Avatar: Between Two Doors

veteranMortal · Jun 25, 2024

Chapter 16: Forgery

Toph Beifong knew all about the palace's forges. Of all the places to be without shoes, they were certainly one of them. She had to be careful to avoid any loose fire or sparks from getting on her feet, though by now her feet were proof against all manner of stones and sticks and little burns. But it was still really annoying for a place she spent so much time in. She didn't talk about it with anyone, because it was here that she was working on her Metalbending. She had the broad control, the sort of big, flashy moves that showed she was better at bending than anyone else… even if it hadn't been a kind of bending that nobody else could do yet.

So instead, Toph tried to focus on the little bits of detail work. These little details were the things that she had to work on the most, though they weren't really hard for her either. There were benders who were great at spectacle and terrible at tiny little details and skilled uses of their bending, and there were benders who were perfect at the small stuff but couldn't level a mountain to save their lives.

Toph was good at both. Short of sand, where she'd… sort of used a few short-cuts and gone for an insane amount of details to make up for the fact that she still hadn't really practiced fighting on sand, she could do any particular bending task that was put in front of her and do it better than half the people who devoted their lives to doing just that. Maybe more than half, for some of it.

Well, most of it. There were bits of earthbending crafts where she needed eyes to see, like when you were making pots or doing all that fancy-art stuff. She could do the form, but most of that stuff was painted or whatever. But she could totally find someone to do the painting. That was half the idea. She needed to make the thing and then find people who would help her with part of it, because she had multiple purposes. Part of this she could easily do on her own, because she knew what she was about.

But she would need some steel, and so here she was.

If Toph Beifong, three time Earth Rumble Champion, the greatest Earthbender who had ever lived, oh and bending teacher to Twinkletoes made what she'd no doubt have to lie to Azula's face and say wasn't a friendship bracelet, she was going to make the best friendship bracelet anyone had ever made in their lives!

She had a reason for all of this, but she also just thought it'd be funny. But at the same time, if it was all just fun and games she definitely wouldn't be wanting to ask other people for help. She hated doing that. Relying on other people? It sucked! It especially sucked because there was no way to get around it. She couldn't really cook her own food unless it was just throwing stuff into a pot and then building a rough fire. She knew how to build a fire just fine blind, but none of the kindsa food she liked most could be made like that, and of course she couldn't really wash her own clothes without way too much work.

Raja Zuru was not quite the person in charge of the whole forge, but he was one step below it, and he had a big, heavy walk and a way of getting directly to things. "Toph, your usual room?"

This wasn't when she normally came, and she could sense a frisson of caution running through him, a nervous tension in his muscles she couldn't source. The smiths often felt like that as they watched her work, though, so she put it out of her mind.

"Sort of, but I need to talk to someone who can do painting stuff and art," Toph said, considering it. "I'm making a bracelet, but I think I wanna paint it. But I don't know colors and all of that."

He considered it, "I'm not an artist…"

"But I'm pretty sure your type works with the other craftspeople around here, right?" she asked, grinning in his direction as she felt his nerves. "I need to find one of 'em, because I really want to make something."

"Huh, I can go ask around," Raja said. "So it's not gonna be as scary as your usual thing?"

"Scary? How's it scary?" Toph asked. "I'm just…"

She waved her hand to indicate metalbending. "It isn't like I'm throwing boulders?"

"Scary for our jobs, at least. You can almost make a perfect sword with just a minute of metalbending," he pointed out.

"Yup. I'll get it down eventually." Toph'd been practicing things like that, and by this point she could manipulate metals in such a way as to do all the beating and folding a thousand times and all that nonsense easily, but it took time and she didn't quite have it down yet. That is what she was really working on. She wasn't ever gonna be a smith or whatever, but the ability to do all these small details and control and manipulate metal right down to its components was really cool, and it was easy to imagine tricks with it. For instance, if she wanted to make super strong metal for her metal armor, maybe she could do that? Or discover some new trick with how to control metal or make cool new metals that could be used to beat even more bad guys.

Honestly she also just… didn't have a point? She did it because she wanted to.

"I'm sure you will," Raja said. "You've only been working on it for a month or two."

That exact thing, yeah? The other stuff? She padded forward, feeling the heat. She knew enough to know when to stand away from when someone was working, but she could feel the heat all around her, closing in on all sides.

But if she couldn't stand the heat, she wouldn't be here. "Right! So I'm gonna work on a few things… are my stones still where they're supposed to be?" She'd also been trying to do things with melted stone, though it didn't really work the way she wanted it to. For one, the fires weren't really hot enough to do that to stone for the little ones, and the great big forges, it just became kinda lava and then she couldn't control it anymore. Not yet, at least.

"Yes, and all the other things too. Nobody's going to touch anything belonging to you," Raja said. Truth. "Most of it's cause they're scared of you, and I'm sure you like that, but also, why would we?"

"Right," Toph said, because really it'd be stupid. "That'd make me pretty mad."

"Most of our lives are a lot better because of the Avatar, don't let the fact that you're around a bunch of stupid nobles make you think the Fire Nation's all ungrateful people," he said, breezily. "You might put us out of a job, but without you, we'd still be building warships, you know?"

Technically she was a noble, or something close to it, but she also wasn't stupid and it's not as if she'd chosen to be one or was going to actually accept any stupid trade empire. Chaoszi, and tiger-bird's nest soup, and all the 'Water Banquets' she could bother to attend weren't worth that.

"Gotcha," she said, casually. "I'll keep that in mind and all. Thanks."

It was… interesting, really. Toph's little area was specially made for her, with these slightly annoying lips that were meant for her to be able to stand close and her feet would be protected. It was a warm, strange little gathering of stone and rock of all sorts of types and quite a few different metals. Whether it was bronze or steel, iron or brass… if it was a metal, she could basically always control it and do different things with how the different metals had different qualities, just like an Earthbender could do things with different sorts of stone.

There was something comfortable about the idea of having her own little space, but she'd not really asked for it. She'd basically demanded it, assumed she'd get it, and then it'd happened. But then how could you ever trust anything that you didn't do yourself? She smiled to herself and began picking out different stones, different metals. She'd need most of them to be round, but she wanted some square ones as well, and maybe a triangle? Just make sure that it was funky and weird.

And then she got a bag and slipped them in, to make sure none of them got lost. She'd want them painted and ready before she put them on the string. She reached out with her earthsense once more and then nodded. They were good, not likely to fall apart anytime soon, or wear away just from being handled.

So now she needed to find that expert.

Mori was a tall woman, when she wasn't scrunched down to look at the little trinkets. "These are intricately carved indeed," the woman said, her voice rumbling a little bit. "Nice patterning. I assume you just used your Bending for this?"

"If you can't do detail work then what kinda bender are you?" Toph asked. She'd wanted to do everything, the big flashy things and the tiny things that involved using earthbending to carve tiny little grooves in a very tiny bit of crystal. It was all the same thing, which is why it'd been easy to sand-bend something elaborate and cool without really being able to use sandbending in a fight against real opponents.

"An interesting idea. Plenty of benders would say that bending is for fighting, and plenty of others would think that you'd not be the sort to think that."

"Oh, I like fighting a lot, but hey," Toph said. "Can't be the greatest if you're only good at one part of it. So, I don't really know colors well, but I do have ideas."

"Ideas?"

"Some Earth Nation Colors, some Fire Nation Colors, at least a few random things, gold or… pale green, whatever that is?" If she was going to be a funny jerk and give Azula a totally not friendship bracelet… she had the vague understanding that her own eyes were 'pale green.' Which was one of those phrases that made no sense. Pale? What even was pale. She'd gathered from asking people that it was kind of a weak green, like how you might have a faint impression in earthsense of something made out of paper or so on?

But that honestly raised more questions than it answered. "Oh also, some jagged lines, some swirls, keep it weird, I guess? I don't know much about colors and sights, so sorta guessing here."

"I see."

"I don't," Toph said bluntly. Then, because she'd been thinking about it. "Would you say my eyes were a weak green, or a really strong one?" Pale being weak didn't quite make sense, because that'd make her eyes weak green, whatever that was. And she was pretty sure that 'weak' couldn't describe anything about her.

"I actually don't know how to answer that question," Mori said. "But I wouldn't say that pale is weak. It's more like shallow? Like a layer of dust, I suppose, compared to a mountain? Or, well people use light and dark as well, but I don't even know how I'd describe that bit of it. Maybe… heavy versus light? A green with a lot of green packed in as compared to a green less…"

She trailed off, and said, truthfully, "I gotta admit, I never actually thought about how I'd describe color to someone who can't see it. Now it just sounds odd."

"It does," Toph said. She was grinning, she couldn't help it. "But at least you tried! And I kind of get it. Heavy versus light?" Well she was the sort who didn't have to carry a lot with her, so maybe it worked? And she knew she was small, she didn't weigh a lot and probably never would even though she'd started to get growing this last year or so. "Okay, so can you paint all of that?"

"Yes, I think I can. Is this for someone else, or is it something you'll wear?"

"Don't worry about that," Toph said. She knew it'd be a weird thing to do, talking about Azula. So she didn't. Not this lady's business, anyhow, even if she'd been nice.

Azula looked at the box. Turned it over. Waited for a moment - strained her ears for if Toph was there - and gave the wrappings an experimental tug.

It was not exactly unusual for there to be a box in her cell when she was woken by the guards; it was how she got the books and Toph's various other eye rolling presents, but this one felt different. It was smaller than a book, and had a note pinned to it in Ty Lee's loopy, artistic calligraphy - Toph lately found it amusing to have Ty Lee pass notes to Azula.

Do not open until Toph visits today, please.

The wrapping fell open under her casual and unintentional tugging, and Azula narrowed her eyes.

"If it's already open a little," She murmured, "Then what would be the harm?"

Before she could reach for it, the door opened with a grind. The vibration shivered up her back, and she relaxed. Then, after a second, she put the box down.

"Sparks," Toph said chidingly, "I can tell you've been fiddling with it, you know?"

"Oh, Toph," Azula replied, feigning a lack of concern, "Did you want me to read to you?"

If Toph wanted to play games about the box, Azula could play.

"I have some new books now,you know," Azula continued, "So I could be convinced to read to you, I think. For a price."

"I can tell you want to open it," Toph said, "It's a gift for you, and you love when people get you things."

She did, as long as they weren't the wrong things or… it did feel like Toph was teasing her, but she could plan her revenge later. It'd only been a few days since… since she'd had an experience she did not wish to think about. She'd wound up with some new books, a replacement candle that was in the normal Fire Nation colors, though it was less satisfying than the candle clock that was green and brown, just because of how annoying it must have been for Toph to find someone willing to make that.

"So, can I? Or do you have another one of your pathetic little hoops for me to jump through?" Azula asked.

"Sure, Sparky. I had to guess on the colors. Didn't do that part of it myself."

That part of… what?

She opened the package and saw…

It was a bracelet, but it was a baffling one. There was a range of colors ranging from a soft, gentle green to strong reds, golds, greens that transitioned into dark greens… the bracelet filled with beads and pieces painted in zigs and zags in some cases and flowing colors that blurred together in others. It was a work of art, an undeniable work that must have taken hours and hours for someone to make. She had to assume that Toph had done the patterns carved in it, and someone else had painted them painstakingly, and yet when she touched it, it didn't seem as if it was liable to chip at all or fade away just from rubbing.

For a moment Azula was almost deluded enough to compare it to the finery one might have as a Princess, though of course it was so colorful that it'd stand out. Still, a part of her certainly did want to try it on, at least once…

Yet as soon as she took it in, she remembered that the Earth Kingdom had charm bracelets given to friends. If this was that… well, she'd hardly want it, that'd be too sappy for her. "Is this a… charm bracelet? Or a friendship bracelet or whatever those are?"

"No, of course not, Sparky. Do I seem like the kinda person to give someone a friendship bracelet? It's practical," Toph said.

"This? Practical?" It was an elaborate piece of artwork masquerading as a bracelet.

"Put it on, and I'll show you," Toph said.

Azula hesitated a moment, but figured she wouldn't understand it without giving it a chance, and she was sure it wasn't a trap. She slipped it around her wrist, and tied it up just right so that it'd more or less fit.

"Alright, there we go, Zaps, and then…"

It seemed to tighten around her wrist, or rather it was as if the bracelet was moving to press against her arm. It was a bizarre feeling, and Azula had no idea what it was.

It was like someone had laid a hand around her arm, and was squeezing it comfortingly. It was an odd feeling, unfamiliar and almost overwhelming. It hurt, sort of. But. In a different way.

"See?" Toph asked.

"Even less than you do," Azula grumbled.

"If you see me and I don't do that, then it ain't me. Same with hearing me," Toph said. "Whatever's messing with you can't touch or do anything physical, right? So a bracelet made of metal and stone, I can just make it clear when it's me and when it's not. And tell you if you're not seeing the right thing, cause I'd lie to you to be funny, but you know me."

Toph was quite a blunt person. The closest thing to that kind of lying was the way she hadn't let Azula know that she was on the wrong track. She also enjoyed tricking Azula, but in her experience anyone who immediately gloated if they successfully lied to someone else wasn't actually a good liar.

She looked down at it, as the strange, almost comforting, squeezing continued. "Huh," Azula said.

"So, will that work?" Toph asked.

"I suppose." She looked down at it, and touched it for a moment. It was…odd.

She trusted Toph, at least this far. Implicitly, even; she believed Toph was trying to help, that Toph meant it, Toph wouldn't use this to trick her. She wondered if Toph expected gratitude, expected thanks.

Azula felt too raw to give it. Torn open and exposed, to put this much trust in someone else - someone who she hadn't even looked in the eyes since they were actively enemies, before she'd been vanquished and become a defeated foe! She could not, would not, expose herself further.

"Okay," Azula said instead, "I'll wear it. Was that everything?"

It was spiky, defensive, and she knew that. From the low snort, almost inaudible through the door, Toph knew that too. It should've worried her, maybe, that Toph knew her well enough to leave when she was overwhelmed. It didn't, which was strange in itself.

"Yeah, Princess," Toph said, "I guess it was. Be seeing you."

Azula winced, and she felt the bracelet's pressure as Toph added, "I will be seeing you. Or not seeing you, but you know what I mean. I promise."

Somehow, Azula believed her.

veteranMortal: Love that new arc smell. This "part" is quite long, and we're still working on it, but I'm excited to see people get to it.

The Laurent: It's definitely not a Friendship Bracelet!

The Laurent · Jul 2, 2024

Chapter 17: Life Changing Field Trips

After the bracelet, everything changed. Also nothing changed. It was just a stupid gift, even if it was perhaps… needed. It was one thing to know you saw things sometimes, but this was the first time she'd felt as if she couldn't function on her own. If she was hallucinating entire meetings without any obvious signs that she was seeing things… this was an actual problem. She wanted to ignore it, because surely she would be fine.

But she wasn't in this one particular way. No doubt she was simply going stir-crazy and that as soon as she freed herself and reconquered the Fire Nation all of the problems would go away. It was simply a mark of stress, nothing more.

But if that was the case, it was not likely to end anytime soon. Her escape was seemingly no nearer, and perhaps further, than it had been a few months prior. Toph felt for her, as distasteful as this fact was to contemplate. Toph clearly pitied her, and Azula could not bear to say the things she'd said to "Toph" to drive away the real girl. It hurt too much, like there were barbs dug into her skin. Once she'd gone hiking as part of a test by her father, hunting down faux-rebels and defeating them, and she'd gotten a thorn stuck in her hand that wouldn't come out easily.

Her father had forbid any servants from helping her if she got injured, and she'd had to dig at it.

It felt just a little bit like that. She knew she could tear it out and survive, she'd eventually torn the thorn out when it got in the way of fighting the dozen expert Firebenders she'd had to lay low. It had been a…difficult test, but not beyond her, and less than a year later she'd had to do it for real. She'd been given a task worthy of her skills, and had come close to success.

If she had succeeded, of course, she never would have cared to know Toph, who would probably be dead.

She could not pretend that this wouldn't be slightly unfortunate. Nor would she pretend that she still wouldn't take that world over this, for all that she knew that it would be unfortunate in that one way.

But Toph wasn't going to help her escape, or at least she wasn't going to do that when she could instead keep on talking to her in here.

Azula wasn't going to risk thinking they were friends, but they were somewhat friendly acquaintances. They had assisted each other, with Azula giving her advice and Toph helping with the bracelet that Azula now wore all the time. She was reasonably sure that friendship as envisioned by the kinds of saps that Toph had sided with wasn't about what you could do for each other, but some ineffable bond that transcended and even defied any practical usefulness. By which standard she had never had friends and probably never would.

(She had been expanding her vocabulary somewhat in the time since she'd gotten access to books again.)

So she was left unwilling to take the dangerous step of making an assumption that might be wrong, let alone saying it.

But that left them still talking pretty regularly. It had gotten up to four or sometimes five times a week, always at least an hour, and every week there seemed to be one day where it neared two hours, Toph sometimes even leaving to go eat and then coming back. When one started to add it together, eight or nine or ten hours a week was a lot of time to devote to anything at all. Toph must really be bored, and Azula sometimes felt as if she had to stretch to have something new to talk about, or an old thing that Toph could complain that she'd already said.

The only choice in such a circumstance was for Toph to say more, and that required her to stop coddling Azula and actually talking about her friends. It was that, as much as anything, that made it clear that friendship was not what they were going to reach.

But it told her far more about Toph than the girl probably thought it did.

"Well, after his Life-Changing Field Trip, Twinkletoes was different, and not just because of the fancy-dancy bending he was doing," Toph said. "It was like he'd found a different way to be. Oh, he was never good at being angry, but… I dunno. Didn't hate it, though."

There was a lot to figure out about that statement, and so Azula decided to start from the start, "Life-Changing Field Trip?"

"Oh! Zuko was good luck or something, because every time he went along on some critical mission it turned out to be life-changing. He loses his fire so he and Aang go and when he gets back he's twice the bender he was before," Toph said, vaguely. "Katara hunts down the person who took her mother away, and she comes back finally trusting him. Sokka went to go save Suki, actually, at this big prison--"

"I am aware of that," Azula gritted out, the memory stinging. "I was there."

"Yeah, yeah," Toph said breezily. "But me and Zuko, we get along fine, I think we're… probably friends?" Toph sounded a little uncertain, and if Azula wasn't seething she would take the chance to use that bit of vulnerability to press even further. But she had to be calculated with that. "But there never was a Life-Changing Field Trip, and that's half of what I'm waiting around here for. Guess it makes sense, though," Toph said, her mood improving all at once, voice lighter, "I'm already basically the best, so it's hard to figure out how to do something different."

But of course, she understood that was the problem. Toph was at the top because she was tough, but it could get boring without a challenge. Azula had enjoyed chasing the Avatar at first, despite the annoyance of that child not knowing when to give up and die. "You are, but why are you waiting around for someone else to do something for you?" Azula asked. If she could get out on her own, she'd not be sticking around or waiting for Toph to do it to her.

"I don't have anything better to do right now," Toph said, and Azula could all but imagine the shrug, for all that she hadn't actually come face to face with Toph in a long, long time. A part of her wondered what Toph even looked like, because she'd hardly been paying attention to some mouthy blind girl before. Of course, Azula didn't exactly get to look at mirrors often… she did poorly with them, saw things in them that she knew weren't true but which hurt anyway.

"So this Life-Changing Field Trip," Azula sneered, "It left Zuzu a better bender? I suppose he must have improved, it's not hard to improve from nothing."

"I mean, he was alright even before then, or at least that's what everyone said," Toph replied. "But…"

"But mediocre is not worth either of our times," Azula said, and that was the truth. Even if she had overstated Zuko's incompetence as a bender (and she had not), alright was the kind of devastating assessment that would have had her practicing until her hands melted rather than accept it.

She knew Toph was a lot like her. She knew Toph felt it, the drive to be the best and unwillingness to accept anything else. She'd missed where it'd come from, or had she? Perhaps it did have everything to do with Toph's parents, but not in the way she'd thought. For all she knew, Toph had thrived from the idea of doing something her parents wouldn't like, in proving them all wrong and striking out at the world. It could make sense, because she did like to prove people wrong.

If Azula dared her that she couldn't raise the very ocean floors themselves, no doubt soon there would be some new island in the sea if it was even remotely possible.

That was Toph.

The thought was annoyed. The thought was fond.

"Eh, sure," Toph said, not agreeing and not disagreeing. "I don't think you're exactly gonna give him a chance, and that's fine. But he's my friend, sorta."

She felt just a little bit of jealousy. Of all of the things that rightfully belonged to her that he had instead and was no doubt misusing (sorta, really?) this was one of the more personal compared to her place in the family, the throne, and her ex-friends who had… well.

Azula did not quite snarl, but she didn't like the thought of it, she lit a fire just to see it, flicking her fingers in a well-practiced gesture. "Why, where else would you learn all you ever wanted to know, and more, about turtleducks or tea or whatever he's obsessed with nowadays."

"Governance," Toph said, and she could almost picture Toph's eyes rolling. "Though honestly, don't wanna talk to you about it but some of the ideas… nah. Don't gotta convince you. Kinda don't wanna."

She was talking even coarser now, but it felt focused, as if she was having to grit her teeth to do it, and Azula had an idea for some amusement.

"Oh, you're unwilling to be all nice and sweet and try to convince me that I should pal around with Zuzu? Scared I'll throw a fit, the crazy girl who sees things?" Azula asked, and she let the nastiness flow because she had a reason and wanted to see what happened. "Or… is it that you'd forget to actually even try to convince me because I'm more amusing than Zuzu."

"That's pretty unlikely," Toph said, and for a moment her accent was between it, between the way she always talked and the fake posh accent she slipped on like a comfortable robe.

Azula couldn't help it.

She laughed.

It wasn't even at Toph, and for some reason she could not stop laughing, "That voice… that voice… is that the real balance?"

"No," she said in her 'normal' voice and tone and word choice, "This is, cause it's the one I decide to have. The 'me' I decide to be, or however it goes."

Azula opened her mouth for a clever comeback, and she did not come up with one that didn't sound pathetic or like she was whining. She stewed and tried to change the topic to talking about one of the books she'd been reading because she had no response that wouldn't start the kind of fight she believed would be inadvisable when she still had to think of how to convince Toph to let her escape. "Right, right, you're Toph Beifong, the--"

"Toph. Toph the Greatest Earthbender alive, winner of the Earth Rumble, the Avatar's teacher, the inventor of Metalbending, yada yada yada," she said in the most irreverent voice imaginable.

Just Toph, huh?

Well, there were no good answers to that, so she changed the subject. Again.

Katara.

Katara stood for Sugar Queen, stood for Sweetness, stood for the prissy enemy and the practical partner in crime for Toph's… tomfoolery, nonsense, and shenanigans.

Azula asked how to kill her. Well, how to beat her. She asked a few other details. But she stayed away from that conversation, the humiliation of losing stinging enough that she'd been careful to think about it. She knew she could win, she'd just have to be better.

There was nothing more to think about the annoying peasant girl, except perhaps to consider that frustrating Benders could come from all walks of life.

The male Water Tribe Peasant, with that Waterbender for a sister, was called Sokka, and Azula could not help but think it was just a little bit pathetic that he was just hanging around… for all that she knew that a strong enough nonbender could overcome most benders, even if nobody was as good as her. Mai and Ty Lee had both been very strong. She didn't like thinking about her cooperation with them, but she did know that they were far from weak just because they could not bend.

Still, the peasant had seemed pathetic and loud and annoying every time she'd encountered him. According to Toph… he was pathetic, loud, annoying and also smart and funny. Even the first three were said almost with affection, and it was pretty clear to Azula that Toph had some pitiful crush on him, or something like that. There was just a little bit of that tone of voice that one could notice. But if Toph didn't know, she wasn't going to tell her. If Toph did know, Azula wasn't going to bother bringing it up.

However, this Sokka was a good source of entertainment, as Toph seemed to show whatever affection she had for him by delighting in his mishaps and making fun of him both talking to Azula and in the stories she told of the past, which often included her insults or pranks on "Snoozles."

It was illuminating in more ways than one, such as when she learned that he'd been the one to apparently use one of the airships they took over to take out the rest, and that he'd been behind the Day of Black Sun plans… though of course they had thwarted that pathetic little attempt. But it showed at least a little bit of cunning, and so she supposed that Sokka could not be entirely an idiot. Or perhaps he could be called entirely an idiot. She was not going to rule that out entirely, except that he'd already been high on the list of people who she would destroy when she was Fire Lord again and perhaps she should rate him just a little bit higher.

Or perhaps not, if her story about how he'd once been trapped in a crevice because of his love of meat was really true.

"So, all of that, and… where exactly are they?" Azula asked, and she wished her voice sounded harsher. But a part of her was actually surprised that they'd gone their separate ways. It was not as if she would have, had they left her no choice with their defiance, left Mai and Ty Lee behind. They'd deserved it for failing… failing.

She did not like to think of that. But if they'd all stayed friends, she definitely wouldn't have just gone to do something else. She'd have taken them along with her. Did this Aang, who apparently believed in nonsense like traveling light, manage to just leave her behind? She knew it wasn't like that, objectively. Toph was independent and needed nobody even if she wanted to be around her friends, and people like Azula, and presumably also people who could be of use to her.

"Oh, they have their own lives and all that. They visit sometimes," Toph said, and then added, "They'll probably all come together for my birthday," Toph said. "I… kinda don't exactly go around to theirs. Though honestly only Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation have birthdays, apparently? And only the richy-rich sorts?"

It made sense, and her own birthday had always more been an excuse for a banquet than anything more elaborate than that, let alone anything that had really mattered.

"So they visit then, so I'll prolly see all of 'em together then, and that's in a few months?" Toph seemed to actually be considering how long it was. Azula smirked, touching the bracelet as she waited. "Well, almost four months? And yours is, right…"

"Before that," Azula said snidely.

"Before that, huh?" Toph asked. "I can just figure it out. You're not that mysterious. Ty Lee's visited you, hasn't she?"

Azula did not wince, but she did tense for a moment as she wondered once again what Ty Lee had really said. It was clear she hadn't been quite as much of a sap as 'Toph' indicated, against Azula's suspicions. But what had she said in detail? What had she given away to Toph, and how might Toph use it? It was not as if Toph wouldn't use it, because that was what people did, they found ways to make use of what they knew. Toph wasn't stupid, even if she was a stubborn child.

"You know she has," Azula said, "She came and asked all sorts of asinine questions, drew her own conclusions, and skipped away again. You know Ty Lee - she's a master of avoiding topics she doesn't like, so we didn't talk about her at all. She never liked telling me about herself!"

"That's prob'ly because you'd pick at her, Zaps," Toph said, but her words were light. "You're given to picking at scabs."

"Maybe," Azula conceded, "Ty Lee never did anything to make me angry if she could help it. She knew how to keep things stable."

Toph hummed. "Not pickin' fights has always been her priority. I don't do that. Not my style, Spikes."

That was a new one, and Azula wasn't sure how she felt about it - Toph had explained it was about her armour, but she wasn't entirely sure she believed her.

"No," Azula replied, "You are certainly less diplomatic than Ty Lee is. It makes a change."

"Are we still your only visitors?" Toph asked, "I assumed Zuzu or Mai would've stopped by, but-"

"No," Azula said, her voice sharp, "Mai and Zuzu would rather forget about me, down in the dungeons. You should've realised that by now!"

There was an edge of hysteria in her voice, and she tried to tamp it down.

"They're busy," Toph said, "I suppose. Ty Lee'll visit again before too long though, so I'll be able to ask her when your birthday is."

The attempt to deflect is obvious, but Azula goes along with it all the same. "Has she not returned to wherever she ran off to? Kyoshi Island or the Circus, or some other frivolous thing?"

"Oh, no." Toph said, "Ty Lee's still here. She's taken a few months off from the Kyoshi Warriors, just to try… doing her own thing?"

She sounded dubious about that last, and Azula scoffed.

"Did she tell you that?" Azula said, "She probably just argued with that girl Suki, needs the time to cool off."

"Maybe," Toph said, "I got the impression she was just… frustrated with Kyoshi Island. Maybe she missed the Fire Nation, where it's a little more direct? I know I'd find the Earth Kingdom boring now, all the rituals and political maneuver."

"We have those here," Azula said, in a fit of generosity towards the Earth Kingdom. "Honestly, they aren't so different. There is a structure, a way of doing things, and it's stupid, but everyone has to follow it, unless they're strong enough not to."

"Seems stupid," Toph said bluntly, "Of course I'm strong enough - so are you, Sparky - but what does our strength have to do with having to wait six weeks to see the Earth King, or having to sit on the Fire Lord's left side to indicate you want to talk to him about something non-military? It's stupid!"

"It means," Azula said, a little thoughtfully, "That if you're not rich enough to waste the time, or noble enough to know the rules, you can't. That's why. It's how it's always worked. During the war, it got easier to talk to the Fire Lord if you were a general, but it got harder if you weren't."

"That's stupid," Toph said, "You won't get anything done like that. You need to be able to talk to people to know what's wrong."

"Yeah," Azula said, "Like in Ba Sing Se. Everything got easier once the Dai Li took over, and we ran the city excellently until I had to leave and it all got gummed up with the colonial governments."

It was strange, Azula thought, to be agreeing with Toph when she was criticising the Fire Nation like this, but she was right - all sorts of people just didn't understand how to do anything. Whenever Azula had delegated beyond Ty Lee and Mai, it had always been downright farcical. The ridiculous drill was a prime example of it, but by no means the only one.

"Feh, the Dai Li," Toph said scornfully. "Buncha blowhards who think they're better than they are. I'm a better Earthbender than they are, an' I bet so're most of the people I fought in the Rumble, even!"

"I seem to recall they gave you some trouble during your invasion," Azula replied, "You beat them, but that hardly makes them incompetent, does it?"

Toph would struggle with that, Azula thought smugly. She always loved compliments to her own bending, even when they were being used to argue against her.

This was a safer topic of conversation, and the two of them settled into it with practiced ease.

VM AN: Adjusting to the new status quo. Its a lot of fun to just have the two of them spark off each other for a while. Not groundbreaking, but…

TL AN: To break the ground, you must first prepare it.

veteranMortal · Jul 9, 2024

Chapter 18: Versus

"So, could you beat Katara in a fight?" Azula asked after one of those awkward talks where Azula pretended not to be disgusted by her friends so badly for someone who was a master at lying that Toph had to fight not to laugh. It was almost endearing, the way that she could and would hide so many things even from herself, but spite was never one of them. She had pretended to like people she hated before, but for whatever reason she didn't really care about hiding it with Toph.

For instance, she kept on asking these obvious questions, clearly trying to root around in the dirt for information that'd help her beat up her friends if she got out. "If we're not next to a big lake, ten times out of ten, if we're on the ocean… honestly that'd be tough even if I was on one of your cool metal ships."

"Cool?" Azula asked.

"Well I can use it for bending, so that makes it cool," Toph pointed out. Duh. "Cause the ocean's otherwise kinda stupid. All that water, and fish? Okay, fish is alright, sort of. Sometimes. But all that water?"

"So, not at sea?" Azula asked.

"Probably not, she's not quite as focused on all that stuff as me, but she's a prodigy too and all, basically just kicking butt the moment she actually had a chance to really learn Waterbending instead of having to do it herself," Toph said. "But, next to a small lake, or a big one if I played smart, I could beat her. Cause, she loves these clever little water whips, this sort of big precision stuff." Toph gestured vaguely, even though neither of them could see it. "And she's fast, she can just glide on the water like whoosh. So you gotta know where all the water is. I can't see it, so I've been trying to learn her waterbending forms just so I'd know what she does when she does a motion. But, well." Toph laughed, "She's been too busy hanging around Aang trying to fix stuff. Unlike Zuko, I haven't basically mastered her every move… mostly. Sort of. So I'd have to build up some big earthen barriers, stuff that blocks the water and forces her to dance where I'm controlling things. With the overwhelming you get subtle, with the subtle you get overwhelming."

She was quoting that stupid Jing book now.

But it was true! Katara was clever with her bending, so she'd just try to overpower and overwhelm her and not give her time to be really clever and scheme her way to a surprise victory or anything like that. No, Toph wouldn't be fair and she wouldn't be fun because Katara was too good for that, if she was imagining some all out fight with, she didn't know… Katara's evil clone? Doppelganger from the spirit world? Whatever!

The best part is, none of that helped Azula. It wasn't really advice, because no doubt Azula had tried to overwhelm Katara. Katara had described the fight to her when she'd been bored and bugged her enough about it, though Katara missed half of Azula's moves because she was busy… well, not dying? Being worried for Zuko? Toph got it, but at the same time it still annoyed her just a little bit.

Honestly she'd been getting annoyed a little bit easier nowaday. Just a bit. She had a lot to think about, and only some of it was Bending… but it was more as if she ahd a lot of Bending to think about, and a lot of other things to think about.

Because Azula had kept on pressing her that meeting where she asked the question, finally, "What if she makes all your dirt wet? I know you can control mud, but have you really practiced new moves with the mud?"

Toph considered it and said, "A few." But what she meant was 'I should practice more.' Because that would be cool if she had a half-dozen mud-based moves that… wait, she could do the stupid water whip stuff, but with mud! She'd thought it before, but she'd never bothered to get around to it because hitting someone in the face with mud was funny but not useful. But, hmm.

"Not enough, eh?" Azula asked. "You're welcome."

You're welcome? That made Toph mad enough that they had a nice, fun argument about bending for the next fifteen minutes.

But, when she trained later that day, it involved having servants bring her as much water as they could, and trying to make use of an ocean of mud. It was… kind of cool, actually, because it was a little like waterbending. She could even sorta do, like, vaguely waterbending inspired nonsense with her earthbending and it'd work better for manipulating mud. She'd probably have a lot of practice to go but… but it was at that point, and after it, that she started actually answering Azula's questions about fights seriously, because every time she did she thought of new ways she could Bend better. And it became just… one of their things.

Like telling that stupid dramatic story of the Bending rivals at war. Like going over petty grievances and complaints and treating them seriously. Like all the other things that made up the increasingly solid foundation of their friendship.

"The Avatar?"

"Well, an actual all-out fight, I'd just lose, Zaps. If it was Earthbending versus Earthbending without any flying I think I could win even with the Avatar state," Toph admitted. "But the flying's rough. I've tried to hone my hearing against him and overwhelm him before he can fly… but yeah, it doesn't really work. He can bend too many things at once, and if he was actually going all out he'd win. Of course, it's Aang, he'd spend half the time trying to talk me down." She had to smile at that, because as boring as Nice could be sometimes, Aang was just really, really nice and a good person. She'd be in a much worse place if Aang hadn't come along and insisted on trying to convince her to teach him Earthbending.

She could win, maybe even easily, the kind of fight she'd actually have with Aang where he didn't treat it seriously and gave her chances to give up and inevitably fell for any trick you put in front him, rather than a fight with the Avatar Aang who had a thousand tricks and was kinda scary to even imagine facing, honestly.

"Huh," Azula said, and she clearly had an idea. "What if you just blew up a lot of dust? Or sand or dirt? You can sense things you're not touching, right?"

"Yep," Toph said, but now she was thinking about it. If she spread sand around, could she see someone flying with it? She could struggle to see sand even when she was touching it, but that was a thought. Or dirt. She could imagine clouds of dirt in the air to at least be able to tell where an Airbender was? She wasn't sure how she'd do it, but she was thinking now, and she knew what the rest of the next hour or two would be.

In-depth, annoyingly precise discussions of the exact specifics of Bending.

She kind of loved it.

"Sokka," Azula said, no doubt with a smirk on her face. Last week had been Iroh, the week before had been Bumi and boy was that one a puzzler that had given her at least a few things she needed to try. She was kind of getting to the point where she didn't have the free time left to train any other tricks besides the ones she'd thought of.

So maybe this was a way to make her laugh.

If it was, it worked. Toph started laughing and she couldn't stop for a bit.

"I meant, what would that "clever idiot" do if he was devoted to taking you down?" Azula asked.

"Oh, like, how he'd try to do it?" Toph asked. "Prolly try to mess with my feet, everyone tries that once in a while, but it won't work, I'm careful with that. Even hotfoot isn't enough, and I've fought enough people that try."

"Zuko probably wouldn't dare," Azula sneered.

"Nope, he stays out of trying hotfoot, but I punish anyone who tries so…"

Toph considered it.

"What if one of them succeeded?" Azula asked. "Do you have any skills with grappling? Or pins? Or punching? Sure, hypothetically if you couldn't see anyone you'd actually be dealing with that… but ears, maybe?" She was considering it, and added, "I myself as you know trained to be able to fight back and avoid and evade even without my Firebending."
Toph… paused at that. She'd been about to dismiss it, now she was actually thinking about it. It was odd. "Nah," Toph said. "Not right now, kinda don't have time. But you know…"

It was odd, because she'd never actually done it like this. Zuko sort of helped her become a better bender, and in a way so had Katara and Aang, but it was never so direct. It was never a sneering bit of actually good Bending advice, because Katara trusted her to know her business and so everything she'd learned from Katara had to do with just sparring. Same with Aang. Same with Zuko.

But Azula had absurd Bending standards and viewed even a tiny weakness as unforgivable, and at some point she'd clearly decided that she respected Toph enough to give her advice like this and also clearly try to sneak in information about how she'd fight the whole world if she needed to.

It was kind of pathetic and yet kind of impressive. Toph's thoughts had narrowed down moment by moment when she was imprisoned, until she'd been able to think of nothing except doing the absolutely impossible out of spite. But Azula was trying to encompass the world from a jail cell, even though she didn't get half of what the world was like now that the Fire Nation was lost, just that surely it must be bad.

She was sheltered, maybe, but she wasn't complacent.

Toph wasn't sure if she was becoming a better person, being Azula's friend. If anything, she thought about things that annoyed her or that she resented more now. But she had to say that it was interesting.

It happened entirely by accident. Okay, it probably couldn't be called an accident, but it was. Toph had a move she wanted to get right, a rather difficult, very fiddly one because she'd been thinking about different kinds of crystals and whether she could manipulate the structure of metal and all sorts of other stuff like that. But it'd been really fascinating, and so she'd sort of… stayed up past her bedtime. And then past midnight. Then, when she'd been somewhere an hour or two before dawn she'd realized that there was no point in no waiting until the sunrise and then just crawling into bed and sleeping until noon. Then she'd eat lunch-breakfast (lekfast? She'd work on the right phrase, but lekfast sounded good to her) and go and see Azula.

So she was trudging about at the break of dawn, when she usually didn't wake up for real for an hour or two later, which is why she was able to sense the concentration of people with her feet. Guards, yeah yeah whatever, two dozen of them clearly tense and watching? Whatever.

Azula, and not behind two doors? Toph turned to trudge that way, toes curling for a moment as if she was about to bend. She didn't know what she expected, but by the time she'd gotten closer she could feel it.

Chains.

Azula had chains and cuffs binding both her feet and arms, and in the former case covering her arms entirely so that she was essentially in a kind of iron cast, while a metal device of some kind covered her mouth. She was shuffling along in the early morning sunlight, her heart racing just a little bit too much. She wasn't well. She shuffled along, and the guards clearly were watching her for her escape attempt as she moved around a small corner of the palace out of the way of everyone but no doubt open to the sun.

Oh, to get whatever sunlight people needed before being dragged back downstairs to eat.

Toph stepped forward, and she realized at once that Azula would hate it. Azula would hate Toph 'seeing' her like this.

And Toph hated seeing Azula like this. Toph hated feeling Azula even more confined than in a cell, shuffling around while dozens of assholes, all of them adults much older than her, glared at her and no doubt watched her for the least sign that she was doing anything.

How dare they.

(It didn't matter that if she hadn't known Azula except as the bad guy she would have shrugged this off with an uneasy frown, a year ago.)

"Yo, Zappy," Toph called out, and felt Azula turn and see her for the first time in… a long time. Toph had no idea what Azula would see. She knew her hair was a mess and she had even more dirt on her than usual. "Was comin' back from an all-nighter and saw you. Well, I didn't see--"

"Lady Beifong, please move along," a guard said, a big guy who nonetheless was very, very scared of her. "It's for your own safety."
Lie. He was lying to her. He didn't give a pebble's care about her safety, and he didn't think she was in danger.

"Nah. Liar," Toph said. It was annoying, when people thought they could lie to her. She stomped forward. Azula's own heart rate was picking up. "So, what, you drag her around here for a little while to get her sun?"

"Y-yes, Lady Beifong, Fire Lord's orders," another man said, and she heard something in it. Disapproval.

"Orders?"

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but she's a frustrating prisoner, I'd rather not go through this every day, but the Fire Lord insisted," that second bozo said.

So, what? This was Zuko being kind? This?

The Fire Nation sucked so much. Toph took a breath and said, "Well, now she's here. Too bad I can't talk to her."

"She burns hands. She bites," a female guard said with so much anger and contempt that you'd think Azula had personally killed someone she cared about.

…okay, that wasn't impossible, to be fair.

But Toph couldn't think like that.

Toph didn't sense an enemy who was also a friend.

She just sensed a friend, and for a moment she felt this desperate drive, this thought that perhaps she should just shatter the chains. She could do so. It wouldn't even be hard.

Toph took a breath. "I'll see you in an hour or two, Sparky."

She couldn't stand here and look at this, and be calm.

But come two hours from then, she sauntered in with a "Yo Platypus-Bear" and let Azula tell one of her by now all the way worn-through stories about humiliating and reveling in the suffering of some idiot, because she knew that after seeing Toph 'see' her, she needed to think about the times she'd won, not the ones she'd lost.

veteranMortal: Azula's take on Toph shifting, pretty inexorably, from "I'll defeat her" to "I'll have to defeat her" to "Can she defeat people with me?" Makes you wonder where it ends.

The Laurent: Face to face with the enemy.

The Laurent · Jul 16, 2024

Interlude 3--Zuzu

Zuko liked his office a lot.

He knew that this did nothing to prove the 'compliments' that he was mature for his age wrong, that he cared so much about how he decorated his office. Next he'd get excited at different kinds of ink, different styles of calligraphy, and of course different grades of paper. He knew Fire Nation scholars who were like that, and half of them were his best advisors and the other half were his worst.

But he still liked his office.

It had an Earth Kingdom vase, a pelt he'd been given from Katara, a flute that Aang said was in the style that Airbender herders always used, resting in a place of honor, and the colors too were a wild riot upon the senses. He made his office a statement, and that statement was one of increasing frustration and disillusionment.

The thing is.

Okay there are many things. But the thing he was thinking about now is that when he'd been given the throne he'd resolved himself to weaken and destroy his own power, to unravel the Fire Lord and all the power the office had gained in a century. That was the problem, after all, that the Fire Lords were vicious autocrats and nobody dared to question them.

Then he'd actually taken a close look at what most of the nobles tried to get up to when the Fire Lord wasn't looking. It was a record of every kind of atrocity, and even worse a testament to the fact that the family trees of so many of these families excluded bastards. They did evil after evil, and while there were a few good nobles and more who were decent, most of them were an exercise in arrogance, pride, stupidity, every kind of vice, and especially greed and wrath.

It was enough that he was glad that he had learned the Firebending of the Dragons or he'd probably have started burning people in frustration.

It was terrible. He hated it. But he could not give up power if that's who the power was going to. So he grasped the reins tight and tried to make reforms that helped the common person while not making the nobles angry enough to actually try to overthrow him. He could not outright call them all fools, he could not make it clear the anger he had for so many of them, and he had to emphasize fairness and equality. He could make no exceptions, because the only way they'd be willing to go along with this is if they were both afraid and sure he was simply being evenhanded.

It was a good thing that he'd long ago lost most of his Fire Nation friends, and that those he'd sort of held onto, like Ty Lee and Mai, were either dating him (and nobody could blame him for any partiality there) or were long gone, because if they'd come to him begging for mercy for their war criminal parents, he would not have been able to give any. Not for friends. Not for family.

Toph saw none of this, and as much as he liked the girl he had to wonder if she understood just what was happening in the larger world? She… she was one of the best benders he'd ever heard of, in every sense of the word. He loved Firebending, but if he had loved Firebending as much as she did Earthbending, there wouldn't be room for anything else in his life.

So he assumed that the copious amounts of mud on her feet that she had tracked on his silken Fire Nation rug was from some sort of training. It was more dirt than was usually on her feet, though by this point he was used to having to clean the rugs. Well, have servants do so. He would help if he actually had time, but his work kept him up until bedtime and dragged him out of it right from the start, and if he was a fool he'd try cutting down his sleep below six or seven hours a night to see if he could do more.

"So, what are you asking of me?" Zuko asked, realizing he'd sort of drifted off thinking about all of this, and for that matter the tax reforms he'd be trying to roll out in the next few months. He didn't care about money. He really didn't. Justice. Peace. Love. Hope. Honor. Fairness. Those are things he cared about.

But, according to at least some of his advisors, before all of that came tax rates that could be decreased or redistributed or… all of that.

There was always something he could do. Some decision he had to make to transform the Fire Nation since he'd rejected his father's combination of paranoid micromanagement with a complete lack of concern or even basic competence at managing anything. He was not a good Fire Lord by the standards that some of the great Fire Lords of centuries past had set. He was still a teenager. He was still learning.

He'd get better, and he'd not just do a little better than his father but all the way.

"I wanna spend a few more hours in your meetings. Just listening for people lying. Wanna see what else I can figure out from their heartbeats," Toph said, sprawling a little bit and scratching her face. "It's part of my training, but you might as well use it, right?"

"And is all the mud part of your training?" Zuko asked, mildly.

"Of course! I've only been doing a bit of it, but I wanted to do more with mud, cause you know, Zuzu, gotta find ways to keep on getting better."

Zuzu.

She said it on purpose, a grin on her face, her blind eyes looking in his general direction.

(When he'd first heard Zuzu, there had perhaps been the vague and half-forgotten ghost of fondness there. Maybe. Azula, when she was two or three, was still a proud, stubborn child. But he can't imagine that wide-eyed, enthusiastic girl and say, 'surely then she was cruel and arrogant.' If she was, it was in the thoughtless way children were. He read stories about the glory of the Fire Nation back then, plenty of which depicted Earthbenders as hunched things, badgermoles in human form. He'd giggled at how weird they looked, without particular malice but without particular respect, and his Mom had…

Zuzu shifted, at some point, from a playful, teasing nickname with just a tiny bit of sting, to something more and more disrespectful, more and more dismissive. He'd like to think that there was still some withered husk of that fondness, like a tiny seed buried in barren ground, but he was pretty sure he was deluding himself.

Each time he visited her, it hurt more and more, and he found his own care growing… weaker. He didn't want it to. What kind of person judged someone lashing out who had cause for it? He knew her conditions were not as good as they should be, but he also knew that there was no such thing as safekeeping of someone was dangerous as her without it also being uncomfortable.

Each time he visited her, he wondered what cruelty she would discover next. He knew, being fair, that she was bitter and trapped and only going to get worse. So he didn't visit much anymore.

Zuzu. Zuzu. He hated that name. He hated it so much, for what it meant and what it didn't.)

"Toph," Zuko said. "You've been talking to Azula a lot, haven't you?"

"Yep, Sparky's many things, but of all of them, bad at giving Bending advice isn't one of them. Zula's where half the ideas came from, but they're not her ideas of course," Toph said with a grin, looking genuinely happy to be talking about Azula. "They're mine, cause I'm not going to just stand still, even if I'm not old enough to go out there."

"She's not… causing any problems?"

"Oh, we argue sometimes. Sure? But really Zuzu, what you're actually afraid of is that, I dunno, she's controlling me. But when I went to her for advice on your little offer she actually said I should go," Toph said.

His little… oh.

Right.

"She did?" Zuko asked, not surprised but curious.

"Oh, blah blah blah, you're just afraid of power, blah blah blah, if you want to enact a lack of power and hierarchy you need to seize power, blah blah blah," Toph said, mocking Azula with far too much fondness. "But I saw the actual things she was feeling when she said that. So yeah, I'd like to figure out how to read people even better. I'm working on using mud. I'm working on using dirt in the air. Honestly all of this is gonna take a while to figure out." She frowned, and if it took her a while to figure out, he had to assume it was truly, nightmarishly difficult. But that only made it more worthwhile, Zuko thought.

He understood that drive. He was not as obsessive as her, but he knew the desire to get better and better. But did it really involve… talking to Azula? Toph hung around with him more often nowadays, but her temper sometimes seemed a little shorter, which was hard to imagine. Of course, he liked being able to hang out with her, for all that he had to try to work and talk at the same time.

For instance, even now his eyes strayed down every so often to the summary of the situation in the Colonies. Another case where it was quite clear that he would have to do something. The problem was that anyone could see that he had to do "something" but what it was…

What it was, was a headache.

"You have time."

"Oh yeah, I kinda do. Still a few months till my birthday," Toph said, waving a hand. "That's one of my deadlines, though I could always push it back a little more. But y'know, Zuko... nah. I'll talk to you about that later."

It was as close as he'd seen her get to crafty, subsiding a little bit and clearly considering something. She kicked her feet and said, "So, what do you say? For the court stuff. Not too long, but even a meeting or two..."

"I might be willing, but you should understand," Zuko said, fully aware he was about to make her day, "The nobles are afraid of you. They think you're here to threaten me or... something?"

Toph laughed, "Zuzu, if I wanted to threaten you I'd beat you up in practice, I wouldn't stand there, menacingly, back straightened to my full height."

It was still not a full height, even though Toph had actually begun to sprout up like a weed. It was the case, however, that growing fast from very short still made one pretty short.

"Right. I understand that, but they don't," Zuko said.

"And their opinions matter?" Toph asked, bored, and for a moment…

No, Toph would be dismissive of the opinions of a bunch of Fire Nation nobles, this wasn't anything to do with Azula, or if so not much to do with her. He hated, though, that now that he'd heard "Zuzu" he was looking even more closely for signs that Azula was influencing her. It shouldn't be like that.

He should be able to be happy that his little sister had a friend. In some entirely different world that shared nothing with this one, he'd… be able to be happy rather than worried. Or at least roll his eyes and consider the fact that his sister had gotten a claim on one of his friends was… annoying.

Annoying, rather than very concerning.

And there was the fact…

Azula was almost sixteen.

Minister Yesai was one of those advisors that Zuko actually trusted, at least within reason. He had been essentially fired by his father around the time he got into power for trying to raise certain economic matters… specifically the fact that the Fire Nation was increasingly running on credit and that even their conquests were unable to fix the broken budget.

Father had, of course, reacted by demanding more money and cutting the budget for everything that wasn't the army, and standardizing looting even more and trying to make sure that the Fire Lord got his share of it. Also other atrocities of all kinds, from the grand to the petty, such as holding children captured for a crime until they were adults, and then trying them as adults and offering the choice between serious prison time… or joining the army. Every little thing, every little evil.

It was not that Yesai thought, as Zuko did, that every Ban spent unnecessarily towards the army was a child who went without rice, a village that went without roads, a world and a Fire Nation both impoverished. No, he'd suggested perhaps a few years, maybe a decade or two, of regrouping. There had been such a time in the middle of Azulon's reign, before Iroh's victories had breathed fresh life into the offensives.

It hadn't been an end to the war, simply a short time of taking a breath and preparing fresh assaults.

But now the old man served Zuko, and he similarly tried to advise things that would help the Fire Lord reach his goals.

But this time Zuko would listen.

"The audit has been completed," Yesai said drily. "I do not quite understand why you held it, but it is useful. The guards are loyal, the high pay is helping."

He had frowned, but when Zuko had insisted and pointed out that of all the places to save money, the people guarding his sister were not one of them. They were paid very, very well, and were informed that any bribe would be matched if it was proven and the guilty party was held.

"I needed to see something, and the audit was necessary. Right now, we need to think about what to do in the colonies."

"You should prevail upon that friend of yours," Yesai pointed out, raising one of his bushy brow, the aged face filled with thought. "If she was going to do all the work of the colonies for free, that would be a very necessary economy, one that would let us begin dealing with our excess debts."

Zuko sighed and said, "it's her choice." It was always Toph's choice. He didn't know how you could actually force Toph to do anything even if you wanted to. And Zuko did not want to.

"Are you worried about her?" The minister asked. "I gathered… well, suspected, that there was a reason you wanted to see the guestbooks as well. Is she loyal?"

"The guestbooks," Zuko said, but he couldn't hide that he was flipping the pages and then reading. They seemed to have notes, written ones, about how long the visits lasted. He began to do the math, but before he finished, Yesai spoke up.

"Eleven hours of visiting time in the last week, ten the week before, twelve the week before that, nine before that," He said. "Generally it is trending upward over the last two months, and might well have hit a practical limit. Anything you spend twelve hours a week on is important."

Toph had begun to spend more time with him, and hang out with him more. But it was far less than how much time she apparently spent enjoying Azula's company.

Zuko had a… bad feeling about this.

He didn't understand Toph, and again, and again, and again there was the fact…

Azula was almost sixteen.

And there were sentences attached to attempted mass murder, to dozens and dozens of crimes. It was the last and most final of them that kept him in constant nightmares, some nights.

Nightmares about the danger, and nightmares about whether he'd eventually not have nightmares anymore about what could be…

VM AN: It's honestly pretty tricky to reform a country where you want to stop being a tyrant but everyone in the rung of power directly below yours is a total freak reactionary, you know?

TL AN: It sucks. It really just sucks so bad.

veteranMortal · Jul 24, 2024

Chapter 19: Dreams

Sometimes, Azula saw things that were not there. It did not happen that often. Her hallucinations, her strange visions, had always been once in a while but always given to shaking her up. The thought that she could not be sure which real meetings were real and which were 'real' left Azula momentarily unsteady… but she knew how to recover. She did not in the months that followed have a hallucination of Toph, but she sometimes found ways to subtly make sure Toph could check about any comings and goings. She saw Ty Lee once when she wasn't there, and four or five times where she actually was there. Bits and pieces of dreams and nightmares clung to her, but they were not as strong as she might have feared. Indeed, even seeing what Toph actually looked like did not lead to some improbable vision of her.

No, to Azula Toph was still the voice beyond the door as much as she was the pale-eyed girl who seemed even from her dress to be in that awkward stage of outgrowing one's clothing that even Azula had gone through. Though she had not acknowledged it and any acknowledgement that this stage existed or might still exist was harshly and convincingly rebuked.

Toph didn't even seem to notice it, though Azula had run the details over and over again in her mind, because she saw so few people nowadays that were not in her mind's eye. Toph had been practicing deep into the night, and so her hair had been out of place, her voice wearier than she had probably even noticed.

Toph only rarely sounded tired, and seemed indefatigable in how hard she was to truly distract. Azula had been spending quite a lot of time reading the last few months as her own doom drew closer. She knew what would happen, if Zuko had any sense at all. She knew it was coming, and so she began to think about it. But never for long. It didn't matter, because she was… content.

No, that was not it. She was biding her time, planning and scheming and still trying to think her way out, but she was also aware that it was going to take time. The opportunity to escape would come and as long as she was quick and motivated she could exploit that opportunity to be free and then reconquer-- no, liberate, the Fire Nation.

In the meantime, she tried to write stories, she made sure to train as hard as she could, and she appreciated the fact that she had a friendly acquaintance who was also an enemy, and a "friend" who was clearly humoring her (Ty Lee), and that the guards seemed to be able to do nothing but seethe at her anytime she showed them the disrespect of slowing down on her walk or moving in a way she knew was threatening. They'd taken what pieces of her dignity they could manage, but they were incompetent idiots and she was not a child and soon legally would not be seen as such.

Zuko would strike soon, and yet in striking he'd let his guard down, thinking she was safely dead and that she could be ignored. Once she would have doubted poor little Zuzu could do it, but she'd seen it in his voice. He wanted to be Fire Lord now, or thought he must be. It had buried itself deep inside him and once the taste of that dream was in your mouth, there was nothing you would do to achieve it that would ever taste of ashes, taste less than sweet. There had to be nothing you would do, or else what about the world would make sense?

She knew it was there. She knew he would act. She knew she would respond. She knew she'd have no choice but to wipe him out, and she knew that it… it wouldn't even be cruelty, not that she was averse to cruelty. To be caged when one was the rightful Fire Lord was a torture. It was her throne, her decisions, her power that was being taken away.

So an acquaintance and enemy was not worth that. When the time came, she'd have to defeat Toph or find a way to get her on her side.

But she wasn't there yet. She wasn't there yet, and that left her free to continue writing that story, of rivals fighting it out over some made up province in the northern colonies. She'd changed the names, and some of the backstory, writing backward in spare moments where she was bored with three hours of training in a row (and without the time to move onto a fourth).

It was… not going so badly, and it was not as if she had anything else to do. To an extent there was a limit beyond which could only be reached by challenging herself or facing an enemy. Despite how pathetic Zuko must be, she still envied that Toph had someone to train against. Zuko was just barely better than nothing.

Time passed, and her writing continued, and she thought about what she could do and realized, more and more, that the biggest thing she needed now was time. Time for Zuko to get complacent, time for the guards to get bored. Perhaps she should even deign to pretend to respect him, if he came again.

But Zuko did not come. Perhaps he could not have resisted gloating about the punishment coming her way, or perhaps he was so weak as to pretend that if he didn't see her it wouldn't be real.

Time passed.

"So yeah, Sparky, that's kind of not… it's working a little but I can't quite get it. I feel like I'm missing something," Toph said, firmly, her voice tired. "I can get the mud control, but it doesn't really do what I want it to do."

"Perhaps you're not as good of a bender as you think," Azula said, and enjoyed the outraged noises Toph made. She could picture that outrage even better now, and that only made teasing and seeing just how she'd react more fun. "Perhaps it will take you weeks or months to learn it." She knew that it was pathetic if you took more than a week to learn something. She'd only failed to learn a new technique in under a week twice. First, a time she decided she would never think of again, and second with Lightning. It had taken almost two weeks for her to perfect it, to be good enough to fit the expectations of…

(She did not like thinking of him, locked away and useless, helpless. Even if he was freed, he could never truly become the Fire Lord again.)

"I'm younger than you were when we fought you," Toph said, firmly. "I have time. A little bit of time."

If you weren't the best bender alive by fourteen, what were you doing with your time? She was pretty sure that short of the Avatar, she was the best living bender. This was not arrogance, this was just the truth. So she understood Toph's desire, those standards she placed upon herself that took work to achieve. But at a certain point, it would happen or it would not, and no doubt even if one did not become a flawless bender at fourteen, one still improved every way you could.

Even Zuko had improved from where he'd been before.

Therefore, at a certain point it was all a little boring. "Speaking of 'a little bit of time' I had to wonder what your character would do about a Fire Nation offensive?"

"So, right, you'd besieged that one town, and then there was the attack down on the coast or something," Toph said. "So now you're going to try to take all the villages? Prob'ly destroy all of 'em, if you're being realistic."

"That would not happen," Azula pointed out. "A few cases of this exist within the Fire Nation, but if you want to conquer you need something to rule over."

Of course, the matter with Ba Sing Se, reconquering Omashu, and all of the offensives would have included some harsh but necessary measures, but it wasn't as if it was a policy that could actually have destroyed the Earth Kingdom.

"Pfft, yeah, sure Princess," Toph said. "But anyway, when you go south, you see just why he wasn't at the siege past the first few days. The ground is broken. Tall walls, shattered redoubts, the whole region is a series of broken defenses so that even if you get through one you can't actually fight a whole battle anyway."

Azula… could picture that, actually, and she considered it for a moment. "Well, then I suppose." She began writing, trying to think about it. "The sun sets its golden rays down upon a world transformed. No more the rolling hills and flat plains, this is something strange and dappled, something alien, like some ridiculous story of the world of spirits, something so odd that he was left gazing upon the devastation and wondering what could drive someone to do this. Wondering how one could siege or take such terrain, and for that matter how crops and farmland could survive such means. And so, she stared, the browns and greens contrasting with the blue skies above, the heady weather of late Spring when the rains had passed and what remained was… was. Something like that?"

Azula had run out of words, and she wasn't sure how it would work.

"Ground's even more broken than that. A little churned up," Toph said, her voice pretending to be bored. "So I think, hmm. It'd be even darker than that, I guess? I've heard deep soil is more black than brown, whatever those are."

Azula snorted, because that was kind of how it was. Whenever Toph did describe anything, it was always about the physicality of it. It was about the way it changed the landscape, how it (or a person) was shaped. Flat, simple details. She lacked the eloquent diction and word choice of some of Azula's favorite books. She was not mellifluous, but instead told the honest truth as she saw it. Well, unless she was tricking Azula or decided not to tell the truth for whatever reason. But so it went. Azula, who had taken to reading anything she could get her hands on in this prison, knew that it was all useless and worthless… but why not?

"What would you know about any of that?" Azula asked.

"Well, I've seen colors before, I'm pretty sure," Toph said, casually.

Again, Azula was stopped in her tracks as she had been months before. "What. How?"

"I've seen 'em, I'm pretty sure, and they weren't worth remembering," Toph said.

"Were you not born blind?" Azula asked, thrown just a little bit by the tone of Toph's voice. It was getting softer as she spoke.

"Back when I was three, or four, I trusted my Mommy and Daddy," Toph said, as if she could not understand it now.

Azula understood. Perhaps she had been naive enough to trust her mother when she was only three, she could not remember back then well enough to know if there was ever such a childish delusion it had long since passed.

(No, I love you Azula, I do.)

"So one night, I had this strange, scary, weird dream. There were all these strange blobs of… something all over that were moving when the voices and sounds and smells were, sort of smeared all over it, like… like what sand usually is to my earthsense, or like if you rubbed a bunch of mud over something and then people couldn't 'see' it as well. And I went to her, crawled into her bed, and I told her about it, and she said that was color. That I was dreaming of color."

Azula. Blinked. "What?"

"I forgot it, cause I had no, like, point of reference or whatever? I forgot what it looked like because to me it was random stuff that didn't matter, but some part of my mind must know what color is, and sometimes I have dreams like that. Dreams where there's sort of this blur of stuff over my Earthsense, but whenever I wake up I forget it because it's not like I have a reference, y'know? It'd be like if you dreamed in Earthsense you'd basically forget it when you wake up. So, I've never really needed my eyes, and I've seen color and it's literally forgettable, Sparky."

Azula considered that, "Huh. That's… interesting." She had no idea how to use it, it wasn't some clever idea that she could use to get closer to Toph. It wasn't something practical, or fun, it was just something about Toph that… that she couldn't tell just anyone. "This Sokka, or whichever of them does all the reading? You mentioned a library? What's he think?"

Might as well use this to get an idea of how she'd react to questions like that.

"Oh, uh, I kinda haven't told him? Or anyone besides you and, well, my Mom and she's probably told my Dad?" Toph said.

Azula reached down to grip that charm bracelet tight for a moment, and then felt Toph squeezing on it, as if to reassure her that this isn't a hallucination.

How strange, how odd. She's the first person Toph's told about this since she was four? Azula did not know quite how to feel about that. It was useless trivia, but clearly it was very personal. It felt like something a little special, because it was clear that at least some of Toph's excellence as a bender had come from the fact that she was blind. Azula was sure she'd still be an excellent Earthbender no matter what, but at a certain point it was impossible not to acknowledge what her life had actually led her to.

She was the kind of Bender who would have risen to prominence even if she'd never met the Avatar, because talent that great had to be acknowledged. Azula believed that about herself as well, that being part of the Royal Family had given her opportunities that others couldn't easily access, but that if you worked hard enough you could be recognized as a Bender. That's how it worked.

So, to think about that, to think about colors and imagine them as something forgettable and secondary, it brought an odd sort of pause to Azula for a moment as she considered just what it might be like to believe that. To be different. Because for her, colors were everything. Firebending was more colour than any other sort of bending. Her blue was more than just a colour, it was a representation of her. It set her apart, marked her as different. Special.

They called it cold fire, her guards. She had heard it before - the Crown Princess's cold fire, showing her cold, dispassionate approach to firebending. It was an easy misconception, and one she had always let lie. Her fire was not blue because it was cold. Blue fire is fire that consumes completely, and it is hotter by far. She runs hot, and only seems otherwise because the blue flame has to be controlled so carefully or it will spill out of control.

"Oh, Azula." Mother's voice was kind, gentle, and utterly unwanted. "I didn't know."

"What are you doing here?" Azula replied, cautiously.

"Can I not come to see my daughter? I wanted to apologise," Mother said, "I can see now that I didn't understand you. I didn't realise you were hurting yourself so badly, flaying yourself raw to burn so bright. No one realised, Azula. It wasn't our fault we didn't see it, but I'm still sorry for it."

"What do you mean?" Azula asked, suddenly defensive. "There's nothing wrong with my bending."

"Azula, please," Mother said, chiding, almost exhausted, like she so often was at the palace. "You are not the first firebender to be a prodigy - your uncle was, too, but his flames were never blue. Did you not think?"

"I'm not bending wrong!" Azula said, almost yelling. "What would you know about it anyway?"

Her bracelet squeezed gently against her wrist, and she remembered Toph was here.

How could Toph be here if Mother was here? Azula ran a hand across the bracelet, traced it with her fingertips, and it pulsed against them. Mother faded away. She wasn't real. Toph was real, and Toph understood her - so what if other firebenders had been prodigies? Other earthbenders had been prodigies before Toph, but no one said that her metalbending was wrong or a mistake.

"Lost you for a minute there?" Toph said quietly.

There was no judgment in her tone, and Azula found to her own surprise that the expected spike of embarrassed defensiveness simply never materialized.

"I think she probably gets her soldiers to enlist the local peasants to clear a path through the ruins. It'll take longer than having her soldiers do it, but they don't need to be strung out, easy to ambush," Azula said, "And she can keep her soldiers ready to drive off whatever your character tries to do next."

"Of course you'd have her do that!" Toph replied, and just like that, they moved past the whole sorry episode, and Azula released a tension she hadn't realised she had been holding in her back.

veteranMortal: So, dreams. Important to touch on how the bracelet like "works" for non-Toph hallucinations. Also, a big Azula insight! Sorry this one was a day late, I'm incredibly busy this week.

The Laurent: The stuff about Toph's dreams is obviously not canon, but I did spend a while thinking about it, and I thought it was an interesting thing. Something Toph could share where it being a secret from all of her other friends wasn't really her holding out on anyone.

The Laurent · Jul 30, 2024

Chapter 20: Sweetness

Toph Beifong understood the point of birthdays. They were an excuse for all of her friends to be able to get together. Beyond that, birthdays just weren't that special to her. She'd had celebrations, but as far as she knew that was more a noble thing or a "mimicking the Fire Nation" thing. Fire Nation people had birthdays for everyone, which they'd used to defeat them that one time with the fake birthday party. It had something to do with them having records and bureaucracy for everything? Or something? She wasn't sure, but what she did know was that even among Earth Kingdom nobles, sixteen was usually thought of as special or whatever. Mostly for gross reasons having to do with marriage, but whatever.

So, Toph Beifong was pretty sure that birthdays had no point that she respected. She was also pretty sure that Azula wouldn't care.

But, hey, it'd be an excuse to see just how Azula reacted. But this would have to involve first figuring out a present. She knew one of them, if she could figure it out. But what about the other one? Or… did they have weird special cake or whatever for birthdays? She bet they did.

So, unfortunately, she was forced to pull a Snoozles and visit… the library.

Akorai Tsagaan looked at her dubiously. Well, she couldn't see it, but she knew what dubious was like, and his voice dripped it enough to make her want to ask if he was a waterbender.

"Books on customs?" he asked.

"Birthdays and so on. In general and also milestones, that sorta thing. Who knows, my birthday's in like two months," Toph said. "Maybe I want to do some party planning in advance." The Head Librarian was leaning over her, looking down at her, but perhaps not down on her. She wasn't sure. She'd assume it wasn't the case and adjust later if he really was.

"I am sure that we can find something for you, then," he said. "Though we do want to ask where the books you took away went, as we mentioned them to the Fire Lord, and--"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Toph said, digging around for the piece of paper that essentially just said she could do whatever she wanted with the library and it would be fine. "They're no longer in the way, right? And none of the ones I've checked out, I've failed to return, right?"

"Well, there is one…"

Oh. Most of the books Azula had burned in her… rampage, had been ones she'd taken from the library for good, but one of them wasn't. She had never really explained that.

"It kinda got lost. But if you remember what it is I'll, I dunno, ask around about getting another copy." She didn't know how that worked, but books shouldn't be that hard to find. Or write, for that matter. Azula was writing a story, and she wasn't someone with some scholar's education or whatever? She didn't think much of stories, or books in general, and so it couldn't really be that big of a deal.

She liked hearing things from them, though, because Azula was starting to read to her all the time. So she supposed she was learning things, even if what Azula was interested in was random nonsense. But it had gotten to the point where she could bring anything to Azula and she'd presumably roll her eyes, sigh, and read a little bit of it aloud, between insults and grumblings. Toph didn't take advantage of it too much, just because she wanted to save it for the right moment where she could get Azula spitting, stomping mad at something she brought along. But she needed to find a way to make it unexpected. Maybe a book that starts one way and goes another? She can't read, so she'll have to figure that out.

It was a work in progress, as were several other pranks that would hopefully amuse her. She had ideas, though she also had ideas that were rather… sappier. Which was annoying.

But.

Yeah, she wanted to do them. She thought it was even stupider and sappier to not do what you wanted to do because you were afraid of doing it. Sometimes you had to grit your feet and charge ahead.

Always was a time.

"It is fine, Lady Beifong," Akorai said, the lie obvious in his voice. She knew she should care, but honestly what was she supposed to do? Unburn the book? It was just how it went.

"So, maybe get one of your library assistants or whatever to find it, or do it yourself. Either way, I kinda need to get some books on this real fast," she said, deciding to tap her foot in an impatient way. Which from an Earthbender could double as a threat. She wouldn't start a fight in a library, as fun as that seemed, but she wasn't going to back down on this.

"I can find someone to manage it. I assume you want as many books on the topic as you can find?" he asked.

"Yes. Whatever works," Toph said.

Lady Beifong was a strange one, everyone said that. Kiyi was just trying to make her reputation as a servant, to see whether she'd rise within the palace or catch the attention of one of the nobles. This wasn't all she wanted to do with her life, but it's what her grandfather, mother, and older sister had all done, so she had to at least give it a shot.

Three years in the palace had taught her enough to know that she had to know how to hold her tongue. She'd also learned that there was at least some place for people who were a little more outgoing. A lot of the servants hated jobs like having to go and sweep up the gardens or anything that involved climbing.

Kiyi, on the other hand, loved climbing and hiking and nature a lot more than she did pretty silks and beautiful flower arrangements. But violence, on the other hand, left her cold and strange in the face of all that was wrong with it. She had been glad that being a servant, and a teenager, had combined to protect her from conscription in that final year of war. It had swung so rapidly. Early in the year the calls had come out for old people and young teenagers, and then they'd won a series of victories and the calls had been for any warm body able to stand guard duty over the conquered territory, and then schools choked with people trying to learn how to maintain new technology and… and then it'd all fallen apart.

So, Kiyi was happy to be clear of it, and the new Fire Lord paid them much better and won their loyalty easily.

The Lady Beifong, on the other hand, was harder to understand. She wasn't mean, but she ranged between being rude and dismissive and forgetting her servants existed. She'd tried to drive Kiyi off when she'd been assigned to Lady Beifong, no doubt under the impression that because she was a 'tomboy' she'd find some commonality with the young girl.

That hadn't happened. She'd driven them off insisting she didn't need them, and indeed she dressed herself just fine and kept to herself well enough most of the time. But she did have to leave her clothes out, and she relied on the servants to deliver her food. She kept her room clean enough, but there still did have to be an occasional cleaning, if only when she was out.

Lady Beifong was blind, and Kiyi understood the pride that could come with that. She had a deaf brother, and no doubt that was another one of the Fire Lord's kindnesses, trying to find people to help Toph who could potentially connect with her. It had been pointless, she hadn't even bothered to try to get to know them. Yet, Kiyi could not blame her. She had been thirteen just five years ago, and she knew exactly how much she'd missed in her own self-involvement at the time, back before she'd been formally a servant and had spent most of her time having adventures in the near-wilderness or sneaking around the palace.

So, Kiyi thought a lot about Toph Beifong, and also not that much. She didn't hate the girl, she didn't like the girl, she didn't even dislike her.

All of which meant that when Toph Beifong came up to her and said, "Hey, could you read something to me?" she blinked and said, "Uh… okay."

Lost.

Toph Beifong had a lot of books, keeping a whole strange horde of them in her closet, but now she had a half-dozen of them, and some of them were thick and some were thin.

"Read the bits about birthdays," Toph said, "Trying to figure out what you even get someone for a birthday."
She blinked and looked down at the books, and then looked up to her. "I've had birthdays, you can just ask me?"

"Huh," Toph said, then almost plaintively, "Still read a bit of those books out loud."

She flipped through it and wrinkled her nose. "'A Girl's sixteenth birthday is a magical moment, one that should be used by those she loves to show their appreciation, that she has begun to flower and is reaching towards adulthood, just as anyone at sixteen should be encouraged in their path forward…' eugh." Kiyi realized she'd made that sound in front of Lady Beifong.

But Toph snorted, "Path forward? Really? What did you get?"

"A very pretty silk ribbon and a nice dress," Kiyi said, and then admitted, "I hope that's not my path forward."

"Oh, why?" Toph asked.

"You can't really have a pretty dress without ruining it when you climb trees."

Kiyi was herself gobsmacked at Lady Beifong's gobsmacked expression.

"Climbing trees? Never really done that," she admitted.

"Oh yeah, I'm a… or was, am, whatever, a bit of a tomboy. So, honestly, try to think of whoever it is, and what they'd like instead of what's expected to give them. You can give them one gift, or two or three, it all just depends."

But now she had to wonder who exactly Lady Beifong was going to be getting birthday gifts for?

"Why are you here doing, I dunno, my laundry or other people's laundry instead of climbing trees."

S said, "You can't make a living climbing trees. I don't know what I want to do, and cleaning's hardly the worst."

Lady Beifong seemed to actually take that in, as spoiled of a question as that was, and considered it. "I guess not." She seemed to be considering something and then she asked, "Got any problems with me?"

Kiyi opened her mouth to deny it, and Lady Beifong said, "I can tell if you're lying or saying a bunch of nonsense to be nice. Just kinda realized I didn't say thank you." She sounded as if she had to force it out.

"It's not easy to have to have someone else help you, don't worry, my brother's like that."

"Your brother?"

"He's deaf."

Toph Beifong stared. "Huh." She seemed thoughtful, and she nodded.

They talked for a number of minutes afterward, and despite how awkward she was, Kiyi decided to revise her feelings up from neutral to vaguely positive, and then got back to work.

She did think, every now and again, about just what the birthday questions said about Toph, but she honestly had other things to deal with that took up more of her mind.

"So what did you want to talk to me about, Toph?" Zuko asked, and she could tell that he was weary. She'd tried to catch him early in the day, before it all ran him down, but he must not have gotten enough sleep last night or something. Toph couldn't tell what was wrong, but she kinda had to hope it didn't have to do with her. She didn't want to fight with Zuko unless it was fun, and if it had to do with Azula she thought it'd probably just make her frustrated more than anything.

"Azula's birthday is coming up," Toph said. "And I figure, I saw her going out on a walk one morning, a little while ago." She knew she couldn't dance around it even if she wanted to and she didn't want to. "Why not give her a real glimpse of the sunrise. I've heard you people with sight care a lot about stuff like that, especially when you're Firebenders. And she's really a Firebender."

She was the most Firebender firebender she'd met, someone who lived and breathed bending. Even after all this time she seemed to come alive most of all when it came to bending.

"How would we make sure she did not get away?" Zuko asked. "I assume you aren't asking for her in heavy chains?"

"Well the ball and chain, sure, but I was honestly thinking she could have something to eat that's not prison gruel. Dunno what," Toph admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "We don't really talk about food, except this one time she complained about tea for an hour and I kept on just going 'yeah, sure, whatever you say Princess' until she changed the subject. Oh, and one time I came to her drinking tea and she told me about the time she put fire flakes in your tea." Toph couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"She what?" Zuko asked, sounding as if he didn't think it was funny.

"Yep," Toph said, "Which is a funny story, but doesn't exactly help me figure out what she wants to eat, other than that when I get her more fire flakes, she apparently does use them." Toph gestured vaguely, because she could tell little else about what Azula liked to eat. She… wanted to ask, but she also knew that it was not really Azula's priority.

"If you expect to get a real answer from her, you can ask her," Zuko said, though his voice sounded all rocky, solid and awkward. "But I doubt she'd answer me with anything honest."

"I get that," Toph said, thinking about the fact that she, who tended to be blunt, still had friends who thought that her tastes were a lot more reasonable than they were. "I kinda… lied to all of you about my favorite foods for, like, the last two years."

"You… what?" Zuko asked, his voice rising in pure confusion. "Why?"

"Yes, though it doesn't really matter," Toph said, because it didn't. It was just a coincidence that Azula was the first person to know. "So, sun and some kinda food that she actually likes, and then I have a gift or two… just a few small things I found."

Well, they were small, that was pretty undeniable, but she felt his heart rate pick up, clearly… worried? Probably about the gifts, or the fact that Toph had gotten Azula gifts. Oh well, whatever. It wasn't like she was trying to hide it. It wasn't a secret. She and Azula were friends. No doubt if he was worrying about it, Katara and Aang knew already, and Sokka and Suki and everyone else. And, so what?

They could just deal with it, cause it's not like it made her any less their friends. It didn't work like that. Even back before she'd met them, when she'd thought that relying on anyone always made you less, she'd known that having two friends didn't make you have two half-friends.

"I suppose that will be alright, though you'll have to tell the guards, and so… can you tell me?" Zuko asked.

And, oh.

His voice was gentler than he expected for a moment, as if he felt sorry for Toph, or Azula, or both of them. She had to admit, she got why Azula wouldn't respond well to that, cause she honestly kinda wanted to do something to annoy Zuko just to get him off that.

"I guess, you see…"

"If I give this to you, you're not going to kill me, right?"

"Sure."

It would be nice if the child's voice sounded more than bored.

"You blackmailed a noble for a book?!" Zuko asked.

"A signed copy," Toph said, with a snort. "Oh by the way I told your bureaucrat guy, the one you get along well with. I think you'll hear about the arrest or whatever later?"

"How did you even figure out he was embezzling? I mean, yes, you know how to tell when someone's lying, but on a report?" Zuko asked.

She held up a finger, "Heard him talk." She held up another, "Mentioned it to Azula, she made fun of you for choosing an obvious crook as the sub-head of the whatever." Third finger. "Checked with your bureaucrat guy." Fourth finger. "Had someone read the report out loud." Thanks, Kiyi. Fifth finger, "Confronted 'em, he tried to bribe me, I asked him if he had a signed copy, he bribed me, I turned him in anyway because of course I did."

Now she was holding up a hand so she wiggled her fingers. "Shame I didn't get to beat him up." She'd tried to find a signed copy the normal way, but that was taking too long and then she'd heard about all of Akorai Tsagaan's problems. The guy was on the… something about auditing or funding the new library improvements, and obviously part of the budget was disappearing, with books costing more than expected.

"This is how I find out about corruption in the library audit," Zuko said. "Because you wanted to get a signed copy of a… bigoted children's novel. To give to my sister. As a birthday present."

"Yep, that's about it," Toph said, grinning. Of course, she also really wanted to tell him about the other things, and maybe she'd have to. "Oh, and two more things. Just another book I found and a little statue."

"A statue?"

"Oh yeah, it's nothing. Promise there's not a secret key to the prison hidden inside of it," Toph said, just to see him react.

Zuko sighed, "Of course there isn't. I think I could do this… but we'd need to guard her quite thoroughly. And…"

"And?"

"Nothing," Zuko said. "Just, it's weird, you being friends."

"Why, though? We're more like each other than you wanna think, even if I'm not a Jerkbender," Toph said.

"That's… a little of what I'm afraid of," Zuko admitted.

"Don't be," Toph reassured him. "She's my friend, but you are too." She had a lot of friends, and sure she liked Azula a lot, but not that much. "Still waiting for that Life-Changing Field Trip, though."

Azula was woken before dawn, groaning and blinking. This was earlier than she was usually woken up, but the groan of the prison doors and the shaking of the room told her that this was (probably) real. She reached out to put on the bracelet, and heard voices that sounded unfamiliar. She got up, already gathering about her the kind of proud self-assurance that lessers might mistake for arrogance.

"Wake up, Princess," a voice said, and, oh.

She recognized that voice, or at least she thought she did. She thought she'd heard it at some point… when?

"What is it?" she asked, getting dressed anyway.

"Azula, you know what day it is," Zuzu's voice called out. "Don't tell me you don't."

What day it is… what?

Ah.

He was clever, he really was, making sure to send her to trial at the first possible moment. As she hastily got dressed, she considered that as of today she was sixteen, and thus legally could be tried as an adult for her "crimes" in the name of the Fire Nation and executed.

She thought she understood him a little more, through Toph's saccharine view of him as a "good person" as if that mattered. He'd make sure that the trial was as fair as it could be while fixing the result, so today was almost certainly just a meeting to establish the charges and give her the option of an "advocate" whose job it would be to lose in a plausible way.

She drew herself up, gathered more strength than she'd thought she'd needed to face someone was trifling as her older brother. She'd grown soft, perhaps, used to the thought that perhaps things could continue like this until she found some way to escape and then… working out her final triumph.

"Ah, which of the fossils did you convince to wake up before dawn?" Azula asked. "Awfully hasty, aren't you… brother? Not even waiting a full day before hauling me in front of your Rabaroo court. It shows either good sense or… a degree of desperation."

"What? No, that's not what this is," Zuzu insisted.

Either she was hallucinating even despite having felt the door open, or he was lying. She reached out to touch the bracelet, feeling the nervousness of the possibility that somehow whatever strange… visions she had were going to get worse until she could not trust even a single one of her senses. It was a thought that she couldn't bother to consider.

Unimportant.

"What is it, then?"

"Honestly? Toph convinced me you should have a birthday present," Zuko said.

Azula froze.

What?

Triumph warred with disbelief. Toph was trying to, what? Advocate that Zuko go easy on her? But Toph didn't care about birthdays, and Azula had read that they weren't that important in the Earth Kingdom. So, what was this? Toph had to have some sort of angle, but what if she didn't? What if she was…

Azula all at once remembered all those things Toph never said, but could have. All those things she could say to Toph that might destroy whatever… friendly acquaintanceship they had.

She heard the door behind close, and lock. And then the sound of guards approaching. She could make it a fight, and she could win. But the first and only time she'd attempted to institute a hostage crisis had not ended well, and there had been further measures. One of them was quite simple.

It might even be symbolic, if one was looking for symbols everywhere. She had to put on at least part of her own chains, usually. The leg manacles, at least. It depended. They tried new things, ever-inventive in the art of trying to deny her any sense of dignity or control. She knew it was just their cowardice. Azula had given plenty of them burns before. This time, though, before she could even begin thinking of how she could use this…

"Morning, Sparky. I'd say I'm sorry for waking you up, but I'm not," Toph said. "I'm just here to make sure nothing happens. Kinda had to agree to that, y'know?"

Ah.

It had been a negotiation, and.

And.

She felt the squeezing of the bracelet against her wrist, and the fear fled, and far faster than it should have. Azula hated the reaction her body had to knowing that this definitely wasn't something in her head, that Toph really had done it. Even if Toph was now helping to make sure she didn't get away.

"Nothing happens with what?"

"Oh yeah, thought you'd wanna actually see the sun instead of that stupid wandering around where a single beam of it can hit your face dramatically," Toph said, and.

That was just one time in the prose she'd been writing! It was dramatic! The first ray of the sun peeking over the horizon and… agh! And she was just being misrepresented in front of her jailors by someone who was now helping them but also helping her and…

It left her entirely out of sorts. She did not quite meekly comply, but she felt herself holding back her comments, growing angrier and angrier with each moment and each indignity that she was now willing to endure because she was apparently going to get some sort of opportunity to either escape or, alternately, make them think she didn't intend to escape so that they'd let her out again with less trouble and she could actually slip the net.

She did not know how to feel, as she was shackled for her arms, but not her legs. And even her arms, her hands were only covered with a sort of fire-resistant cloth, rather than fully covered by metal. She could probably burn her way out, given enough time. The problem is, it'd be very obvious, if not outright absurd. Even with her care she might harm herself. She'd be willing to do it, if it'd help her escape. But by now she had come to realize that if she wanted to beat Toph in a fight she'd have to actually try. Anything that slowed her down, anything that made her fight at anything less than everything she had, would be an insult for the reluctant Lady Beifong, for the greatest Earthbender alive facing off against the greatest living Firebender.

She strode out as if she was in command, and enjoyed the sight of Toph, standing there. They'd let down one barrier, but no doubt others would come up. Toph was there to make sure she did not gain her freedom. She was not Azula's friend, but she was probably the person closest to her by now after she'd…

No, after she'd been betrayed, not after she'd done anything wrong. Anything to regret.

Nor did she regret the things she'd said all those months ago, to Toph but not to Toph.

But perhaps there were… situations she would rather not be put in by the incompetence and mistakes of others.

Azula kept on stepping forward, surrounded by guards on all sides, and Zuko and Toph as well. There was no chance for escape as they all marched through the halls of her palace. It had not been changed as much as she feared, though it was hard to tell the details because of course the whole area had been cleared. Did they gossip incessantly as they always did, these useless palace hanger-ons? It'd been better when she'd dismissed everyone she could, driven them out of the palace.

Yet somehow this was worse, when all there were guards there to watch her. It wasn't all guards, next to Toph was some sort of servant, a tall girl probably still just barely a teenager, who was carrying a bag and glancing at her every so often.

"What is it?" Azula snapped.

"I just wondered what you looked like," the girl said, with the kind of boldness that Azula knew was just a pitiful front. "I never saw you except at a distance. I… hmm." She looked doubtfully from Toph to Azula, as if trying to evaluate something. "I guess I can see it?"

Azula wanted to snarl out: what?! But she also did not have time as one of the guards coughed and they kept on walking. They were going to go beyond the prison area, beyond the main area, to the gardens.

…she knew this direction.

Azula did not care about anything as frivolous as plants. But they were going to the garden she'd spent the most time at when they were mere children. Zuzu must have remembered, because it wasn't quite his favorite because it didn't have a pond with turtleducks. She'd tolerated this one because it had a slight hill and rise that was free enough of shrubbery that she could practice her firebending katas when she got bored taking in "nature."

The scene before her was…

She had to stop herself from trying to burn it down, because it struck her far too hard. She'd seen nothing but that stupid door and a tiny little cell, and then the drab walls of the most out of the way part of the royal palace when she needed some limited amount of sun just to keep from withering away. And that's it.

For… for too long.

She should not be this weak, to stare at it in something between awe and the pain of sudden warmth after being cold. She'd felt that only once, when she had some sort of fever and her mother reluctantly deigned to help her, though she didn't remember any of it, just the feeling of being cold, far too cold, and then shivering and… something? The details did not matter, but she did not regret not having the chance to go to one of the poles, where everything was frozen.

That was the feeling. She was too used to the cold, and that's not something any firebender should be.

There were plenty of trees, huge, ancient things that had been another test. She had to control herself enough not to burn anything in the garden. She had to absolutely, totally control her fire, letting none of it stray even an inch out of place.

But now it's different. She could burn all of this if she wanted to. These ancient trees, that she'd once practiced climbing as a basic strategy for potential ambushes, especially on Zuzu, were not important. Except, of course, they seemed to loom even now. She was so much bigger, but they were still so large and leafy.

And then there were other things in the dim light of pre-dawn, gatherings of bushes and flowers, the colors impossible to make out in the darkness. Indeed, everything about it felt as if it were too much, as if it'd pressed in on every side of her. But the smell was sweet, and the wind was blowing almost gently.

She felt that bracelet squeeze, but it was too much. She closed her eyes for a moment, cursing herself for this display of weakness in front of those who would gladly see her dead, and Toph. If Toph was any different? But no, she didn't, she seemed to be acting as if this was merely a special version of "just another day." It was in how she held herself. Azula had gotten used to reading Toph from her voice, but it was so much more information to see her in person. Her movements, the way she held herself, there wasn't even really an attempt at hiding that.

Everything was a lot, everything felt overwhelming. These weren't bad sights, these weren't bad sensations after all this time. But she was not ready for it. She closed her eyes, halting for a moment and glad that the guards were not being as terrible as they might be.

"Yeah, that's the way to do it," Toph said, "Honestly, you don't even need to see to enjoy a garden. Hated the compound I was stuck in, the only thing I liked was the garden. It was fun to play in the dirt, fun to wander around… all that." Toph was breezy, Toph was casual. It was both impressive and frustrating at the same time, and she didn't know how to respond to it. That was the thing she'd missed when she'd had a vision of Toph, not her depths, but also the extent to which she could be remarkably simple and frustratingly straightforward.

She saw the hurt, knew that this was hurting Azula, and just shrugged and tried to help in an offhand way. But. It did help. She took another breath, felt the bracelet on her wrist almost pulsing, and then began to walk towards the hill.

"Right, so that's where to throw the blanket or whatever," Toph said.

"Blanket?" Azula asked, walking forward and opening her eyes only once she started to rise up the tiny hill.

"Well, I thought maybe we'd eat a bit of it here. And have somewhere for you to sit. Not me, I'm fine in the dirt." Toph was wearing her usual outfit, and it was easy to see that she wouldn't care if that got dirty. The one time she'd seen Toph in person before this, she'd been a mess. In the same way.

She was so odd. There were bits of her that did not fit in with herself, and it made Azula wonder, and more than that, it made her annoyed sometimes. She'd sought perfection, but Toph, despite clearly caring about bending more than anything in her life, was rough and… something.

She didn't know what to think, or what to say. "Food?"

"Well, what we could figure out. If you want to take this chance to try to escape, surrounded on all sides by Firebenders, and me, you can," Toph said with a laugh, as if it were a joke. "It'd be fun, pounding you into the dirt! Maybe that'd be the happy birthday you want."

Toph meant it, though. Azula could just tell. Toph would decide that it was a fun bit of birthday nonsense, fighting her.

Maybe that's why she didn't want to do it. She wanted it to be serious, she wanted to beat Toph into the ground, and make her realize that Azula really was going to escape… and then presumably leave her behind and… she wasn't sure. She did not know the specifics of what she'd do after she won in the long-term, when it came to Toph.

"No thank you," Azula said primly. "Maybe next year."

She was lying of course. She'd be dead before she turned seventeen. She was an adult now, she could be tried.

"Fine, fine, so I have a bunch of stuff covered in fire flakes."

"Really?" Azula sneered.

Toph shrugged. "You'll see. Maybe I'll have a bite." The sun was only just starting to rise as the blanket was spread down and Azula guided to sit on it by a guard. Zuko had moved close by while she was focused on Toph, watching her warily.

"What? Are you going to watch me eat, Zuzu? I'm sure it will be diabolical and heinous," Azula said.

"You'll need free hands to eat," Zuko said.

Yes, so she'd be down to nothing more than some light restraints at most. But there was nothing, not even a tree, close enough to easily rocket towards.

Far more practically, she'd seen plenty of archers. They knew that she could get away that way, and so they'd at least try to stop her.

Zuko left, and soon all that was left on the apex of the hill in the minutes before the sunrise were Azula, Toph, and the servant, who set down the package and stepped away.

"Well, the sunrise should be soon, right? Can't see it, but you can kinda feel it," Toph said.

"Two minutes, perhaps very slightly more, to get over the lip of that building." She knew the sun, when it rose and when it set, by both instinct and her own Firebending.

"So, wanna have the presents before or after the sun?"

Toph gestured, and off came her restraints on her arms. She could flee now, but… no. She wanted to see what absurd little gifts Toph had got her. She was sure at least one of them was going to be a joke, and if there were more than one, as she had been guessing, then each of them…

"Now," Azula said. Might as well get it over with.

"Well, how about… this to start with." She pulled out a very familiar blue-backed volume, flipping it open and frowning. "I dunno, it's on here somewhere. It's a book, you can't expect me to know what to do with it. But I made sure to check with someone to be sure."

"What is?" Azula asked, because all she could tell was that it was a first edition copy of The Adventures of Ikanu Ufuza Volume 3: The Secret of the Misty Palms Trading Post

"Oh, it's signed by the author. Figured you'd like that or something," Toph said. "And figured you'd like even more the story that comes with how I got it. It's a story of humiliating a bunch of idiots. So that's the fourth gift I'm getting you, Zaps. Never say I don't bring you anything."

"Oh yes, you do indeed bring annoyance and frustration with you as well," Azula drawled. "I suppose I'll deign to accept your childish gift."

"Well, then how about this one?" Toph asked, glee growing as it was clear that it was very much going to be an escalating set of gifts as she pulled out… huh?

It took a moment for Azula to realize that she'd pulled out two small statuettes of humanoid figures, made of steel. One of them was a young woman of Fire Nation extract, rendered with incredibly fine details, holding a flame. A Firebender, and the only part of the metal that had been painted were the flames, which were blue.

Oh.

Her character.

And the other one was a huge, hulking man raising a wall of earth with a blindfold on him. Again, the details were remarkably fine and Azula bristled, "Who made this?" A part of her knew the answer, but another part of her thought of the idea of someone seeing anything relating to that… story she was writing and desired to see the end of either herself or whoever would have been tasked to make the figurines, at any cost.

Toph started laughing, "I did! Like it's hard? I've been wanting to get into doing detail work and stuff for a while. So this was good practice."

Oh. The instinct had been right. She'd looked at it and thought: Toph did this? Because it looked good. The color was probably not Toph, and it wasn't exactly the right shade of blue to be her Fire, but considering…

She spent long enough examining it that the sun began to peek over the horizon, and she took a deep breath in. This was okay. No doubt Zuzu would make assumptions about what they meant.

"You can melt 'em if you want, do whatever, they're yours," Toph said, far too casually. Azula had to smirk at the degree to which Toph pretended not to care about a product of her own bending.

A… that was actually a little startling to think about, in a way. Sure, she'd known that both Earthbending and Firebending had their places in creating things. Firebenders made the best steel, and no doubt Earthbenders made plenty of… pots? Or whatever it was they did.

The sun felt so good on her skin, and the fact that she could look at a picnic basket and, if she wanted, reach out. Or if she wanted, burn it, or if she wanted…

She was lost just a little bit.

"And finally! This thing!" She pulled out a black volume. "This is an old book about Jing and Firebending, from back before the war. I had someone rebind it, cause it was kinda falling apart." Toph was grinning. "Dunno what the big deal about it is, but I had Kiyi - she's one of my servants, and we're sort of friends? - read some of it to me--"

Azula felt a spike of something unidentifiable at that. "And it seems pretty good," Toph continued. "So, there we go. Those presents, and the story of how I uncovered a bunch of corruption and blackmailed a jerk to get that first book. And then turned him in anyway."

Azula leaned forward, sun on her face, and decided that for now she was going to ignore all the problems, all the things that would happen… and simply enjoy the moment.

On her way back, though, Azula spoke to Zuzu. "She doesn't know, does she?" Azula asked, words biting.

"Know what?"

"That you plan on trying and killing me," Azula said, as Toph was slightly out of earshot.

Zuko hesitated for a moment, enough to let her know that he'd been caught. Of course he'd been caught.

"I'm not going to kill you, Azula," Zuko said, "You'll be tried for your crimes. I can't keep you in prison forever without a trial. Toph might be happy with that, but she'd be the only one."

"Perhaps you should not tell her," Azula said, with a sneer. "Wouldn't want her to get in the way, would you?"

"She doesn't know," Zuko admitted, with a wince. "She doesn't know at all."

She might as well sow doubt while she could, and make him wonder whether Toph was likely to try to 'save' her or something. Or worry about what it'd mean to do that if Toph learned of it. She wasn't sure, but she'd found an angle to exploit, and so she spent the rest of the trip--this time in chains--back to her cell behind the two doors doing her best to find some advantage.

By the time she was nestled back in her 'cozy' cell with two new books and two new statues, she thought that perhaps Zuko seemed just a little bit… unsettled.

VM AN: There's something really interesting about celebrating a birthday that is also a death warrant, I think.

TL AN: Sixteen years old, as of this day!

veteranMortal · Aug 6, 2024

Chapter 21: Sugar Queens

Toph felt them coming ahead of time, but not that much ahead of time. One moment she'd been lazing in her room, actually talking to Kiyi as she moved out of the way of the cleaning and made sure that they didn't touch anything of hers.

"So, places with forests? I know a few, but me and trees ain't exactly friends. Kinda need my feet on the ground."

"Wait, is that how…?" Kiyi asked, sounding confused.

"What? I see with my feet? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, right?" Toph asked.

"There's a lot of rumors about you," Kiyi admitted with a shrug. "It's hard to tell which ones are true. Like, you're an Earthbender, don't half of them not wear shoes?"

Toph felt Twinkletoes walking in the distance. What, why was Aang here? He and Katara were both very busy, and so she didn't see them that often. Were they there for her birthday? But that didn't make sense, it was… like a week and a half away. She'd remember in more detail, but she'd sorta been losing track of days between sometimes trying to be a little nicer to Kiyi and the other servants and keeping up her weird friendship with Azula.

Azula had been a little weird, the first week or so after the birthday thing, but it was to be expected considering how much she must have hated feeling anything like gratitude. And she was pretty sure that Azula was grateful, or at least annoyed at the fact that she had had a good time even if she wouldn't admit it.

"Kinda true, but yeah. I can sense things even if my feet aren't on them, but you gotta get a good foot on it to have an idea. I can sorta make out the shape of a tree, but climbing it? Well, I could still prob'ly bend, but it'd be annoying." She had by this point made Kiyi understand what a great crime it was to be annoyed or bored, but honestly Kiyi just seemed to find it funny, like she was being a kid.

But honestly, everyone should get a chance to have fun. Or something! She wasn't sure yet, but she'd spent a lot of time thinking about it. It was probably wrong that she had servants at all, but she had no idea how she'd cook her own meals or clean her own clothes without help. Probably some of it was possible, but.

She'd actually thought about it, and she could use stone pots or whatever to be able to know exactly how much water she had. Put little grooves in them, or something like that. So that'd help for pouring water or liquid or whatever. But knowing how long to cook would mostly just be learning it and guessing, and everything she thought of for this was more like trying to figure out how to burn some meat over an open fire than… well, preparing anything she'd actually enjoy eating.

She'd have to carry around pots and pans of specific sizes, she'd have to have some simple means of measuring, she'd have to wash her hands a lot if she was going to use her fingers to measure things, and chopping things? Oh, she could sorta manage if she had some sort of earthen chopping thing, but what if…

Toph hated trying to care about this, and hated having to care about it even more. She definitely wasn't going to tell Aang about it. Knowing him, he'd make it into some fancy saying about relying on others, or point out that everyone had to rely on someone else. And yeah, sure, that was all well and good for him to say.

…actually it was well and good for him to say. She was pretty sure he'd actually learned that lesson at least once, just because of all the world saving he had to do.

"I get that. Sometimes you do have to do annoying things, but I don't exactly have any bending secrets to share with you… oh, and why are you frozen?"

"Aang and Katara are coming." Toph said.

"T-the Avatar is coming?" Kiyi asked, and she seemed wide-eyed and a little shocked.

"Don't worry, he's a huge softie when you're not trying to conquer the world or whatever," Toph said, with a lazy wave in the general direction he's coming from. "Twinkletoes is usually all peace and forgiveness, most of the time."

"Most of the time," Kiyi said, fidgeting, her heartbeat picking up.

"You really can just leave if you wanna, I won't judge you. That much," Toph added, because she had to be honest, and she kinda would judge Kiyi a little if she ran away from Aang of all people. Katara? That was more understandable, which was why she wasn't telling Kiyi about it.

Finally, there was a knock on the door. Kiyi jumped just a little, and Toph smirked. She wasn't as fun to talk to as Sparky, but she was alright. But man, was she jumpy. Must be all the trees she's jumping into.

"Hey Toph, surprise," Aang said. "Can we come in?"

"Do your hands work?" Toph asked.

Aang opened it, and there they were. Aang felt the same as ever. He was growing up, so maybe he was a little taller, but his voice still sounded the same. Katara felt the same as well, and both of them stopped, looking at Kiyi.

"Oh, this is Kiyi," Toph said, "We were just talkin'. So whatchu doing around here, Twinkletoes?"

"Your birthday is soon," Katara said, clearly taking the lead. "So we wanted to come visit a little early."

Kiyi said, "I should probably take my leave, to let you talk."

"If you wanna, you can," Toph said, and she was pretty sure Kiyi did.

"Y'know," she said, as Kiyi began edging for the door. "Birthdays are only big deals in some places. The Fire Nation apparently has a buncha rituals around it. Sparky was all surprised, but also sort of like she wasn't supposed to be surprised and so she acted like she knew it was coming. This is prolly better, no surprise party stuff."

She liked surprises and pranks, even being the butt of them in the right circumstances, but a surprise party sounded like it'd be way too much work to hide from her.

"Sparky?" Aang asked.

"Y'know, Sparky," Toph said, rolling her eyes for nothing more than dramatic effects. "Sets off all those blue sparks, all flame-y? There's other nicknames, y'know how I am, Twinkletoes."

"Oh… right. Zuko told me about that," Aang said. Kiyi had stiffened, no longer attempting to escape, and instead just listening in. "It's… good that you're trying to redeem people, obviously everyone deserves a chance…"

Aang was scared of Azula. Toph realized it, and for a moment it was funny and something to make fun of, and then a moment later it wasn't. She remembered being a little scared herself, when Aang looked like he might be dead.

He'd fought her since, and she knew who she'd bet on, as much as she thought Princess was obviously a really good bender.

But sure, she got it. She sometimes got all shivery thinking about being imprisoned, even though she knew she was stronger than any prison bars.

Yet.

She thought she had something to say.

Toph started by letting the laugh in her bubble up. "Redeem her? I'm not trying to redeem her." She fought the laughter as soon as she let it out, and said, "Besides, that's not how it works. If you're trying to be someone's friend to make them a better person, isn't that supposed to be a bad idea? Wanting to change someone and be their friend just to do that?" She swore she'd heard something about that or something in one of those stupid books Azula read. "So, yeah. She's a little nicer to me now, and maybe she's changed a little, but she's not any nicer to Zuzu because she's bored and trapped." She snorted. "Imagine how stir-crazy I'd be, trapped in a little box for forever."

Aang seemed to at least be thinking about it, while Katara seemed… leery.

"How often are you hanging out with her, that you've noticed her changing?"

"Not every day, but a lot. She's a friend, and she's not busy all the time like Zuko." Toph stomped her feet. "Don't get me wrong, you'd be really happy with how he's doing. He's doing all sortsa good stuff, and as far as anyone should be in charge of anything, he's kind of doing a great job. Especially with how much most people in the Fire Nation suck."

The result of sitting in on slightly more meetings was that she got to see even more what complete jerks basically everyone in power were and are. It was all so much. It had her actually having to care about this, even if she didn't care enough to go and be a chief shire reeve or whatever for the area. She had to really care and have an idea if she was going to try to "fix" the world or whatever. The worst thing to do would be to half-ass something like this.

Zuko wasn't half-assing it, not like his Firebending training that he'd been increasingly slacking on these past few months. She'd hoped that her trying some new tricks with bending would lead him to try harder in turn, but instead he seemed to decide that this meant it was time to turn the spars into social events.

Toph decided to spill all of these complaints, in as many words and more, to Katara. And Katara listened and said, "New techniques? Like what?"

Oho. There we go. She knew that tone of voice. Katara was a real bender, she'd care.

"Well, been trying to get better at mud-bending, and using my ears to track airbenders like Twinkletoes here. Sorta doing a few other things too," Toph said with a grin. "Sparky's giving me interesting things to try. Even if you hate her, she's a really dedicated Bender, y'know?"

"I… am aware," Aang said, looking pained.

"And I've let myself kinda get lazy after we kicked the Fire Lord's butt," Toph said. "So what about it? Afraid of a little mud, Sugar Queen?"

"I am not," Katara insisted, and Toph had to grin at that tone of voice, at the way that she was clearly absolutely easy to lure into battle. It was a little like Azula, though she knew that it was not something that would be polite to say to Katara.

She didn't care about that, but she wasn't actually trying to pick a fight. Mostly.

"Well then, let's see it."

The mud was everywhere. The whole field was soaked in mud, and of course that meant there was water everywhere. Toph's clothes were ruined, and she couldn't help but grin. Well, she was frustrated too. She'd sorta won, but only when she stopped using mud as her only way of fighting, and she hadn't quite managed to do any sort of mud whip. Still, she'd won, and she'd shown Katara something. Katara was dripping, Toph could hear it, and from the feel of the mud on her there was basically nowhere on her that wasn't at least a little muddy and dirty.

"See? Not quite there, can't quite figure out what I'm missing, but it's something, isn't it?" Toph said, her voice as loud as she could manage despite the heavy breathing. Katara wasn't someone you could hold back against… and yet she'd had to try, to just use the new bending tricks that she had been working with. Honestly, Katara had been going easy on her too, holding back at first because she also wanted to see what Toph could do with the mud.

She was pretty sure if they fought ten times, she wouldn't get an 8/10ths or 9/10ths win rate like she'd been getting against Zuko lately. She had too much self-confidence not to think she'd win more than she lost, but it'd be close. Too bad Katara had other things to do than put that to the test.

"It is," Katara admitted. "You're becoming a more powerful Bender. And… I hope you find things to occupy yourself."

"Oh, there'll always be something. I'm sitting in on more of Zuzu's meetings, just to try to tell truth and lies apart even better," Toph said with a fake yawn. "Also want to find time to maybe learn to fight without Bending, just in case something happens. I dunno what would, but maybe one day I'll have to kick butt on a wooden boat with no rocks or something?"

Katara seemed amused as she said, "Is that likely to happen?"

It… probably wasn't, but at the same time, she felt like it was better to be good at everything than bad at anything. Perfection like Zappy sought just wasn't possible, but if you weren't getting better all the time, then what was the point? She'd begun to think that this applied to more than just her, and more than just bending, even if most of the things in the world that weren't bending tended to be kinda boring to her.

"Maybe not, but why shouldn't I be the greatest Earthbender ever? I'm definitely the greatest alive, but I've heard Avatar Kyoshi was pretty strong and there's a few other names thrown around," Toph said, and then added. "And why should I settle for being second best when I can just keep on kicking butt?"

"I get that," Katara said, as she felt Aang nod.

And then Aang added, "But what are you going to do with it? Are you going to teach a bunch of people to Metalbend?"

"Why would I?" Toph asked. "They should be able to learn it on their own so they don't have to rely on me for everything." She shrugged, "Someone'll probably figure out how to do something with it that I can't, yet, just because they have to learn it on their own rather than assuming that only what I can do is possible. That's what Bending is." She was going to become the greatest Earthbender of all time, or at least she did want to head that way, but she also was going to - just by existing - make Earthbenders coming after her stronger, because they'd know more about what was possible.

They'd not match her, because she was the BEST, but that didn't matter.

This wasn't an ambition to fill up every nook and cranny of her life, there were still things she wanted to do and things she wanted to have happen in the world that she had no idea how it'd come about. She tried not to think about it, she had time.

But, maybe not that much time.

She was almost fourteen, she really did have to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life before she got old. She didn't think she'd get boring and not think anything new was possible, but how could she know? She could count the number of adults that weren't like that on one hand.

"So, Twinkletoes. Wanna fight?"

It was great to have her friends back. Zuko seemed to appreciate it too, allowing himself to relax just a little bit more than he did around just Toph. He was still busy all the time, but it felt just a little bit less like he was drowning, because other people were there to cover some of it.

Toph also saw more of him, though she kept up her visits to Azula as well. She sure didn't invite any of her other friends to meet Azula. That felt like it'd end very, very badly. She would just have to keep them apart and interact with them separately. It wasn't as if Azula could arrange a birthday party for her behind bars, so she'd presumably just visit Azula on her birthday to say hello and be conspicuously refused any sort of birthday well-wishes in a way that'd make her feel more amused than anything. She didn't expect that from Azula, she wasn't some kind of idiot. Azula would not say sorry, and Azula would not be kind, not to others and perhaps not to herself. It was just how she was, and it didn't mean that Toph didn't like her. She liked Azula a lot, though a part of her wondered about Sokka.

She'd enjoyed making fun of him and palling around with him, and so she decided to see if perhaps she could capture that again.

So, she had to find Sokka.

And Suki, she'd be fine if it was all three of them, even though she was a lot closer with Sokka. Suki was pretty cool too, strong and brave and sometimes funny and all of that, and she had to be something to put up with Sokka's nonsense. She'd heard about how he'd gotten humbled the first time they met, and honestly she's glad someone else did it. She would have left him buried up to his neck.

Sokka was easy to find, she just went into the library. He was there, talking with Akorai Tsagaan animatedly.

"Ah, hello Lady Beifong, so good to see you again," Tsagaan said, and he even meant it a little bit.

"Oh, you know each other?" Sokka asked, boggling in a comical, overwrought manner.

"Lady Beifong comes here relatively often, to check out books," Tsagaan said, and there was something light about his tone, as if he thought it was a good jest.

"Toph?" Sokka asked.

"I have servants read to me," Toph said, almost unable to keep from laughing. Yes, she had Kiyi read to her, but she was really thinking of all the reading Azula did out loud, when they weren't trying to do nonsense with that one story Azula was writing. "Several different ones, actually."

"Huh, yeah, I getcha," Sokka said, nodding. "Mind if I take a minute? I assume you're here for a reason."

"I wanted to hang out with you. Suki can come too. I've been wandering around the palace, I know some interesting places." Interesting sights, probably, from the reactions of other people. But that didn't matter. "And there's a good place to spar… or dump water on top of people."

"Still playing pranks?" Sokka asked, but he didn't sound disapproving. He sounded hopefully, and he said, "Suki and I would love to hang out with you."

Suki and I, as if they were a sort of two-headed animal. It left Toph feeling odd and a little uncertain, but very eager.

Suki was laughing too. Her every movement had been just a little careful, just a little reserved. It was impossible to miss. But now she was laughing, because as a prank it was just so stupid. They'd put out a box with a stone stick and people had still peeked under it. It was something out of a story, and of course the box was so light they just shucked it off, because Sokka was all concerned about that sort of thing.

But just… stupid prank after stupid prank, designed to be as harmless and pointless as possible, and each of them therefore ten times more hilarious for all the work they had to put into it.

For a moment, things felt so much like the old days that she didn't feel as if she were in the company of some strange, two-headed…

No, it felt like three people, as she laughed, and her laughter made Snoozles laugh even more. She'd missed this feeling. It hadn't existed for long, before three became one-two and one.

She didn't know how to recapture it, and she didn't quite get why she was so annoyed at it.

But the good news was that she could still come back there.

"I've missed you guys," Toph admitted.

"You can always come back to Kyoshi Island for a while," Suki offered. "It doesn't even have to be long, it's not like we're going to keep you there."

"Maybe," Toph said, and she thought about it for longer than she expected.

They were having dinner about a week before the birthday, all of them together, nobody else but servants and guards in sight, when Toph decided to strike, "So, you're planning some big birthday party, right? Food and all of that?"

The conversation didn't stop, she was just talking to the air, but Sokka and Zuko both turned her way, and Ty Lee quieted down in her whispers to Suki.

"Yes, we're going to make sure all your favorites are there," Zuko said. "I… don't think that part counts as the surprise," he added, as Sokka turned to stare at him as if he'd given something away. "That's just normal."

"About that," Toph said, because she honestly probably should be able to be honest about something literally meaningless with her friends. "I kinda want a little bit of a different menu, this time."

She grinned at their shock, and then she explained.

It turned out not to be that big of a deal, really, though Zuko seemed a little uncertain.

Still, the preparations for her birthday were set!

veteranMortal: It's nice to have Toph talk to the rest of the Gaang! Important to see they're still friends, because they are! And also that Toph is sort of… changing? From Azula.

The Laurent: They really do care, to have all shown up in advance to hang around with her and prepare for a birthday bash.

The Laurent · Aug 13, 2024

Chapter 22: Celebrations

The special thing about birthdays was that they were not special at all. Toph woke up groggy and with her mind on all sorts of different things. She still hadn't figured out what she was missing from her attempts at doing even fancier tricks with mud, and at this point she was almost ready to throw her hands up, come back to it in a few weeks, and actually take up Azula's advice to practice self defense… without bending. Ugh.

Toph was Earthbending, but she guessed it was true that there were a few times where it would have helped a little bit. Still, she didn't quite get it. She threw herself straight into it, head on, the way she'd done any sort of Earthbending challenge, and she was only sometimes, partially, successful. She also was still trying to think of clever tricks to beat someone who could fly and didn't wear armor. Cover them with mud so that she can keep track of them? But that was pretty specific, and what if they blew it off, if she was thinking of some sort of hypothetical Airbender resurgence.

Which she was pretty sure would happen, if Aang's determination was anything to go by. Bending was about spirit, so if he was teaching a bunch of people about the Air Nomads, some of them were gonna start bending, mark her words. All that "blood of benders" nonsense the Firebenders had believed was because they were stupid jerks. Many of them still were. The way she figured it, at least some of the people in the Fire Nation Colonies who turned out Earthbenders despite "pure" blood weren't the result of a buncha cheaters or whatever. (She didn't know much about the specifics of how that all worked, but she had a general picture.) Instead it was about mindset.

So she had a lot on her mind, and managed to make it through the first fifteen minutes of her day, getting up, scratching some itches, and vaguely using her hand to brush her hair in place. It really was a bit of a mess, but she wasn't going to bother to cut it down just to save a little hassle. Probably.

Then it hit her. Today was her birthday. Kiyi was headed towards her room, and so she groaned and thought about all the things she was going to eat. Zuko had decided on a luncheon or whatever, so she'd spend the afternoon with them and maybe visit Azula in the evening? She wasn't going to hear a happy birthday, but she might as well.

Everyone said it was "her day" and Azula was part of that, part of almost every one of her days, one way or another.

She rubbed at her head a little more as the door opened.

"Good morning, Lady Beifong."

"Aw, I toldja to call me something different," Toph groaned.

"Yes, Lady Beifong," Kiyi said, and there was something about her tone that was almost a bit chiding? Or, Toph didn't get it. But sometimes when she tried to be casual, Kiyi was just fine with that. Sometimes, though, she was very particular about what she called Toph. Usually when she was making some sort of point.

"Well, no clue what it is this time. Just porridge for breakfast or something," Toph said. "If you can get that, please?"

Sometimes she said please, sometimes she forgot. She figured maybe it was that? Kiyi could be oddly bold, now that they were basically… sorta friends.

"Of course I can. And what will you wear to the luncheon?"

"Uh, my one fancy outfit, right?" She had a single fancy outfit that she wore for important things. Going around court or even attending Zuzu's meetings did not count.

"When did you last take it out?" Kiyi asked.

"Uh, I think my thirteenth birthday?" It was almost like it was her birthday suit, and she almost sniggered at her own joke.

"If I hadn't already taken it in, you would have been forcing people to make major alterations to your clothing at the last possible minute," Kiyi said, dryly. "You've been growing like a climbing vine. You're still not tall, but…" She shrugged, and did not seem worried at all of how she was acting. "All the measurements: waist, inseam, bust, sleeve length, length in general… if there's a measurement it has to be changed."

"Oh, thanks. Though y'know if I'd forgotten you coulda just let me find it out now and I'd just go in my everyday outfit." She slept in… well not quite her clothes, but right now she was wearing, barring some sort of long-term prank, a green outfit that was basically just a slightly softer version of what she always wore.

Sometimes she just rolled out of bed and went through the day in what were, technically, pajamas. Who cared!

(Well, she did sometimes. She liked the idea that she presumably looked cool in her fancy outfit, just as long as she didn't have to actually deal with it beyond wearing it once every… a long time.)

"You could have, but it is a birthday. You only have so many of those," Kiyi said. "Even if this one isn't one of those important ones, like sixteen when you're legally an adult except for the things where you aren't."

"Except for the things where you aren't?" Toph asked.

Kiyi stepped forward. "Different privileges and duties sometimes get put up a little bit higher. It depends. There's a lot of paperwork. About all fourteen does for you is that you can get formally engaged, I think, though not married?"

"Ugh, that's not gonna happen," Toph said. She had no idea what any of that was really about, all grown up stuff. She vaguely knew what it might involve, and people got sappy and stupid about getting kisses or being rescued or… whatever.

"I don't think it is," Kiyi said, her voice sounding a little odd. "Say, and truly at this point please do tell me to stop, but has anyone talked to you about those kinds of topics?"

"Stop," Toph said, a little annoyed. "Some other time." It wasn't like it really mattered that much. She could guess everything important just from context. She was definitely not embarrassed.

"But yeah, happy birthday, Toph. Do you need any help getting the dress on?"

"Nah, I'm fine," Toph said. Then she added, "Thanks for asking." A little belated, but whatever. It felt a lot worse to be rude to a servant than to a noble.

Kiyi nodded, and said, "I'll have some rice porridge coming."

That would be enough, and it'd save room for everything else.

Toph did not have a favorite room in the palace, not really, but the room that Zuko had chosen for the fancy 'luncheon' had a stone floor, and was suitably big, with cushions instead of raised seats so that she could keep her feet on the ground if she wanted to, slipped under the table. She definitely wanted to. Everyone was there, by which she meant literally only her friends. She knew some people had huge birthday banquets where they invited everyone, even their enemies. Sometimes even to show off, as if to say: 'ha ha, I lived another year.' But she thought that was stupid.

What that meant was that there was Sokka, Suki, Katara, Aang, Ty Lee, and Zuko. There were a few other people she met along the way that could have shown up, but didn't. But it wasn't as if she'd known that many of them well. She could do without having random people she met on her adventures show up. With her, that was seven, and so the table was long but not that long, and there would have to be side tables to hold all the food.

"Huh," Sokka said, curiously. Toph had stepped up and was moving towards her own seat. There were presents to be had, and of course when she said there were "seven" that was not counting the waiters and other servants who bustled about and did all the heavy lifting. "Does that really have a bird's nest in it?"

"Yep. That's not where the flavor is. It's all texture, so better hope the cooks added plenty of spice, unless you like slimy things," Toph said, relishing the shudder Sokka gave.

"I'm sure it'll be nice," Suki said, because that's the sort of person she was.

"I've had plenty of Earth Kingdom food the last year… but a bird's nest?"

"At least it's not Tiger-Shark fin," Toph said. "That one I kinda don't like. Though I guess it does have…" she thought about how to describe it.

"Tiger-Shark? That sounds kind of cool," Sokka said.

"Doesn't really have a taste, but it does have texture," Toph said with a shrug, and honestly conversation about food was boring and kind of lame but she actually liked getting to talk about the things she liked. The food was all well-spiced, if not over-spiced, in the style of the rich noble who just kept on putting more and more things in to be fancy. Somehow, she might be the only person at any of those stupid banquets her parents held that actually liked the food rather than just saying they liked it because it had saffron threads in the rice or… whatever. She liked the flavors. She couldn't see whatever artistry went into making them all pretty, so she just liked how the rice wasn't bland at all, and she liked all these little touches.

She could do without them. If she lived her whole life on stews and roast meat and maybe a little rice, she'd be fine. Toph didn't need any of this luxury stuff, not really. But she… she kinda liked it, and so she'd not say no to it. The conversation kept itself rather light, everyone just chatting about how things were going.

"So, Suki and I and the other Kyoshi warriors have been really busy," Sokka said. "Between fighting bandits and training and dealing with all the problems in the south…" Sokka complained.

"What, so you're not getting in any good naps?" Toph asked.

"I wouldn't say that… but I'm also getting in good practice. I've figured out a few cool new moves."

"I could still beat you up, Snoozles," Toph pointed out.

Sokka laughed his dorky laugh and said, "I bet you'd have to actually try. Like you have to with Suki."

"Pfft, you're on! What about right here, right now?"

Zuko coughed, "Perhaps… after the dinner?" He felt embarrassed, far more than he should have at these antics, but Toph didn't care, she was smiling so wide, even as Sokka and Suki told stories of chaos and bandits and great migrations of people from one place to another seeking shelter or safety. It seemed that for a lot of people, they stayed in a bad place because the Fire Nation was in the way of getting out… and the stories Toph hears should make her miserable. It's people suffering, and sure she's not trying to be in charge, but that does sorta suck.

The stories kept on, and Katara was apparently working with a lot of people, stretching that healing might. They all had interesting stories, and Toph felt a bit awkward as she realized that half of the interesting stories in the last almost a year all had to do with Azula, or were caused by Azula pushing her to do more. She couldn't say a lot about that, and it was a strange problem.

She'd never had enough friends that she had to not talk about one of them in front of the others… though she was pretty aware that the situation was really, really different. Azula had almost killed Aang, had tried to kill Katara. She was a bad person, and Toph stood by the fact that she wasn't here to try to make Azula a nicer person, but just to be her friend. But… a part of her couldn't help feel a little lonely, in those moments where she was not swept up on Twinkletoes' silly Airbender philosophy, Snoozles boasts and jokes, Sugar Queen's cutting statements, Zuzu's well-meaning stumbling, or Suki's (fan girl? Nah, that sounds lame) careful redirections.

And of course, Appa isn't here, because that would have been awkward, but Momo is around and chittering and getting fed by each and every person there, her included. Everyone seems to believe Momo's whining that he's not been fed all day, even after watching someone else also feed him scraps. That winged lemur was spoiled. Toph decided she'd go and see Appa before Aang left, because she missed the big lug too.

The lunch continued well into the mid-afternoon, and when they'd gotten up top chat and otherwise interact, Katara approached her.

If Toph had known what she was being approached for, she would have started running.

"So, there's something we realized," Katara said. "I know this isn't the best moment, but… we do need to talk about it."

"What?" she asked, because Aang had tensed up and was clearly trying to look for somewhere else to be.

"Has anyone ever talked to you about growing up?" Katara asked. "What will happen to your body and everything else, beyond the vague outlines?"

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Toph considered starting an actual, literal fight this very second rather than listening to this. This was her birthday, couldn't she hear about… whatever it was some other time? She had only vague ideas, because it's not like her parents would have ever told her anything about it. They'd just said that it was something that a precious, helpless flower wouldn't have to worry about until she was grown up.

"So," Katara said, and her voice was so blunt she might as well be an earthbender as she asked, "I have to ask, have you begun to menstruate?"

That was the one thing she knew about, in an abstract sense. So she could thankfully say, "Not yet."

"It should start soon. I'm not sure how soon, but the palace healers here are skilled enough," Katara said, heedless of everything. Or not. She was looking right at Toph, no doubt well aware of Toph's inclination to send the entire palace crashing down rather than hear this.

"Menses as a process can be quite varied. While myths associate it directly with the moon, this is not entirely accurate," Katara said, "Though there are symbolic ties. The time before, during and after one's periodic menses may be accompanied by pain, bloating, and other symptoms. I'd advise you to refrain from training if you're feeling terrible from it, but I doubt you'd listen to me."

"Nope," Toph's mouth said reflexively, because the rest of her was frozen.

"Along with this, you've probably noticed that you've started to grow, and fill out. You'll probably also face a number of other changes, such as changes in sweat production, or… there's different signs and people grow at different rates," Katara said. "But what you have to understand is that it's entirely natural--"

"Duh," Toph said, desperately. "I know that much."

"That's the biological side of things, or rather the individual side of them. There may be other pains or changes that come with growing up, which is why you really need to find a formal healer here," Katara said.

"Yeah, yeah, Sugar Queen," Toph said. Katara could be cool, but she also sounded like such a Mom sometimes, and it was only this that was keeping Toph from leaving. She was pretty sure Katara would chase her down to continue it.

"I am pretty sure you are not in a relationship right now, and I assume you know how crushes work?"

"Yeah. Never had a crush on nobody, though," Toph said.

"Sure, sure," Katara said, and there was something just a little bit smug about her voice.

"What's that about?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Katara said, even more smugly. Now she was more like her actual age. "You'll figure it out, I expect."

Figure what out? She'd never had a crush on anybody that she was sure of, right? She was pretty sure she'd know that much.

"So, sis, are you done traumatizing her?" Sokka said, his whole voice a grin as he sauntered up, his every movement casually lazy. No wonder he was called Snoozles, though at least he was funny to go with it. He leaned in and said, "She's just wound up 'cause she's been giving a lot of talks like that to refugees, and apparently she just realized she'd never gotten to mess with you."

Toph snorted. "Well, she did, Captain Boomerang." She punched his arm, and he barely even said 'ow.' He was getting stronger, she supposed. Or maybe she was going easy on him. Now, that'd be a shame.

"I'm pretty sure I've been honorarily promoted at least once," Sokka said, scratching his face. He had all these little fidgety movements that made him seem even more bumbling than he was--which was a tall order. "So I think I'd be General Boomerang by this point."

"You'll be Private Boomerang by the time I'm done," Toph said, smirking and wondering how Kyoshi Island was treating him. He seemed stronger and more sure, just a little bit, but within the same bounds of all those fidgety little habits that everyone had. Including her, but she could not quite tell which ones they were.

Suki, who was behind Sokka, snorted. She had her own tells, but they involved fidgeting with a fan that she knew how to use to do more than cover her face. Suki was elegant, controlled, and powerful. Of course Toph could win a fight with her, but it never quite felt like that. It felt a little like she was always losing just a little bit, and that just made her want to prove Suki wrong.

About what? She was pretty sure Suki had no argument with her, was not an enemy. Still, of all the people in the entire world that she wanted to witness her being humiliated with all this embarrassing talk that they probably already had years ago, it was Suki and Sokka who she wanted to witness that the least.

Ugh.

"Hey, Toph," Ty Lee called out. "There's something I need to go talk with you. Can you come over here? I sensed your aura was starting to go sour."

"Yeah, cause Katara's harassing--"

"I am not harassing," Katara began hotly, but Toph knew a sign to run away before she learned even more that she didn't want to know, and took it.

Ty Lee had managed to save Toph from everything just a little bit too late. She'd already more or less heard everything, and now she could not unhear it at all. "So, what is it? Sparky got a present for me too?"

"Yes, she does, how did you guess?" Ty Lee asked, sounding shocked.

"She… does? How?" Toph would have known if Zuko was being any kinder to Azula, so that meant she couldn't exactly have a gift unless she was somehow making it in her cell.

"She asked me to get something for you. I have it, right…"

Ty Lee stopped. "Oh. Oops, I forgot it in my room. But it's wrapped up, and so I'll go and grab it for you, and Azula's aura was really serious when she told me to tell you not to open it until you are talking to her. 'Not that she can see it,' she told me, 'But you'll assure her it's what it is.' And it is! It's exactly what Azula says it is!"

Well, that was… reassuring. She was now really, really curious about it, and impatient to figure out what the stupid gift was. It couldn't be anything much, but if Ty Lee got it than it could be a few different things.

Probably a book? It wasn't like she could use a fancy-smancy outfit, she already had one and one was definitely enough.

She met Ty Lee outside of the guard station. She was carrying a big package, big enough that Toph would need both hands to carry it.

"Here ya go!" Ty Lee said, smiling. You could just tell when she was smiling, because she smiled with her whole body.

"Thanks," Toph said. "Not gonna give me any hints?" She shook it, and it rattled. Well, it both rattled and thunked as well, as if there were several presents.

Toph stepped into the guardhouse, where a dozen guards who couldn't stand up to her for five seconds total jumped to their feet.

"Ah, Lady Beifong," one of them, Sukai said. "I didn't expect you--"

"Nope. I'm gonna go see Azula."

"We'll need to search your--"

"Nope," Toph repeated. "Not gonna happen. If Ty Lee's smuggling contraband, it's not going to get further than between those two doors, is it?"

"It could be some sort of bomb, I assume you got it from the prisoner?" A guard asked.

"Nope," Toph said, tired of repeating it. "I'm going in. You can tell Zuzu about it if you want." She didn't care, she really, really didn't care right now. The room was always small and uncomfortable in a way that couldn't have to do with being so small. Because the space between those two doors was even smaller and it didn't feel that way at all.

She had to wait for almost fifteen minutes before someone rushed back in and let her go in. Let her, because she was not insisting in that way. She'd have stood there until someone gave up and allowed her to enter, but a part of her was glad that Zuko wasn't being like that.

"Yo, Zaps," Toph shouted as the door groaned and shook with her movement. Azula was standing up, clearly waiting eagerly no matter what she'd pretend, and so Toph reached out to squeeze her wrist gently. "It's me. You said you had some sort of present for me?"

"It is not a present. It is a suggestion," Azula said. "One might say that it is an inducement towards greater competence. Though some parts are tokens for something that will be granted elsewhere." She said it all with a voice that was trying its hardest to sneer through what was clearly a great deal of enthusiasm. "Perhaps one might even consider it advice to be less incompetent."

Azula was really Azula-ing today. "Well, then what's the suggestion?"

"Open it." She was eager enough that she couldn't even keep it from her voice.

She did. "Oh, it's a book. And… what are these?"

"They're wooden for the surprise, but I'm going to have Ty Lee get you some. Daggers, of course. You want metal around for your bending, and I think you'd do well with daggers. You aren't going to have reach on everyone else, being such a squirt, but that doesn't matter."

Toph bristled. "And the book?"

"An advice book on fighting styles, both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, though mostly Fire Nation. You need to study to become just a little bit less incompetent without bending. Imagine how you would suffer if there was some equivalent to the Day of Black Sun for Earthbending? You need to be better, and this will help."

"Better?"

"You're fourteen now, so the time of treating you like a child and not expecting perfection should really be past," Azula said, the words so automatic that Toph was almost certain she'd been told that before. "So keep on getting stronger, so that you don't have any weaknesses. Or don't, if you're so pathetic--"

"Of course I will," Toph said, feeling such overwhelming, overpowering affection for her. She could not even describe it. Azula was such a jerk. A butt, even. And…

Azula, between two doors, when they did not have to be enemies, was… was.

Azula was her best friend. She loved her friends and was going to miss them, and she wouldn't ever want to choose between them.

But Azula was just.

Toph started laughing, and she couldn't stop, "T-thanks," she said, the laugh roaring out of her. Azula was Azula, the most Azula she could ever be, and she would rather walk on broken glass than have Azula become someone else than who her friend was at the core of it.

"Ah, what is so funny?" Azula asked defensively.

"You're such an ass," Toph said, clutching the book tight. "it's great. Of course I'll train with this. Thanks for the gift--"

"It's not a gift, it's--"

"Yeah, yeah."

Only three days after that night, Zuko came to Azula's cell to lead her to a room where they explained the preliminary list of charges levied against her, including the charge of treason.

TL A/N: What a happy birthday.

VM AN: Toph has too many concerned older-sister-type girls around. If Katara hadn't caught her and given her the talk, Kiyi would've done it the next day. It's rough being Toph, truly.

veteranMortal · Aug 20, 2024

Chapter 23: Convictions

Azula knew at once that it wasn't Toph, because even if Toph woke her up this early, she wouldn't have failed to squeeze the gift she'd gotten Azula, and which Azula wore when sleeping in case she woke up to some manner of… something? She knew that it didn't help with others, but it was still something to touch. Something to focus on in order to know what might be real or what wasn't. It hadn't entirely helped, but knowing it was there had helped some days.

It was the last weakness to share with anyone else. It was something she trusted only to Toph. She knew Toph wouldn't spread it, trusted her on this in a way that she knew did not make sense.

"Azula," Zuko's voice called out. "You need to get dressed. You have an appointment to go to."

"Appointment? How mysterious, dear brother," Azula said drily, standing up and smirking. That was the one thing she missed with Toph. She could be rude, she could be sarcastic, but she couldn't quite use the full extent of her bile. She could really stretch herself out. Have a different kind of fun. "What nonsense are you exposing me to--"

"The charges that are being filed against you in the high court." Zuko said blandly.

Azula. Stopped. For a moment she struggled to come up with some clever statement. She wanted to brag, that she'd finally driven him to do something worthy of being a Fire Lord. Oh, history was full of dead siblings and cousins and Uncles, no matter how much moralists wanted to pretend that the family was an unbroken line unsullied by wise and clever dealings.

It had stopped, more or less, since the war happened. Maneuvering and scheming had been, until one very notable exception, something that stopped short of killing one's family. Exiling them? Oh, often indeed. Sidelining them? Without a doubt. Undermining them? Just part of life. Things hadn't come to death since the reign of Sozin's father.

She got up. "I see," she said. She began to get dressed. She wanted to do something. She wanted to be able to return fire. She wanted to be able to burn him, and yet the thoughts in her mind were just barely of murder. It was something deeper than that, some feeling of unfairness that seized her and caught her in a kata. In a set of reflexive moves. She got dressed, she stood there, she prepared to be chained down, and all of it felt so… so automatic and doomed.

She didn't want to be dramatic. Or, no, perhaps she really did. Perhaps she really wished that this felt dramatic.

She could not tell whether the mutterings almost beyond her hearing were a hallucination or people whispering and gossiping about her thinking she could not hear. She could not tell at all, and this did not matter.

It could not matter.

She clanked along, surrounded by guards, just a step or two behind Zuko. He wasn't afraid of her, she realized, even though she probably could lunge at him. Without bending it wouldn't do much, of course. It'd be a pathetic display, one she was far above even in such trying circumstances. But she wanted to sneer at his expectations and do something unexpected.

Instead she kept on walking. She could not even talk, not now that her mouth was covered. No doubt he was afraid she'd somehow learn to burn him alive. She kept on walking, and then she heard him talk. "You know, Father would have killed me if you'd won and captured me, if he hadn't been defeated," Zuko lied, his back turned to her.

He wouldn't have, he…

"You broke the rules of Agni Kai to try to kill me, and… I'm sorry it came to this, but you deserve what's--"

She shot forward, relying on surprise, for even she did not expect what she was doing. She rammed into him, and he stumbled back, almost slamming into a wall.

The look on his face was confusion and betrayal, staring at her as if she was again attacking Katara, again destroying…

She hadn't seen his lips. She'd heard his voice, that's all.

Had he even said it? He had looked, before, as if he was just trying to get this over with? Would poor, kindly little Zuzu really have taken the moment to taunt her, to tell her lies that sounded so much like the truth?

Azula sank down to her knees, shaking like a leaf, as he looked down at her. Looked down on her.

When the guards roughly hauled her up, holding her the whole way as if she were a threat, she neither exulted in it (at last he was fearing her… but was he?) nor resisted it.

Was any of this real? She felt the guard's arms on her, so she knew that much was real. And she'd felt her impact against Zuzu, briefly, the first time she'd touched him in… since before he betrayed the Fire Nation, and even then that had been a pat on the shoulder, as much about mockery as comfort. Probably almost entirely about mockery, honestly.

She didn't resist. And they dragged her anyway, because she'd just attacked the Fire Lord. No doubt that'd be added to the charges, too.

The room was dull, drab and almost deliberately boring. The walls were grey, and there was somewhere where she was supposed to kneel while an old man in formal robes stood behind a desk, high enough that he could look down on her. She tried not to shake, and she mostly succeeded.

The man was looking down at her as the Fire Lord, of course, had a place to stand off to the side to watch the proceedings. It was all very formal, it was all very official, and she had to struggle to focus on the words.

At least there was a cushion to kneel on, but she tried to hold herself stiff despite the… despite.

"The preliminary charges," that useless functionary droned, "Are subject to change, but as per recent legal reforms, the addition or subtraction of any charges are to both be provided well in advance for the defendant, and to trigger an extra two weeks maximum of preparation time for the new charges, or five days per additional charge, whichever one of the two is a greater span of time. You have the right to ask an advocate questions about any of the charges, though at the moment you do not have a lawyer. Options shall be provided for you, not merely of one advocate, but several to choose between, and for a trial of this heavy importance you will have several weeks to decide which lawyer you will choose."

(Azula knew what she was supposed to do.)

"You are charged with treason by way of usurpation for the unlawful occupation of the throne of the Fire Nation and support for the unlawful rule of one Ozai, as well as for crimes committed under his sanction that a reasonable individual would gather were illicit, illegal, immoral and thus not legitimate orders." The man coughed and said, "The relevant statute here is that which has been outlined in detail several time is the clause that a Fire Lord who commits certain acts of gross criminality, especially that of unlawful extermination or the new statute, genocide, are no longer rightful Fire Lords, and that anyone obeying their dictates at that time while being reasonable, rational, and of sound mind, wherein such dictates are clearly illegal orders, is capable of being charged of treason." He said it all in a single long, droning breath.

(She was a loyal daughter of the Fire Nation, the actual Fire Nation and not this abomination, this joke in the form of a riddle, the answer to which was: nonsense. She should declare that she did not acknowledge the court, and any charges that were factually true were also not crimes. Some of them truly were absurd, as if the Avatar and his friends hadn't snuck around and tried tricks.)

"You are charged with violating the norms of warfare by the use of false surrender. You are charged with violating the norms of warfare by false impersonation. You are further charged with falsely impersonating religious figures, IE the Warriors of Kyoshi," the bureaucrat said without a trace of irony.

(Some…

Some did not matter. But she should be telling them to let her open her mouth. She should be watching them back up in terror at her might, and dare and defy this small room full of nobodies to charge her, a Fire Nation Princess, above and beyond the kind of petty and worthless laws that traitors to the Fire Nation used to cover their own guilt. It was not as if Zuzu had not done a hundred crimes himself.)

"You are further charged with violating the laws of warfare by false imprisonment, kidnapping, and neglect and mistreatment, implicit or explicit, of prisoners. There are several charges relating to this on different occasions. With all of these charges," the dull man said, "I will have to note for the record that the specifics of each individual charge shall be outlined if you either request it now, or by the time the formal charges are stated. Does the accused have any words?

(Yet. It wasn't that she felt bad for it. She… she no longer felt quite the passion for a few of her decisions, but by and large she thought that they were justified or at least understandable.)

"Further, you are charged with complicit enabling in the crimes of the Dai Li, by issuing them a full and complete pardon upon the illegal and illicit seizure of Ba Sing Se. The crimes that you are accused of being complicit in including psychological torture, false imprisonment, treason against the rightful Earth King, usurpation, murder, torture, assault, theft, blackmail, and several other lesser charges." Words should go here, the fact that the Earth Kingdom was an enemy, or that all she'd done is waved her hand and signed a vague pardon because it hadn't seemed important… she'd stopped some of the worst stuff (if it was convenient for her to stop it and it wasn't of use to her)! She'd stopped the Joo Dee factories (because it creeped her out), she'd--

(Yes, she gave a preemptive pardon to the Dai Li for any crimes they'd done in the run up to her seizing power, and that did mean forgiving all sorts of people. Yes she'd done all sorts of things like that, and had been in a hurry to leave for the capital, all but forced out by that dull, venal colonial governor…)

"The next is a very interesting and storied charge, though also very grave. Under the laws created by the wise Szato, it would be defined as complicit conspiracy, planning, and support for an act of unlawful extermination of a people or group with a recognizable set of qualities that are either explicitly or implicitly targeted by the acts, or cannot help but to be targeted by the character of the acts," the man droned. "Under the new laws, this would be called a criminal conspiracy to aid and enact genocide, as there is no such thing as lawful extermination, especially on a people or group with any set of common qualities, whether explicit or implicit, with the added charge of malicious action."

(But.)

"Heresy for the murder of the Avatar, against the laws and edicts of the Fire Sages," this clown said, but she could barely hear him. The words just seemed to wash over her, as she stood there cold and blank.

(But that's not what left her mute and almost shaking.)

"Theft, piracy, assault, battery, murder by proxy as the commander of a military unit engaging in unlawful acts. Specifically, relating to Omashu, as well as to 'The Drill' incident, as well as in the changeover with Ba Sing Se, in which witness testimony places one Princess Azula as having stated that it was not her business and that they could follow their orders when she was in a situation in which the abrogation of responsibility…" she begins to tune it out for a moment.

Only for a moment.

(Azula was supposed to be brave. But Azula was not brave. She was afraid. She was so afraid it was as if there was some slavering animal in her that was straining and struggling and willing to tear its own body parts off to survive.)

"Theft, battery, adventurism with regards to the use of illicit military assets for private vendettas, and several charges additionally of larceny, blackmail of both rightful officials and common soldiers, unlawful threats of violence outside the rules of warfare… and…"

(She didn't want to die.)

"And breach of the rules of Agni Kai in an 'unlawful and monstrous manner', as defined by the Laws and Rules Of Rightful Challenge laid down not only upheld before the war but during the war."

'Azula' a voice that could not be real said. She had to ignore it. Her mother had nothing to say that mattered. Unlawful and monstrous. Cowardly! Weak!

(She was afraid, and she didn't know what to do with it. She couldn't admit it to stupid Zuzu, as if he'd even care about that. And Toph? Whatever they had, it could stand a moment of weakness, but could it stand up to two? To three? To moment after moment of weakness and fear?

There was such a thing as keeping things… light?)

"Finally, one charge of attempted murder and two charges of assault and unlawful imprisonment upon Mai Feilin and in the case of one of the charges of assault and imprisonment, Ty Lee. Along those lines the additional charge of verbal cruelty to prisoners and disregard for the lives and safety of prisoners, and implicit acceptance of the conditions of Boiling Rock, though not the larger charge of explicit planning of the conditions that has already been levied against several others."

(Azula was afraid, and there was nothing she could do. She would be tried. They would find her guilty. They would kill her.

But instead of boldly striding towards her fate, she couldn't help but want to drag it out.)

'Azula, why have you done all of this?'

You're not real, and you killed a Fire Lord! You…

"These and other charges have been presented to the accused so that they can have an understanding of the charges against them. Any pleading, whether guilty or not-guilty, is to be held until the formal and final version of the charges are presented to you."

(To the bitter end.)

"This isn't right," Toph said, unable to keep her anger inside, facing Ty Lee as she took in the news. For a moment, she felt as if she could wreck the walls themselves. Azula, being loaded down with a thousand crimes… and sure, she was guilty of many of them, but she'd been fourteen when the war ended! Even her worst plans wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for old guys three or four or five times her age deciding that these were the best ideas ever.

Who was talking about executing Ozai?! She could not stand it, the thought of…

No, be honest with herself.

She couldn't stand the thought of Azula being dead. It was an injustice, but she wouldn't be able to care as much if it wasn't Azula. She knew the charges didn't have to be met with death, but even life in prison? Did Azula deserve it? Toph was now fourteen. She… she didn't know if she'd stand by anything she did at fourteen two years later. She hoped she would, because a stone was constant and unyielding… but she knew that she did not stand by everything she'd been when she was twelve before she'd met Twinkletoes and gone from zero friends to three in a matter of a few weeks at most. And that was counting all the times they argued when they were getting used to each other.

They were very different from what she had with Azula, a friendship that had grown over months and months and months, by now almost a full year of knowing each other.

It felt different, that kind of friendship. It was weaker and it was stronger. If she'd actually not gotten along with any of her friends trying to save the world from the Fire Nation in ways that weren't just arguing with each other sometime, she'd have had no other way except to deal with it.

But at the same time, having to do all that together made it easy to bond…

Toph realized, all at once, that perhaps she'd already had her Life-Changing Field Trip before she even met Zuko.

Then why did it feel… no. Nevermind.

"No. It isn't right," Ty Lee said.

To Toph it had felt like an eternity, but then she realized she was thinking fast, the kind of panic that she preferred to see only in her enemies.

"I've felt her aura. She's… she's not sorry, and I don't think she will be, but she's not a threat to the Fire Nation, and she's not responsible for all the bad stuff we did," Ty Lee said, and she leaned in. "It's easy to pretend she is, because it means they don't have to look at their own auras. They don't have to try to figure out how to be happy with themselves without pretending…"

This was more negative than she'd heard Ty Lee be in… in years.

"All these people in… bunches? Clumps? They all want to be together and innocent, and leave her out alone." Ty Lee was leaning in.

And she knew what it was.

If there was just one person to blame, then basically everyone was innocent. Or the guilt was the kind of vague guilt where because everyone was a little guilty you only punished the worst criminals.

"Yeah, it's so stupid. How can they even try her? She was fourteen."

"Fire Nation has some silly law on the book that lets people age into being tried as an adult or something, Mai was talking about how they're probably going to change it in a few years."

In a few years.

She knew Zuko was busy, but this was serious! She wasn't normally that serious about it, she didn't think that laws mattered that much or that they really did much. If someone wanted to do something but the law didn't let them, and they had power, they'd just do it!

Maybe it just needed the right person laying down the law? She didn't know. She wasn't any closer to knowing what she'd even do as Chief Shireef.

"What? They can just try anyone as long as they are sixteen?" Toph asked.

"As long as they're…" Ty Lee frowned, clearly thinking. "Mentally competent." It was clear this was a word she had only heard, because she pronounced it woodenly.

"Mentally competent?" Toph asked.

"Not a child, or if you were sleepwalking when you did the crime, or driven mad, or… something else, there's a few… why are you looking like that Toph?

Zuko needed an excuse.

Toph knew it. He was afraid of her, right? Not of her as herself, but the fact that she was a rival, and because she had done bad stuff. Sure, sure, whatever! But. He couldn't just let her go… at least not without a reason.

But, Azula was crazy. Or whatever the word was. She saw things. "Azula's been seeing things," Toph said, and she felt terrible. She shouldn't be revealing this, Azula didn't want it to spread. "For a while. If we proved she was, would that mean she wasn't… mentally competent or whatever?" She didn't know what it involved, and she'd probably have to look it up.

Yet, that's what Zuko needed. An excuse not to do something he had to know was wrong. A reason why it was okay according to the laws and rules that he was diving headfirst into. "I'd need help with this, Ty Lee," she said. "I can't exactly read, and Kiyi actually works for Zuko, I dunno how any of that would work."

"You're trying to save Azula?" Ty Lee asked. "I… I can help. I've been wanting a bit more of a break from Kyoshi Island." Cheerfully she said, "Your aura looks weird, but I think it's a good kind of weird?"

Toph had schemes, which made her want to cackle like a villain in a play. Was this how Azula had felt all the time?

(She tried not to think of everything that was at stake if she failed.)

veteranMortal: Legally speaking this is a little dubious, but politically it was broadly inevitable, and none of the charges are supremely unreasonable, just… a little.

The Laurent: Toph, regretting things she does as a child? Impossible!

The Laurent · Aug 27, 2024

Chapter 24: Dockets

The first step was the lamest of all. Everyone talked about the difficult first steps of a treacherous journey. Earth Sages loved to wax on about that, she'd learned that much under the guise of learning philosophy. But whenever people said "the first step is the hardest" they didn't seem to actually mean the most boring, the dullest, the most aggravating.

She had to talk to some paper-pusher and ask to be set upon the docket. Toph thought she'd just be able to talk to Zuko, because she did so all the time. But apparently if she had an 'important meeting' with him, she was supposed to use 'official channels' to 'reduce the impression of nepotism.' Ty Lee had been skeptical as well, but Toph… Toph really cared about this. She didn't want to really care about it, because it was lame to get all worked up about stupid paperwork.

But she didn't want to do anything wrong. She didn't want to make a single mistake. So here she was, standing there.

"The next available meeting will be in three weeks," the jerk said. The problem was, he was telling the truth. If he was lying, she'd know.

"You really don't have any slots open at all for anyone?" Toph asked, honestly just trying to see if this was some sort of trick where it was like, 'There are slots available, but not for an Earthbender' or whatever.

"No," truth, "I am sorry." Lie. "Things have been getting a lot busier lately, and the Fire Lord is dealing with matters of such importance that if he could forego sleep, he would still be overbooked." True. "This was the earliest I could find." True. "I am happy to do so for the friend of the Fire Lord." False. "We have great respect for your contributions." Lie. "I believe the Fire Lord will be happy to see you, if it really is something so important that you've come to me." True.

There were shades that Toph was still working on figuring out, ways that a person could tell the truth without telling the truth. And of course, knowing someone was lying wasn't enough with some of these jokers. They'd tell the truth as a lie, and in their heartbeats and pulses it'd come across as a lie, or tell something that was probably a lie and think it was the truth. It was all mixed up, but she could tell it clear enough. The tricks were easy.

"Thanks!" Ty Lee said, bouncing up and down. Ty Lee was never hard to read. She was never even trying to deceive anyone. Well, she'd probably done it at least once. She seemed the sort to smile and say she was great when she wasn't. Sometimes when she talked about Azula, her voice was fond and her heart rate even. Sometimes, very rarely, a fond voice and a raised heart-rate whose meaning Toph did not understand. But often the heart was racing, the voice was chipper, and fear and suffering seemed to thrum like a pipa played out of tune.

"Sure then. Three weeks." Toph grunted, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. But Azula wouldn't be tried in three weeks, apparently people were talking about it taking months even if it went fast, and that it probably wouldn't go fast. That meant she had time to figure this out, time to save Azula.

She wasn't going to ask permission, because that was stupid, but she was sure that Azula would be fine with it if the risk was her getting her head chopped off. Or dying some other horrible way, because Firebenders had invented a lot. Treason had been punished under Ozai by being burned to death in several cases. That's just sort of how it went.

"Azula was lying to me," Ty Lee said seriously. Toph was halfway laying on a table, having listened to Ty Lee ramble her way through a half-dozen books in the last hour. She sounded confused. "I don't know why?"

"Oh, what was she lying about?" Toph groaned, not sure whether it was serious or not.

"She once told me the definition of insanity was trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but in this dictionary that's not the definition at all." She seemed confused about it, as if she had just heard Azula say something like that and decided that it had to be the absolute truth. "Oh well, I'm sure she just got it wrong."

Toph turned, "So what is the definition of insanity?"

"The state of being in madness, colloquially crazy. And then madness is…" There was the sound of Ty Lee flipping through pages. "A state of disordered reason or intellect, in which the patient raves or is furious." She considered it for a moment. "No, don't we need a legal definition?"

"I think so," Toph said. "There's always special terms for it." Well, she vaguely knew that because advocates and judges always made a big deal about statutes and definitions. It was just the way things were.

It sucked, though, and they had to keep on digging.

And digging.

It actually took the better part of a few days to actually figure out where the right law books were, and of course Toph couldn't actually help with any of it other than scaring off anyone who wanted to interrupt.

Insanity turned out to have a specific definition: when a person can be demonstrated to have had an impaired mental faculty at the time of the crimes, or a severely impaired ability to sort reality and make judgments of either fact or ethics, and that impairment is judged not to be of 'psychotic nature' and yada yada yada, blah blah blah.

So that thing was, Toph realized, they'd have to be able to prove she was seeing and hearing things at least a while back. And they'd have to look up all the stupid, made up labels that Fire Nation had created, many of them with special gradations supposedly designed to register people as 'fit for duty' because they had some lesser version of a disqualifying…

Toph fell asleep the first time they tried to go through it all. But the second time she started to have ideas about how they could argue it. It wasn't as if they needed to exactly prove it in a court, they just needed to give Zuko enough reason to actually think that it was something he could do and justify for all those boring people. Plus, if she was a little… unwell, it'd be a way to discredit her. Toph was vaguely aware of that, but between her living and a few stupid nobles thinking she was crazy, and a bunch of nobles thinking she was sane whilst she was buried in some unmarked grave or something… Toph knew which one she'd choose any day of the year.

But she also understood which one Azula would probably choose. Toph might choose something like that, if she was really faced with it. Earth did not back down easily, either. So the secret was to… not tell her. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her much, and if it did Toph'd just rub some dirt in the wound and it'd be fine.

"So I'll say," Toph said, pacing in front of Ty Lee in the library, "What?" That was what she was asking. She was starting to get an idea, but it was just the very, very beginning of an idea and no more than that. She was left scratching in the dirt, which was fun enough, but not fun when she couldn't do anything about it.

Something about… Azula, the way she'd acted when she was fourteen? How much parents sucked? This was true. Parents sucked so much, so much of the time. Toph's parents, Azula's parents… her father at least was terrible and she clearly had no lost love for her mother.

Honestly, it didn't mean her mother was terrible but did mean her mother sort of failed. She even hated Iroh, and Iroh was generally great. She knew at least some of it was Azula being Azula, but she honestly did want to talk to the old guy and see if she was missing something.

She had to be missing something, right? She'd seen just how much Iroh was willing to sacrifice for Zuko, at a time when Zuko was doing stupid stuff and trying to kill the Avatar. So she knew it wasn't just doing bad stuff. Iroh didn't just… no, no point in wondering about it.

Even if it was…

"What what?" Ty Lee asked.

"What are we going to do? We have to get some big fancy shmancy proposal together, and we have ideas but none of us are… that." She'd done it because it was important and because she was worried about getting something wrong, but she was also aware that it was against every one of her inclinations. But this was her best chance to solve things. It was her only chance, even, and Toph did not lose or fail, not at anything!

…she could do it. She had to believe in it.

"So, when did you start seeing stuff?" Toph asked, right towards the end of a two hour conversation. She'd tried out a few new nicknames, including Stabby, but none that she was going to bring into rotation. It was important to do new and interesting nicknames for people, when you were getting to know them. Or just because they'd done something new. Azula talking about exactly how she was supposed to use those knives definitely fit. She'd only had time to look over the knives, and practice a vaguely described stab or two. But the actual knives were metal, so she could easily feel out where she was trying to stab.

So honestly, she could see herself figuring it out a lot easier than figuring out wrestling or anything like that. Though the thought of being able to just slam people into the ground was pretty fun. Maybe her character in the stories she and Azula were making would do that.

"What?"

"Y'know? Stuff," Toph said, vaguely. "People who weren't there. I was just wonderin', could it be some spirit nonsense?" She actually had been thinking about that, considering how little any of the Fire Nation sources seemed to agree about the nature of "madness." Was it hereditary, a result of "congenital idiocy"? Apparently according to most of the current experts a woman who liked another woman had a case of madness, same with a man and a man, and considering Zuko changed that law, who knew what other crazy nonsense they were saying and pretending was backed by… facts and so on?

She had no idea. So sure, it could actually be Spirits doing crazy or terrible things. It could be some sort of imbalance, it could be half a dozen things. Toph wouldn't normally care, but now it was a good excuse… and she probably should care.

"Do spirits truly do that? Interfere in such obvious ways? It was… it was after father made me Fire Lord. My mother talked to me. I knew it wasn't her, but… but that didn't matter," Azula admitted, as if it pained her. "It didn't make it feel any less… distracting. It was part of the reason why I lost to dear Zuzu. After that, I saw things every so often. Visions to torment me, but I cannot say in truth how often they've happened. I only know about the obvious cases."

Oh! There were the visitation logs. If she could get Ty Lee a chance to read those… that's what she had to do. Talk about visits and try to figure out which were real and which weren't. If she could find even a single case beyond hers of a visit that didn't happen, then it would make her point. Because why would Azula lie about visits where the ghosts that she had once known insulted and belittled her? What did it aid her?

If she wanted sympathy surely she'd portray them as real and use the fantasy meetings to try to turn her against Zuko.

That's what Toph thought, as she changed the topic, but asked about this and that, trying to put together some clear vision. It was like standing on sand, trying to figure out the truth… and how she could use it.

She hated having to think like this, but she was doing it anyway.

Toph could not tell if the asylum looked terrible, but it smelled like pee and despair. But also bleach, and other cleaning supplies.

"I hope," the tall, nasal-voiced Doctor Yasyu said, "That Lady Beifong doesn't have… objections to this place. Oh, how its star has fallen since the… well-intentioned reforms of the Fire Lord."

"I asked for a tour," Toph said. "But tell me about 'em."

"Well, you know how we help keep insane people locked up, so that they don't trouble the rest of the populace, but it is more than that. We wish to also improve their health, whether through the fire cures, the water cures, the steam cures, or indeed several brands and versions of therapy, good diet, and exercise. We have to keep abreast of the latest developments, but the Fire Lord wants to replace it with some sort of scheme involving a living compound, with therapists and others assisting, for all but the most disturbed and in need of… it is all bleeding heart nonsense, and let me be clear, we can have sympathy and empathy without misunderstanding the pernicious nature of madness and the absence of reason, and the way it tends to catch and spread if not kept contained and away from normal people."

The speech was long and boring, and it continued for a little longer. However Toph had a question. "Fire cure?"

"Those whose nerves and will have been broken by their inability to stand up to battle can be made stronger and reforged by giving them Firebending exercises and facing them up again and again with the dangers they shy from, until they realize how to fight their way through them and can be returned to the front. It has also had some success for helping those who have been attacked by bandits and criminals. There can be no good in coddling people, of making them think fire is something to fear, rather than something to use. The anger that fuels Firebending is far better," he declared, "Than the helpless fear and impotent despair that so often dogs them. Water cures are done for those who are too angry, whose blood is too heated, and who therefore need a balance… and steam for those who need to sweat out their impurities. There are methods for each and every thing."

By this point they've begun to walk, "And they're methods that work on the mad, the insane, and the delusional. You can be too kind."

"You can," Toph agreed, because this at least she understood. But she heard shouts and groans, people yelling and arguing, and in no way did this seem a kind place. He meant every word he had said. Only once had his pulse even shifted. He might be exaggerating how much the Fire Cure helped, and no doubt he had some fancy-smancy reason, but she knew that this would… this would destroy Azula.

But whatever he complained about, house arrest and… she didn't know, a therapist, maybe some good food. That could help, maybe? Honestly, Azula needed the sun and someone to talk to. Also to stop being a jerk, or at least learn to aim her jerk-ness in a better way.

By the end of the tour, she felt a little sick and doubted the plan a little… but she could figure that out later.

Step one: save Azula by convincing Zuko to show her mercy when she'd never show him mercy.

Step two: reform the entire crazy industry!

(Why did the second step sound easier than the first?)

VM AN: Laws around insanity pleas are really quite complex, actually! It isn't nearly as straightforward to plea out on insanity as you might think from like, TV or films? The rules are stringent. Azula probably has a case for being mentally unfit to stand trial, but not for insanity at the time of the offence.

TL AN: Only the finest in 18th and 19th century medicine here!

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