait to get to the point where it was revealed that the Fire Nation noble was secretly of Earth-Kingdom ancestry and had therefore followed his heritage and betrayed the city by letting in the assassin team that had almost killed the Governor. It'd been a good mystery, and maybe she would--

Wait.

"I suppose… this is acceptable," Azula said, because she was not sure what to say against this pathetic gratitude about what was almost nothing. Especially because she realized what this meant. It hadn't meant she'd won yet, but it did mean that… that Toph was listening to her, in her fashion. It meant that she could ask for something, and eventually, Toph would bother to get it. It was… an odd feeling. But there was a difference between telling a story to entice Toph to go and beat up someone and this. Toph was willing to help her, or at least make her temporary stay in this seemingly inescapable prison (for her at least) just a little bit better.

And how was one supposed to feel about that? She thought she should resent how much she relied on an Earthbender, someone from a dirt-smudged culture, that treated women like nothing and used to do worse. Someone from a Kingdom she'd conquered with just a few people and a clever plan. Let alone a friend of the Avatar. One of Zuko's little friends. A child.

But…

She could not quite manage it.

Azula could see it. At that moment, Azula was sure that perhaps one day she would actually be able to convince Toph to let her go free. She'd always thought she was sure, but now she was… starting to realize that she could see the path in it.

If she was as lonely as… Azula wanted to scoff. She wanted to poke the wound, just to see what Toph would do. Because she was not sure she trusted it, this certainty. She was almost always right, but. Something about what little Mai had said left her out of sorts, reeling. But she wasn't sure what. She should poke at the wound, but it was easier, in a sense, to get someone else to poke at it and by doing that prove that it didn't really matter that much.

But right then? Looking down at those books? She couldn't deny that she'd missed them. She couldn't deny that it hurt that these little things could matter. Azula realized she'd spent too long without talking.

"So I kinda told everyone I was getting a servant to read these for me, and also a buncha other stupid half-truths," Toph admitted. "So, wanna read them to me?"

"I am not a servant," Azula said, appreciating a chance to instead focus on getting into an argument.

"Well, but I'm just a poor, helpless rich blind girl, surely an imprisoned ruffian such as yourself should, I do declare, be able to help me out by reading me a little bit of the adventures of Miss Ufuza," Toph said, in her most pathetic and formal voice yet.

Azula groaned, "No. I'm not doing it."

"Hah! I'll get you to read something to me one of these days," Toph said. "Like, for real. Even if it's nonsense about weirdo Firebender mystery girls or whatever it is."

"It is not nonsense," Azula said. Yes, it was perhaps a… little bit of a childish book, but she had not been told off for it, not ever.

"Oh, then what's it about?"

"You're just trying to get a summary to pretend that counts," Azula stated petulantly.

"Yep," Toph agreed. And then just waited her out.

VM AN: Really enjoying exploring their relationship, and also exploring, like… some of what it means for Zuko to reform the Fire Nation? What does that look like?

TL AN: There's some Spanish Empire mixed in here, and a few other things. You have to think of what a country would actually be like if it does 1 3/4ths genocides in the past and ends the series trying to go for a third… and presumably if they got to that point they'd also be wiping out the Waterbenders. Ozai was going for the world's stupidest global genocide, and he didn't come from nowhere.

 

[veteranMortal]

Chapter 11: The Intersection of Fate

Zuko wanted something. It was basically the only explanation for all of this. She could hardly see the surroundings, but it was in one of the rooms she liked, the one made with good stone that had a low table so she could crouch down and eat. And there were all her favorites there, hearty, common Earth Kingdom dishes that would stick with her.

(Except the truth was, she liked it a lot, but her real favorite dishes were things she'd never admit to, because they were fancy-smancy nonsense and she was just fine liking the rougher versions of things. The same things, but with three or four less frills. She'd said she liked the peasant versions of these things best, and wouldn't have wanted to admit otherwise. She was Toph, and she'd eaten bugs and liked it, and so of course she didn't have the tastes of someone who had grown up almost exclusively on high society food (and bugs.))

Zuko gave Toph what she said she wanted. Brown rice, porridges, fried meats in generous servings of sauce, a thousand little anti-delicacies that no doubt had his chefs screaming at not being able to use the finest ingredients, not being able to do all the fancy nonsense that Toph mostly doesn't care about. She liked how the fancy nonsense tasted, sure, but what did it matter? Food was for shoveling in your mouth and then getting on with it anyway. Unlike tea, admittedly.

She could hardly admit to any of that, and she liked the food well enough. She just didn't like it as much as Zuko probably thought. There was the thing to focus on. He was softening her up with all of this because he had something he wanted. She sipped the tea, and waited. He was sitting on a mat across from her, and he hadn't talked yet, just ate slowly and distractedly.

"Toph, do you know what's going on in the Fire Nation Colonies?" Zuko asked.

Oh, it was one of those questions. "Not enough for whatever you're gonna ask me to do." Was this it, time for that Life Changing Field Trip? Nah, with her luck he was going to give some sort of speech or… something? But maybe he'd want to go deal with it himself, or go on a state visit or whatever and he'd want her around to tell her when people were lying to him (always.)

"There has been chaos and violence, you know that, it's been long enough. But the Rough Rhinos, and dozens of other groups of ex-Fire Nation soldiers have been plaguing the area, as have would-be Earth Kingdom Warlords: generals and resistance fighters who want to take a piece of the Colonies."

"And I suppose the muckity-mucks in charge don't want to give up their power to a bunch of dirteaters, let alone a bunch of enemy generals?" Toph asked.

She felt Zuko flinch. But there had been weirder, and for that matter crueler, things in those stupid books Azula sometimes asked for, she was sure. It was all so much nonsense, really. The Fire Nation had apparently spent a century teaching its people to be stupid losers. It was a miracle that Zuko was a good person and Azula not entirely boring and stupid.

"...basically, yes, but where did you hear all of this? It's not…"

"Nice? No, it isn't," Toph said, yawning. "But yeah, so is that it?"

"Yes. And… we have to figure out what we're going to do. It's land we stole from the Earth Kingdom, and yet the Generals are as likely to become Warlords as bring peace and prosperity to the region. But the Governors in charge, they're… deluded at best, and monsters at worst. And there's people with mixed heritage, and even Earthbenders who are skeptical of the Earth Kingdom, though I'm pretty sure they don't want to be ruled over by a bunch of Firebenders." He was rambling, now, and she let him talk. "It's a complicated situation, and I don't know what we're going to do. But it's getting worse and worse and if we don't step in… so I want to send you."

"To what? Beat everyone up and tell them they have to talk it out?" Toph asked, sure it couldn't be that simple.

"If that's what it takes. I want you to keep the peace, and war… is definitely a disturbance of the peace. Do whatever you can to maintain order, and you'll have my backing. Within reason, obviously. But if you want to beat up a bunch of deserters, if you want to knock Earth Kingdom General heads together, whatever you need to do… because the alternative is worse."

Really?

"What? You want me to be a Grand Shire Reeve?" Toph asked, incredulously. "Of all the colonies?"

"Shire Reeve?"

"Person appointed by the village to basically get everyone together to chase after a murderer or a thief or so on," Toph explained, with a roll of her eyes. "I've been taught so many useless things, you know."

"Bigger than that."

"A Chief Shire Reeve?" Toph asked. "What, you want me to train people in Metalbending, and then create some sort of peacekeeping force to deal with threats internal and external and yada yada, blah blah blah, army of buttkickers for peace?"

But as she said it, she felt his willingness to go along with it. And didn't it seem like a good idea? Because right now towns had guards, and Ba Sing Se had had the Dai Li, but that wasn't quite the same, not something that would work as a force there to take the fight to warlords and bandits - and for that matter whatever the gangs were doing? The kind of thing where she could be having a fun fight every single week, and feel like she was helping things. And she'd be able to teach people to metalbend if they wanted to and make sure she knew where they were learning it.

It'd be a way to control it, she realized. Who would try to learn Metalbending on their own if she was offering to teach other people? Some people would, just because they could, but most people would just go to learn from her if she offered.

She could picture it now. She could even go after some of the bad guys with her old friends, try to drag Katara off on an adventure or see if Sokka or Suki were finally willing to actually…

It was a good picture. She'd be an authority figure, in charge of the lives of, how many people? And, and.

She'd get to make something new, something that kicked butt. Something that she could say was all her own, her invention the same way she'd created Metalbending and dozens of different new Earthbending moves. She had no idea what to call it, because being "Chief Shire Reeve" didn't exactly roll off the tongue.

But she could imagine it. The adventures, the fun, the power and control over others. She'd be enforcing the laws, and she'd be enforcing whatever order Zuko wanted enforced. But he'd listen to her if she had advice about how to do all of this, and she'd be able to get out of the palace.

"Where am I doing this from? The Colonies, right? If I do it," Toph said, not sure why she wasn't jumping up and down in enthusiasm. She… just wasn't sure.

Was this what she wanted? She didn't know why it wouldn't be. It'd be a chance to really stretch her muscles. But somehow she felt just a little bit sick, and she knew it wasn't the food. It didn't sit that heavily on her, and she didn't dislike it that much.

"If you do? Take all the time you need to think about it," Zuko said, sounding apologetic. "I didn't mean to spring it on you, or demand you answer it right now. But I thought that it could be something, because Mai says you're bored."

"Duh," Toph said.

"That's… about what she said," Zuko said.

"There's a reason she's cool," Toph said, absently. She didn't know what to think of Mai, but she did think she'd get along with her if they actually spent more time together.

"And… there's something else."

"What?" Toph asked, tensing because Zuko himself had tensed as well. It was really easy to read people like that, and if she cared about it she could probably tell more than just whether someone was lying.

"We've received a letter from your father to… myself. I have it here, if you want me to read it to you, but he's requesting that I return his daughter. He… wants to talk."

"Does he want to talk, or does he want to listen?" Toph asked, trying to hide the moment of sickening uncertainty.

"I'm… not sure. But I'm willing to send over some guards, if you wanted to meet with him but you didn't trust him not to do anything like with those mercenaries," Zuko said. He'd heard the story indirectly, but he probably didn't know all the details.

"What does he say, exactly?"

"He asks for the return of his only Heir, Toph Beifong, for a meeting at the town of Gaoling, and states that he shall be ready for the receipt of any messages or information."

His only heir.

It wasn't anything she wanted, but she was apparently the heir to the Beifong fortune, despite having been sure that actually it was, she wasn't sure, some cousin.

Which meant he had been trying to prepare her. In a way. It didn't… Azula was right, she knew. It didn't actually make anything any better at all. It wasn't what she wanted, and she didn't care that at least he'd expected something from her even if it had nothing to do with Bending.

But the more she was sure it didn't matter, the more she thought about it, because it was weird.

"Oh," Toph said, and she knew her voice sounded faint. She was usually right there, in the moment, no matter what the moment it was. But now she felt as if she was floating above herself. "I'll need to think."

"You don't have to agree to either, you can agree to one and not the other, or propose your own version of things," Zuko said, distressed. "I just… thought it'd help you, and help the world. But, please, enjoy."

She ate the food that followed while thinking the whole time, stuck in Neutral Jing and eating food that she could not even taste. She just ate, and then drank, and then considered what she wanted and why she felt just a little bit like she was a pebble in an avalanche. It didn't make sense.

She wanted to talk to Azula, but she knew what Azula would say. Ambition, power, control? Domination of others? Azula would eagerly say yes, wouldn't she? Or… would she try to convince Toph to say no because she had some oh-so-clever plan to try to keep Toph here so she could continue trying and failing to manipulate her? Azula would have an angle, and Toph truly didn't have the energy to try to work out what it would be.

Toph wasn't going to talk to Azula. There was no point. She could just go about her day and know that whatever Azula would say, it wouldn't matter.

---

"Yo, Sparky," Toph called out as the room shuddered and one of the steel doors groaned. She sounded… off. Azula was very good at finding those little signs in anyone she had experience with, and in this she had months of time talking to Toph by now. It was in small bursts at first, but by now she talked with her several hours a week.

So she knew something was up. "What is it? Lose to Zuko again?"

"I'm over that," Toph said. "I got distracted."

Last week Zuko had finally broken her streak, or so Toph informed her, by managing to surprise her in a way that would have forced her to use something she'd decided not to use to win. She'd almost used it, or so Azula guessed. Just like Azula, she understood that winning was almost everything. You could learn things from losing, but a good Bender learned even more from winning.

She was sure, though, that Toph would win next time. It was humiliating for her, but Azula knew that even she occasionally lost a spar with a good enough opponent. Once a year, perhaps. Sometimes less often.

Though it had also been quite some time since… since. But she'd been weak then, and she was stronger and more ready now, even if she was out of practice in some ways.

But she stared at the door and imagined Toph on the other side of it. "Sure you did," Azula said. "But what are you distracted about now? You came to talk to me about something." Was this her chance? Perhaps this was the moment she could get Toph on her side, or seem like she was on Toph's side. But she wasn't sure what this was. She couldn't begin to hope it was a fight with Zuko. That would be too perfect, if she was at the point where she'd go straight from a fight with Zuzu to ask for Azula's advice.

"You can tell me anything," Azula lied. "I'd never use it against you."

Toph laughed at that, a familiar sort of laugh. "Of course you would! But here I am! It's lame, isn't it, but I figured you'd be easy to talk to."

"Me, easy to talk to?"

"Because you'd make it a fight, and then I'd win," Toph boasted.

Azula felt the moment, felt the power of it. It was like the feeling of the sun, the knowledge of where the sun was, the knowledge of how the world waxed and waned. She understood this: Toph was talking to her because she might be mean. Toph was talking to her because whatever it was, she wasn't sure. Whatever was troubling her was something where she did not trust kindness and sweetness. She did not trust people being nice at her, perhaps?

It was like Toph. It was like Azula. "Well then, fight away, Toph."

"Well, Zappy, you know how the Fire Nation colonies are in chaos? I'm sure you've heard some of that stuff," Toph said.

She'd guessed a little, but it'd been guesses rather than knowledge.

"I assumed as much." She said, "But I'm hardly kept in the loop by Zuzu or my guards."

"No?" Toph asked. "Well you know how it is, buncha Firebenders wanting to keep power, Earthbenders going every which way, Generals threatening things, deserters causing chaos or working for 'em, yada, yada, yada, boring politics."

It was the most thorough explanation of political circumstances in the Fire Nation colonies that she'd had in this last year. It wasn't much, but Zuko didn't want to give her anything at all. If she was being entirely fair she could even say that not all of it was probably from Zuko's incompetence. It was not as if the Colonies hadn't always been a headache. "Zuzu's messing up?"

"Not really. Sometimes things just suck. If he'd gone around trying to start a war with them, it'd lead to chaos, and so he did what he could, I think? But he's decided he's had enough of letting things work out. Or that's what he said."

Oh. She knew. "And so, he asked you to do something about it? What?"

"So, he laid out this spread of food, and then let me eat and then told me," Toph said. "The tea was good."

"Oh, what was the food?" Azula asked, aware she was sneering, standing up and getting closer. "Fire Flakes in porridge?"

"It was all the things I told him I liked," Toph said carelessly, and she could imagine the bored expression.

"All the things you told him you liked?" Azula asked, and she felt oddly sick but also as if she was about to catch Toph at the knees and burn her out. "And what about the things you actually liked?"

"I liked them," Toph said defensively. "It doesn't matter, but I liked them."

"Were they your favorites or… oh? I know you well enough to guess, you know - I bet you said you like brown rice and cheap dumplings, and thick, hearty stews? Good peasant fare for the crust of the earth," Azula said. It felt like that moment with Long Feng, it felt like she was seeing something. And then she knew it. "But that's not what you grew up eating, is it? No, Toph Beifong grew up on fine dining… and bugs." And she'd tolerated both of those, and yet she knew the truth was that one could not spend one's entire life eating the food of nobles and not have preferences.

Preferences that didn't fit the kind of rough and crude person she wanted to be, someone strong and free and actively rejecting the noble accent and everything about the power, privilege, and cage that this represented to her.

It was honestly far more fascinating than the resentment and power-mongering that had driven the Dai Li from top to bottom. They had too much respect for position and authority. And she began to guess why Toph was here. She pressed her hand against the cold steel, and for a moment she wanted to be closer--not even just to escape, but to see her reactions and try to read her even better so that her words would hit even more correctly.

"Do you wanna know what the idea is or not?" Toph asked.

"I can guess," Azula said, considering it. "He sends you there to deal with the problem yourself? Probably with all the power he can give you, because it's only naked force that those backward Colonials understand? Beat the Generals, beat the deserters, beat anyone who questions what you do, and run around knocking heads together? He couldn't do it himself because Zuzu is incompetent and stupid, but you are very competent and you don't respect them." Oh, that was it, wasn't it? "He wants someone who doesn't care. And if you do something he cannot be seen approving of, but thinks is fine, he can just wring his hands? Is that about it?"

Toph was silent for a moment, and Azula understood that she'd grasped the core of it, the heart of what the idea was even about. Toph would come into this messy situation, and she'd at once be restrained because she was a single person, a single child even… but she'd also be anything but, because she was a master Earthbender and knew the Avatar and all of his little friends. And no one could object, not openly - the colonies couldn't be angry that the Fire Lord had sent someone to restore order, not if they were the ones screaming for him to do it, and the Earth Kingdom could hardly complain about being whipped into shape by a better Earthbender.

"Oh, so that's why?" Toph muttered to herself. "Yeah, basically."

Azula grinned in triumph. "But now you have doubts. You barely want to acknowledge your nobility except as a joke, and here you are in a position of…"

"Chief Shire Reeve?" Toph guessed. What. "Chief Shireeve? Chief Shireef? I dunno, I'd work on the title, I think I'm onto something with the name, Platypus-Bear."

"It is truly impressive, how you cling to a time I successfully lied to you," Azula said, though it and Ashy were probably the nicknames that annoyed her the most. "I don't understand it."

She did understand it. She was lying right then. She understood it in the same way that she understood an obsession with anyone she'd lost to before. She didn't lose often, and so those few times she did… the mere thought of that Waterbender left her furious and cold.

"But yes, so something like that. And… he's gotten a letter from my Father."

"Oh?" It was best not to comment, because a part of her was trying to figure out how she could angle this… the problem was that she wasn't sure what she wanted. Did she want to keep Toph here, to further manipulate, or hope that perhaps some time abroad would teach her about an understanding of what power was?

The latter seemed wrong for some reason, but it was as good a piece of logic as any, since right now it didn't seem as if Toph would have anything she wanted enough to free Azula. Azula had no idea what that even would be, if it wasn't the power that her excellent bending meant she deserved.

"He requests his heir back," Toph said, snorting. "His only heir."

It was something, of course. If Toph cared, it could have been proof that she was at least valued for something. But not her bending. Even just the ability to sense when most people were lying was enough to open fascinating possibilities for Toph as a ruler and mechant. Of course, everyone lied, but knowing when they did or not…

But instead he hadn't even thought about it, she was sure of that. "Oh, a trap, then?"

"Zuko promised to send troops with me if I wanted them, if I did want to talk to him," Toph said. "And… that one isn't connected to the other. I can take the job and not visit my Father. Or visit my Father without taking the job."

"Ah, but as long as you're in the area…?" Azula asked, considering it.

"He was just telling me everything."

"Perhaps," Azula said. There was an angle to all of this, but she'd have to be careful and a part of her wondered what she should aim towards. "Yet, it feels connected, doesn't it?" By now she was almost pressed against the door, staring at it, as if she could create a form of firebending in which her eyes shot fire.

(In truth, that sounded rather tempting right about now.)

"Connected?"

"You're afraid, afraid of being a noble, of being an heiress. Perhaps of the temporal power. You don't value it, but even worse than that… you're afraid of it, aren't you?" Azula asked, sure of that. "You think that seizing the power would change you, would bind you. I asked what you were before and you said free." It was in some ways a very childish answer. Yes, she wasn't behind locked doors, but Toph was stuck and she had to wonder whether Toph could do everything she wanted to do when she wanted so little.

If you had no ambition at all, made yourself small, the world did not accept that and leave you alone, certainly not from a bender of Toph's caliber.

"Nah, I'm not," Toph protested, weakly.

"You see nobility as a trap, and so you see this as just a way toward it. An official title, an official role, and you come to me because… what? Do you want reassurances? No, I don't think so."

"You think you know everything," Toph complained. "Since now you can't see me, I'm rolling my eyes."

"If I were in that position, I'd accept. All that power. Even controlled by Zuzu, it'd be a perfect place to build up my power, build up my influence, and reconquer the Fire Nation. But you don't care about that."

"It's wrong," Toph said, and she sounded like a beggar tripping over a pile of gold coins, pained but also fortunate. She realized something.

"What's wrong? Me ruling? Oh, I'm sure you agree."

"Nobles don't know anything, they're usually a bunch of morons. I'm a better bender than anyone, but why should I try to be in charge of anything? Zuko gets stupid headaches and groans about everything he has to do. And apparently Ozai basically did nothing because he was too busy playing soldiers and doing bending training which… well, I can't exactly blame the guy, can I? Even if all that training hardly amounted to much for the guy, imagine how much worse he'd have done without it…"

Azula flinched, but she didn't let up. "And your point?"

"And what even are there? The Earth Kingdom generals, half of them gave up after Omashu fell, and half of the rest after Ba Sing Se fell. We lost several times and then kept on coming back until we won, but they all just ran off until it turned out they were winning despite themselves! Why should they be in charge of anything just because they have a lifetime of experience in losing the war against you guys?" By now, Toph seemed like if she were the sort she'd be pacing. There was an edge in her voice, a frustration and anger that she'd felt almost from the start. Azula had almost nurtured it, once she realized that was the part of Toph that most played these games.

She sometimes saw it less, now that they were not arguing all the time, just a lot of the time. But she had felt its edge sharpen against the whetstone, and now it seemed to be cutting.

"And the Governors and all of that, what did they do but beat up people who couldn't fight back? And the people there, some of them wanna go back into the Earth Kingdom and sure, fine, but what kinda loser would want to be ruled by the Earth King. Weird bear aside, I don't get that? Course, I don't exactly want to be ruled by anyone."

"Not ruled by anyone?" Azula asked, because that was a childish thing to imagine.

"Not ruled by anyone, not ruling anyone… dunno if I can manage it, but I don't… it doesn't end well, does it? When there's one person and they get to stand up and declare that they're the Melon Lord--"

"The what?" Azula asked, because Toph sometimes referenced the most inane nonsense she'd ever heard as if it was commonly known.

"The Melon Lord. This practice thing we did to test how good Aang was, right before Zuko told us all about the whole Sozin's Comet plan."

Azula understood that defending the plan was a mistake, but a part of her wanted to, wanted to explain the reasoning. Yet, it had failed so thoroughly and so totally, with essentially nothing to show for it. Nothing to prove that it had almost worked and just barely failed.

"We all thought we could, y'know, just train past the Comet and attack the Fire Lord in a few months," Toph said. "Instead he went and wound up somewhere we could just go and fight him."

"I would go, if I were you, with your goals," Azula said, and she was shocked to realize she was telling the truth, leaning against the door. "You can always figure out how not to enforce laws if you want that. Just make it so that nobody can do anything, and tell them to do whatever they want. You need to seize power if you want to push your inane idea of nobody being in charge."

"Wouldn't that just be me being in charge? Plus…"

"Plus, you don't want to do it even if you didn't believe any of this," Azula said. "I think you should, even if you hate it, because I think you'll see that you're more than you thought you were. Its power that shows who you are, that lets you become whoever you'll be next, whether it's this or something else." She felt oddly like she was getting sick, and considering the terrible food she was served, she could be. Zuko probably wasn't deliberately trying to kill her, but she'd taken to using Toph's Fire Flakes for everything because nothing had a taste at all. "All this moping around about your inner self, about looking into your mind, I'd just act. Look outward into the world instead of getting caught in all of this." She realized that it would be best for Toph to go on to whatever stupid destiny this was, to be the rough-fisted enforcer of Zuko's will in the colonies, and figure out there what she knew of power and authority and whatever else was troubling her so much that she went running to Azula.

It was ridiculous! Of all the many areas where she was perfect, Mai was right that providing a shoulder to sob upon was the least of her skills.

"Everyone talks about getting right inside, but… what's the point if you're not figuring out how all the world works? How you can dominate it, how you can control it and find your place or your freedom or whatever nonsense you saps care about," Azula said, and she didn't know what she was saying anymore. She'd be fine. It would be a little less interesting once Toph was gone, but she'd done without a competent verbal sparring partner for months and months before Toph came along.

It would be fine.

"Sparky," Toph said, and Azula realized… Toph was listening to her. Actually listening to her in the sense that she'd gotten beneath the armor. There was a vulnerability to that voice that she wanted to preserve, to lock away to mock her about it in a moment where the thought of doing so didn't make her feel vaguely ill. The voice was plaintive, weak in a way she'd never been even when Azula had felt as if she was getting somewhere at the start. "Thanks."

"For what?" Azula asked, fingers drumming against the steel door.

Toph didn't answer the question, just saying, "And what about my Dad, what's your advice there?"

"You don't want to talk to him, you don't have to, he has no power, he's not even a good bender… just keep on ignoring him," Azula said, and the moment felt like it was passing as she rolled her own eyes. "I'm pretty sure you decided that yourself."

"Sorta, yeah. I was curious what you'd advise," Toph said, and her voice still sounded weird. She stamped her foot. "What about Chief Sheriff? It's like Shireef, but a little bit catchier."

"Sheriff?"

"For the job, if I take it or whatever," Toph said, distractedly, any vulnerability bleeding away beneath blase unconcern.

"You can't just turn… Shire Reeve, whatever that is, into Sheriff. It's not even a proper shortening!" Azula protested, all of her own strange feelings almost forgotten. Almost forgotten.

"Watch me," Toph said. Oh, so she'd decided she was going to take the job. It was surprising of her to see sense.

They spent the next half-hour bickering, and it almost felt like normal. She might miss this, abstractly. Toph was entertaining enough, but still. She would be just fine while Toph was away.

---

Toph had a lot to think about, but she'd come to a decision. Once again she threw open the doors to Zuko's office and strode in.

Honestly, it was kind of hilarious. Azula had given her honest advice while feeling as if she didn't like giving it. As if she'd miss Toph or something? It was definitely something to make fun of her for, because it was very embarrassing for Azula to be such a sap. Or, Azula would see it that way and Toph would have fun poking at that.

"Hey Zuko, I thought about your offer," she said.

"Oh?"

"Nah," Toph said. "I'm thirteen. Maybe ask me again after my birthday." She wanted to spend a little more time bothering Azula, but also… Azula had a point. If she was going to do something like this, she should care about politics and she really, really didn't. Debates about which noble got to be in charge or who got to stomp all over the peasants or whatever seemed boring, if not just wrong. If she did it when she didn't have some kind of drive, what would she even do? She'd probably make things worse, and Toph Beifong wasn't going to be bad at anything she did if it actually mattered. And… it sort of did.

It did matter, even though she thought it was nonsense she didn't want to get involved in.

If she left to do it badly, she'd be annoyed the whole time and not doing a good job. Best just to wait… a little longer.

"Okay, of course. And your father?"

"No answer. Listen, Zuko, I promise I'm not going to be hanging around here forever," Toph said.

"It's fine if you…"

No, it wasn't. Not really. But she had time. "If you need any help with some immediate crisis or something, I can help, but right now I'm not ready to be a Sheriff."

"A what?"

"Shire Reeve. Sheriff," Toph said, gesturing vaguely.

She felt him sitting up, "Wouldn't that be a Shireef? Doesn't Sheriff make no sense, as a way of shortening it?"

Which was… exactly Azula's objection.

Toph couldn't help it.

She started laughing, a little bit desperate, a little bit heedless.

A little bit sure she'd made the right choice.

veteranMortal: A lot of just Azula and Toph talking this time. It's always nice to just let them kinda spark off each other. Also crucial in that this is, like… officially the point of divergence from "canon".

The Laurent: It's not as catchy a title as Crossroads of Destiny, but…

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 12: Reading Lists, Part 3

Somehow, Toph had not left yet. She didn't even talk about it, though she did talk more now. She ranted about this and that bit of nonsense, and even told stories about the Avatar, and that Water Peasant named Sokka, and Suki, whose role she had stolen as part of her plot. She didn't talk as much about Katara, not until Azula had snapped at her and started an argument. She would not allow herself to be coddled or pitied, so fine, very well: tell your inane stories about Zuko and the Waterbender!

Toph didn't seem to be trying to hide anything, and sometimes amidst the silly stories of friendship and arguments over food, there were important facts. For instance, the water peasant Sokka was apparently behind the destruction of the entire fleet by taking control of one of them and running it into all of the others and then escaping the ships before it all crashed. He was, further, behind the plans at the Day of the Black Sun. These plans were flawed, but they were at least better planned than many of the escapades of this band of strange losers. She also learned that Sokka had had both a boomerang and 'Space Sword'. Whatever that was.

Also, she had learned that Toph had a very obvious, childish crush on him, and just as obviously only halfway realized it despite how obvious it was.

It was mildly more tolerable than Ty Lee thinking he was cute because she seemed to react to crushes by making fun of them and telling stories of the times they did stupid things or got tricked by her. Sokka apparently had fallen for several of Toph's blind jokes, and seemed to have been her joy to torment and tease him. She filed it away in case she could use it against either of them, but it was truly dull, all this nonsense about relationships. Of course, he was dating Suki, and Toph seemed quite impressed with her, too.

It was all very, very odd.

In exchange, Azula did occasionally deign to tell stories of her triumphs in the years after Zuko was exiled, and even carefully curated versions of her hunt for the Avatar. She did not linger on the team she'd gathered, except to mention it offhand. It truly did not matter, she had been the one in charge, and thus everything could be described without letting emotions touch it.

Toph's stories, meanwhile, had all sorts of emotions. She was driven by them, but they weren't only sappy ones. Indeed, she got angry at Azula twice in the month that followed that strange conversation that had, somehow, not ended in her departure. But she stayed and fought it out, unlike anyone she'd known well before: Zuko whined, Mai gave her the silent treatment, and Ty Lee always pretended it hadn't happened.

Toph fought back, and seemed to enjoy it, almost. And she kept on demanding that Azula read the books that she brought to her. She was bringing books Azula liked, and all sorts of little things that she gave no value. It was clear that she had grown up in a degree of luxury, and now that she was a valued guest she could get anything she wanted, whenever she wanted it. But she also didn't want much. Azula would have encouraged her to eat whatever nonsensical foods she actually enjoyed, but she was pretty sure Toph would have refused out of simple stubbornness.

Azula had identified the problem. She did not have a solution. In fact, she felt further from finding out how she was going to manipulate Toph to her side than before, now that she understood the full scope of what kept Toph from seizing power and authority and… all that she quite possibly deserved for being such an Earthbender.

She was pretty sure the stories were only lightly exaggerated, and there was something to be said for listening to the stories of someone who told them very differently than she'd expected. There was a lot more talking and descriptions of the nature of the stones, and no visuals at all except for a guess at the dumb looks on people's faces when they lost to her.

Toph also continued to demand that Azula read to her, and Azula resisted even despite the fact that Toph was her supplier of books. It was a vulnerability that meant that it would be foolish to bend any more. She kept this up, until one day she found the exact right book. It was a somewhat dull story in some ways, but it had interesting battle scenes that were almost something realistic. The author, she was guessing, had been a soldier for a time.

There was a battle in which the protagonist fought an army of Earthbenders in a major engagement, and while it was perhaps a little… vainglorious, it did seem to be almost like something that could happen! It would be good to hear what Toph thought about the war, because she seemed so dismissive of it, and yet she'd joined the Avatar. She hadn't done that because she cared about the war, but that didn't mean she didn't clearly operate under the delusion that the better side won.

That the world wouldn't have been better with the Fire Nation on top of it. Azula had to believe that. Toph honestly didn't even really dispute it. She just did the verbal equivalent of an eyeroll and let her talk and then either changed the subject or didn't as she willed. It was all its own puzzle.

But this day ("Yo, Princess!" and it did seem as if the nicknames said something about Toph's mood to the point where she had begun tracking them) she had reached the point, once the shaking that always came along with the door opening finished.

Toph asked if she would pretty please read some, and she said, "Very well," and sneered because she knew just what passage she'd read.

"Oh, great!" Toph said, voice filled with childish enthusiasm.

She flipped through slowly, carefully, just to make Toph annoyed and impatient. She could wait a thousand years, Azula was sure, and also no more than five minutes. "Here we go."

"He saw the Earth Kingdom hordes, their forces arranged into strong squads of Earthbenders defending the front line, as their cavalry attempted to flank around the pass, the dust rising like so many promises of death to come--death and victory, and the flames that consume the dead, that make hallowed the every sacrifice of brave Fire Nation soldiers, that make it an offering to the sun itself, and the ashes which can be made into fertilizer. Jiro thought of the destroyed village: men, women and children killed by vicious, animalistic Earthbender partisans, and about all that he'd done so far, and his fire grew hot with fury and with the strength of righteous vengeance!"

She read with gusto, for the book wasn't badly written, or at least it was the kind of thing she liked to read. He led the attack, and his men did well but he did better, slaying three Earthbenders all on his own, as the enemy continued to give way. All that stood in his way were a few elite Earthbenders who were coming from the reserves to rally, but she had read it before. He defeated them in just a few pages of frantic fighting.

It was just as she got to the description of one of the elite Earthbenders that Toph shouted out. "He was really tall and big, his stance a Third Resting Lotus, and his muscles like stone itself. He ducked down and set out a furious cloud of dust, choking the very flames themselves."

"What?" Azula asked, pulled out of the book.

"I was readin' what happened next," Toph said.

"That isn't what…" Azula began.

"Read from there! So the super cool Third Resting Lotus guy with the huge muscles just disrupted that lame Fire Nation dude's entire formation," Toph said.

Azula almost kept on reading from where she was. Instead she scanned the lines, and thought about what's his name and what he'd do to respond to that. "Jiro knew that the Earthbender had lungs just as anyone else, and so he couldn't be breathing easily either, and so he began to whip fire around, pulled from his core, to heat up the area nearest to the Earthbender, so that even if blocked he would triumph, his eyes flashing, his fire so hot that it was beyond the ken of other, lesser benders."

"The big guy roared, 'I am stronger than you' and began to dig downward, a series of gestures that dug up even more space as he shoved a huge boulder right in Jiro's direction, moving so fast it was a blur!"

"Jiro dodged, with grace and skill, rolling back and laughing in triumph at this fight he knew he would win for the glory and honor of the Fire Nation, and to save all the innocents that would die if this fiend triumphed," Azula shot back, deciding to try to annoy Toph into giving up and letting her actually read it to her. "He enjoyed this. A true challenge: as long as he won and his men survived too." She guessed. She didn't care about that that much, they just had to get out of the way and watch her win the entire battle on her own.

"But the Earthbender's booming laughing and quick movements grew only quicker, as he dug into the earth, felt it around him, his feet picking up Jiro's every move. 'Haha, you shall lose today, Fire Nation scum!' he declared, flexing his impressive muscles as he did."

Why did she care so much about him being big and strong? She didn't want to linger too much, because she felt a sort of pulse of the back and forth. It was like a battle, but with made up words, and if she hesitated too long she had no idea what annoying thing Toph would do next! She had gotten up, and she knew that before too long she'd be pacing like a tiger-jackal trapped in a too-small cage.

"But muscles mean so very little in true combat, Jiro knew, and he grinned and lashed out, faster and faster whirling flames that shifted the air itself, pushing away all the dust, pushing away everything, defining the world and defining that in all its beautiful splendor it would not include the muck and dust of the battle. And then he stood there, wreathed in flames, an ocean of blue all around her, its azure beauty as radiant as a second sun in the sky…"

"And yet the Earthbender stood untouched, feeling her every move through his feet," Toph shot back, not even pretending to actually be trying to paint any sort of image with her words, of course, blind as she was. Unlike Azula's efforts to craft a truly useful image. "And he began shifting the earth, left and then right, separating the enemy from each other and from his men, so that it would be just him and the azure-flamed - is that the stupid color you used? - firewielder."

"It is not stupid. Just because you've never seen colors," Azula began.

"I have, actually. Probably?" Toph said, and Azula stopped. What.

Toph had said it quietly, and just as quickly moved on, "And he bellowed out a challenge, confident that he would be the victor. His fists slamming the earth to send waves and to listen to the echo, to the silence and the feeling of his enemy."

Azula wanted to ask, but there was no room to ask, not if she didn't want to lose this book reading by letting Toph's obvious stand-in win!

"But Jiro," an actual character unlike Toph's character, who did not have a name because he was Toph except male, "Realized at once what must be done. Echolocation? Something of that nature, seeing through the earth itself. A clever trick, but nothing more than that. He grit his teeth and remembered his hours and hours of practice, and with a smile of triumph he took to the air, flames shooting out like a great beast, like a dragon itself, like…"

"Like someone who could use a smashing, as the Earthbender warrior shot rocks and more rocks at him, just to force him to dodge out of the way, just to mess with him: in a fight that is what it is. It's about keeping them off balance. If you're in charge, if it's some silly little dance and you're the leading partner, then the other guy's gonna eat rocks," Toph said, and Azula paused before she said more because that was at least a little interesting. She'd felt the same thing, of course: it was how she knew she could win against the Avatar even without her bending, on the Day of Black Sun. The whole time, she'd controlled the fight, and even when she 'lost' she controlled the fight.

(And then, when she fought against Zuko, she did not control the fight. She did not even control herself. She had been out of control and falling to pieces, when that hd been the thing that sh'ed been most proud of... Zuko had not won; Azula had defeated herself. Azula has to believe that if they fought again, on any better day for her or any worse day for him, with or without the Comet, she would win. All of that power, and she was too distracted, too weak, to use it the way she should have been able to. It made her look back and wonder how the Firebenders of old had done it, how they had defeated the vast Airbender armies with power they barely had any training in. But there was never truly a chance to ask the Avatar for a firsthand account, and besides from what she could tell he fled ahead of the war.)

"But control of a fight isn't something you hold, but something you seize, and Jiro was not going to give it up. Blue fire ate into the very earth itself, so hot that the world itself seemed to melt into nothing as he continued to fire, hitting harder and harder, surrounding the Earthbender in fire and tearing through his unit: if he could do that, then he would win whether or not he beat the Earthbender in a direct challenge. The Earthbender may have stamina, but he was not going to let a few boulders get in his way."

"Fifth rising smash," Toph said, as if that was an answer. "Into a earth spike, covering the fires to choke them out--"

"He dodged left--"

"Fifth rising smash attacks that direction, and so he's hit," Toph declared smugly, and Azula narrowed her eyes, not totally convinced Toph was telling the truth. But how would she know?

"But he was strong and pushed fire into the ground, rising unsteadily for a moment out of the way and then falling, pushing down with fire to soften the impact, knowing that he was now facing a foe whose defeat might save the entire battle. A foe who had not defeated him despite all the luck in the world, and yet who seemed to resist all his best efforts. Who seemed to…" Azula had an idea and she hated it. She hated that she had an idea of how this should go, and she hated that the idea she had was not actually a glorious one-sided victory, the way it was supposed to be. It was hard-fought, sure, but Jiro just outright won without even a single caveat. Well, there was this boring scene about the sheer destruction, however necessary, that war implies. But she'd always skimmed over that when she was younger.

Like, duh, war destroyed things. It was war! Fire burned you, water got you all wet, and Zuko failed. Facts of the world.

"I think I have an idea of what happens next," Azula said.

"I'd hope so, considering we're both readin' from the book," Toph said, not even pretending to take it seriously.

"If you'd follow my drift…" Azula said, and she hated this. This was the worst. But she had an idea and now she couldn't get out of my head.

"Maybe the book will, maybe it won't…" Toph said, an annoying laugh in her voice.

"Who seemed to only get stronger as if he was stretching his muscles. Jiro could not win without a longer fight than the army could survive. He would need to make this the final minute or two of the fight, and save his troops for a future fight. But he'd try one last thing. He surged forward and shot out a targeted blast, uncaring of what would come. And the blast hit the enemy's face, full on, the fire washing across it--"

"Yet," Toph began.

"Yet," Azula continued, "In leaving himself open, he was going to take a hard hit as well, a trade as if the heavens themselves were shining down on this brutal fight, this nightmare of triumph and blood and the glory of the Fire Nation, to mark two fated opponents, the clouds themselves clearing to let the sun view this battle, and so the two foes traded blows, neither fatal, both marking each other as rivals, as enemies!" She was pacing by now, but she was also gesturing because this was going to be the exciting part.

"The Earthbender's face burned, eyes closing with the heat, never to reopen again," Azula said in a low voice. "Blinded, and yet somehow strengthened."

"Oh," Toph breathed, and for a moment Azula struggled with a desire to ruin it, to destroy it, to shatter the moment into a thousand tiny little shards. But she didn't want to, not really. It was that feeling she'd had when she read a story, that desire to see a worse ending, and she pushed it down for the moment, unable to help grinning.

"And the Fire Nation warrior took a slash across his neck from a stalagmite, and across his chest, a blow, a wound that would… ache whenever the Earthbender was near," Toph said, clearly at least a little bit entranced by the idea. There wasn't quite a laugh in her voice now.

"He winced, but Jiro was stronger than this. Silver eyes like clouded moonlight stared out, as he gathered his forces, hearing the call for a retreat. The battle had been a wash, a bloody stalemate: better for the Fire Nation than the exhausted Earth Kingdom, but not the glorious victory he had dreamed of. Not yet, and so the people of this province were not yet safe. But the call to retreat sounded loud and blaring, and so he drew his forces back in a fighting retreat, his wound aching, aching, aching…" Azula whispered, and she was leaning forward now, as if she was going to pounce. "End chapter."

Toph seemed for a moment stunned before she burst out laughing, but a different sort of laugh, "That was fun!" Toph shouted, stomping her feet so hard that the whole prison seemed to shake and rock.

"It was mildly amusing," Azula admitted, reluctantly. "What was that about seeing and not remembering?" She was going to be trying to think it through like it was a silly children's riddle for a while.

"Oh, I'll tell you that some other time," Toph said, and she could imagine the waved-off gesture.

"And the big guy?"

"Oh, did you ever see the Ember Island Players?" Toph asked. "Well, I didn't see them, but they had some Fire Nation propaganda stuff. Everyone else hated their portrayals, but I got a big muscle-y guy who liked to smash things. So, I liked it? So why not."

"You're admitting he is basically you?" Azula asked.

"Yeah, yeah. It's not as if anyone else has blue fire, Sparks," Toph said. "I know that "Azure"'s just blue for fancy people, whatever blue's like."

"It is not," Azula protested, and then they were off arguing about something she was aware was nonsense. But perhaps she would read to Toph again, sometime. Actually read to her. Or something. It had not ended quite as humiliatingly as she feared, and it might be a useful avenue to further her schemes…

Perhaps. It was something to consider.

---

Toph was humming a little to herself as she walked back, her mood brighter and more buoyant than it'd been in a while. Even beating Zuko didn't have quite the same thrill as this. She walked along, feeling a whole world under her feet, and yet not the one she'd imagined in her head. It was weird, because she'd always been a little bored by stories, ever since she started really Earthbending. But it was fun.

She…

The thought hit Toph all at once, and without even thinking about it she turned and punched her fist through the wall as her good mood was dissolved in tides of incredulity and worry. Oh no.

Drat! she thought, I'm friends with Azula.

She understood, with a sinking feeling, that if it ended well for her it'd be the first person who'd ever thought Azula was her friend who had ended well. She was also pretty aware that Azula was probably just manipulating her, and certainly didn't think of her as a friend. She couldn't say it was a disaster, but it was not a very warm and fuzzy feeling. She was Toph, she wasn't afraid of anything. But she was… maybe just a little nervous.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

VM AN: Azula and Toph's exciting fanfiction storytime! I think Azula does some pretty interesting stuff in this one - making Toph's "definitely not Toph" OC get blinded "winning" so he could be more like Toph was honestly very sweet of her? And Toph now has to reckon with being "friends" with Azula. That's never ended super good for anyone, so far. Maybe she'll be the exception!

TL AN: There's an internet cliche, "[Gender Pronoun] should be at the club" for when a character is going through shit at an age where presumably they'd be doing something else. Azula is fourteen during the bulk of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which ran in our universe from 2005 to 2008. Azula shouldn't have been at the club. She should have been on Livejournal, writing and posting legitimately terrible cringeworthy Mary Sue fanfic of her favorite problematic, objectively terrible shows. This is my stance and I'll stand by it. Instead, she's in prison.

 

[veteranMortal]

Chapter 13: Doing Flips

It was great to be back in the Fire Nation. Great was the word, for Ty Lee had been trying out words the whole way. It didn't feel like it was good, or bad, and it certainly did not feel entirely joyous. No, great was the word, a word that had the implication of bigness, of grandness. There were going to be friends and bad memories alike, but she knew to keep chipper and just focus on what she could affect. It was pointless to be worrying about things you could control, and you also couldn't control anything after you'd done it. So there was no need to worry about that either. And if she was upset about anything or anyone - not that she was! - then it would only upset and annoy other people, and that was hardly worth the trouble!

Sure, it was easy to say and hard to do. But she knew how it went.

The soldiers that tied up her ship - an Earth Kingdom vessel, part of the navy they'd been rushing to get built over the last year - were decidedly surly, staring daggers at the Earth Kingdom naval crew, who were bristling in turn. It was understandable - the soldiers at the capital had let an invasion force into their city on the day of the Black Sun, and Ty Lee could see the indignation and stung pride in their auras.

It hardly made for pleasant company on the long walk to the palace, but Ty Lee would have to get used to it - she was a Kyoshi Warrior now! The Fire Nation might be where she was from, but - judging by the sideways glances from the guards - she wasn't part of it any more. She hummed, kept her feet light, skipping along all airy.

Cresting into Caldera itself always stole her breath, the city spread out across the heart of the volcano. Somewhere in there, her family were going about their lives. They didn't know she was back, and she didn't feel especially interested in seeking them out, but they were there.

She should ask Mai how they were doing - Mai would know, Ty Lee had no doubt. She took in a deep breath, centered herself. The city smelt different now. During the war, the oily smog from shipyards and tank factories was almost choking except on ceremony days, when the fires would be banked down. Now, under Zuko, the smog was gone. The city still smelt jarringly mechanical to Ty Lee, after so long on Kyoshi Island, but it was different from before. Better than before.

The palace was still as it ever was, Ty Lee noted with fading enthusiasm. Nobles whispered of her arrival, and every room was either icily cold, unheated stone, with pale patches on the walls where weapons and banners captured in the Earth Kingdom had been hastily removed, or searingly hot, with open fires burning wherever you looked, surround by nobles looking no more comfortable in the heat in tightly tailored robes than they had in show-armour under Ozai.

Zuko, at least, looked happy to see her, breaking off his conversation with a stout looking man with truly impressive sideburns to make his way over to Ty Lee, offering her his arm.

She took it without hesitation, partly to see the reactions flickering through the auras of everyone in the room, and partly because she really ought to try to be better friends with Zuko, for Mai's sake. Zuko glanced around for a moment, then headed for a side room, where they could speak privately. He was still skittish around the Palace; years of fear that any words might be reported to their father had left both his children with a disdain for talking about anything of note in public.

"How are things on Kyoshi Island?" Zuko asked, his colors brightening, if tipped with purple-ish envy. He didn't like the job of Fire Lord, she knew that, but she'd heard all sorts of people say how well he was doing. Or at least, when she'd snuck through the Fire Nation months ago to look around there were charities for the sick and war veterans, and programs opening up to try to… all that stuff. She knew the specifics, but it wasn't important. What was more important than what he was doing was that he was still clearly a bit miserable with the job. The colors were right there. No doubt he'd be happier if he wasn't in charge of the Fire Nation.

She got the arguments, and she'd already tried a few times to convince him to do something else. He was a good person, why should he get all… bunched up over things he didn't want to do. "Everyone's doing well," She said brightly, "Suki just thought I might want to spend some time back home with my family!"

That wasn't strictly a lie. It was a positive spin, certainly, but it was close enough to true, and she wouldn't want to worry Zuko. He had a lot on his plate. So what if she happened to be taking some time away whilst everyone was focused so much on Sokka and Suki, arguing about Kyoshi Warrior traditions no one had ever explained to Ty Lee? That wasn't anyone's business but hers, and it wasn't like it bothered her.

Besides, she had missed Mai. She'd missed Zuko, sure, but they'd never been friends really. She missed Azula too, but she shouldn't.

"Well, we're always happy to see you," Zuko said, "Mai will be pleased to have another friendly face, at least."

Ty Lee noted with a little concern the yellow little veins of anxiety that pulsed in Zuko's aura at that.

"Is Mai well?" She asked, her tone carefully innocent.

Sometimes Ty Lee thought that Iroh was the only one in the whole family who was actually free. Even then, the old guy's aura was always tinged with colors that looked somber on him. He'd gotten out, sure? But at a cost. Of course, maybe Zuko would be happier once everything settled down. And she knew he was happy with Mai, and Mai with him: they positively glowed with an aura of love every time she saw them together, including this time.

"As well as she can be," Zuko said, and the veins of anxiety grew as he did. "She's taking on too much, worrying about too many things. Maybe you can talk to her about letting some of it lie, because I certainly can't."

"I can try!" Ty Lee said brightly, "It can't be harder than how silly Suki and Sokka are being about everything, at least."

"Silly how?" Zuko asked.

"Oh, you know how it is." Oh yeah, it was a secret, and 'not hers to tell' even if the secrecy was silly. Why would it matter? It wasn't anyone else's business what Sokka and Suki did. "But I can tell you all about Kyoshi island." He needed to know there existed places where things were just getting better. Where there were more Kyoshi warriors and people were recovering from everything… he'd done terrible things to Kyoshi Island the first time he'd been there, but she was sure if he went now they'd acknowledge that he'd changed and that he was helping bring peace to the world.

Not everything was great exactly, but there'd been a war a little over a year and a half ago, and now there wasn't, and she didn't know if everyone gossiping knew how big that was. They didn't seem to understand it, or rather they were already asking what came next. She didn't know, but she was sure it was going to be stupendous! (That was her word of the day, she'd begun trying to use a new word every day! It seemed like it'd be fun.)

Zuko listened, and she saw it, the way his aura softened, the way that hope slowly invaded where he had been carefully keeping it out for fear that it'd be too much. It was all so obvious to her, to the extent that she wondered how others couldn't just look and tell.

---

Mai always appeared in shades of blue and black, in colors varied and strange and yet all so similar. She kept herself so controlled that sometimes Ty Lee couldn't even read her aura, because she was someone who belonged to herself alone. But she was still a good friend, and she seemed eager to talk to Ty Lee. She was lonely too, and she too didn't seem to like the role she'd been thrust into. She wanted to be Zuko's girlfriend, and she was probably willing to marry him one day.

The Fire Lady, on the other hand, was by any boring standard, someone with a thousand duties. There were plenty of people who would kill to be Fire Lady, since imagining being Fire Lord took a lot more… intent, in its way, than imagining being the Fire Lady. But Mai didn't want it at all. They were both trapped, but they were trapped together, weren't they? She had to keep optimistic that they'd both work things out.

Mai at least didn't ask awkward questions about Sokka, and instead kept the whole conversation about Kyoshi Island in general and Ty Lee in particular.

Not once did they talk about Azula, in a way that… felt like they were talking about Azula? Ty Lee wasn't quite sure of it, but she was sure she'd figure out why Mai was not talking about Azula in that particular way, whereas last time she'd just not been talking about Azula.

---

Toph found her on her second day in the palace, and Ty Lee was surprised it'd taken that long. Toph always challenged her to a fight when she came here, and Ty Lee always agreed because sparring with her was fun. Toph's aura was familiar by now, though oddly fascinating in a way. Her own aura was as pink as could be, both Toph was green and gold and brown, and while the green and brown were pretty normal for trained Earthbenders, the gold was a color she'd mostly seen on people at the circus. Toph was a performer, someone who liked putting on a show. Toph didn't just want to win, she wanted to dance on top of her defeated foe.

She was a show-off, and Ty Lee knew that she missed Earth Rumble and all those chances to do more than just fight against Zuko.

But now there was something else, a little bit of blue at the edges of her aura, a sort of cobalt shimmer of confidence and defiance. The edge of a mirror held against the world like a shiv (a fun word she'd learned about when she was in prison!), and this edge cut even the hand that held it.

She didn't like to think like that, and it wasn't all bad.

"Ty Lee, I need to talk to you."

"Oh, of course! Your aura is looking very… interesting today."

Actually it was looking wild. It was looking as if Toph was feeling so many things at once she couldn't even sort them out. It was like a painting that got all drippy because it was in the rain. And then it looked sad and you knew that the artist… well, it was basically like that!

Toph was confused about something? She thought that's what it meant, but she couldn't always read her own sense of auras, except to know that they were usually right.

"We'll need to find some room or something," Toph said, and she reached out and grabbed Ty Lee's arm and began dragging her. Ty Lee laughed and went along with it, giggling when Toph threw open a door, stuck her head in and said, "Oh" before closing it on a pair of nobles having a conversation or something like it.

It took three or four rooms before she found an empty one, and Ty Lee took a moment to pick up a carafe of water and water some sadly drooping bouquets of flowers, for this room seems to have been used as a dining space? She wasn't sure, but she took it all in even as Toph clearly was just waiting for her to be done. The longer she took in exploring the room, the antsier Toph looked. Toph was not quite tapping her feet, but she seemed as if at any moment she would be.

"Okay, so what can I help you with?" Ty Lee asked.

"I… think I'm friends with Azula."

Ty Lee had not expected that, and she blinked, There was joy in her, and this sinking feeling. "Oh! That's great! Azula really could use the…" she said, aware that she was being just a little too chipper.

"I can feel you, you know," Toph pointed out.

"But it is great!" Ty Lee said, though she still had the sinking feeling.
Toph sighed. "I know that it's kinda not worked out for anyone else who thought Azula was their friend."

She had thought for a moment she was going to be killed. She wasn't, and she was sure it was because Azula still cared… a bit. Enough? She tried to be happy talking to Azula, and Azula wasn't always cruel to her. But she'd not missed her talks with Azula. "You're talking with her? Between those doors?"

"Yep. I've been talking with her for months. We argue," Toph said, and there was something soft and almost gentle about her aura in a way that Ty Lee hadn't actually expected to see on Toph. Toph was a good person, but that moment of softness… she was sure that.

She was sure that it was like a jaguar-dog. If you ran away from them, they'd pounce at you even if they liked you because it was in their instinct. Azula would jump on these things, even if…

Ty Lee found her thoughts doing that, when she thought about Azula. She didn't like it, and she was Azula's friend. Or she wanted to be able to be, and wasn't that the same thing, basically?

"Oh," Ty Lee said, "And… you're worried she isn't your friend back?"
"Honestly, yeah?" Toph said, rubbing the back of her head, a nervous tic. "I can't talk to Zuko about it, he'd freak out and tell me all the worst things."

Ty Lee… couldn't disagree. They loved each other, but every time she came, she could actually feel his love getting a little bit shabbier, his aura more distant. All he saw of her was her in a cage, and Ty Lee knew how mean Azula could be when she was in a foul mood. She had no idea how Toph had… well, but she knew there was a friend for everyone! Usually more than one. She couldn't help Azula, but she did want to.

She wanted to. So much. "I could talk to her," Ty Lee said, with a smile. "See what she'll say?"

"I dunno," Toph said, but it was just grumpiness and… oh. Possessiveness. That was fun. It made her want to do flips, because while it wasn't good to cling onto things too tight, that didn't mean that it wasn't at least a little nice that someone was thinking about Azula.

She worried that Azula would feel forgotten, locked in prison. Sometimes she worried Azula would be forgotten, locked in prison. Sometimes she forgot Azula, locked in prison.

"I think I'll do it," Ty Lee said, and decided she wasn't going to let Toph convince her otherwise.

---

She did not hear the "Yo, Sparky" or anything like it as the door groaned and the room rumbled under the assault of the opening door. So Azula knew it wasn't Toph. "Good afternoon," she said, absently, not sure which one it was. Mai? Zuko? Ty Lee?

"Hey, Azula," Ty Lee said, sounding a little off.

"Ah, so you are back," Azula said. "What's the occasion? You didn't quite swear never to see me again, but has the circus come back to the palace?"

"I'm with the Kyoshi warriors for now," Ty Lee said cheerfully, as if Azula had not just poked hard on a weak point. It was different from the way that Toph shrugged off her attempts or replied, just a little too cheerful. "I've come here to visit with all my friends."

"Then what brings you to my cell?" Azula said. She spread her arms, though she knew that Ty Lee couldn't see it.

"You're one of my friends, Azula," Ty Lee insisted, though to Azula's ears it sounded just a little bit weak.

"Is that so?" Azula asked, already a little bored.

"And I've heard that Toph's coming to visit you," Ty Lee continued.

Azula tensed, "What did she say?" She wondered whether Toph had been spreading stories of their conversations. It might make sense, considering the way that both Zuko and then later Mai had reacted to the possibility of her interacting with Toph. "Are you worried, Ty Lee? Worried about what I'll do?"

"No, of course not," Ty Lee said, in a chipper voice. "I'm happy for you, that you're friends with Toph."

Friends? How absurd. Azula didn't have friends; it had turned out that even when she thought she might have followers close to friends, they were actually just enemies waiting for their chance to betray her. They'd found the perfect moment, and they had paid the price. Yet she still let them visit her. She even let Ty Lee pretend there was anything there that had not been burned to ashes.

"I am not friends with Toph," Azula finally said, making a fire of the frustration and holding it in one hand, letting it build shadows in the room lit only by a single other candle. The shadows were calming, because they were proof that light was being cast out. "She's my enemy, she just is… willing to actually talk, and more likely to stab me in the front, rather than the back. Unlike some I might name, but am too magnanimous to do so." She made sure that her tone said what she was too lordly to do directly. She was willing to pretend to forgive Ty Lee's betrayal and allow Ty Lee to grovel over her mistakes, but like an elephant-turtle, she would not forget a slight.

"Azula," Ty Lee began.

"Ty Lee," Azula replied, as blandly as she could. "I am bored here, and she can sometimes be amusing in her absurd way. She is not made of sticks, she does not burn. And it can be interesting to talk to her, on occasion," Azula said.

"Oh, Azula, I'm glad you made such a good friend," Ty Lee said.

"She's not my friend. As I said, she's an enemy, but she's an enemy who I can chat with, because I'm behind bars. No doubt once I get out she will be an enemy, but there is nothing she can do to me that your darling Zuzu and all of you haven't already done."

She hated it. She hated this cell that she only left to get just enough sun that she merely felt deprived rather than falling apart. She was in chains the whole time whenever they took her out--arms, legs, even her mouth just in case she spat fire. And it never lasted long enough.

She was glad that Toph didn't seem to pay it any mind, because the thought of Toph 'seeing' her in such a moment was genuinely annoying. She'd no doubt have dry comments about that, too. Or rude questions. She'd prefer that to the very distant possibility that there might be any pity.

"So, you don't think she's a friend… then what is she?" Ty Lee asked.

"An enemy with whom I have sometimes had diverting conversation with," Azula conceded. "Compared to most people, she is capable of saying something worth hearing, if only rarely. Were she not an enemy she might be an acquaintance that I sometimes have friendly conversation with."

Ty Lee made a sound that reminded Azula unfairly of a tea kettle. "What?"

"Oh, Azula, it's so sweet," Ty Lee said.

Sweet? She was the furthest thing from sweet! "What."

"What do you talk about?" Ty Lee asked. "You don't have to tell me, but…"

"She's annoying," Azula said. "Keeps on trying to get me to read her books aloud."

"I see," Ty Lee said, thoughtfully.

"She doesn't," Azula said.

Ty Lee snorted, and started giggling, "Oh, Azula."

Azula couldn't help it, and she lashed out with frustration, "You laugh at everything. And talk too much." And smile even (especially) when it's a lie, a pretense that she didn't seem able to just drop no matter what. Nobody could actually be that happy, all the time. Or even half the time. Or, honestly, more than once in a while. A great part of most emotions were frustrating to have and frustrating to deal with. Of course, she knew how to do it because she was a Princess and perfect, barring perhaps a few… bad days.

Ty Lee gave another giggling snort, and Azula could imagine her halfway doubled over with held-in hilarity. "Azula, please tell me more."

Azula should push harder. She knew how to drive Ty Lee away. But honestly, right now, she's bored. And tired. She was so tired of her own emotions, sometimes. Azula sighed, looking to the far wall, and began talking.

---

Ty Lee's footfalls were a little bit like Aang's. There was something so familiar about it. She'd been thinking a lot ever since Ty Lee ran off. She hated worrying at it, like one of those loose teeth. She'd had a tooth knocked out one day when she was eight and practicing bending, and she'd had to smile without her teeth the whole time for long enough that her parents wouldn't notice or would think it was something less suspicious. They'd still been freaked out anyway.

She thought it was boring, to care that much about whatever Ty Lee was saying about Azula. But what if Ty Lee said something that messed it up? She wasn't afraid of showing that she liked her friends in general, but she was pretty sure with Azula she'd have to make sure not to say the 'F' word unless she was very sure she'd react well to it. But… maybe Ty Lee would know whether she was going to say that.

Or maybe she'd just never say it and they'd be hanging out for years without even saying it. That could probably be okay, too. Toph didn't like feeling strange like that. But she'd admittedly never had what the stupid books Azula read seemed to think was the "normal" friend experience. She'd been thrown in with the Gaang (she liked Sokka's stupid name for it, honestly) and had to adapt, and that'd been hard but there'd been plenty of people to bounce off of once she stopped staying all on her own. She'd never met a single person and become friends with them by talking and finding things in common. They'd all had something in common, and it was the Avatar.

And also that the Fire Nation sucked. She still kinda thought it did, even if she'd not really been that invested in the war. It was just something that happened somewhere else, something terrible and bad but not her business because she had Earthbending to master.

The weird thing was that the war felt closer now that it was over and she could read (or have it read to her, whatever) the kind of nonsense the Fire Nation peddled than before she'd joined the Avatar. Even running around with Aang, it hadn't felt… entirely there? It was an adventure. But honestly there wasn't anything adventure-like about some of that Dragon-Moose dung

So she perked up when she felt Ty Lee's approach, and by the time Ty Lee was in "sight" she had already turned towards her and was waiting. "Hey, I talked to Azula, and I'm pretty sure you're friends! She didn't say it, because sometimes she can be mean, but she showed you with compliments!" Ty Lee was literally bouncing, appearing and disappearing in Toph's earthsense, though she knew enough to know exactly where and how Ty Lee would fall. "She actually really likes you," Ty Lee said, and her heart said she was telling the truth, but she also seemed nervous.

"Oh, good," Toph said faintly, because it didn't feel all the way good. There was something…

"But I do have some advice, just a few things to know, since you and Azula are friends!" Ty Lee said, in a voice so chipper it made her think of Joo Dee. "First, she's not going to say sorry. If she does something wrong and hurts you, she's never gonna apologize, okay? She might, like, forgive you for getting angry or hurt by it," Ty Lee said absently, shifting her weight. "Or pretend it never happened, but she's not going to just say sorry."

And, fair. Toph hated saying sorry too, but the way she said it… Toph didn't want to say it, but she had to wonder whether Azula had just been a terrible friend to Ty Lee. Honestly, probably? She remembered hearing about Ty Lee and Mai being locked up by Azula, which wasn't exactly how a friendship was supposed to end.

(Funnily enough, though, being locked up was how… what she hoped really was their friendship had begun.)

"Second, sometimes she's just going to insult you--"

"For fun? Yeah, I know that part, Lightfoot," Toph snorted.

"And she won't like it if you go away from her. She's… possessive of her friends."

Toph thought of how Azula had tried to drive Toph away, into the arms of Zuko's offer, despite not wanting to, and wondered: was that new? Had she never done that before with someone she liked? Toph frowned, and tapped her feet, trying to think. It all felt like something where she had to talk to Azula, really talk to her, just smack her in the face with the truth and see what she did. But she wasn't sure how she would… hm.

No, she'd need to be more careful? Or would she? Toph Beifong, Greatest Earthbender Alive, had never been careful before! (It had never felt as important.)

"Gotcha, thanks," Toph said.

"What is it?" Ty Lee asked.

"I have to go talk to her," Toph decided, and then she decided that this was enough hesitation. "Oh, and do you want to spar sometime before you leave again?"

Ty Lee sounded confused, "You don't want to ask more about what I said?"

"Oh, I guess," Toph said with a shrug. "But I kinda just want to talk to her."

"Oh, great," Ty Lee cheered. "Good luck!"

"I don't need luck," Toph said with a grin, and marched off.

veteranMortal: Ty Lee's here! She's not totally happy that Azula has a friend now, which makes sense, because Azula historically has not been great at having friends. It was fun to try to get into her headspace because it's pretty different from Azula or Toph, but also kinda similar in some ways? She is committed to putting a brave face on things.

The Laurent: Ty Lee just wants what's best for everyone, which is easier said than done. A lot easier, actually.

 

[The Laurent]

Chapter 14: The Truth…

Azula heard the familiar sounds of the door grinding open, and couldn't help but smile to herself just a little bit. After the strange conversation with Ty Lee, some of which may get conveyed back to Toph, she would appreciate knowing just what scheme Toph had going. "Yo, Ashy," Toph called through the door - maybe a little more chipper than usual?

"Hello Toph," Azula said. "You didn't bring any stupid books you want me to read for you, do you? I'm almost bored enough to… graciously accede to your request." Azula was settled on her bed so Toph couldn't sense her; she was pretty sure it put the other girl slightly off-balance, which amused her.

"Well, suppose I did," Toph said, "That's the sort of thing friends do, isn't it?"

Azula sat up on her bed, uncaring that Toph would hear her blankets rustle. "Excuse me?"

"I said that's the sort of thing friends do," Toph replied, a teasing lilt in her voice that set Azula's teeth on edge, "Ty Lee told me, you know. You told her we're friends."

"I did no such thing," Azula said sharply, "Because we aren't."

"Oh, she said you'd say that, too," Toph said airily, "She said "Oh, Toph, don't worry, Azula's a big meanie, but I understand what she means, and she likes you! You're friends now!" before she skipped away."

"And what would Ty Lee know about me?" Azula replied acidly, "She's run off to join a brand new matching set, just like her last one, she's hardly a bastion of insightfulness."

"Hmm," Toph hummed, "She was very sure, though. It won't kill you if you acknowledge that we're friends, you know? Might be good for you, even!"

Azula scoffed, "We aren't friends, Beifong. Leave it."

Toph let out a little huff of annoyance. Azula could almost see her setting her jaw, frustrated.

"Fine then," She said tartly, "I brought some books for my friend Azula, but I shan't waste my time giving them to you otherwise!"

"Are you trying to threaten me, Beifong?" Azula replied, a dangerous undercurrent threading through her voice, "I would have thought at some point in your little talk, dear Ty Lee would've mentioned what happened to the last foolish girls who believed they could be my friends and that would let them do whatever they pleased to me?"

"And what if I am?" Toph asked, defiantly, "What would you do about it? Am I meant to be scared to end up like Ty Lee and Mai? Ty Lee's a Kyoshi Warrior now, and Mai's nearly the Fire Lady!"

Azula flinched, then hated herself for it. Sometimes she told herself it was only a sign of her own talent for selecting accomplices that allowed Ty Lee and Mai to land so well on their feet. Today was not one of those times.

"Well," She said softly, "I suppose that begs the question - why would I want to be your friend, Beifong?"

Toph paused for just a hair too long, and Azula's mouth curled almost involuntarily into a smirk. "What's that supposed to mean, Sparks?"

"Oh," Azula masterfully feigned surprise, "You already know, don't you? Did someone tell you this already? The Avatar? The Waterbender? That boomerang totting peasant?"

Toph didn't reply.

"Oh, I bet they did, didn't they? Sat down with you, serious as death, and said-"

"Shut up," Toph said, quietly, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"They said "Toph, is something wrong? Only, you seem bored" and you didn't know how to answer because you were bored of them. And so you came to the Fire Nation, hoping Zuko would entertain you - terrible choice, by the way, Zuzu can barely entertain himself," Azula's voice was like velvet around a dagger, and she found she couldn't stop. "And then once you got bored of him, where did you go but here, to find me. Why would I want to be your friend, Beifong? You'll just get bored and leave, we both know it."

"That's not true," Toph mumbled, "I-"

"You'll go off to the colonies," Azula continued, "And you'll be Zuko's hatchet against the gangs and the bandits, until you get bored of that, too."

"Azula, please," Toph said, "Stop it."

"And once you're bored of that," Azula pushed and pushed, feeling sick. But Toph had pressed her, wanted things from here she wouldn't give, couldn't give. She deserved this. "You'll probably quit. Maybe by then you'll be an adult, old enough to know you want more than this. But you'll be too afraid to risk being trapped to do anything about it, so you'll convince yourself you don't need more than this."

Toph made a sort of half protest, which Azula ignored, forced her way past.

"And then you'll be all alone, having cut off everyone who could ever care for you, and you'll tell yourself you're free and happy but you won't be. And you won't even notice the bars you won't be able to break, because you'll have built them yourself!" Azula finished, her voice triumphant, despite the aggravating wobble at the end that she can't quite repress.

"Look," Toph said, and her voice was wet. She made Toph cry, Azula realised. "Maybe you don't think we're friends. I think you do, and you just don't want us to be friends, but we are. We were. We were friends. I won't let you pretend we weren't, okay?"

Azula swallowed. She wanted to reply, to stab home again, but the words caught in her throat.

"I like you, you know?" Toph said, "You're funny, you're smart, you're almost as good a firebender as I am an earthbender… So I just…"

She trailed off, and Azula heard the sound of her head hitting the metal of her door.

"Why?" Toph sounded almost plaintive and certainly confused, and under other circumstances, Azula might've mocked her sincerity. "I don't understand. We were getting on well! We had something, here? We were good! Why do you do this, Sparky?"

Azula wet her lips, "Beifong, you kept insisting we were friends, all I was doing was correcting you. This is your fault, not mine."

"Oh give it a rest, Ashy." Toph said, sounding angry for the first time. Relief burst in Azula's chest, a paradoxical feeling - at least she wasn't crying now. Anger was what she expected from Toph, not sadness. "You can't just have a tantrum and refuse all responsibility! If we aren't friends, it's because you relentlessly destroy any effort anyone makes to care about you! Honestly, I don't know why I bothered! I guess at least Zuko'd be pleased to know you're able to care about people, even if you're still too messed up to be able to admit it."

She paused for breath, but before Azula could formulate a breath, she continued.

"I don't think I'll tell him, though." Her tone was resolved, "Honestly, I'd rather put this all behind me. Not think about it any more. Not think about you any more."

"Why not?" Azula asked incredulously.

"It's honestly a little embarrassing," Toph said.

"What is?"

"Wasting all this time. Is it wasted, I don't even know anymore! All I know is that this is all a little silly, and I don't want to tell anyone about it. Because, Azula, I can sense when you're lying! You don't have control of yourself anymore. Honestly, it's why I came to see you that first time; I wanted to see if you could still lie to me. And you can't, Platypus-Bear."

"Of course I can. I still, after all, have my pink platypus-bear horns and silver tail, don't I?" Azula said lazily, absently, feeling… she wasn't sure what. It was the truth. It was the truth she did not want to face, that perhaps they had chatted idly, that perhaps there was something to regret. Because she knew that tone of voice. The second to last time Mai had talked to her, there was that same final tone… or perhaps she'd only imagined the tone. Mai never showed anything. But that didn't mean she didn't feel anything.

Toph giggled. "That's it, you're funny sometimes! You're all broody and no doubt sure you're the coolest Firebender around, but you can be fun to talk to. You are! If you were boring I never would have bothered to come here a second time."

"And now you are bored, is that it?" Azula asked, standing up. She kept her tone even, tried to pull on her control. She was in control, her heart, her body, nothing would betray any truth she did not want to tell. "Just like I said. You're bored of me, so you came to pick a fight, so you can leave with your conscience clean?"

"Nah. I really did want to be friends, you know? I wasn't lying. But you know, I basically had no friends at all, and then a bunch of friends I'd take on the world for. I've had good friends, friends I'd risk anything for, and, Zula, you aren't that." Toph sounded somewhere between gleeful and heartbroken. "You're just a sad little girl locked in a box."

Sad.

Azula smirked. "Oh, and like you're any better? Thinking you're in control of anything, thinking that the one in control isn't your whims?"

"My whims? Whaddaya mean by that?" Toph asked, and she sounded both angry and confused.

"It's like I've said. You've crashed from place to place - first you left your family on a whim, and committed to that whim so hard that you've burnt that bridge to ashes and left yourself no way back, because you'd need to admit a decision made in a split second might've been wrong! And sure, your parents were awful, so maybe that's no harm! But now you've left your friends, even the Avatar, right when he needs to be pulling our war torn world back together," Azula said, unable to quite prevent the little derision in that last, "So all on a whim, you've let them all down. But you got to the end of the war, so maybe that's understandable - certainly darling Zuzu has done the same! But at a certain point, you have to wonder if there's something wrong with you, that you should be able to do something but aren't. It isn't just boredom, Toph. There's something deeper wrong with you. And please, do not be so boring as to try to turn it around on me."

Azula smirked, because there were moments where the pain was easier if you claimed it.

"I know I'm a monster who cannot love or be loved," Azula said, and there was pride in it: you cannot lose a game if there was never any way to win it. If you never played at all. "And yet here you are, broken up about me. I can feel it, you thought I was something other than what I was. Pathetic."

"You're so stupid, Sparky," Toph asked. "Monster? You're just a stupid little girl who got her feelings hurt because her parents sucked and her brother was annoying. Wah wah, woe is me, blah blah blah," Toph spat out, each word perfectly crafted to tear her to pieces. The right words. The wrong words. "People love you, oh no! How can you ever stand it! It can't be your mistakes driving everyone away, can it? Not perfect Azula! She works so hard, never puts a hair out of place! Pr… prodigal Azula! She doesn't make mistakes. And sure, you're pretty strong, but you aren't as strong as me, you don't get to need nobody."

"My mistakes?" Azula scoffed.

"People love you Azula! Or at least they like you, like I did, before you ruined it," Toph said. "And then you do what you do and you destroy it, and then we're yelling at each other and you're being a jerk! Not even in a fun way!"

"A fun way?" Azula asked. She smirked and stepped forward, trying not to let out the anger that seemed to be building up and up, trapped here and forced to listen to Toph's childish nonsense, with no other choice but to engage in the stupid game when she knew how it'd end. She knew that this would be it, the last time she saw Toph. She knew that she'd… no. No, it wasn't the case. Toph was talking a bunch of nonsense. Worse than nonsense. "How would you like me to be then, Toph? You're the expert on being a good little prisoner, so instruct me! Tell me how to entertain you."

Toph sighed, a heavy, exhausted noise. "You can't help yourself. Whenever you have something real, something true, you can't help but burn it, just to see the fire, because you don't think you deserve more than ash."

Azula wasn't sure how, but she knew, somehow, that Toph was about to leave.

"Seeya, Ashmaker."

Bare feet padded on stone, and the great metal door to her cell screeched in protest as it slammed shut, the sound echoing louder than ever before.

When she thought Toph was probably far enough away she couldn't sense it, Azula screamed, and cerulean flames screamed with her.


veteranMortal: Oh dear.

The Laurent: Well, what is there to say? A lot to think about here. A lot of subtle details.

 

[veteranMortal]

Chapter 15: …Will Forever Bind You

Toph was annoyed.

"So I really would advise you to perhaps wait a few more days, she's only just been settled back into her cell an hour or two ago," some big boring guard said. He was huge, really, so big she wondered how he didn't hit his head on anything, and his voice was the low rumble of thunder. He was not the guard captain, but she'd seen the way others reacted around him. He was probably the scariest of the guards around here.

Toph could take him.

"You blew me off yesterday, you're not doing it again today," Toph said. She was aware her voice was somewhere between a snarl and a whine. "I don't care whatever mood Sparky was in, I could have talked to her."

"She was burning all of her things. The books you had us bring included," the guard said. "She was having one of her stupid little temper tantrums, the spoiled brat."

"Temper tantrums? Her?" Toph asked. "If she was having one of those you'd be needing new eyebrows." Still, she could imagine it. She wondered what had set it off, and then she found herself doing something she hadn't wanted to do: worrying. Was Azula okay? Toph still hadn't gotten to talk to her about the whole Ty Lee thing, maybe she'd decided that anyone knowing that she had a soft, mushy center meant she had to burn the entire world down.

Honestly, if that was the case, Toph could kinda relate. She sorta hated admitting when she was vulnerable. She hated being vulnerable too, because she'd spent most of her life pretending to be helpless and vulnerable, when her own strength was the weakness she had to hide. So yeah, she got it.

It still didn't help the fact that she'd had things planned out, down to the opening sentence. ("Yo Sparky, I was talkin' to Ty Lee about something." Sparky was one of the nicer nicknames compared to Spiky for how her armor was, or Ashy which was about how she left ashes in her wake, or Zappy, or Platypus-Bear or Princess or…)

She'd had other words planned too. Be a little careful, be a little daring. Maybe roll her eyes and humor her, tell Azula if she broke out she'd finally be able to get in a good spar. Or something?

"She's not so tough. She's just a child," the guard boasted. Toph hadn't bothered to remember his name, but she decided she'd remember his tone of voice. "I… suppose you can go in, but try not to rile her up."

"When have I ever riled anyone up, Big Guy?" Toph asked, and she punched his arm teasingly. "I'm the perfect picture of ladylike caution and kindness." She made sure to lean hard into the aristocratic accent, but kept her tone rough. It was a fun combination, really.

He didn't bother responding. Azula would have snapped back, he just grunted angrily and no doubt glared at her or whatever it is people did when she offended them.

She didn't care.

---

"Yo, Zappy," she decided to go with, pulling open the door and rocking the cell. It was annoying how it had to shake for Azula, because it really shouldn't be that heavy if it was just about keeping her in or anyone else out. But whatever. She couldn't feel Azula directly, but that meant she had to be laying on the bed.

Azula did not reply. "C'mon, Sparky, you can at least try to say something about the nicknames. Or what about whatever led you to throw things around. Don't tell me I'm going to have to get you new Fire Flakes and tell that librarian that I lost some of those books… or I just won't tell him. It's his job to chase after books, right?" Silence. Toph knew how to be silent back, and she considered it. For almost a full minute, there was silence and nobody said anything. Then, in a teasing voice she decided to try, "You know, did I ever tell you about the Library of Wa Shi Tong? It's an annoying story, but maybe you'd find it interesting?"

"Why are you here?"

Azula's voice was wrong. No, that's not it. It was that it was mortal. She'd apparently been, what, burning things? Perhaps she'd been screaming, the way Katara had said she'd been when she'd been captured. And so her voice was hoarse, and weak. She even sounded a little bit snotty, which was gross and not in the fun way like mud and dirt and jokes about farts and all those objectively funny things.

"Because when I came yesterday--"

"Oh yes, and that convinced you to come back, did it?" Azula spat, and Toph trailed off immediately because she was just confused. Come back?

"Uh, yeah?" Toph asked, trying to figure out what was wrong. Did Azula really think just hearing that she'd gotten angry and burned things would stop Toph from coming back? Sometimes she'd wished she could stomp and rage and tear the whole house apart back when she'd felt locked in. She'd played tricks on servants that she'd admit now were a little silly just to relieve her boredom, she'd snuck around, she'd…

What mattered is, she knew what it was like to sometimes just have to do something. Toph assumed that that was it. The need to lash out, the need to do something, even if it hurts you too. It wasn't a good thing, she knew it wasn't. The Earth abides, against a thousand misfortunes and the vagaries of life: let the Airbender follow every breeze, the Firebender base passion, and the Waterbender find themselves fitting into even strange worlds… blah, blah, blah, so on, so forth. There was a lot of silly philosophy about this that she'd been forced to listen to, when she couldn't imagine anyone less "abiding" than her parents.

(The fact that her father was slightly more like her than she'd thought had taken some time to actually think about, but by now was just a bit annoying rather than unbelievable.)

"Do I really need to say it again? I can, though I find that it loses its… power when you keep on repeating it," Azula said. The tone of her voice was almost as arch and superior as per usual, but she knew from the fact that Azula was still not actually standing on the ground that she was trying to hide something. She wiggled her toes, but while she could still sense most things, the soft bed added a little extra layer that wouldn't be there if she was just doing something silly like standing on a chair. Just enough to make it annoying.

"Say what again?" Toph asked. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Princess. I went to see you yesterday, but you'd apparently burned up your room or whatever so they didn't let me get through to see you."

"What."

Now Azula stood up, and she could feel her. "What a pathetic excuse," Azula sneered, but her heart was racing jackrabbit-hound style, everything about her seemingly in overdrive. Toph couldn't exactly sense stress per se, like it was something that came with a measuring cup, but she'd 'seen' random civilians caught up in life or death situations, and they'd never been quite as stressed as she was.

Nor had they been as good at hiding it.

Whatever crazy thing was going on with Azula, for her it might as well be her life on the line.

"An excuse for what?"

"You did come and see me, and we had a chat, and I told you some truths about yourself that you weren't able to stand, for all you pretend to be strong," Azula said, her voice far too controlled, her words clipped. "And you left."

…Truth.

Azula was telling the truth. Or thought she was telling the truth.

"Huh? So, what, I walked into this place between the two doors and started talking to you?" Toph asked, trying and failing to keep the obvious concern from her voice. She didn't know what to say to this. She… she hadn't talked to Azula, let alone a conversation that must have sent 'her' storming off. Why would Azula even lie about something like that? There was no point. It didn't get her anything.

Azula only lied when telling the truth wouldn't get her what she wanted, or would involve actually admitting she felt any emotion that she thought embarrassing… or, okay, sometimes because she clearly just found it fun to trick people. But she didn't actually lie just because. Not really. So this didn't make any sense.

"Yes, you did. Pretending that you didn't will not fool me," Azula insisted, but she was so stressed that it was getting harder and harder to tell if she was telling the truth. It wasn't anything she'd ever really felt before, someone so nervous that it was almost hard to tell when they were lying. In fact, she couldn't really tell at all. Azula was falling apart at the seams with panic and stress and just barely managing, it seemed, not to show that in her voice.

Toph couldn't help but feel sorry - and honestly, if Azula was somehow pulling herself into a freak out just to be able to lie to Toph, then she honestly deserved to win whatever game they were playing. Toph's fists were clenching. "So you heard me? Did you see me?"

"Of course not, you were behind the door," Azula scoffed.

"When I opened the door, what happened?" Toph asked, trying to…

"I heard that terrible screech. The guards know it's bad, they think they can beat me by annoying me to death. But they don't know I have a secret… I have to talk to you all the time, so what's a little more annoying screeching?" Azula said, in the kind of bitter, directionless lashing out that Toph didn't really care about. It hurt more when Azula had a point, when she got at something true about Toph. But hurt more and hurt enough to not feel better than a lie were not the same thing.

Toph paused for a moment, felt the prison, felt the places where the door was ill-fitting in its runners.

"And did the prison shake? Did you feel anything at all?" Toph asked. "If you didn't, then it wasn't me. When I come here, I make everything quake. Like this!" She stomped, and the whole prison shook as she reached out and she began to use the earth to rock on its foundations. She could've attacked Azula if she'd wanted to, even without tearing down the steel doors in all honesty. It was a terrible system, but she wasn't going to complain to anyone, because she was sure at this point they'd find a way to hurt her more rather than make her more secure.

Well, Zuko might try… but the guards were jerks!

The guards were jerks and… and… oh.

Azula had seen something that wasn't there. She was sure there was no stupid Toph impersonator running around, that'd just be dumb. And someone would've mentioned it.

Azula was seeing things. Sure, she'd known that Azula was crazy and all that, but she'd thought of it as just being… really, really bad and angry? And maybe a little sad? She hadn't thought about it as… as anything like that.

Toph found herself frozen, because she could remember all the vague gestures that people did to indicate 'not right in the head' and it'd all felt a little like a joke. Azula was crazy, Loser Lord was Crazy, yada yada, etc, etc.

Crazy just meant bad, it just meant you did bad things and were a bad person or…

But now here was Azula, hurt by something that hadn't happened, desperately trying to lash out and deal with whatever the "Toph" in her head had said to her.

It wasn't funny. It wasn't fun.

And it didn't make Toph want to leave, the way she'd always thought she would when Azula stopped being funny and fun.

She wanted to help Azula, and that was the last thing she should want. She'd actively pointed out that she'd hate it if Azula became nicer, but right now she wanted Azula to be better… not nicer, not kinder, but better.

She didn't want Azula to be like this, and so she thought and thought and then hit on an idea. She began tapping her feet on the floor, first a little fast, and then as Azula stopped to listen she began to slow it down, a little at a time.

"What are you doing?" Azula demanded.

"What do you think? I'm stomping. You feel that, it's real, not like whatever you were seeing," Toph said.

"You think you can fool me," Azula sneered. "Perhaps I might forgive you your words, and hear nothing more of that, but pretending…"

She remembered what Ty Lee had said.

Azula was not going to apologize, not really. Not ever. Even if she was wrong.

But this time she didn't have anything to apologize for. She was seeing things, she had hardly asked to see things, had hardly asked to be falling apart like this.

And as Toph's stomps got slower and slower, so did Azula's heartrate. It and Azula's breathing was matching her, because Azula was a trained bender and she knew what a breathing exercise was. There wasn't a single kind of Bender who didn't know how important the breath was.

At least, any kind of competent bender.

Azula was shaking just a little bit by the end, from the withdrawal of all that stress, because her heart was no longer racing.

"I…" Azula began, and for a moment she could even hear the vulnerability. "I don't believe I have any books for you to demand I read."

"You could always make one up, or tell me that stupid story about Captain Tai Tsai that you love talking about so much," Toph said, because at this point she'd take Azula sneering and trying to find an interesting new way to mock that stupid Captain or 'write' the 'definitely not her' characters triumphing over the Earth Kingdom over… over all of what she'd just been faced with.

"Fine," Azula said, and… oh.

Of course. Azula knew she saw things and heard things, or else she wouldn't have accepted it that easily. She saw and heard things, but it seemed did not feel things. Maybe that'd teach her not to be quite so believing, or maybe it didn't work that way.

But Toph?

Toph knew two things now.

First she wasn't leaving anytime soon. She was stuck, now. If learning all this crazy stuff about how Azula was babbling insane cra-zay didn't drive her off, then she wasn't sure what even would.

Second: that she thought she had an idea about how to help Azula.

The bad news: it involved making a friendship bracelet.

Spoiler: Author's Note

TL AN: Despite the very very awkward mental illness politics present in Avatar in general, the show does show sympathy for Azula's mental breakdown… but individual characters within it rarely show that much sympathy beyond just going along with quirky people's foibles. Toph would absolutely be no different unless actually faced with some piece of the reality of what it actually means. That Azula is not well, and that being locked in a little cell is making it worse.

As far as it goes, the signs were there in the previous one. The lack of shaking when we intentionally described it every time, the absolute devotion and dedication that "Toph" had to escalating when Toph does actually know to hit the bricks when she's pissed enough or can't get through to someone, the use of a name Azula doesn't like, the "Ashmaker" thing which is…

It was, in other words, not quite how Toph would react in the situation, even though it was reasonable enough that it was meant to be convincing.

veteranMortal AN: I'll echo most of what Laur's said here, but for me I just think like… this is such an important reveal, I really hope we've done it justice. There's been a couple of hints before but not enough to really be able to tell before this? This is pretty defining, going forwards.

 

[The Laurent]

Interlude 2– June

June inspected the gates of Pohuai Stronghold, running a finger through the layer of ash atop to reveal the scorched oak and steel beneath. An experimental shove told her the crossbar had survived the fire, and she stepped back.

"Curious." She murmured to herself, then clicked her tongue, signalling Nyla.

The Shirshu bared his teeth and reared up on hind legs to rain blows from his forelegs on the gate. There was a resounding crack that echoed in June's ears, and she reached for her whip as she stepped into the fortress.

She'd never spent a great deal of time around the Fire Nation's military - she didn't feel any shame calling herself the best bounty hunter in the world, but during the war, she'd tried to stay out of their way when she could. The sort of work they used to hire bounty hunters for wasn't the sort of work she wanted - chasing down deserters and resistance leaders lacked the sort of challenge she sought, and they tended to bore Nyla.

The courtyard inside the fortress was utterly devastated; arrows protruded from every conceivable surface, with their fletching burnt away and the ends blackened to cinder, swords and polearms lay abandoned in piles dotted here and there, and the cloying stink of rotting food emanated from the stores so strongly that Nyla was left whimpering, rubbing at his nose in distress as June steeled herself to look inside.

"They did a good job," She said, half to herself, half to Nyla. "Most hunters, they'd figure whoever disobeyed the withdrawal order fell afoul of some deserter band or vigilante mob."

Satisfied by what she saw in the stores - meat that'd gotten slick with rot, vegetables spackled with mold, fruit that had all but liquified - June stepped away, grimacing.

"But there's no bodies, and no graves, either," She continued, "All these arrows and fires, broken furniture and abandoned weapons, but they couldn't fake being dead without deaths."

She cracked her whip near Nyla, drawing his attention. "Let's go to the barracks. With luck, they'll have left some bedding."

---

Nyla's run was a long, smooth lollop that just eats the distance, and June settled into the saddle, shifting to get comfortable. The pursuit was Nyla's favourite part of hunting, his time to shine, but for June it was always terribly boring. She could slip into almost half a trance - she could feel Nyla's muscles under her thighs, and if he tensed, it would rouse her before there was any real danger.

June wasn't even able to feign surprise when the trail led into the ruins of lost Taku. The city had sat on the trade routes between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, once upon a time, and even once the Fire Nation burnt it to ash, they'd had to re-establish the port, just for trade with the colonies. It was, in short, the obvious place for bandits to make their home, ideal to hit the caravans on the main road.

Nyla stepped off the road, shaking sand off his paws. The road was one of the busiest in the Colonies during the war - troops and colonists travelling inland from the Fire Nation, and resources coming out from the colonies - so it'd been worked on over time; cobbles replaced with packed dirt, wooden bridges replacing stone, so Earthbenders would have it harder, trying to destroy it.

To reach the ruins from the road was a worn spur of crushed grass, a footpath beaten into the land by marching feet. Nyla's nose twitched once, then twice, and then he was on his way towards the city center.

The city wasn't walled, and as Nyla followed the scent-trail, they were soon passing between ruined buildings - a paper-mill that'd been put to the torch by firebenders more than a century ago and never rebuilt, a toll house so thoroughly picked over by bandits for decades it was a miracle it still had identifying signs at all, and a silk farm that'd been almost swallowed by the overgrowth. June gripped the handle of her whip so tightly she could hear the leather creak.

The first body hung from a tree directly over the path, and June inspected it, unflinchin g. She was pretty sure she recognised the armour - a Bounty Hunter from one of the local colonies had bought himself a full suit of Fire Nation plate armour, then painted it the colours of the Earth Kingdom. There were arrows through every joint, and he had a notice pinned to his chest - Turn Back, You Will Not Claim Our Bounty - which provoked a hum of irritation from her.

Her commission was private, and so she'd expected this to be a mission she could complete at leisure, but it appeared now that there may be more bounties against these men than her own. She rubbed Nyla's neck reassuringly - he had not reacted to the corpse, but she knew he had noted it.

The next body was much the same, though this one she did not recognise; it dangled from an arch at the base of a long and steep stair, up into the hills, and she pushed it aside with her arm as she passed.

She had been this way once before, with the Fire Lord, before he was the Fire Lord. An old herbalist lived in the crumbling institute atop this hill, doting on her cat, a tremendously spoilt beast - Miyuki or Miyaki?

She found her body at the top of the hill, perhaps fifty yards from the institute. Not strung up like the bounty hunters, which she supposed was some mercy, but murdered all the same. She had an arrow in her back, and had been dumped by the side of the path like so much carrion. June spat on the path opposite.

"That's not right," She muttered, "Not right at all."

Nyla stiffened suddenly, and June's hand flew back to her whip's handle, and she ducked reflexively, seconds before an arrow whined over her head like an angry wasp. Nyla launched himself towards the institute as another arrow buzzed out furiously.

The shirshu must've unnerved them - the Yuyuan archers were legendary, but these deserters were loosing arrows without a thought for accuracy, and Nyla was almost upon them before the first arrow sunk into his hide, provoking little more than a snarl on his part.

Nyla's leap shattered one of the institute's stone walls, bringing down that tier of the roof, and he landed in amongst the bandits, his tongue lashing out to strike one, then two, then a third of them.

June took in the situation immediately - there were a dozen of the Yuyuan here, as expected from the bounty, and she could see that four of them were still struggling to their feet - they'd been asleep, and she wondered idly if they ran their gang like the military unit they'd deserted; were these men their pickets, meant to stand watch at night?

She abandoned the thought - it scarcely mattered, with the gang mere moments from forcible dissolution. She slide from Nyla's back, lashed out with her whip as she dropped, knocking the bow from one archer's hand, and then on the return, catching the bowstring of another bow. It snapped with an audible twang, and the released force left the archer staggering, blood dripping from a line the bowstring had cut across his face once it snapped.

Nyla had paralysed another man by this point, and she saw him backswipe an archer into a wall with one paw as his tail caught another on the head.

The four who'd been off duty stood indecisive, unarmed and unarmoured, surrounded by their groaning comrades. Eyes flicked from the whip in her hand to the Shirshu that was prowling, his nostrils flaring.

"Don't try anything, boys," June said wearily, "I'm sick of running you down, but I'll do it again if I must."

They didn't, which was a relief. Securing the eight here and then chasing down four runaways would've been a tremendous waste of time, and the margin on this particular bounty was fine as it was.

"Alright. Hands together in front of you," She said, "There're shackles in Nyla's saddlebags."

---

"Why'd you kill her?" She asked eventually, once they were all strung along in a line she was attaching to Nyla's harness. "Little old lady like that, she can't have scared you?"

There was an edge to her voice, and she saw them hear it. None of them maintained eye contact.

"She would've told somebody we were here," One of them muttered, "So we had to stop her."

"Ah," June said, her voice as dry as the desert, "And killing her meant no one knew you were here. No bounty hunters came to take you in anyway."

Nyla rumbled a growl for emphasis, and they quailed further. June hauled herself in Nyla's saddle, satisfied.

The bandits staggered as June turned Nyla to leave, their chains pulled taut, and listened for a moment to their complaining, long enough to establish they had no allies waiting in the wings, no plan for escape, and then she ignored them.

It hadn't been a difficult job, not compared to some of them - a dozen men, not expecting anyone but the dregs of the bounty hunters a small town could afford - but it'd been dispiriting in a way that was growing increasingly commonplace in the colonies.

Deserters were rife, soldiers of all stripes tearing off their insignia and preying on the weak. Cities paid them off, gave incentives to wage quiet backroom wars on their trade rivals, and the countryside bled to sustain them - these were hardened warriors, no strangers to murder. Soldiers like this gave no thought to killing an old lady. They'd probably even killed her-

Her thought was interrupted by the impact of something heavy on the saddle behind her, startling a yelp that was unbecoming of a bounty hunter.

"The beastie comes for her, then!" She heard one of the deserters growl, and felt whatever it was let out a low, satisfied purr. It was soft and warm against her back, and June sighed.

"Her cat," She said softly, "Of course."

She wasn't going to make an effort to keep the cat with her, she decided, but if it stuck with her back to her lodgings, she wouldn't throw the poor thing out on the street.

---

No one spared June or her prisoners a second glance as Nyla trotted along the main road. A studied lack of interest, that was the defining mood in the colonies in the post-war, June decided.

She couldn't really blame them - the colonies were struggling, and it was getting worse with each passing week. The Fire Lord wasn't able to keep a firm grip on his people, and the colonial governors were responding to the uncertainty of their future by tightening their grips on their population - it was getting harder and harder to be Earth Kingdom in some of these cities, even for someone like June, someone so plainly useful to them.

It was worse on the cities nearer the new border with the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nationals were sparser there, less enmeshed with the native population. There, they could rule only through boots on necks.

The older colonies - Yu Dao, Natsuo Island, East and West Heiatu, to name a few - they had whole structures. A governor from Caldera City, with senior officials mostly drawn from the Fire Nation, though high ranking officials from some of the established families in the colonies themselves were not unheard of - the families that could guarantee they were pure Fire Nation, all the way back to the days of Sozin - and East Heiatu had almost had a colony-born Governor once, before it was revealed his daughter was an Earthbender. Junior officials were all colony-born, and then below that - guards, gatekeepers and similar - could even have some earthbender heritage.

There was a place in that hierarchy for someone like her, a bounty hunter with an Earthbender for a father and a Fire Nation runaway for a mother. It wasn't perfect, but she could make a living. In cities like Ganjin, where the Fire Nation had only seized them in the last years before the comet, she was mud-filth.

She felt off balance anywhere in the colonies, truthfully - the old colonies were trying to keep their hierarchy in place even as the Fire Nation increasingly withdrew the support they needed, whilst the new colonies were scrambling to raise armies from their people and buy up whichever mercenaries they could hire, deserters they could bribe or garrisons they could subvert. None of it was stable - bandits were rife, and on both sides of the border, increasingly bold gangs were learning to retreat across it when they were pursued.

A border war was, she felt, inevitable, if the Fire Lord couldn't clamp down on the colonies. Appoint someone to run roughshod over them without having to sail all the way to Caldera City to get approval for it. It wasn't her problem, but it was a concern - bounty hunting in a warzone was never her preference.

Taku Seaport rose before them, and one of the deserters tugged on his chain, trying to get her attention.

"Hey, lady!" He called out. June didn't turn. "Which town hired you? We have a patron! He'll pay double for you to let us go!"

June snorted quietly. "I doubt that, bandit. Your patron can't pay me enough for me to break this contract."
"Are you sure?" He said, sly. "He can pay an awful lot."

"You don't even know who hired me," June said, dismissively. "I'm not going to mess around on one of my most reliable repeat hires, okay?"

He went quiet for a minute, and she spurred Nyla through the gates, towards the harbour.

"We only hit little towns and villages!" His protests grew more desperate, "We didn't take on any of the major colonies!"

"Save it for the court," June said evenly, "Perhaps the Fire Lord's justice will be sympathetic to deserters who kill defenceless old women in their homes because they didn't attack major colonies."

The man stammered for a moment, but June ignored him. "I would be surprised, though."

"But- We're going to the Fire Lord?"

"That's what I told you," June said, wishing - not for the first time - that she could simply use Nyla to paralyse them. No prisoners could bother her, then.

Now she was here, she could see the ship - a hulking cruiser of the Fire Nation navy - and its captain, waiting on the docks with a small, drab man with a clipboard, who no doubt would be processing her bounty. She raised a hand in greeting. The retainer she was on for the Fire Nation was a cushy job - as they pulled troops back to the Fire Nation, she was sent for any members of demobilised units that were missing from role-call on their ship.

It was honest work, or as close to honest work as a bounty hunter was like to ever get. There were worse ways to earn a living.

VM AN: End of part 2. The Colonies are not doing super good, actually! Messy times.

TL AN: If only some chief figure could make sure to reeve the shire.

 

[The Laurent]

Part 3--Madwoman

"So, Uncle, I've been thinking. It's only a matter of time before I run into Azula again. I'm going to need to know more advanced firebending if I want to stand a chance against her. I know what you're going to say, she's my sister, and I should be trying to get along with her."

"No. She's crazy, and she needs to go down."
--Zuko and Iroh, "Bitter Work."