Avatar: Between Two Doors

The Laurent · Nov 5, 2024

Chapter 34: Steel

"If you open your mind, you will see that all the elements are one. Four parts of the same whole. Even metal is just a part of earth that has been purified and refined."

***

It was just after Toph's first visit since her silly little camping trip that Azula got the news. A date had been decided for when the charges would be read aloud, and she'd be given a week to plead guilty to any particular charges or declare herself innocent of all of them. She knew what she was going to do, but it would be another step in the farce of a process. After that there would be a few weeks of preparation time, and then the trial would begin. She'd probably be in court a handful of hours at least several times a week, or more, surrounded by guards at all times and watched with great care.

Her lawyer had made sure to say that, as if trying to warn her off of an attempt that wouldn't work. She had no idea how Tangi actually thought, because the woman seemed willing to just not talk about how she felt… which she appreciated. It was actually professional, the adult thing to do. She wished more people repressed their emotions and simply did their job. Perhaps Tangi hated her. Most days it felt that everyone hated her except for Toph and, out of an excess of sappiness, Ty Lee.

She was almost certain Toph liked her, even if friendship was something quite beyond her capacity to provide, and (therefore) to ask for. It was beneath her, anyway, so it did not matter. She'd thought thoughts like that before, and would again. The hallucinations had been coming more often, her nerves fraying, and she'd snapped at Toph the other day. She no doubt would again, because she couldn't think about the abstract without getting angry…

And yet, in a moment like this?

She mostly just felt cold.

She asked for a few things to care more seriously for her hair, and they dragged her to the baths she was occasionally--too occasionally--allowed, and it seemed as if there was every effort to allow her this much dignity and perhaps no more. So when the guards came, she was dressed and ready when one of them said, "Hands."

They were only binding her hands today, and not even the worst of the bonds, more one of the sorts where her hands were together. She could even cross them. Palms out, she probably could burn someone even from a bad stance, but she knew she couldn't win a fight like this. One of the guards smelled of sweat and alcohol, and moved gingerly. How many weaknesses could a person have? She almost wanted to stop to laugh in his face as he awkwardly stood near her and assaulted her with his stench.

But she tuned it out. A Fire Lord did not walk, they proceeded.

So Azula proceeded through the guard room, and out into the halls, where a crowd was already starting to gather, held back by armed guards. They weren't yelling, but plenty were staring and muttering among themselves. She almost wanted to stop to tell them what she thought of them… but she could not do that either.

So she simply raised her head and walked on.

The crowds ebbed and flowed, but she didn't let herself care. All of these sights and smells were new and unfamiliar with the weight of having barely experienced them for years, but she tried not to notice any of them.

When they had walked across what felt like half the palace, they finally closed in on the courtroom, and outside of the area was Zuko, standing there. Waiting for her.

"Brother, I did not think you'd have the nerve to witness the Rabaroo-Court yourself, rather than just hiding away," Azula sneered, and she let herself lean into that cold, simple contempt. She didn't have to be furiously angry, because at some point she'd stopped being quite that. She was not quite angry in the same way anymore. She'd kill him if she got out, because she had to, because it'd be worse for him to be locked away while someone sat on "his" throne, but eventually even anger began to get boring. She'd act as she did, and let cold anger burn as well as heated fury.

It was easier to control, and no less useful, after all. It'd been when she allowed herself to feel too deeply that… she'd begun to fall apart.

Now, with these stupid visions coming often multiple times in a week, and far more than that recently, she needed what she could.

So, mockery it was. She smirked and looked him over. At least he looked terrible too. His robes were well-fitted, but his whole body was tense as if she was going to attack him. She could, truly, the chains now were not so bad at all. But she would not. Behind him were a bunch of pointless scribblers and worse, and all of them looked at her with active fear rather than wariness, when they bothered to look at her.

Some of them ignored her, leaning over towards the Fire Lord and whispering in his ear.

She had no idea who any of them were. Not nobles who'd been favored under Father, that much was obvious. No doubt any favor from Father might as well be the end of one's career. She sniffed and waited for him to respond.

"I am here, and I will be here at least some of the days of the trial," Zuko said, and he seemed to be holding his words in check. "I intend for it to be a fair trial, and for you to have every chance to answer the charges, and to face your accusers."

"Such formality, Zuzu," Azula said, with a shake of her head. "It's as if you aren't facing your sister at all." She didn't get a laugh, though she thought it was amusing, truly. Truly, how droll? He pretended to care about silly things about peace and justice and honor, but at the end of the day he was as steely as any worthy Fire Lord. If he wasn't an usurper who was sending the whole Fire Nation to ruin, it'd be admirable.

As it was, it was contemptible, and only made it even more clear the depths and extent of his treasonous conniving!

"If I wasn't facing my sister, I would not be here," Zuko said, firmly. "But I wanted to see."

"Well, then witness the defenses of… where is she?" Azula frowned, and then, oh. She'd never actually seen her in person.

"She should be inside the room, I think she was…" Zuko began.

"Apologies," Tangi's voice called out. "I intend to walk with you to the courtroom most days, but today I had something I needed to do." She didn't explain what that 'something' was, but she did step out, and, huh.

Tangi was a dark-haired woman, young by the standards of the oldies, probably only twice Azula's age or so, and dressed in black and gray robes that covered much of her form. But she had a thin mouth, a sharp nose and dark-green eyes that peered through a pair of rounded spectacles that nonetheless made her look more severe and precise than weak. There was something overall strong about her features, and if she was wearing makeup, Azula couldn't tell. Her dark hair was done up in a bun, and she advanced, coming to stand by Azula's side, closer than she would've expected her to risk.

"It's fine," Azula said, considering the woman before her. "Whatever you were doing, was it toward our courtroom success?"
"Yes, it was," Tangi said.

"Then continue to keep up the good work. That is why I decided to employ you, that you were the least incompetent of the options presented to me by Zuzu, and by a wide margin."

"Thank you," Tangi said, her lips twitching for a moment as if she were imagining smiling. But she didn't smile, just nodded and turned.

The inside of the courtroom was as boring as might be imagined. Several large tables, one for the defense and two for the prosecution, a small side-gallery where court reporters would stand and scribble, and then the judge's desk, raised above all, as an old, gray-bearded man, balding at the top, wearing red robes and staring at her with an empty gaze. He didn't see her, he saw beyond her, perhaps to her execution.

She didn't know either way. She didn't care. She knew what she was getting into, and yet somehow Tangi seemed only to gain energy and power from this, as if the skepticism and certainty of failure were enough to hone her, enough to make her sharp and powerful.

Azula appreciated it.

Tangi looked…

Resolute.

Raja Zuru considered the girl in front of him, and the word that came so easily to his mind. "You're here?" he asked, honestly surprised. He thought she'd be with the Fire Lord, or indeed with Azula, because he remembered the bracelet and when rumors had passed of some supporter sending a strange bracelet to Azula--as seen in her daily walks under guard--he'd realized all at once that something was happening. The forge was busy today, as it was every day, yet he still found himself drawn to her.

She couldn't be a supporter of Azula, not after all the Fire Nation had done. He'd certainly not forgive the Earth Kingdom if they'd occupied his land and slaughtered his people with cold cruelty and hot passion.

In the days before Sozin's comet, the forges had been busy making weapons, weapons that were meant to be used. On who? Who was even to say, but most likely not simply soldiers. So he looked at Toph, and he tried to understand her.

"Yes. I think I got it figured out," Toph said proudly.

"What?"

"If you want to help me, I think I can just make a sword. Gotta get someone to make a grip to go over the hilt, but think I got it figured out. Also did some practicing with the stupid tempering thing, but you weren't there for that," Toph said.

"You… have it figured out?" Raja considered this for a moment. The girl was still barefoot as ever, and he was never not going to be worried about that. But the grin on her face was a blade enough to ward against questions. It was the kind of cheeky, cocky grin that declared that she was going to win. Win what? Yes.

"Got the right amount of carbon, the right amount of everything. It'll take me just a few minutes, and I'll create the blade of your dreams. Prolly gotta have it wrapped and fixed up, and if you wanted it to be fancy… but." She laughed, and it was somewhere between free and caged, somewhere between sane and unhinged. Honestly, if he had to say it, it was as if she was…

Blooming was not a word that seemed to be something Azula would associate with a dry lawyer.

Yet, Tangi seemed to bloom, free and wild and strange, only in those moments of real tension. During the reading of most of the charges, which were less changed and more expanded upon, she simply watched and spoke in a dull monotone, clearly seeing nothing worthy of excitement from simply stating, "The defendant pleads not guilty." She'd told Azula that there'd still be the week of extra delay even if she didn't run the clock out to the end, and that there were ways to push it back even further if they acted now.

But then they'd come to a bunch of charges involving heresy, impersonation of a Kyoshi warrior, and more, and she'd lit up with a faint smile before standing up and saying, as serious as could be. "I would like to register a Concordance Conference request for this set of charges."

"This is unusual, can you explain your reasoning?" the Judge asked.

She sounded fierce as she said… Azula had no idea what that was. "Simply put, a lot of these charges are not only old law, but are from a half-dozen different law codes, none of which was active when Azula was born, or at any point during her life. She was not aware of any such laws--"

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," the Prosecutor said smugly, "As was established in the year-"

"Please, do not interrupt me," Tangi said mildly, but Azula could hear the note of triumph. She'd been wanting to be interrupted. "If you would, your honor, Concordance Conferences are an innovation recently championed by many as a means to try to bring together different law codes and prevent the tendency among the likes of Ozai and some legal scholars under Azulon to simply change the law or substitute older versions of it at a whim. If we could straighten out this matter, it would be much easier to walk forward in the light of the wisdom that comes from understanding."

It should have sounded craven, because the words in an entirely objective sense were polite and self-effacing. But instead it sounded like a challenge, like she was declaring some legal form of Agni Kai, and she could see the way the whole courtroom seemed to tense as she kept on speaking.

Azula was baffled, but she did not allow that to show.

"I acknowledge that here is no such thing as 'ignorance of the law' shielding one, but in this case some of the laws on the same subject are actively contradictory, for instance in having different penalties for the crimes, and indeed in one case different jurisdictions with impersonation of a Kyoshi Warrior being covered under a statute whose contents amount to the person being remanded over to the Avatar, Avatar Kyoshi specifically, for any 'just and fit' punishment. So is this even the proper court to try it, as opposed to throwing it upon the Avatar? If that is the case, then is it to be this Avatar, or should Avatar Aang commit to channeling or in some way invoking Avatar Kyoshi?" A pause. "On the other hand one might say that a statute that includes the Avatar Kyoshi is either outdated or lapsed." A pause, and then, "Nullus Terra, one might say, by the cycle of events that includes the existence of both mortality and the Avatar cycle."

Azula heard someone snort, and was pretty sure that there was some stupid, dry legal joke going on by this point. She wasn't quite squinting, but she was trying to understand the point.

"Your honor," the prosecutor said. "A Concordance Conference would add at least an additional week onto the beginning of the trial. I would plead that this is an unnecessary addition to the state's resources to settle a matter of no accord. Perhaps the charges may be reconsidered."

"Advocate Tangi, your response?" the Judge asked, mildly.

"Ultimately it is the duty of the prosecution to prove their charges," she said. "They have been registered and dropping them will simply mean that the matter of heresy will remain as muddled as ever."

Wait.

Azula realized what she was doing.

She was stalling. An entire week to talk through charges like that? She didn't want them to drop the charges, because that would be faster.

Azula felt something warm in her, the feeling of having asked and made a demand, and seeing it done. She had demanded stalling, and somehow Tangi had managed it through whatever legal nonsense they were now debating.

She hadn't looked like much, but Azula realized that beneath her placid, dull exterior--in her own lawyerly way, at least--there was…

Steel. Steel like he'd never quite seen it. Oh, it was not some magic steel, as far as he knew. He'd heard that Sokka, one of the Avatar's companions, had a blade made of the metal of a comet. This, on the other hand, had seemingly been made in the normal way. But somehow it looked more solid than any steel he'd ever seen in his life. It was crude, the blade that she finally pulled out after only a minute or two of work. It needed something to soften its grip if anyone was going to hold it. There were a few other little things like that, a few other small bits of necessities that could be added.

But everyone here, an entire crowd now babbling, had seen her make a world-class blade in the same amount of time it'd take them to get started on making a horseshoe.

"What? Can anyone do that, or is it just you?" one of the older hands asked. Raja knew exactly why, and indeed the worry and question about that was great.

"Oh, I could teach it to anyone. Prolly will," Toph said, and those were her answers. She seemed willing to make such promises. "Eventually. Prolly not for a while. But Metalbending gonna be big, an' really the only reason I haven't taught anyone before this is that it's better if'n people figger it out on their own." She was dropping more heavily into an accent, and honestly it seemed as if she was intentionally playing it up, making herself sound like that just to see their outrage and judge it.

See wasn't the right word.

But everyone was staring, and she seemed to feel their staring, because of course they did.

"World's always going to change," Toph said, but then added, softly. "But you can be part of it. I skipped all the steps because I'm just that awesome, but if someone was there who knew a lot about heat and temperature, and could literally feel it, they could do the same together with a bender half as skilled as me." She said it firmly, and she tilted her head. She wasn't looking toward any of them in particular, but all of them in general. Toph had clearly made some decision, and had thought about what her bending could actually do.

And what it was, he thought all at once, was: it's an attack.

But thinking about it had him thinking: on what?

And then she stepped away.

Then she began…

Moving. Everyone was moving. "Dismissed," the judge said, and then they all stood up.

"When do I have to be here again?" Azula asked, in a whisper.

"There will be a meeting late next week for Concordance, but you simply have to provide your written testimony that you did not know that there was a law on long-discarded books forbidding pretending to be a Kyoshi Warrior."

"It would not have stopped me if it was," Azula pointed out with a smirk. It might have made her like it even more, honestly?

"That doesn't matter," Tangi said, and with an amused sigh, "Surely you know that?"

She did. The truth meant everything when it was useful, and nothing at all when it wasn't.

"Yes," Azula admitted, feeling almost abashed. She wanted to reclaim her authority, and her power, in little ways and big. But nobody was going to listen to her now, and if she did any grandstanding it'd be dismissed as a tantrum. She stood.

"I'll walk with you," Tangi said. "All the way back." She spoke quietly, but she wondered if she was being humored. If she was, she'd have to slap away the hand because then what else would…

She took a breath, and banished these and all thoughts. She knew that thoughts mattered less than action, and that when acting you had to always be…

On the attack.

Toph Beifong was not fighting any of them, but Raja knew enough about swordfighting to picture the foe. The foe would have likely just lost from surprise at a blind girl moving so gracefully, and so skillfully. She wasn't really that good, the movements were simple and basic and no doubt easy to counter by any skilled swordsman.

However, Toph always knew exactly where her blade was as she ran through a pattern that seemed to have come from a book. She could probably not cut herself unless she tried, and even then she could dull the blade if she wanted at the moment of contact. Her motions were powerful, even without much more skill than, seemingly, having had someone read and demonstrate a few of the forms.

When it was such a surprise, you didn't have to be a hero among mere warriors.

At least, not the first time.

They watched, and Raja noticed…

"That's a little big for you." It was a little too long for Toph to wield one-handed, at least easily. She was still short and he'd noticed her growing, so perhaps in a few more years it'd fit better.

Toph smirked, turning to the ground, flicking the blade out in a flourish and said, pride and bitterness, smugness and other things he couldn't read flicking across her face:

"I'll grow into it."

VM AN: Trial's finally starting! I hope people enjoyed it!

TL AN: This judge sucks! Who voted for him?!

veteranMortal · Nov 12, 2024

Chapter 35: Earth

"Earth is the element of substance. The people of the Earth Kingdom are diverse and strong. They are persistent and enduring."

***

Blessed are the heavens and the earth alike, to one who knows the Jing and seeks to use them to triumph. This is what the General had been taught, and it had allowed him to survive through the war, through decades of conflict. But now, what Jing was there for this? For a battle with the Fire Nation for the sake of millions of souls, this delegation could not fail.

General Faan Cha understood what was meant by all of this. He understood that the Fire Lord was more clever if less vicious than his predecessor. He'd use the language of "kindness" or "choice" to enslave Earthbenders as fifth-class citizens and use his mastery of the colonies to become the richest of the Nations, and with this wealth in a generation or three his people would simply take control of the world without having to do anything so crude as the extermination of the other peoples.

It was obvious that was his plan, because who could accidentally do such moves as to try to enforce Fire Nation rule in the colonies while presenting himself as the kinder version of the old lies.

But now he, and all those who thought like him, were going to talk to the several people who could stop him.

He and his son, and several others were here; other allies would be talking with Katara and Avatar Aang.

Toph Beifong, though, was their best bet. Someone actually from the Earth Kingdom. The Avatar's whole people were dead because of Fire Nation interference, but considering how they valued detachment over family bonds, no doubt he'd forgiven the Fire Nation and now had nothing to fight for, no reason to care. That is what a lack of attachment meant, after all. And at the end of the day, parts of the Fire Nation army were still in the colonies, "Keeping order."

This told just what the Fire Lord's motivations were.

But even though Beifong was a woman, she was by all accounts the most Earthbender of Earthbenders. So, tugging on his beard, Faan sought her out. But it was harder to find her than expected. He found himself wandering the halls of the palace, an official guest but dressed differently from these flame-bearing monsters, who whispered and sniggered behind their pitiful sleeves at him as he marched about. The colors were all so harsh and brutal, just like the heart of the average Firebender, and he found himself having to keep from jumping at this or that sound.

Toph Beifong was somewhere around here, and he needed her support. The colonies rightfully belonged to the Earth Kingdom. The colonization was an act of cruelty and evil that needed to be corrected now.

But to get to any of that, he first had to be able to actually find Toph. It was as if she was hiding from him, for all that he was all but certain that was not actually the case.

But where could she be?

Tangi did have a life, for all that quite a few people, including the woman she loved, seemed to think otherwise.

She was not even particularly working on the case that day, just going over a few old precedents and taking an early lunch. Admittedly she was doing this rather than accepting her girlfriend's cousin's offer of a trial expedition. He was trying to start up a camping organization, something that'd let people who enjoyed the not that great outdoors together. He'd gotten a very distant cousin of his involved, who was the maid to Toph Beifong, who it seemed clear was… some kind of friend to Princess Azula?

The world was a very, very small one when it came to the quasi-incestous entanglements of the middle and lower ranks off the palace sorts. Ah well. She rubbed at her eyes, and put away what passed for light work. She stood slowly, a little delicately. She'd had her leg cramp when she got up from a long day of work, and the experience and the pain of it, on a day where everything else in her life was falling apart, had stuck with her. She moved more gingerly now, andi she could only overcome this with less gingerness in all other parts of her life.

She stood, and almost sneezed at the dust. But it was more the air of spring and summer that left her coughing, for reasons the doctors were still debating when they bothered to. As it was, she glanced around the small side room and moved toward the door.

Before she reached it, there was a knock.

Who?

She considered the door and opened it.

On the other side was someone she'd been expecting for a while.

Tangi, of no clan name that would claim her and that she would claim in turn, took in Toph Beifong.

To hear the rumors, she was still at least nominally the heir of one of the richest men in the lands of Earth outside of a few powerful colonial governors and of course plenty of nobles in Ba Sing Se. There were probably a few others, but she looked at this girl and understood that it didn't matter. She'd not bother to spit, let alone smother with her earth, all the wealth she was to "inherit" even if it were on fire.

It was a familiar observation.

Toph Beifong, for all of that, seemed marked by her life as what she was. She was starting to grow. She was still short, but not as short, she was still small, but not as small. She was dressed in practical green clothing, her bare feet tracking dirt into the room, her eyes pale and blank as she stared in Tangi's general direction. She smelled faintly of soil and swear, and her expression was a careful one.

"What is it, Miss Beifong?" Tangi asked, and realized at once that perhaps some part of her really did want to start a fight.

She couldn't dislike the girl, hero as she was. But she did wonder at the friendship she thought existed. After all, Azula had asked her to leave sometimes, even in the middle of a conversation, because Toph would probably be around. Once or twice she'd been able to tell that Toph didn't show up by Azula's foul mood hours later.

It was actually, truly impressive.

She never would have guessed that at all. It was not her concern, really, but she had the feeling that the Princess may be more invested in their friendship than Toph. She was almost certain that had never happened before. Or perhaps it was a sign that Toph was not particularly invested. It was hard to be sure.

But now, looking at this girl, she wondered if she had it wrong. "I need you to tell me the truth," Toph demanded. And it was a demand, this much was obvious. "I'll know if you lie to me. I'll know it." Her voice grew harsher, but she didn't move to threaten Tangi.

Tangi realized she didn't have to, that the undeniable fact was that she was sort of a wimp and Toph could fight an entire army and win. But, she had a brain.

Everyone said Toph could tell when someone was lying. But how? Obviously, she was blind, so it was not a matter of reading facial expressions. So it had to be… ah. The information given by her Earthbending.

The only way that could make sense is if it was picking up something. Pulse? Heart rate? Oh, then…

Tangi considered how best she could fool it, aware that her mind was skipping right over the question of whether she should bother trying. Why had she given everything up, why had she made all of these choices, if not to do her best?

And it felt like a challenge.

She crossed her arms, and then where it couldn't be seen she put her nails to work. Scholars often had longer nails to signal that they didn't need to do manual labor, though it was a habit that had been lost in the rush of militarization and removing any remaining elements of "inferior earth culture" from the Fire Nation. She'd grown the nails on her left hand out since the fall of Ozai, and so she was able to do just what she needed.

"You can tell when I lie? Sure, I believe you," and as she said those last words she dug her nails into her sleeve and let herself feel the pain. It hurt a lot.

"Lie…? No, Truth…? No…"

Toph looked genuinely baffled, frowning and a little lost.

"There's several ways to fool your trick, and one of them is simple: pain. Pain makes the heart rate spike, as does running and moving, and that can cover the shifts when lying. But also, there are others: if someone is a fabulist, able to lie to themselves, that works. If they are able to lie without focusing on it, that ends the same. If they're given to panic, I bet they could hide it by panicking about something unrelated… albeit only that'd be a way to tell the truth and be called a liar. But, isn't that half of what the world is?" Tangi asked it with a tilt of her head. She knew that it was petty to feel triumph at getting one over on someone who is, again, a child. She's fourteen, and she cannot quantify how much of an idiot she was at fourteen.

But she kept on talking. "There are other tricks. The one I used is simple: pain. Pain spikes the heart just like a lie does. If I can think of them, others can. So, I can lie to you, it's just difficult."

Toph looked shocked. "I've only met… three or four people who've even figured any of that out a little. None of them were as good as Azula used to be. She'd lie by saying the most absurd things and her heart would not budge an inch. Then when I met her again, just to see, she couldn't lie to me. She still can't. I know her too well," Toph said, and she sounded sad.

Tangi might even go so far as to say that she sounded sad enough that tears might fall, that the heavens might water the earth. But there was not a tear in those eyes, and barely a hitch in the voice. But it was the tone.

"So, sometimes she tells me things will be fine, and sometimes she believes it and sometimes she doesn't. But mostly, she doesn't talk about the trial. So what's what I'm here for. I wanna know, does she have a chance?"

It was a plea, a plea from the heart.

She wanted the truth, and Tangi realized just how deeply and how powerfully she did care.

It was honestly a little sad, though she did not let it penetrate too far into her. She was not acting as Azula's lawyer out of sentiment, whether political or personal. But it still at least answered an important question.

"Define 'a chance'? She's almost certainly not going to be convicted of everything she's charged with, but she's probably guilty enough to just barely justify a death sentence if one was stretching and life in prison without any… need for fabulation and politics. When one counts what she'll be found guilty of, a larger list in part thanks to politics, and in part her own stubbornness, then the odds are. Yes." She concluded this simply and said, "The fight has yet to be concluded, but by those standards we will probably--"

"I asked the judge if he'd be fair, and he said he would," Toph blurted out. "He was lying."

"Another problem, yes," Tangi said, with narrowed eyes. "One I was largely aware of, but the fact that he promised fairness and was lying could matter… except that your ability is almost certainly not admissible in any court. It does not matter how trusted you are, you could be lying about him lying."

"I wouldn't!" Toph shouted, then paused. "Okay, honestly I kinda would? Not that I'm lyin', but yep. That's something I'd do if it saved Azula."

It was an amusing sort of honesty. Tangi sighed. "I can use this, but if we're being honest it'd be better for you to convince Azula to stop claiming she was more involved in the extermination plans than she was. What the actual records show is that she carelessly and somewhat cruelly suggested burning down the whole Earth Kingdom, did not regret this advocacy at the time, but was not in meetings planning the mass burials once they burned entire villages down with the people in it." Tangi saw the look of brief horror on Toph's face. "She gave an unreasonably cruel suggestion, but she was distracted by other matters. It became an abstraction for her, and yet if she admits she was too busy she'd be admitting…"

"No, not too busy," Toph said. "Not let into meetings. It'd make her seem less important, and she's almost as proud as I am." Toph grinned as if this pride was a strength, rather than a damning fault.

But then again, Tangi was damned as well, she decided. Pride was a fault that she had enough of to press and pin between a hundred books, like all the beautiful butterflies of self-regard. Beautiful butterflies of self-regard? What was that nonsense, she thought. It was hardly a proper metaphor. But no matter, she was not in this world to make beautiful metaphors but succinct and persuasive arguments.

"Yes, she is. It's a strength, but all strengths are also weaknesses."
"Retaliatory Jing," Toph said to herself, "Or perhaps 'Tortoise Shell' Jing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nah, not excusing you, sorry," Toph said, grinning. "C'mon, let's go and see if we can talk to Azula, tell her to stop being such a dumbass."

Tangi was on her day off, and opened her mouth to make it very, very clear that she was trying to enjoy a few hours rest and even had somewhere to be. "Briefly," she found herself saying instead. "Then I need to go visit my girlfriend. Actually visit her, not just get so caught up in work I forget."

"Cool," Toph said, though Tangi hadn't expected much besides that. Yes, the Earth Kingdom had a reputation of being intolerant towards a lot of things, but it had been Toph's friend Zuko that had removed the laws, after all. No doubt the Avatar's whole circle was better on these issues than most. "It'll only take a minute. You hold her down and I'll start punchin' her."

She was joking, grinning if not directly at Tangi's face.

"Fine, I'll do it," Tangi said. Better to just try to get it out of the way. Maybe she'd get to see just what kind of hold Toph had on Azula, and whether it was enough to get her to actually try to save her own life.

General Faan found her coming out of a room with some Fire Nation woman, somewhere in her twenties or thirties with glasses and an imperious look about her. He stepped forward, and saw the moment where Toph realized that he was looking for her. She was dressed just the way he'd been imagining, in Earth Kingdom colors, her feet bare and a little bit dirty, her gaze blank and yet somehow thoughtful and controlled. He decided at once that this was the face of a true patriot, because this was the face of someone who looked so obviously Earth Kingdom.

The color of her eyes was unusual, but their shape was familiar, the set of features vaguely aristocratic but in the mold of the Earth Kingdom, her skin tone faintly and marginally less pale than the norm among brutish and murderous Firebenders. This was the salvation of the Earth Kingdom, stuck here trying to convince her friend to be less harsh and cruel in enacting the alternate means of victory that the Avatar had decided was compassionate.

Say they kept the colonies and exploited them further, giving scraps of recognition and equality but maintaining the nobility? What would happen next? He could tell anyone: with those resources the Fire Lands would grow richer, and indeed they would be well-placed to suck in all the trade from the South Pole, though the North would probably still go at least partially through Ba Sing Se. It would not be hard to push off dissent from the stupid masses: all he had to do was grant them legal equality and happen not to mention that all of the powerful nobles, all of the conniving merchants, and indeed every possible concentration of power was in the hands of Firebenders.

This, he had no doubt, was exactly the kind of equality that would ensue.

"Greetings, Lady Beifong," he said, stepping forward and deciding to ignore the Fire Nation woman. She probably wasn't important.

"It's Toph," she said, her nose scrunching up as if she smelled something foul.

Ah right, she was at odds with her family for the moment. No doubt it would be settled, it was not as if there was anything more important than family, except perhaps the Earth Kingdom. "I see. I am from the Commission to Protect the Homeland, and I'd like to talk to you about the so-called colonies."

"Perhaps I am not needed for this," the Firebender said, frowning.

"No, no, this joker is…" Toph began, but whoever it was, they were already stepping away as he could see that there was an audience. He'd intended for there to be an audience, really. Several servants were running off to tell others, and a few of the courtiers were now crowding in. This was exactly where he wanted her. She wasn't a coward, she wouldn't back down because she had an audience or else she wouldn't have apparently broken from the Avatar right in front of him in a public way.

She turned, look closed in and said, "The Commission to Protect the Homeland?"

"We're a group of concerned generals, officers, soldiers, and patriotic merchants who all seek the same goal," Faan declared, firmly. "We want to make sure that the people of the so-called colonies are not oppressed by the Fire Nation caste system."

"Oh, great," Toph said, and she didn't sound sarcastic. She stepped forward. "So you wanna make sure that there's not all those stupid things where Earthbenders or those with 'Earth Blood' are less than human, the way half the people here woulda sworn they believed a few years ago?" She gave a contemptuous gesture towards some of the sniveling courtiers, and of course her point was quite clear. It was the law of the land, an established fact, even a few years ago that people with Earth blood were inferior, as if the Earth Kingdom was the one barbaric enough to engage in so many mass murders. If anything, those of Fire blood were entirely untrustworthy, though still human… which is more than the Fire Nation had been willing to grant.

"Yes, exactly! They are rightful Earth Kingdom subjects, and we should move in and restore the proper order of things."

"What will be done with the serfs and peasants?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Well, they would continue in their properly appointed places--"

"So, you're not going to make anything better for anyone, you're just going to change who is in control?" Toph asked, and he balked at that. "Cause I'm sure that if it's just promises of being technically equal, the Fire Nation has y'all beat."

He felt the audience pressing on him all at once. He was speaking words that he could hardly take back, but at the same time he couldn't believe it! He felt the absurdity of what she'd said press down on him, as if she were trying to crush him with her nonsense. "Are you saying you'd prefer the Fire Nation to be in charge?"

"You should clean your ears out, old man!" Toph said, and he bristled. He wasn't old at all! But he was also aware that the young sometimes had a skewed impression of age, and not to hold it against her. Even if she appeared to be a complete brat.

"No, duh? Half of them suck, and those that don't still don't get to boss other people around just because they're not terrible," Toph said, actually rolling her eyes. "Why should a buncha Fire Nation nobles or Earth Kingdom Generals get to decide what the people around there wanna do?"

"The Fire Nation would simply bribe them with the idea of equality, but without any chance to get rich or strive forward to unseat the Firebenders who rule everything--"

"And you guys are gonna let peasants rise up and make their own decisions?" Toph scoffed. "Yeah, sure, you're right that the Fire Nation could just say 'everyone is equal' and then do nothing. Though Zuzu's a little too nice to do that on purpose--"

"What, you trust the Fire Lord?" he asked, and he stepped forward, feeling the fury in him, not hot like a Firebender but solid, steady, and undeniable, like an avalanche that would come down on… on the Earthbender who could fight an army.

"Nope! I trust Zuzu, but the Fire Lord, not really?" she said, scratching her arm a little and stepping forward. "And what would happen to those with 'Fire' Blood? There's a lot, ya know? All sorts of things happened, some of them really, really bad, but some of them just… the normal things that happen?" She wrinkled her nose, and no doubt it was at the thought of sex, or… or something.

He now no longer knew how to read her. If he ever did.

"Of course they'd be subjects just like anyone else, though those who sympathized with the oppressors would be asked to leave, to go back to the Fire Nation where their hearts belong," he said, furious and stepping even closer.

"Seems to me as if their hearts don't belong in the Fire Nation, right? Or the Earth Kingdom," she said. "Why not give 'em a choice, and make one of those choices none of the above?"
"None of the… above?"

"If some city decides it wants to be, I dunno, a Magma City or something else in-between, independent but with Earthbenders and Firebenders and who knows, other kinds of Benders too, then why shouldn't it? If that's what everyone gets together and decides they want. Not just the nobles, not just you generals, or… any of that!" She had started to raise her voice and she stepped forward as well.

"That breaks all traditions! It was the shattering of the division between the Elements that led to the Fire Nation's imperialism!"

"I dunno if you noticed, but a lotta things are broken. Can't exactly go back: Airbenders are almost gone, though I bet they can come back. Northern Tribe can't keep on hiding away, Southern Water Tribe hasn't been hiding at all, Ba Sing Se's kinda a pit of annoying court scheming that tried to control the whole Kingdom," Toph said. "Only way's forward. I have no idea how, really, but Zuzu's trying his best jus' like everyone else, right? That's how it goes." She shrugged.

"Really? He's trying his best."

"I toldja. I trust Zuzu. Don't really trust the Fire Lord, but why should I? But Zuzu, he's trying," Toph said. "...almost enough." She shook her head, and for a moment he thought she might cry and he had no idea why.

"Is he? Magma Cities? Bah! I thought I was speaking to the powerful Earthbender who helped save the world, not a whiny--"

"I challenge you," Toph said, cracking her knuckles. "To a fight. You've already ruined my day, might as well kick your butt."

"Fine. Here? Now? Or elsewhere." He wasn't afraid of someone who so clearly had gone soft!

"Here's fine--" she said… then stopped.

"Nah, actually, let's do it in the garden so I can really beat you up. Tangi probably wouldn't want me to do it right in front of her door."

…General Faan Cha, Hero of the third sally out of Ba Sing Se, began to get a sinking feeling.

He heard of the argument within an hour of it happening. People muttered and gossiped about it endlessly. "What had she meant?" they asked themselves. What were the Magma Cities? What about the fact that the General would need crutches for the next few months after she'd tossed him around and almost not even heard him saying he surrendered? What about…

Zuko had a full slate of meetings for the next few hours, but he spent the whole time half-listening and half thinking about the words that Toph supposedly said. He did not know how to interpret them, though he had a feeling that perhaps Toph didn't either. What even were Magma Cities? Was this why she hadn't taken the Chief Shire Reeve job? At the time she'd only said that it was about… well. Toph didn't lie. He didn't think she'd be deceiving people here. So, she liked him, but she didn't trust the Fire Lord?

He… he could work with that. He didn't like or trust having to be the Fire Lord either. Uncle had assured him that this was at least part of the reason why he should be the Fire Lord. So he sighed and thought about it. Magma Cities? Neither side ruling? Honestly, he wasn't as against it as she probably thought. Why not let them run themselves?

He bit his lip and considered it. He could hardly promise every single city or region had Firebenders willing to accept equality in all it meant, and honestly the General had had a point that 'freedom' when one side was rich and powerful could easily go wrong. He'd seen it often enough, the way that nobles were…

Well, say anything bad about nobles in general, regardless of the morality of any particular nobleman or noblewoman, and he'd probably agree with you. Zuko considered all of that, and considered that he was nobility and Toph was nobility and Mai was too, and for that matter Katara was the daughter of the chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and so was Sokka…

The son of the chief of the Southern Water Tribe, not the daughter! How was he this awkward even in his own head?

But, he decided to track down Toph and see if they could talk. He'd done enough being awkward for today, and so he sought her out. He found her on the practice fields, rearranging the entire area. The ground was shaking from a thousand feet away or more, and the servants and others in the area were cringing and running in the other direction.

He found her on the practice field, stomping her feet and throwing around giant boulders. A single hit from one of those could leave a noncombatant… well, dead. She didn't seem to even strain with them, moving fast and seeming to have only gotten stronger on top of cleverer since he'd stopped training against her.

"You're rearranging the landscape," Zuko said. "I heard you also beat up that General."

"Yeah?" Toph asked, not turning to face him.

"Do you want to spar? I know I'm not going to be much of a match, but we could add in some people?" He laughed, at this point Toph should practice going two or three on one, because one on one he was pretty sure that he'd lose ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Though he had to have pushed her pretty far at least a few times. He was at least sure she hadn't been holding back before, but now she'd kind of have to…

Toph snorted. "What? You and Mai versus me?"

"We could," Zuko said, and then admitted, "Though we haven't really fought together before." It was odd, and not odd at all, that they hadn't fought side by side before. Of course they hadn't! But Sokka and Suki had, and so had Aang and Katara. But at the same time, that wasn't normal. "But, we could do it. I miss you," he said, and as he said it he realized just how true it was. It was like a knot in his stomach. They weren't incredibly close friends, but they were close friends and Toph had been there. She understood what it was like to have terrible parents. She understood what it was like to feel you always had to get better. He'd felt that too, though it seemed as if he was further on the other side of it than she was.

Toph sighed. "I miss you too, but… Azula…"

"We're not going to agree on that," Zuko admitted, and he hated it. Perhaps she saw herself in Azula. Perhaps she was even right to. He had to be glad that Azula had a friend, and he'd seen the way she was hurting. It didn't feel right for him to feel bad for her, when he was the one doing it. He was making it worse, and yet… yet there were consequences. He had to believe in redemption, but what about her words seemed like it was seeking redemption rather than simply being exhausted?

Of course, he'd been exhausted and worse right before he'd finally realized he was going down the wrong path.

Azula always lied, but maybe this time she was actually feeling doubt for the first time in her life.

"But, there are other things we can talk about… what's this Magma Cities matter?"

"Oh, I kinda just made up the name on the spot. Sounds kinda spiffy, doesn't it? Like Sheriff," Toph said, and she turned to face him and stuck her tongue out in his general direction.

"It does," he admitted, with a laugh. "You always did give people and things names." Some of them were pretty terrible.

Toph hesitated and said, "How are we supposed to just… I." She took a breath, and seemed to be gathering as if she were about to move into a stance and fight. "The judge will probably sentence her to death, he's biased and she's done some bad things." She grinned a little, as if to say: I kind of like that.

But then, Mai had liked Azula partially for how mean she could be sometimes, but in the end had that protected his girlfriend, the woman he loved, from being hurt by her?

Yet, he could understand it. He didn't blame her, and he was sure that in the end they'd… that it'd all work out. He wasn't sure how it'd work out, but he had to believe that.

"She has, but. I. She's my sister. Even if a lot has happened, I don't want to…"

"Has it ever been about what you want?" Toph said, and she sounded annoyed by the fact. "I told you Zuzu: I trust you, I'm just not sure I trust the Fire Lord."

He nodded and said. "I believe it will work out, and I believe we can still be friends despite the disagreement. I have to believe that." They'd been so much together, it couldn't just… fall apart. "Even if something drives us further apart, we're friends, aren't we? And we'll figure it out, eventually."

"Even if something drives us apart," Toph said, quietly, and she thought about it and seemed to perk up. "You promise?" she asked. "You, Zuko, not the Fire Lord."

"Yes, I do," he said, firmly.

Toph grinned and said, "I'll prolly have to hold you to that. And I'm probably gonna head off eventually. Maybe not quite yet, but I do kinda want to… just wander a little bit, you know?"

He knew what she meant. There would be a point when Azula was convicted and locked up for life, when it all came to its end, where she would not be able to forgive him immediately. But if she believed they could work it out…

They were all so young. Even he was only eighteen. They'd have plenty of time in the future.

"I understand. But understand, Toph, this palace will always have a place for you. And so will I." He knew that she'd grow up and do her own things, he knew that the "Gaang" would probably drift apart, but he believed it with everything he had.

He saw it, the way Toph listened to him and finally heard the truth, the truth he meant more than anything. He saw the way a real smile, not a smirk, not a grin, but an actual, genuine, full-mouthed smile stole across her face. It was a bandit, and it seemed for a moment to steal all of the doubt and anger he knew would still be there tomorrow: it wasn't so easy to change entirely. But he had to hope, and he thought perhaps she was hoping too. "Thanks, Zuko."

He knew she would not want to hear that there were tears in her eyes, and if he told her she'd probably beat him up extra hard the next time they sparred, but he saw it.

VM AN: At base, Zuko and Toph are still broadly in agreement on most things, such as "fuck that guy".

TL AN: Magma Cities? What kind of name is that?! It'll never catch on!

The Laurent · Nov 19, 2024

Chapter 36: Cycles/Endings

Things were better, Kiyi decided. It was easy to just assume that because things were still awkward, they weren't better. Toph at least talked with Zuko every once in a while, though Kiyi had never heard them bring up anything that mattered to Toph other than bending. But "other than bending" was still enough to get them through painfully awkward conversations. The friendship was still there, like seeds from a flower in winter. Kiyi believed she could see them bloom. But it'd take time, and it'd take warmth, and it'd take rain.

Was Zuko going to provide it? Was Toph going to accept it? Who knew?

In her experience, most prodigies didn't wind up happy.

Toph's mood still shifted, and it was never very good for two days straight, and rarely good for a full day either. The next few weeks did not pass slowly, but it was clear that they were dragging just a little bit. Time marched onward, and cycles continued.

At times quite literally. Toph's first menses came and went, to a great deal of complaint that Kiyi tried not to find hilarious for someone who was usually so tough. But still despite everything, despite the jokes and pranks, the talking and the easy conversation, the trial loomed.

Days passed, and then the two weeks, and then a little bit more, and the start of the trial got pushed off by challenges but couldn't be forever.

Somehow, somehow it was visiting Azula that had Toph walking with head held highest, confidence strongest… if mixed with a growing sense of uncertainty.

Toph had moments of amusement otherwise.

("Don't feel so bad," Kiyi said, as she considered the boiling water and the other tricks she knew, and Toph. "Many women have been felled by the moon."

"The moon?"

"The cycles?" Kiyi asked, confused at the baffled look on Toph's face.

"What does this have to do with the moon?" Toph asked.

"I… don't know, but everyone says it does," Kiyi said.

"Only thing I know about the moon is that it controls Waterbending. Before I met him, Sokka apparently had a girlfriend who turned into the moon."

What did you even say to that? "That… sounds rough," she finally managed, but only after a long pause.)

But for the most part, it was only Azula who could bring out that laughter and levity.

So Kiyi, who could be many things for Toph but could hardly solve her problems, watched the cycle and thought: this isn't going to end well.

Tomorrow the trial would begin, though of course it wouldn't be much of a start. It'd all be a matter of volleying back and forth at this point, and she had at least a week and maybe more of procedural wrangling she could drag it through before it even had to get to a single charge. Tangi rubbed her eyes, and knew that if she revealed how much triumph she felt at it, most people would think she was crazy.

But she was really looking forward to it. She didn't think she could win, not between the biases of the judges, the Fire Lord, and indeed of her client toward preferring to look powerful to looking innocent. Yet, Tangi didn't think she really cared. She'd fight as hard as she could, and part of that would mean trying to do what Azula wanted.

She would drag it out. Tangi would make this hurt for everyone involved, because the alternative was that it'd hurt for only Azula, not that Azula would be alright.

All the same, she still had to fight as if there was every hope of victory. She could hold nothing back.

"Azula, the trial begins tomorrow, as I'm sure you know. I need to ask again about the matter of the extermination meetings," Tangi said. "Consider it my due diligence, in terms of trying to help you."

"I've already answered you," Azula said. Her voice sounded rough, but Tangi knew better than to ask about it. She was not going to provide anything like truth when it came to this.

Tangi respected this urge, as stupid and juvenile as it was. It was the kind of self-defeating idiocy that she'd engaged in a few times in her teenage years.

"I do wonder… are you giving me good advice?" Azula asked. "I don't even know why you agreed to represent me."

Tangi considered lying, but decided that there was no point. "It seemed like an interesting case, and one that could raise my profile. You needed representation, and when I looked at the case it was one I thought I could win… or at least fight to a far closer standstill than expected. The Fire Lord gave me the opportunity, but then he was also the one who took away my opportunities?"

"How did he do so?" Azula asked, and it did seem as if being able to hear that Zuko messed up allowed her to sneer.

"Shortly before Sozin's comet, I broke off an engagement with a member of the lower nobility in order to continue my career, and because I was already dating someone and had been for a while. She and I--"

"She?" Azula asked, sharply.

"Yes, she," Tangi said.

"Oh."

Azula sounded oddly small, as if she'd curled up into a ball and hidden her softer, squishier parts. If she had them.

"She and I are still together, but what matters is that my family attempted to prosecute me. The prosecution fell apart when Zuko removed the laws, but they were able to blacklist me. They are some of Zuko's strongest supporters. They saw where this was going and were all but the first to embrace whatever he did and said. So he didn't notice, or didn't care, that they were using that influence to make sure that I was getting no work at all. At first."

"And then he noticed and… offered you this?"

"Yes. A chance to make my mark," Tangi said. "A choice I made, to defend you. I am glad I got the opportunity, this is an interesting case."

It truly was.

"I understand," Azula said, then considered it. "You can deny I was at any meeting if it was a less important meeting that overlapped with a more important one. Not that it matters."

Tangi had no idea why the concession sounded so… odd, but she'd take it. There were at least a half-dozen cases she could put to, in order to at least call into question her involvement.

Though, in the end, Azula was probably right.

This was a losing battle.

Tangi knew how it was going to end.

"I think I've figured it out," Azula said as soon as she felt that comforting squeeze of the bracelet. It really was a useful tool. Of course, she wouldn't need it once she was Fire Lord. It'd be a sign of weakness. But until then, she appreciated how practical it was. She was sitting at her bed, but she'd made sure to put her feet on the ground so that Toph could easily sense her. She had pages and pages of writing. "I bet your character's going to want to confront the heroine… or the heroine of her story, whatever. I'm sure you understand what I mean."

"Yeah. Have a big smash-down against her. He's blind because of their fight, he's risen to become a big-time General, and he needs to beat her if he wants to free the whole province. And take it over, but that's kinda just what the bosses want. Either way, he wants to win that grudge match, because there's not a single other bender in the army that can stand up to him."

Azula smirked, but though lately she'd felt weak and instead, now her heart was as even as it had always been when she'd lied to others. She wasn't going to lie, not really. Everything she said would be the truth. But she had to convince Toph of this. Even though she was the one doing all of the writing, it did feel as if it was Toph's story as well. By this point she had an entire novel, and it might just be the greatest novel that had ever been written, not because of its quality (though that of course was perfect) but because it had been written by a rightful Fire Lord and that made it clearly superior.

(When she had more or less said that, Toph had said, "Oh, like how if there's a bear that can dance, it doesn't matter if it's a good dance it's still funny?"

Azula had sniffed and said, "No" and Toph had laughed at her.)

"So, they're going to fight. You know the landscape, I told you about that. Right now I'll fill in the details and the beauty of the fight later, I just want to figure out the 'moves.'"

"You said I could read some to Kiyi, and when I did she said it was 'purple.' What's that mean anyway? She didn't make it sound good."

Purple? Purple! Azula would show her purple. Just for that she was going to demand Toph obtain for her a thesaurus to allow her to elucidate all the ways in which her prose had been absolutely flawless.

She'd do it just to annoy Kiyi. She'd rather not have to deal with the strong and stirring evidence that Toph could be friendly even to the servants, and that therefore her tendency to joke around and argue with people extended to literally everyone who hadn't driven her away. It rather revealed, like scratching a cheaply gilded statue, the bare and barren reality beneath her association with the Earthbender.

"It means nothing at all. She is hardly an author of any kind, even one who dabbles in it as something beneath them," Azula said. "But I'm going to go through the moves, because they're fighting in the gulch, right? That's where your character would want the confrontation to be. It helps his pitiful chances of victory, does it not?"

Except, Azula was almost certain that Toph's character was going to 'win.' She slipped off her shoes, so that Toph could 'see' her better. Because why not? She wasn't trying to fool Toph any which way except by telling the truth all the way until the end she thought was both likely and most excellent.

She wiggled her toes and admitted, "How do you do this in the winter? Walking on cold stone cannot be pleasant."

"You get used to it," Toph said, laughter in her voice. It was clear to her that Toph was as unaffected as anything by the events of the last few months after her brief attempt to 'save' Azula, because other than a few moments of tension she always sounded lighter and easier than Azula would have expected. "Besides, it's not like I'm ever gonna go to the North or South Pole, anymore than Katara's going to go on a vacay to the desert."

"Not even to find those foxy knowledge spirits that seem as if they'd be more intelligent conversation than the Avatar?" Azula asked, with a smirk.

"They couldn't talk."

"Exactly."

Toph snorted, despite the fact that she 'should' be offended or whatever in the name of her friend.

"So we'll just do the moves. I'll show you them, and think about what your General'd actually do. He's fought her several times, and she's fought him. So she's going to begin by launching herself upward because his first move is--"

"Destroying the ground beneath her feet," Toph said, because her General had done that the second time they fought, and he wouldn't change a good idea just because there might be a counter. Sometimes the point of a move was to force the opponent to have to play and reveal their counter. You couldn't actually win a close match like that entirely with surprises. At some point you just had to execute things better.

"So then she shoots forward using the flames, and does… this." She leapt, and did a low fire-kick, a showy and flashy technique that was rather pointless. But why not? It definitely surprised Toph, who had her character backpedal and begin throwing up walls.

Azula grinned and began to move, the room heating up with every attack she simulated against a blank wall, and with the speed of her motions. The faster she moved, the faster Toph was giving replies, until it was as if the two of them were fighting. Sometimes, she'd protested when Toph did some move that shouldn't be possible for a big guy to manage, but this time she let it ride and pushed.

"He'll go down to one knee, because those are bad burns," Azula said, "But I doubt that'll slow him down except for a moment."

"Not even a moment, he'll turn it into another bending move. Fight through the pain." Toph added, "It's what I'd do."

Toph was relentless. If there was anyone who could fight with her arms and legs falling off and still find a way to win, it was her. Well, and Azula, but that went without saying.

"So then, what about this?"

Back and forth the fight went, and Azula found herself feeling more and more confident even as she began to lose. Well, not she, but the character she was using. This was a rough fight, and both sides wound up beat up. This was a fight to the death, after all, and so soon her leg was not supporting her right, and his right arm would not fully extend without too much pain for him to bend.

"What do you think is going to happen next?" Toph asked. "Your character is gonna lose."

"No, she isn't," Azula insisted. "She's aware of what she's doing."

Azula knew what she was doing. She'd made her choices, and they were not the same as the ones that the character made. She knew that Toph thought they basically were, but the future General she controlled made far more friends than Azula had. She'd made them, and drifted away, alliances and temporary plans all running into the stranglehold of the war. It was a worthy war, perhaps, but it was hard to focus on anything except the next fight, the next time she'd be face to face with the Earthbender General.

It was all that mattered, especially as all of the opportunities fell apart. Okay, maybe she'd discovered that late because she kept on introducing new characters to be the protagonist's friend and ally only to forget to include them later… but she had turned it into something, and as she danced her way through her perfect forms, her perfect stances.

Even her mistakes were not actually mistakes, because she was Fire Lord Azula. She'd made her choices, and she knew now. She knew.

"She moves, as if she's going to shoot Lightning--"

"He laughs and braces himself," Toph said.

"She's not going to do Lightning, though, and so he gave her a free moment. Only the family of the Fire Lord can do that," Azula pointed out. "And there's this one duelist, according to some rumours? I heard about him in Omashu."

"A… rumored duelist?" Toph asked.

Azula grinned, "He was a soldier in the army, but he took the job as 'duelist' who'd show up for Angi Kai to the death instead of whoever hired him. Everyone said he might have figured out how to redirect Lightning, but he was smart: he burned the bodies after the fights so nobody could tell for sure. Can't remember what happened to him," Azula said cheerfully. "But I don't think he was being charged for stealing Lightning."

"Stealing lightning?" Toph asked, and sounded confused. "What do you mean?"

"It's supposed to be a special move," she said, looking around at the room, illuminated and transformed by the light of her own effort. In the darkness of this place she had spent what felt like most of her life. It wasn't, but the days had passed so slowly, and then all at once quickly. Now, she was here. "Something only reserved for the worthy." She'd heard all sorts of stories, listening to them eagerly and happily, when she'd been young enough to pretend to listen to nannies if it would get her a good tale of glory… or a good gory tale. Either had worked for her.

Now she was telling her own tale, and she was not going to be like that one stupid nanny she got fired, who censored the blood and guts. (Her Mom had frowned at that, as if it wasn't entirely usual and typical, and that had been just another bit of evidence that she was a monster.)

She was going to show all the details. The fight continued, and she could tell that her character and Toph's character were both staggering, exhausted. "She darts forward," Azula said, and in her head she was chanting: stab, stab, stab. Because if Toph did what she was expecting, then this battle was over.

"He doesn't have to do anything fancy, Sparky," Toph snorted, "All he has to do is stab you through and then he'll get you to give up."

"Give up? No, this is a fight to the death. That's how this ends." Azula purred it, felt--or rather guessed and was sure--Toph's momentary shock. "She's going to take the blow and then pour fire on your General, pushing herself further onto it. There's nothing but duty, and you know how much death weighs against it?"

It was Azulon's famed creed, one that was recited and repeated to each and every recruit who fought and died for the victory of the Fire Nation.

"No," Toph breathed out, as if it were Azula and not some character in a story who was being pierced through.

"The burns, the damage… it's hurt him pretty badly, hasn't it?" Azula could not help but grin, because if art was truth then this was the highest art. Of course it'd always have ended like this. She stared at the door, and behind it was Toph, and behind it was another door, and she could get through neither door.

But, she could get through Toph. Could make her flinch even now. Even after she'd lost everything, there was that.

This is how it would always end. That kind of rivalry? This was war. Someone had to die.

But it would not just be 'someone' who would die.

"You won… the fight," Azula said. "That's what she says, that's what her face says in death. She has given everything, and it does not seem like it was enough, was it?" It's never enough. Azula's smile was cut onto her, a slash of red.

"You're right, he's stronger than any single Firebender in the army. He's even stronger than her. But is he stronger than the entire enemy army while nearly mortally wounded?"

She wanted to will it into existence, the outcome she wanted, the world she wanted. But she couldn't do that.

She could only hope that Toph said what she knew Toph would say. She could stare in the darkness and hope that in all this world there was one person she understood well enough not just to predict, but to work together almost by accident. Come on, say it…

"He'd fight," Toph said, her voice quiet and just a little small. "Even if it was doomed, he'd set his feet and he'd roar out. ' Come fight me!' It doesn't matter if he's sure to lose, there's nothing left but the fight, isn't there? He brings up his hands, he gets into stance, and he begins to bend."

Exactly!

"Yes, yes, exactly. The cause is doomed, the rival is dead, the purpose is ended… and he's still going to fight and die, but you can't see it because it's just out of view."

"That's so miserable," Toph complained, kicking the floor.

"Yes, it is, that's the ending of all of this," Azula said. "All the games they played together, all their rivalry, all their battles to the death, end in the place war always ends: death. It's not something to condemn--"

Though she knew that sometimes it was something to praise.

"It just is."

Toph seemed frozen, and Azula pressed the moment, said what she'd been thinking for a long, long while.

She said what they both had to already know, the moment the story had gone this direction, the moment the tale had shifted as it had.

She said it with triumph and bitterness and a half-mad laugh, her grin no doubt devouring her face entirely. But not one hair out of place.

"That is how this story ends! It has to."

VM AN: Azula seen here employing the subtle art of allegory.

TL AN: That's rough, buddy.

(Prodigy)

veteranMortal · Nov 26, 2024

Chapter 37: Blood

"I realized that where there is life, there is water. The rats that scurried across the floor of my cage were nothing more than skins filled with liquid."

***

If Azula thought he was enjoying it, she had another thing coming. Sitting there for day after day of the trials was an exercise in exhaustion. He could hardly get anything done before or after it, thinking about the arguments, turning them around in his head again and again until he was almost dizzy with it. It didn't help that he could barely do any paperwork in court at all, watching the proceedings. He sat there in his robes, sweltering and miserable, and listened to things he could not fully understand. Azula seemed equally baffled, if her stiff, carefully neutral pose was anything to go by.

He knew Azula, whatever Toph might say, so he knew the signs that she was faking understanding. It seemed obvious enough, really. She was never going to admit any sort of weakness at all, and so she just sat there like a perfectly carved statue, with a look of studied disdain on her face.

Studied off the one model they both shared.

He'd seen that look on his father's face before, and now he had to wonder, pained as if stung by a bumble-wasp, whether Father had ever used it to cover confusion or incomprehension?

He couldn't know, but it was the sort of thought that came to him sitting here, feeling himself grow more and more jaded by the moment. He didn't miss the days when he was an outcast rebel doing the right thing in the face of what felt like the entire Fire Nation. He didn't. He really didn't.

But he did miss the thought that his aches were because he'd gotten into a fight or trained or done… something. Instead, most of his aches over the last week were aches of the butt, from sitting so much and of the legs that cramp if he didn't move enough. There were breaks in the proceedings, but he barely got to stretch his legs in that time because his advisors took the chance to update him, crowding in and making him feel entirely surrounded even when they kept their distance in a polite, respectful way.

They do it in their version of politeness and respect. It felt so completely artificial, respect given as a formality before disrespect is heaped on. But if he fired every official that clearly thought that at eighteen he shouldn't be so sure of himself, he would have no officials at all.

Toph only showed up once, and even from afar Zuko could see her retreating in herself moment by moment, until there was nothing of her personality, expression, or thoughts and feelings that could be seen on her face. She was someone entirely different, and someone--Zuko was sure--in pain and boredom equally. She left at the first recess, and didn't come back that day or any other day.

Otherwise, she studiously refused to talk about how if anything she'd started visiting Azula more often, after every day of trials. But she also talked to Zuko at least several times a week, and it was always just asking about the colonies, or talking about the good old days, or joking around. He hardly had the time to see her, or anyone at all, but he still let her take up his time because he liked it. He liked Toph, even though they'd agreed to disagree on… by this point more things than just Azula's trial.

He wasn't sure if he was going to pardon her if she was convicted, because of course the judge was only going to sentence her to life in prison. He'd promised he'd be fair, and thus far Tangi was doing an excellent job.

He didn't know how it was going to end, and all he really learned was that he probably should study even more about the law in his off-time. He'd already gone through the law once with a knife, cutting out all the bad laws while advisors wrung their hands and asked him to consider the story of a fence, and how this fence had…

Well, he hadn't listened to that story, because he knew the purpose of the stupid fence, and it was to fuel a war machine and persecute people, as often as not. Excuses, excuses, and more excuses.

If that experience had energized them, then this one enervated him. When the court finally adjourned for the day, he stood up and tried not to groan. He was far too young to have to groan when standing up, but his leg was also far too cramped to care. He looked around, and was glad he wouldn't see the inside of the courtroom for five days. Between other cases and a need to look over some evidence presented, it'd be five more days before he was back here and had to suffer through this again.

But on his way back to his rooms, he saw Toph obviously waiting for him. She was leaning against the wall, feet smudging the ground and moving in vague patterns, head tilted as she faced in his general direction and waited.

"Hey, don't tense up like that, Zuko," Toph said, her voice sing-song as she rocked from one foot to the other. "You'll make me think you don't wanna talk with me. I promise it doesn't have anything to do with Azula. It's not like we've talked about her before. Well, okay, it has a little to do with Azula. But indirectly, I promise."

Toph was looking up at him with blown-wide eyes that were no doubt meant to convey an innocence that he knew for a fact she didn't have. But he wasn't going to say no to her. They were friends, despite everything that stood between them. The list of things that they differed on only seemed to grow, but there were still areas where they agreed.

"You see, it's been rough on everybody," Toph said. "So why don't you have a big party tomorrow night? Really tear it down, let us all relax a little." She was grinning. "I promise I'll go and not start any fights. Mai agreed with me!"

She'd talked to Mai first? She really was trying to make this happen. Zuko groaned and said, "You don't have to do all of that to convince me."
"Oh? Really?" Toph asked with a snort. "You hate fun."

"I don't… hate fun."

He just had so many things to do.

"You do, Zuzu, you hate fun," Toph teased, but her grin took any sting out of it. "So come on, big party tomorrow night! Drinking, dancing, all of that! I'll be there too. Though don't try to ask me to dance."

"I'm sure you could learn," Zuko said, trying to return the favor with the teasing.

She looked at him as if he had made the worst attempt at lightening the mood of all time, and then when he began to stammer excuses she bellowed out a laugh.

"Oh, Zuko, I can learn anything. If I want to."

"So she put you up to this?" he asked Mai.

"Sort of. She said you'd been tense, and I said: no kidding," Mai replied, settling down across from him, not a single hair out of place. When he went through a day he ended in a rumpled mess barely kept presentable by the fact that robes could be ruppled naturally. She meanwhile seemed as if she could fight and spar and spend an entire day working and still look…

He sighed, and it was both a good and a bad sigh.

"No kidding," Zuko said, and he asked, "So, how was your day?"

"Other than now having to plan a party, not bad," Mai said, primly. She pursed her lips and said, "But I think I have it handled. We'll just stick everyone in a big room with food and alcohol and maybe some musicians--"

"Well, if you think that'll work," Zuko said.

"And move all the scheduled meetings the next day to the afternoon," Mai continued, firmly.

"What? I'm not going to drink," Zuko insisted. "I don't have time for that."

"Well, if you don't, then you can simply spend some time feeding the turtleducks," Mai said. There was sarcasm there, but also it was genuine. "They need to learn to operate without you at every moment… and if you cannot trust someone with that, then remove them." She always had the same sort of advice, and of course he listened to it half the time. He'd removed quite a few people from office, and it was likely he was going to go through more and more passes over time.

"I suppose," he said, because what else could he say to her? She had a point, but every time he removed people from office he made new enemies, and by this point he'd be removing people he himself appointed half the time. Even if he'd made a mistake… he should be able to acknowledge mistakes and move on, but politics seemed to hate this even more than making a mistake. "I can do that. There were only two or three meetings, I can try to see if they can be rescheduled a week. None of them seemed that important." He had to squint, and strain his brain, to even know what they were able, let alone why he should care.

"There are other things to think about," Mai said bluntly, leaning in a little.

Ah. Right.

The ballroom they were going to use was one of the largest, large enough that he was pretty sure the crowd was going to seem small. He'd let Mai do the work of sending out the invitations, which he had hoped would mean it'd be a small gathering. If it was a list of all the people Mai respected, it might even be something that could fit into a very small room. But she was probably going to include at least some other people… how many, he had no idea.

The court seemed to buzz at the news of a party, and he was bombarded all day when he wasn't working with young men and women coming to praise his decision in the most effusive terms. It was when one of his enemies, a short, rather pudgy young man who always insisted on the privileges of the nobles-- Yaomo Saowon was his name, though Zuko didn't like remembering or thinking about it--came up when he was exiting the garden and declared, "I accept your magnanimity, and even more than that… I'll have my people talk with yours as to getting something set up for the party. There's a musician I'm owed a favor to…"

"Thanks," Zuko said, lamely, because he didn't know what else to say.

So he knew exactly who to ask. Which was why he was standing in front of Toph's servant, Kiyi. "So, you don't know where she is?" he asked.

"No, she said something about talking to everyone to make sure they understood that this was a… what was the word? A rager?" Kiyi was only a little bit older than him, but at that moment she sounded as if she was a decade older or more. A rager? Kiyi was an oddly sharp looking person, considering him carefully. "You had to know this was going to happen. She needs the distraction, from how miserable she is half the time." She looked at him with narrowed eyes, and he read accusations in them.

"Miserable? I know it's…"

"Rough, buddy?" Kiyi asked, with a sigh. "Yes, it's rough. Toph's going through a lot, though I've heard her talking a lot about this party." She smiled faintly. "She's also talked about what she's going to do next. But… I don't think you want to hear that. No, I know you don't."

"What? Of course I do--"

"You don't talk about anything with her. I barely talk about anything with her, though she can at least share their stupid little story."

"Stupid little story?"

"She and Azula wound up co-writing this silly little story, based on some book or something?" Kiyi said. "That's all I can say. They're having fun, when they can. Also, thanks for inviting me to the party. I might even go?"

"I… thank you?" he asked. He blinked. Wailt! Was that it? Was Toph inviting everyone without even asking him? Surely she was asking Mai? But he could hardly just stand there in front of Kiyi and tell her she wasn't invited. He was awkward, but he wasn't that awkward. If Toph was inviting everyone, from his worst enemies to the servants, then… he'd have to go ask around and make sure that this worked out. If he could find her, that'd be nice as well to tell her to please, please stop. But he didn't like his chances.

"Oh, she's just inviting everyone, isn't she?" Kiyi asked, reading his mind. She was smirking, clearly more amused by this than he was.

"Yes, that's… exactly what she's doing. I kinda didn't expect her to be this much of a schemer," he admitted.

"If you want to uninvite me, you can," Kiyi said, her eyes widening so that she looked like a rabbit-deer. She was definitely doing it on purpose, he decided.

"No, no. You'll have to look after Toph anyway to make sure nothing happens," Zuko said, and he should perhaps be a better person who did not relish the way that she paled for a moment at the thought of it… but no. He was enjoying it.

"You really do drive a hard bargain. But… I would like to think that I'm at least friendly with her, and she probably does need company." Kiyi considered it. "Though I bet I know where she'll go when she's done."

Right, Azula. "Is… everything alright there?" He blinked and said, embarrassed, "I mean… overall? I know that…"

He trailed off. He knew that he was causing problems, but at the same time he had to believe that if there was anything like friendship between Azula and Toph, that it was good for Azula. He hardly wanted Azula to be miserable. He didn't laugh at the idea of her being trapped in a cage and suffering.

"They still talk, if that's what you're asking? Haven't really stopped," Kiyi said, with a shrug. "Beyond that, she doesn't talk about it with me, besides mentioning a few things." She turned away for a moment and said, "I don't know how much to say. I know that they're having fun together, and that's all that matters for what you're asking, right?"

"Right," he agreed, because how could he say otherwise?

The party was… something. The party might even be everything. The room they were in was a vast and very red room, with high-vaulted ceilings that had art on it he could barely even pay attention to when the chandeliers were set out to burn a blazing path, hundreds or thousands of candles leaving the room brighter than day. There were tables and tables and tables full of food, and alcohol in quantities enough to drown an army. Yet it almost seemed as if it would not be enough, because more and more people were streaming in. Some were still dressed in their guard uniforms or servants' dress, but others were in their very finest, and indeed some nobles came in wearing something they'd clearly just been out riding in while some servants looked sharply dressed…

It was a chaotic bundle of noise that even the musicians could not fully cut through, and it seemed only to be growing larger and larger. He took it all in, and didn't even know how he was supposed to know where to begin.

"C'mon, Zuzu, don't just stand there looking awkward. Drink!" Toph called out, advancing across the floor with the tireless grace of someone who didn't have to dodge around partygoers because they parted before her in terror. "You're old enough for it!" She held out a glass of something in her hand and sipped it. The clear liquid made her scrunch up her nose and say, "Ew. But you're an adult, so you probably like it."

Rice wine was not precisely what he liked to drink, but then he didn't usually drink either, and she was pressing it on him. Wait, was this peer pressure? Was he being peer pressured? "You should try something sweeter… er, I mean, you shouldn't, you're fourteen, but if you did try something, it would be… something sweeter that you should try?" He realized that he had just encouraged a child to drink. Out of embarrassment, he drank the rest of the rice wine in a single gulp and choking on it. He coughed, doubling over, but the burn almost felt nice. Almost.

"Come on, that's one! More, more," Toph chanted, and a few of the other young nobles near him took up the chant.

"More! More!" they yelled, like idiotic rat-hogs running off a cliff.

He looked around and said, "If I'm having anything else, it's not going to be rice wine." He'd take anything, and… oh. He knew what he'd like. He'd even liked it before, and at this point, with the crowd jostling him and people laughing and seeming to cut loose, he said, "It's going to be Umeshu." Plum wine was very good, and even better than that it was really sweet. There were versions that added some heat with chili peppers, but he didn't really like those that much.

"Umeshu, Umeshu!" the crowds yelled, and one nobleman laughed and starting telling a story to a gaggle of onlookers about a time he'd gotten drunk and all but crawled through the palace. Toph followed close behind Zuko, though she only took a single sip of the Umeshu--again, despite his attempt to warn her--before puckering her lips and clearly deciding against more of it. He'd never seen her seem quite this rowdy, and the party seemed only to grow until the noise was its own roaring, furiously happy guest. By this point just about every guard who was off-shift that night had poured in, and they were quickly draining the punch bowls and bottles of rice wine and chowing down on fried food that was being carried out by servants who took the time to sample it themselves, and seemed to be laughing and joking with both their fellow servants, the guards, and even some nobles who they'd ordinarily shy away from.

Zuko couldn't help but smile at the scene before him, which was rapidly transforming into a chaotic scene that he'd probably remember for years to come. He did feel bad for anyone who had to work the next day, because that seemed to be the case with most of the guards: anyone on duty wasn't being let off duty, at least not yet, so this was their day off. The same for servants. It was likely that the entire palace would be half-paralyzed all morning with hangovers, but he couldn't say it wasn't worth it when he saw the way everyone seemed to blend together and work together.

Honestly, as Toph continued to try a sip of different kinds of drinks and then hand the rest off to him, each time declaring it horrible, he thought and dreamed even bigger than that. He imagined all the kinds of benders, and people from all nations, working and laughing and living together. He knew that's not what the colonies were, though he'd dreamed that one day they could become that. Or maybe some of them would become "Magma Cities" or… he didn't even know what he could imagine, there.

But he did want to imagine it. He didn't think that being part of the Fire Nation had to look like oppression and dishonor, for all that he also knew that some of his strongest allies in the colonies were the people who had unfairly benefitted from their heritage and bending, who made more wealth in a single year than most of the rest of the world would make in a decade. (But, a part of him asked, would the Earth Kingdom Generals fix that either or just change who had the unfair advantage?)

All of that went through his head like flickering visions in the flames, and he couldn't help but smile. He indulged Toph, because he was sure that it was coming. She had something she wanted to say, and he wasn't sure what it was. But every so often he saw it in a frown that didn't quite fit her cheery mood. She wanted to talk about whatever it was, and he had an idea that maybe it was Azula. It had to be. That was the one thing between them that they could never say, the one thing that was always going to be a part of the divide between them.

"You--" Zuko began.

"I--" Toph said.

"No, no, say whatever it is that, y'know," Toph said.

He sighed, awkwardly. "No, you first." He was pretty sure they were talking about the same thing, and at the moment he was pretty sure if they went back and forth on this they'd all just get frustrated.

"Zuko, I figure I'm going to be moving on eventually," Toph admitted, her movements a little clumsy and her voice a little slurred. She got distracted by it. "How do people stand it?" She gestured to herself, clearly meaning how she was starting to get drunk.

All in all, even adding them all up, Toph had had less than a single glass of alcohol. If she really was completely nonfunctional then not only was she a kid, but she was a lightweight even by those standards. He was… he was pretty sure he was drunk too. The thought was almost amusing enough to make it not hurt a little, that she was nervous about talking with him.

"I don't know, Toph. I don't usually drink." He blinked, realizing that his voice was slurring a little bit, or actually a lot. He shook himself to try to

"Oh, I know the wine sucked," Toph said, leaning in a little bit. "I meant more, just… going away? I kinda did it once and it wasn't hard. But I wanna just… maybe I'll go find nomads or something? March far from here, until I can just wiggle my toes in the earth an' not have to take root."

"You feet rooted here?" Zuko asked.

"Sometimes," Toph said, "I miss the road. Only sometimes." He understood that.

Some days he missed his exile, as much as he had hated it at the time. He only rarely missed it, but more often missed those few days with Aang and the rest of his friends on a journey. It hadn't lasted long. It really hadn't been much, but he still remembered it fondly.

"But you're going to head back to it?" he asked.

"Yeah. Honestly, even being this close to politics is…" she shook her head and admitted, "Better you than me."

"You have interesting ideas," Zuko admitted. "You're right that if everything just stays the same or gets worse, then it doesn't matter if it's… it's technically free and equal." He knew that well, he'd seen all the ways that this meant nothing at all.

"Yeah. I just also… I just can't be here when it happens," Toph said, quietly.

"When it happens?" he asked, but she gave him a look that said: you know what I mean.

He considered that look and said, "Toph, Azula is not going to die."

"Yeah, yeah." She didn't believe in him, not this far, not to this. "Listen, Zuzu. You're a good person, but you're also the Fire Lord and she's someone a buncha people think would be a better Fire Lord than you. Like, they're kinda mostly wrong, she'd be wasted on being something lame like Fire Lord. So're you," Toph added, hastily. "But don't lie to me and pretend there's not parts of being the Fire Lord that get in the way of that."

She was right. But he wasn't going to let that stop him. He wanted to say when she was found guilty he'd make sure she just got life in prison… but he didn't know if that'd help, and he didn't know if she'd regard it as enough. Because Tangi really was doing her job. He was starting to doubt himself if Azula had been that important beyond providing the initial spark to the idea of burning down the Earth Kingdom.

But he also didn't think she was sorry. He didn't think she regretted it even one moment, wherein sometimes he wished he hadn't given his speech about the hope of the Earth Kingdom, just for what it played a small role in almost doing to millions of people.

"Maybe, but I'm not going to let this change me entirely. I can't," he said.

"Yeah," Toph said. "But one way not to let it change you is just not to take the thing. If someone was like, 'Toph, you should be Queen of something' I'd just say no." She stuck out her tongue, and Zuko had to laugh at the idea of Toph ever ruling. She'd be terrible at it, honestly? Nothing against her, she just didn't have the mindset to be in charge of a country. This wasn't an insult, really.

"Yeah, you would," Zuko said. "I'm pretty sure?" He paused. "What if it was Queen of Earthbenders? Not the Earth Kingdom, but Earthbenders?"

"Oh, hmm. Nah. Maybe?" Toph seemed to be actually thinking about it. He wondered at all that she believed. Would she ever imagine taking some authority if it helped her achieve the things she'd believed in? What was the point of an ideal if you were not willing to act to make it a reality? He was, even if it had become a rockier and more difficult road than he'd ever imagined. "I don't know. Are you trying to convince me to do that stupid Chief Sheriff thing?"

"It'd be Shireef," he insisted, because it still didn't make sense. "If you were combining them."

"Whatever, Zuzu," Toph said, with a toss of her head that almost looked familiar in a way that left his stomach churning. "Wanna dance?"

"What?"

She just stared at him, unblinking and said, "Dancing. Like Aang did, or something like that. I can feel everyone dancing out there." It was true, hundreds were dancing and music was calling out over the crowd, though the kind of dance tended not to be the stately sort at all. It had turned into common folk dances, sparrow-hawk dances, and some that were risque because of the implication, and only here and there the more refined and stately dances that compared to the riot of movement looked almost silly. Toph stomped her feet with a grin on her face and slapped her knees before clapping her hands and stomping back a single step. These were the Earth Dances, the ones that were meant to be a sort of poetic and artistic reflection on what Earthbending was like.

Of course, he could look out and see 'Fire Dances' as well, energetic and with people tossing around veils and fans to further create the sense of motion even without firebending. He considered it, and then grinned back. She couldn't see that, but she'd see the way he shifted into a firebending stance, but just a little bit different.

(He remembered, all at once, that Azula had been into fire dancing for a little while, for a few years until she was nearly eight, before she'd suddenly declared it was childish and silly and worthless and that only a peasant could like it. He'd never been quite as fascinated by it… and yet he'd also done the dragon dance. He'd seen the way that movement could become form and structure. The way he'd moved and bended had been like a dance, and it'd helped him triumph over the anger and hate he had so long thought was just a part of being a Firebender. Of course you relied on anger, and of course this meant that sometimes you hurt people. Either they deserved it or you just had to control your anger better but still rely on it.)

So he danced. He let his body move, shifting from one kata to the next, but letting his movements be fluid and casual, and moving forward to 'press' Toph back, who danced backwards with a laugh and a stomp of her feet. The area around her shook for a moment, but terrified glances turned into laughter as Toph kept on dancing and clearly wasn't about to start a fight. About two minutes into their dancing, she began to laugh, and shook her head, as if she was unable to keep herself from doing it. She seemed for a moment almost… what? No, it was there then he missed it. (Guilt?)

He was just about feeling thirsty and thinking that maybe he'd have another drink himself when Toph said, "Here you go! He's all yours."

"Yes, he is," Mai's voice said. He turned, startled, because while he hadn't forgotten about her he'd been distracted. She looked beautiful in a flowing robe, and he took it in, took in everything including her unimpressed look, and then noticed she had her hand out. "Now. Let us dance," she declared, telling him what they'd do.

Zuko couldn't help but grin.

It was near midnight when he finally stumbled towards bed, and he wasn't alone. Nor was he alone in the morning when he woke up, late, with a pounding headache to a knock on his door.

VM AN: Toph sure did try a lot of alcohol for someone who doesn't like it, huh? Drowning her sorrows, or someone else's?

TL AN: How thick is blood? How thick is water? Of course Katara could tell you that the both of them are not so different, to the mind and heart of a schemer.

The Laurent · Dec 3, 2024

Chapter 38: Nightmares and Daydreams

Azula woke up with the creeping awareness that there was someone behind the door of her cell.

"Sparky! Sparky wake up already!" Toph said, her voice hushed but insistent.

She blinked sleep from her eyes as she pushed herself up in bed. She had trained herself to wake before dawn after Zuzu had caught her sleeping, before she'd faced the judge. It helped with other things, too; she'd rather swim a lap around Boiling Rock than be woken again by guards with cuffs and a gag. But it was earlier even than that, and she wasn't prepared.

"What is it, Toph?" Azula said, cautious. Toph was visiting her more than ever, now the trial had begun to sink into the mindless back and forth drudgery that Tangi seemed to relish, but until now, it was always the same time, each day, and they talked about very little. Toph never seemed urgent like this any more.

"I've decided I can't do it," Toph said, a trace of something Azula couldn't identify - Shame? Embarrassment? Apology? - in her voice. "I thought I could, you know, bear witness, but I don't think I can, Sparks."

"What do you mean?" Azula asked, even though she was pretty sure she knew.

"I'm leaving," Toph said baldly, "Heading off. Seeking new horizons. Cutting ties."

"Oh," Azula said quietly. Even knowing, she felt it like a blow to the stomach. "You won't stay to the bitter end, then? You're running from the confrontation?"

"You're misunderstanding me," Toph said, her voice tight, "You're a lot of fun, you know? You're funny, you're charming, you're definitely entertaining, but Princess? I won't break my heart over you. I thought about it, I thought about staying until it was done! But I just don't want to. I don't want to have to think about it when you die."

Azula nodded, as if it made sense. It did, sort of. "You don't want to be hurt over me."

It wasn't a question, but Toph answered it as though it was.

"Yes, Sparky, that's right. If it were up to me, you wouldn't be in this situation, but it isn't. I had to make a choice, you know. I have to sit and watch you die, when you're my friend who I care about, or I have to let myself let you go."

"Are you a coward?" Azula asked, tasting the word on her tongue, "I didn't think you were, before now."

"Not wanting you to hurt me doesn't make me a coward," Toph said, exhausted. "It makes me smart. I didn't want to admit it all, Zaps, but I'd have to be a madwoman to trust you enough to let myself get hurt like this just for you. I'd have to be as mad as you are."

Azula opened her eyes, smiling, running her hand over her bracelet. "You aren't real."

Toph let out a delighted bark of laughter.

"Oh, well done!" She clapped her hands, "That's right. I'm not the real Toph."

Toph - not Toph, as the case may be - stepped through the door with an apologetic smile, waving.

She was taller than Toph had been when Azula saw her at their picnic, broader, clothes tight around her shoulders. She had worry lines around her eyes, shadows under them. Her midriff exposed where her top had ridden up, revealing toned abdominal muscles.

"You don't look right," Azula said, sniffing. "She's younger than this."

"I'm in your head, Princess." 'Toph' replied acerbically, "You know why I look like this. I'm Toph once she washes her hands of you and grows up. I'm older, I'm stronger, I don't think about you any more."

"If you're meant to be the version of her that doesn't think about me," Azula said, "You wouldn't be here, would you?"

"Very good! I can't be perfect, but still, Prodigy, ya gotta admit; I have a point. Toph might like you, might wanna be your friend, but if she knows what's good for her, she won't let you hurt her. She'll grow up, and if she thinks of you at all, she'll just think about those months when she made friends with Zuko's evil sister. The fact that she doesn't know what's good for her doesn't change that. You know that. That's why I'm here, isn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Azula asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're here because I'm crazy, remember? Just like Toph told Zuko, remember?"

"She told him that to try to save you," 'Toph' said dismissively, "Because she cares about you, because he loves you, because she loves you. Because she trusts you. You tricked someone else into trusting you without deserving it, Ashmaker."

"Oh please," Azula said, "It's hardly my fault that people trust me. I have a very trustworthy face."

'Toph' nodded with a mocking faux-sincerity. "Very very true, Princess, but she knows that too. She trusts you, but she's pulling away, isn't she? You can tell."

"No," Azula said, "She just knows I'm too busy to see her more than I'm seeing her."

"Ah, platypus-bear, you used to be a better liar than that." 'Toph' said with a laugh. "Feeling upset? She tried to save you, she couldn't, and she's pulling back. Finishing up. She might not run away all the way, but she's preparing herself for you to be gone. Making herself not care. I 'spect she'll be sad when you're sentenced, but she'll have forgotten all about you when it's actually time for you to die."

She said all that, and looked at Azula with a sort of smug satisfaction that looked right on Toph's face, but something about the statement felt off to her.

"I don't think so," Azula said, "She might be pulling away, but that doesn't mean she doesn't care. She likes me, she cares."

"Sure about that, are you?" 'Toph' snapped, voice harsh. "How?"

"I trust her." Azula said, her voice quiet.

She hadn't admitted it before, even to herself. She trusted Toph. She trusted that Toph cared, trusted that she wouldn't forget about her. Even when Zuzu had her killed, Azula trusted that Toph would grieve for her. She didn't know why that mattered, but it did. It really, truly, did.

"Why?" 'Toph' asked, "Why trust her? Didn't you learn at Boiling Rock? You can't trust anyone."

"But I do trust her," Azula said, unable to keep the confusion out of her voice as she rubbed her fingers against the smooth patterns of the bracelet. "She knows sometimes things I see aren't real, and she helps, and we talk and I like her. She's my friend, and I trust her. You're nothing to anybody."

The hallucination, for a second, just a second, smiled at her like it was proud of her. Then it was gone.

Azula lit a fire in her left hand almost lazily. She needed the light, if she was going to make herself ready to receive the guards for her morning walk.

It began on a path, just standing there for a moment. The breeze whipped around, but she knew as soon as she was there that this wasn't an ordinary d̵͕͙͓͕̹̊̈́̐r̸̯͈̞͍͍̈͋͑̀e̸̬̥̒̓ä̵͇̺͖͔͝ṃ̵͙̪̈́̈́͑́͝ because there was a blur of something on the trees nearby, whose vague dimensions she could sense with her bare feet. They were all a blurry mess of d̴̬̖͛̔e̴̟͑̕e̵̤̯͆̋̕ṗ̴͚͔̂͝l̷̘̱̜̓i̵͇̣͌f̴̆̃ͅế̶̥̼̗s̴̛͎̝͕o̴̼̿̈́͌f̷̫̉̎̿t̸̰͎̼́̋.

Oh.

It was one of those dreams.

She somehow knew that she was older. That she was an adult. She was taller, she felt, and she felt a little ragged and worn. Somehow all at once she knew that she'd been out in the wilderness for years, going from place to place. She'd been running from herself, and she'd won! She'd run and run until finally she'd outrun itself. It was like she told Zuko. She needed some time away from everything, from deciding anything, from caring about anything except her bending and… what else?

She couldn't quite remember. The part of her that knew it was a dream felt like it was falling asleep, drowsing as she looked up at the ş̷͔̳̲̂͒͆͝o̸̗̝̖̰͛̕͠f̸̯̖͕̠̒̎͠t̶̟̄̑̈g̷̣̾ȅ̵̟̹̺̑̽̿ͅǹ̵̫̖̥̻̒t̵̛̹̭̹̝̂͋̕ḻ̴̻̯͐̆͌e̴͈̥̕ȅ̶̬̭̖m̷̤̙̩͛́p̵̢̭̆̄̀͝t̴͇͒̇̋ẏ̸̭̩̒͛͠ sky for a moment. The h̷̪̀͗̊o̸̻͒̂͋t̴̞̘͒̔d̶̡̫̭̈̏ę̸͕̠̌ȩ̶̢̘̎̀p̶̮̋̾b̸̩̣͉̓̿r̵͙̉̀i̴͚̍̍g̸̺͍̳͐̐̀ȟ̵͔̤͒͝t̶̳̮̍̆͛ ̷̘̖̖̔͛ sun beat itself down on her, and her feet were caked with mud, which of course she knew for sure was ḑ̶̖̏̂ë̶̯́e̸͈̺͂͠p̸̡͖̾̀h̸̨̦̕e̸̎̎͜a̷̛̹̿ͅv̶̥̉y̷̬̽͝.

She was meeting… someone? Finally. Oh. It was Sokka and Katara and Aang and Suki, right! She remembered it now. They were meeting at some sort of… stone building to talk about… about… the last five years.

Oh, she was now more aware. She was aware of the smell of the wilderness, of the weariness of even her feet, and that she could see almost a mile ahead but not a single inch behind her, as if the path itself was falling away or floating away behind her. But somehow she knew that she didn't want to turn back.

'Turn back, Toph' a voice whispered, and it was such a familiar voice. But she couldn't quite place it, not stuck in the dream she half knew was a dream and half did not.

She kept on walking, and she approached a stone building of some kind, a big, ugly building of the sort you could throw up by five minutes of clumsy Earthbending but wouldn't actually keep around for too long. And there waiting in front of the house were all of her friends except Zuko, and also Sokka was there too.

She was just joking: she'd missed him, and in this dream, half-aware that it was a dream, it was a physical weight almost. "Hey, Toph!" Sokka cried out, and he felt happy, his heart racing. He was much taller, she imagined him still towering over her even though she probably had more or less caught up. But all of them were about the same relative to her, in her dreams: Katara was taller than her by about as much as she was in the waking world, and Aang was still short even though supposedly he'd been sprouting up.

"Yo, Meathead," Toph said, trying to sound casual. She wanted to impress him, but it didn't matter. It really didn't matter, so she'd just call him a name and maybe find something to make fun of him about.

"Hey, Toph! Good to see you!"

"If it isn't Toph Beifong," Suki said, seemingly glowing with pleasure. "Finally showing up! Thought you were going to be late."

Toph remembered. She was… she couldn't remember, something with her father and reconciling, but she couldn't remember the details. She just knew that she'd made up and that things were 'okay' and they'd never see each other but she was a Beifong with a bunch of money just waiting around for when her father and mother died.

It felt like it should matter more, but she just knew that things had gone back to 'normal.' She'd 'made up' with her parents because even if she was out and about wandering the Earth Kingdom, it was time to grow up and stop just fighting everything for no reason. Or something? It didn't quite make sense, but…

Things were supposed to be like this. This was…

She took in the four of them, and with it came c̷͖͔̤̫͒ǫ̶͚̯̅̑͊͘ͅl̷̮̟̒o̴̗̲̕ŗ̴͙̏͛̓.

She knew, vaguely, that the color of skin and the color of clothing was different, but in the dream everyone was blurrily smeared with a single color, skin and clothes alike. Aang was e̸̫̪̿͐m̵̲̼̊̒̏͘ṕ̶̤̂̃ṫ̵͉͍̥͓͐ỵ̶̠̉͛g̵̰̼̣̋̒ͅe̴̜͎͍̐n̴̛̤͐͋͜t̵̜̖͊ļ̵̢̓̋̍e̶̩̘̪̎̌, something soothing and blank like the air itself, about as tall as she was and standing next to his wife, Katara, whose strange s̴͖͘ț̸̛͈̋r̷̙͔͍̈́̅͝ó̵̡͚͊ñ̶̛ͅg̴̜̙̊̆̐d̴̨̈́á̴̭̆r̶̺̒͌͘k̷̢͍̭̄́͂ō̵̼̟c̴̫͆̂͜e̴͓͚͈̐ȁ̷͔͛n̷̥̄͗ skin stretched taught over… over.

Katara was pregnant.

Suki wasn't at least, her coloration r̴̰͎͉̩̆í̸̘̲̾c̴̛͔͈̊̀̊h̵͈̭̦̀f̴̼̠̻̐̌̀͝i̸̢̛̹̻̗r̷̡̰͓̪̄̽̈́͌ĕ̶̡̞̫̩̾, and she stood next to Sokka, all but radiating energy.

"Nope, here I am," Toph said, "And here you are. Didn't you say it was going to just be the five of us?" She nodded vaguely in Katara's direction, where her belly obviously told a story that didn't need to be said. But also needed to be said.

"It was a surprise to us too," Aang said, though Twinkletoes' voice was light and buoyant, deeper yes but just as excited and excitable as ever. He was clearly happy, Toph barely needed to be able to just tell to know that, but she could. "But things have been peaceful these last few years, now that the colonies have settled down, and the Generals--"

"What have they been doin'?" Toph asked.

"Going back to ruling their areas. Stopped being so grumpy and learned to rule better," Sokka said.

"Things have worked out," Katara said, though there was an edge of sharpness, as if to say 'and you weren't there.'

(Outside of her dreams, Toph knew this wasn't the way it'd go. Katara was hardly happy with the Colonies, wouldn't be particularly thrilled if 'Fire Nation dominance but a piece of paper is signed that says everyone is equal' winds up being the future. And the Generals are jerks and Sokka's the sort to say it. But in this vision, in this version, everything "works out" the way it is "supposed to." The "normal" way things were supposed to go. She'd grown up in a war, even divorced from it, so her idea of what would be 'normal' wasn't reliable. She knew it.

But it felt so real.)

"Yeah, glad to hear it," Toph lied. Or was she lying? She cared, right? Things were good. The world was peaceful. The Earth Kingdom was back to being the Earth Kingdom, and the Fire Nation was back to how it was before the war in some nebulous way she'd never known. But somehow she knew it was all back to the way it was, except the colonies, but even that was basically the same. She stretched a little and said, "Zuzu's not gonna show up, right? Is Mai preggo too--"

"Preggo," Katara said, deeply unimpressed as Sokka couldn't help but snort.

"Pregnant, whatever, Sugar Queen," Toph said with a vague wave in their direction. Katara's skin became a little more ą̵̛̗̥̽͑ņ̸̈́̓̋g̶̘͈̦͗r̷͕͚̝̐y̴̡̹̿̍̓͛h̸̗͔͂͊̍̓o̶̟͓͌t̴͔̫̻̉̋͆̚. "Listen, I'm happy for you."

"Mai's not pregnant, no," Suki said. "She wants to wait, and…"

"The succession's secure," Sokka said, rushing ahead where benders would fear to tread. "So they can take their time."

"Yeah, yeah, Snoozles, I get that," Toph said. The world was perfect. Apparently the only thing keeping everything from working out was the part where Azula was alive. All the world, set against one person. Was it any surprise they were happy, or at least… okay with it. Sure, Aang had been sad for a little while. He didn't approve of death. But…

Toph looked down and found that her hands were trembling a little. She was… angry.

She was so angry she didn't know if she'd ever been as angry as this before, not even when her parents betrayed her--no they didn't it was fine they'd all made up and they'd apologized for never believing in her and constantly trying to destroy her life and hiring criminals to hunt her down, so it was okay, it was fine, everything was as it should be--not even when she thought the whole world was ending.

She'd been there before, when they'd all learned about the Fire Nation plan: that single moment of helpless fury, followed by a realization that she could do something. Toph Beifong was the greatest Earthbender alive, she thought, so of course they could stop Ozai!

But there was no stopping this. It was all done. It was all gone. Ashy was nothing more than ashes and dust now. She had no grave, there were no markers that could be the target either of people worshipping her as some vision of the Old War, or defiling her grave because it was so brave to make fun of a sixteen year old.

And they were part of it. All of her friends were standing there, and she knew they were smiling, and she knew they were happy, and all it had cost, all it had taken, was the death of someone mean. Someone who was a jerk, someone who hurt them.

"Come on, Toph," Aang said. "Let's go in. There's food."

"There's meat!" Sokka declared, and she could imagine him drooling to think of it.

"Yes, I should get off my feet for a moment. Come on in," Katara said, and she waved a hand in its direction as they all filed in towards the future. They had everything. Like in one of those stupid stories they told children, they had a perfect ever after, complete with children and all of that. All the things a person should want. She didn't really care about children, she was fourteen nineteen!

"You should go with them, Toph," a smug, smirking voice said. Toph, against all she knew, turned back.

And there she was.

Azula was frozen in time, an athletic form vaguely in front of her colored h̴̘͇̝̘͇́̓̉̋͑o̶̪͑̐͂ͅt̵̢̰̩́̾̓ͅc̸̛͔͖̝̙̍̀ͅò̶̡̥ĺ̵̩̓̈̐d̶̲̫̰̉ like her flames were, supposedly. She had her armor on, and she stood before there. A ghost of the past. A vision haunting her. Her feet told her nothing was there, but she knew it was a lie.

"You won. You get to be one of the people running the world," Azula said, and Toph could place a smirk vaguely on that face. She knew that it was an upturn of the lips, and knew what it felt like on herself. "All it cost was me, but that doesn't matter: I'd do it, wouldn't I?"

"No, you wouldn't," Toph insisted.

"Sacrifice others for my power? Oh Toph, didn't you notice that we're both so similar?" Azula asked, tilting her head. She sounded amused, she was moving forward like a leopard-bear stalking its prey, and yet all she said were things that Toph had thought. "We both are ruthless, mean, jerks… monsters. We're both just a little crazy, and yet now you've done what I would have done: you pretended otherwise."

"No, Sparky, I--"

"You're going to pretend you didn't see me. You're going to pretend you never did anything crazy like reject your parent's wealth and power… so like me, so unlike me. So like me: clinging to cruel parents that hurt you. So unlike me: cringing and begging."

Toph waved a hand, and a spike of earth… earth… it…

It went through Azula.

"Ah, yes." She sounded almost happy, as blood spilled out, soaked the ground, had its own texture and weight. "That is how this story ends! It has to."

The joy in her voice was the same joy it ever was, the joy at the feeling that she was right. Toph would rather be right than be liked. Toph would rather win more than either of those.

Those words…

Azula died again, and Toph had killed her. Again.

She turned, and she saw the d̷̻̘̿͑a̴̧͈̙̒͗r̵̰̎k̷͎͉̈́̾d̴̛̹̔́ḙ̴͚͊ͅe̶͇̳̅̊p̸̹̍̊ of the stone house, and she raised a hand, focused, and--knowing her friends were in there--she brought down the roof as tears soaked her face.

Toph awoke to find that she really was crying and shaking, and that her head ached so bad. She'd… ugh. Her head. She needed to get up, she'd planned this. Sort of. She'd been planning for months without quite admitting it to herself, because the thought of abandoning her friends and fighting the entire world… no, Toph never got scared. But someone might think she was scared, the way she acted.

The way she did it piece by piece and--

Oh. Oh no.

Toph had planned on getting everyone drunk and waking up before dawn to free Azula on her walk, so that they could just go straight for the boat. In order to make sure she was on track, she'd even gotten one of those sand timer clocks so that she could sense roughly when she was running out of time.

The sand clock, sitting on the ground as she rolled out of bed and dug her toes into the stone, had run out… she had no idea how long ago. But she knew that she'd missed her chance! She'd lost…

No.

No. Toph did not lose. Not like this.

She wiped her eyes, and she realized that she cared about Azula's life more than all of her friendships. More than she did the entire world, if it came down to it. She laughed, and she did not think it sounded like a particularly non-crazy laugh.

She trudged over and picked up Azula's sword. Her character in their little novel had a sword, so why shouldn't Azula? She picked it up, and held it out, and thought and thought and thought. She'd been working towards this, but she hadn't admitted it.

She cared more about Azula than… than… so much. If it meant she had to fight with Zuko, with Aang, with all of them… she'd do it. She was sure they'd realize they were being idiots eventually. But even if they didn't.

Toph swallowed, pushing away the pain that still throbbed in her head. (Alcohol was horrible!)

Toph sort of had a plan. She sort of didn't. She'd make it up as she went along once they wound up back in the Earth Kingdom, though she had a few vague thoughts.

("That is how this story ends! It has to.")

Wanna bet, Sparky?

VM AN: It's a real relief to be back in Toph's head, I have to say! And it's fun to take a look at both of their mental health now, versus at the start of the fic! See you all next week for the epilogue! Have to give extreme props to Laur here for all the insane formatting in the Toph section. I, a certified luddite, couldn't do any of the AO3 stuff.

TL AN: Perhaps we're all mad here…

But more seriously, the bit with the dream sequence is something that gave me a lot of trouble, and yet the general idea was always planned, for all that the idea for 'how' to portray color just sort of came to us. The ao3 version was even more of a headache with figuring out Workskins, but I'm sure you already knew that.

But yes… To Be Concluded!

Also, please vote both this fic and Vettie's other WWZ fic for:

User's Choice Awards Nominations: Best Completed Fic

veteranMortal · Dec 10, 2024

Epilogue: Between Two Doors

She had a backpack almost ready from the camping trip. She had planned many parts of it, and then done something cowardly and not thought about it. She took each step as a piece, as a shattered bit of a stone puzzle, and she had not 'looked' at what she was assembling for fear that she'd see all the cracks.

She'd been lying to herself, and she hated to think of it now, just as she hated to think of that dream. It had been so normal, it had been exactly what it would be like. She wasn't stupid, the whole of the world would not collapse if Azula wasn't in it. Life would go on. And yet.

And yet Toph packed the backpack she'd gotten along with important camping skills and considered what she was taking. Everything she could. She even had another bag because she knew there were things Azula would want to take even though it didn't make sense: some of the books, some of her writing, maybe even that stupid joke candle she got her. Or maybe she wouldn't want them.

Toph had a plan. The plan kicked ass. The first step was to steal Zuko's boat and reach the Earth Kingdom. Okay, that wasn't really the first step so much as the end of the first set of steps. But she could do it.

She'd spent most of the last year and a half stuck in place. Sure she got a lot of training, and once she met Azula it was even better… but she hadn't really been fighting people she'd been sparring with them.

She hadn't really been risking her life and her safety, she'd just been playing around in the mud. She liked playing around in the mud a lot! It was one of her favorite activities. But the thought of finally cutting loose, to hold literally nothing back even if it meant she had to cut loose everything else she had… it filled her with an odd sort of thrill. Her limbs felt unburdened, her heart felt light. It felt as if, no matter what she was about to inflict on those stupid guards and well-meaning but wrong Zuzu, it would be good, it would be right, and more importantly than both of those combined: it would be fun!

She liked kicking people's butts. She liked getting the better of people who looked down on her. She nodded to herself and slipped the backpack on. It'd be an added difficulty, as would the ache in her limbs and head. She was still "hungover" but whatever. Alcohol sucked! She was never drinking again! She'd only drank to try to trick Zuko into getting drunk!

She reminded herself of this as she lurched forward and stopped for a moment to try to center herself. She knew how to meditate, and it was in moments like these that it was especially important to center herself. Yet when she did, she did not feel any different: she'd made her decision. It was the right decision.

Zuko and Aang and Katara and Sokka wouldn't understand yet, but this was the right thing. She also just wanted to do it even if it was wrong. But this was the right way to go about things.

(And who knew, maybe she'd get her life-changing field trip.)

Toph stomped once, just to get in the right mood, and noticed that her lips were curled up into a smile. She nodded and stalked out into the gloom of the early morning. She could sense people for huge distances all around, and she made sure not to be seen. But she wasn't afraid. She knew she was taking on the world, and that only made her feel more free. The character she made up for Azula's little story ended it alone and exhausted and tired and victorious and sure to lose against impossible odds. That's because he wasn't even half as good as her.

Azula had said something about how supposedly characters are supposed to be complex and flawed, and so she'd made sure that he sometimes made mistakes in his bending--which was basically what she was talking about, right? It's not as if she gave her character flaws!

Toph couldn't help that her grin, the one she felt stretching her face, turned somehow softer.

She remembered the thought: Azula, between two doors, was her best friend. Azula had never seen Toph smile. Toph didn't care about what someone 'saw.' She'd done just fine without that, she didn't really regret that she'd never 'see' Azula's smug grin… at least a few people had described it, mostly as an insult.

Any other day, perhaps even tomorrow, she'll be worried about whether they were still as good of friends when you removed it, when it was not 'between two doors.' But she couldn't let herself worry about that, not when she felt so free. She was not an Airbender, she did not like floating weightless above the earth. But there was a feeling of weightlessness, as if everything she did was smooth and perfect, that left her in a good mood despite everything.

Nobody saw her, as far as she could tell. She made her way through the palace, which was surprisingly empty. Must be all the people sleeping off their drinks! Toph sniggered to herself and cracked her knuckles, and even stretched a little bit. She was standing in front of the entrance to this part of the cells. There were other cells nearby, but none of them were occupied or nearly as well protected. Nobody wanted her to be close to prisoners, in case she broke out and, what, recruited them?

Everyone, Zuzu included, didn't get Azula at all!

Was she dangerous? Yeah. She was dangerous and kinda a jerk and rude and arrogant and maybe even manipulative, though she'd gotten a bit too used to the boredom of being in prison. She was a bit too stiff, and probably not used to surprises. Toph bet that Azula would try to kill her just on instinct. Or at least launch a little fire her way. It wasn't like they were wrong about her in any of the ways they were talking.

But she could be as awkward as Zuko, except she was usually better at hiding it or replacing any awkward pauses with arrogant pronouncements or smug and teasing words. She guarded each moment of tenderness as if it was a bruise that someone could press down so hard she'd start crying, and Zuko did the same thing. She held herself stiff when she wanted to be treated seriously, and she practiced and rehearsed half of her grandest speeches and most clever quips. She wasn't Zuko, was very different from him: but Toph could see the lines and the marks.

Zuko loved his Mom and despised his Dad; Azula hated her Mom and feared her Father. Toph understood all that.

But she felt free of that too. Maybe she wasn't. But she stepped forward once, and then again. And then she threw open the door.

It took just a wave of her hand to move the stone beneath it to toss it open. It wasn't a metal door, but wood on the outside: she guessed that if Azula got that far a metal door wouldn't matter. Inside, over a dozen figures suddenly turned towards her. Some of them were sitting in chairs, so she couldn't see all the details, but she heard the heartbeats, and sensed the shock. They all were surprised. "Yo, idiots!" she yelled out.

One leg slid back, and the door shut quietly. Another slid forward and one standing man did the splits, so extreme he let out a scream of agony. Or maybe he was just a wimp. Guys usually were about that stuff.

She laughed, and couldn't help it. The laughter came out, bubbling and gleeful, and she said, "Get wrecked!"

She shifted, and a piece of the wall pushed out into a boulder that she then punted towards one of the men.

A single heartbeat.

One man turned to shoot fire at her, his stance as typical and boring as could possibly be imagined. It was a traditional stance, and in the second heartbeat of the fight she raised the weall of stone and then pushed it forward, until he was burning his own skin with his blow and had to back up… but he wasn't fast enough and he was knocked over and thrown against the wall.

There was a crack: his arm shattered. He deserved it. That one was that big guy who'd been whispering about how dumb it was that Toph kept on coming. So what if he'd broken his arm! He shouldn't have been in her way, and it wasn't like she was gonna kill him!

She could have kept on going, but she took a moment to breathe in this feeling and shift her hands until the whole of the ground was a slap. Then she bent down and pulled at it, and two different guards fell over with a shout. One fell badly, bruising as she grunted and threw a dagger Toph's way.

Stupid discount Mai, Toph thought dismissively as the barrier came up in time to block it, and then pushed to shove her around too.

She shifted forward, one hand sending a rock to knock another man down and knock him out, and another to sink a guard up to his knees. He kept on struggling, thrashing as if his life, and not Azula's, was in the balance.

More heartbeats.

She was playing with her food. But people who said that didn't realize how fun it was to play with your food. A shift to the left and a kick sent another tumbling over, one of his legs breaking.

"You're a monster," one of the guards said. "Stop this!"

She laughed, and sank him down into the ground until only his neck was visible, and turned to send another boulder crashing into one of the guys trying to get up. Her? A monster! Well, she had set herself up against the entire world and felt more free than she'd ever felt before doing so. If that was a 'monster' then…

Azula was always thinking about it. She'd mentioned that word sometimes. She'd said it bitterly and matter-of-fact.

But Toph just wanted to save her friend. If that was a monster, then all monster meant was someone who disagreed with the world. Of course, Zuko hadn't called Azula a monster: all the terrible things he said about her, and he still didn't go that far. But these people? They gossiped endlessly, they did their job and they were in her way.

She stepped forward, and downed another, and then another. Her movements grew more and more flowing and sharp and powerful. She liked it, liked pushing herself, and the laughter didn't stop until they were all down groaning. She even had to hit the buried guy in the head to keep him from shouting so much. Then she stood there, a few dozen heartbeats spent in kicking butt!

But now, standing amid all of this, she felt a moment of doubt. Azula had seen her before, and she could not see Azula anyway.

But this was going to change everything.

This had to change everything, because there'd be no more barriers.

Azula thought she was doomed. Azula thought she was a monster. Azula thought that nobody was willing to fight for her, and that Toph had all but betrayed her by revealing to Zuko that she was crazy.

She thought all sorts of stupid things. And she'd been thinking them for months. It wasn't as if Toph could say, "Don't worry, Sparky, I'm thinking of maybe busting you out."

No.

She'd had to stumble towards it, and now here she was.

…getting what she wanted.

The smile slipped back onto her face. Her doubts didn't matter, not now. There was nowhere else in the entire world. Here, about to greet Sparky, Princess, Prodigy, Zappy, and a dozen other nicknames she thought were pretty good. She'd given Azula all of her best names. Every name but one.

She'd given Azula all of her coolest nicknames, and she'd cast off one of her own names in the process: she was no longer Toph Beifong, and she'd been that for most of her life.

There was a Jing to describe this, she was sure of it: there was a Jing, sometimes called 'Freedom Jing' that was about that feeling. It was about what happened when an army ran past its own supplies and lived on the land, when a general made a bold and reckless attack that would destroy either his enemy or himself. You burned the bridge behind you and dared your soldiers to seize immortality! (Somehow that had worked, though she didn't know how.) She'd thought 'what's so free about that, anyway?' She'd thought she'd known when she went with Aang. But no, she hadn't, not really.

But now she knew.

It was the happiest feeling in the world. The doubts fell away, just flowed away like water. Let it all tumble into the river and be washed away. What was stone, what was steel, it could rust but she would not let itself be washed or worn away by doubts.

She skipped towards the iron door and opened it carefully, as if hesitating. But no, she was just preparing as she set her stance and stepped inside.

Briefly, she stood between two doors once again.

"Yo, Azula!"

And then Toph tore down both doors.

veteranMortal AN: Really sorry this is later than perhaps advertised; that's entirely on me, I was out and then had to change the tyre on a car and it was a whole thing. More pertinently - we finished! It's been a lot of fun writing Toph and Azula's respective arcs in this fic, and I'm so excited to continue with the story we've begun with this fic. I really hope everyone has enjoyed this so far?

Also, please vote both this fic and my WWZ fic for:

User's Choice Awards Nominations: Best Completed Fic

The Laurent AN: And then Toph was a monster. This is all her villain arc… but more seriously, the story will continue, somewhere down the road…

It will continue in… Avatar: Before Two Wastelands.

However, it will be a while before that is so, because we have a few different obligations and in order to have consistent updates every week, we didn't begin publishing Between Two Doors until we had finished the first part (Prodigy), and so we won't do so until we finish the first Part/section of the new work.

Avatar: Between Two Doors

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The Laurent

Chapter 34: Steel

veteranMortal

Gay and Stupid

The Laurent

Chapter 36: Cycles/Endings

veteranMortal

Gay and Stupid

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Gay and Stupid

Epilogue: Between Two Doors

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