Frith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
frith_in_thorns) wrote2010-09-16 01:26 am
frith_in_thorns) wrote2010-09-16 01:26 am
Entry tags:
(fic:atla) The World is Broad and Wide (but sometimes small)
Title: The World is Broad and Wide (but sometimes small)
Author:frith_in_thorns
Characters: Toph, Zuko (gen)
Warnings/Rating: None/PG-13
Word count: 3500
Notes: Written forsholio , to (hopefully) make her happy :)
Summary: Toph decides to leave. But since, as she knows, she's clearly the most awesome earthbender in the world, she can't get away from having to save certain friends. Such as a very overconfident Fire Lord.
[]
Toph left Ba Sing Se in the cool of the morning, hours before the sun's warmth would begin to spill down. Dew-damp hung in the air and was cold and slippery on the grass beneath her feet.
She had no particular direction in mind, instead following the ways where the earth felt best. She was also in no hurry, so was content with the pace which simply putting one foot in front of the other gave her.
As the sun began to warm the road beneath her feet she felt a flicker of guilt to think of her friends waking up about then (with the likely exception of Sokka) and finding that she was gone. But she had warned them, after all, that she would be leaving that day. "Anyway, I'm gone now so it's just too bad," she said aloud.
It was good earth she walked over, even while parts of the land nearby still bore deep scars from the war. There was an emptiness in those places which echoed back to her. The were still scars on her feet, too, which Sokka said he couldn't see, and will you get those disgusting things out of my face, but which she could feel when she explored with her fingertips. She would have asked Zuko if they really were not visible, figuring that he usually paid more attention to things, but then he would probably have started doing his thing of brooding guiltily for hours which was really boring.
She met no trouble until what she judged, by the heat on her face and the direction of cool shadows, was after midday. "There's a toll for the bridge, girl," demanded a voice which she instantly disliked. She had already noticed the man and his friend, of course, but had intended to ignore them.
"I'm just a little blind girl," Toph said, trying to make her voice shake. "I don't have any money."
"You'll have to hand over that gold band in your hair, then," said the second man. "Toll's from the government. Everyone has to pay." His body hummed gently to the unmistakable tunes of greed and dishonesty.
She had already lost interest. "Go away," Toph said, and tossed them into the river with a stamp of her foot. The sound of twin splashes and then some livid spluttering as the current dragged them away made her laugh.
She helped herself to their lunch, which was good but not as good as Iroh's cooking, and walked on as she ate it. She had to be responsible with her own supplies, after all.
That night she slept in a shelter she built in an instant from slabs of rook, and felt truly free. "Hey, Katara," she whispered to the night, "I do carry my own weight. I told you." That was something of a mistake, because she began to hear all of their different foot-falls resonating in her mind, and felt suddenly, bitingly, lonely. "Rock has no regrets," she told herself sternly. Then she slept.
And the next day Toph kept on walking, through a forest now, where quiescent roots curled and burrowed ever downwards deep below her, and thought fleetingly about her parents who she had again evaded, but mostly about how good it was to belong to no one but herself, to be tied to no one.
She could do anything she wanted.
[]
Fire! the land screamed. Fire! Fire!
Toph scrambled to her feet on the shaded bank where she'd been sprawling. A few seconds later the tang of wood-smoke began to sting the lining of her nose and the back of her throat. Fire sucked the moisture out of the earth, leaving it baked dry and a completely different weight and texture, so by stamping her foot and feeling the ring of vibrations it made she was able to tell in what direction the danger lay.
Several directions, it seemed.
She had felt the presence of a cliff-face some distance to her left so she called up a wave of rock and propelled it along, skimming over the land far faster than she could walk.
Then there were several pairs of running feet tearing desperately before her, and she skidded to a halt.
"Help us!" one of them shouted, fear pitching his voice high.
Toph recognised the accent easily. "You're Fire Nation! Did you start this?"
"No!" a different one shouted, a woman this time, and the lie was stamped through her entire body.
Toph slammed a shower of stones at her and felt her stumble backwards. "Liar! Burn in the forest!"
"Please, Earthbender!" the last man called, desperate. "It was self defence! We didn't mean the fire to get out of control."
"Defence against what? I'll know if you lie."
"The traitor prince," the woman said, defiantly. "He is no friend to the Earth Kingdom—we're on your side! Help us!"
Toph screamed, a wordless noise, and her wave of rock crashed forwards, smothering plants and saplings beneath it as she urged herself faster, faster, down the way the firebenders had come from, ignoring their shouts behind her. Their fire. It can have them if it wants to.
She could hear it now; the hiss and crackle and roar of flames in the near distance. "Zuko!" she shouted, but didn't hear an answer. She yelled again in frustration because she could have easily found someone who was moving, so clearly he wasn't.
As it was she found him mostly by luck, although she would never admit that either to herself or anyone else. "Why are you so stupid?" she shouted at his unconscious body as she heaved him from the ground with a spar of rock and onto her wave. Then she gripped his collar tightly in one hand so as not to lose him and, with the thickening smoke making her cough and hack, sped towards the cliffs faster than she had known she could travel, smashing obstacles out of her path.
She punched open a deep cleft in the rock-face, dragged Zuko inside by the front of his collar (although taking care that she didn't waste all her efforts by accidentally throttling him), and slammed the opening shut behind them.
It was cold inside the cave which she had made, although not unduly so, and the silence was almost strange after the cacophony she had raced through. Toph waited until she could catch her breath and her heart was no longer threatening to hammer its way out through her ears before she turned to Zuko. She thumped his shoulder. "Wake up."
He didn't, and she had no idea what to do next. "Please wake up?" she hazarded.
At least she could be sure he wasn't dead from the steady thump of his heartbeat as it travelled to her through the floor. Toph decided, having no idea at all what was wrong with Zuko, that she should instead try and find a way to get them both out before all the air got used up. She began to enlarge the cave, sculpting a tunnel to take them through the mountain and out the other side. She had no wish to risk the forest fire again, or even what would be the remains of it in several hours. "What stupid thing were you doing this time?" she asked Zuko, and realised to her irritation that she sounded not unlike Katara. "I might as well just leave you here," she said fiercely, not because she meant it but because it was something which Katara would never say, and Toph suddenly needed to assure herself that she had not changed at all on her journeying with the Avatar. She had always prided herself on changing for no one, on relying on no one, on being tied to no one.
Some time later, while she sat against one of the walls with her arms wrapped around her knees, Zuko stirred and groaned. "Ow," he said, and then, plaintively, "It's dark."
"We're inside a mountain," Toph informed him. "They tend to be, or so I'm told."
"Ow," Zuko said again.
"Did you listen to me?" Toph asked. She scooted over to him. "Unless you just fainted at the sight of the scary firebenders I guess you're hurt. Where?"
"In a mountain?" Zuko repeated.
"Were you hit on the head?" she asked him.
"Toph? That you?" His voice had sharpened.
"Yes, of course it's me. I just saved you from certain death, you know, so I hope you're going to be properly grateful."
"I thought you were in Ba Sing Se."
"I was," Toph said bitterly, "Until Katara decided to write to my parents and tell them so, the traitor." She waited for Zuko to tell her that her parents must have been worried, that she would have to go home at some point, and so on, the way everyone from Iroh to Suki had, but he didn't.
"They're in Ba Sing Se?" he asked. Toph was getting a little tired of the conversation speed, or lack of.
"Probably, unless they've given up and gone home again. Anyway, I ran off because anything's better than hearing servants say, 'But Miss Bei Fong, you must be careful,' all day, and having to be polite, and speak when I'm spoken to, and wear dresses."
"I'm sure you looked lovely in your dresses," Zuko said. If he hadn't been hurt she would have buried him under a rockalanche, and she told him so.
Which reminded her. "Where are you hurt?" she asked him, again.
"Don't know," he said. "I just hurt. Everywhere."
"Useful. I could poke you and find out what makes you scream."
"Do that and I'll burn your hair off," Zuko said. "Joking," he hastened to add.
"Do that and I'll crush your hands. Not joking."
"I believe you," he muttered darkly.
Toph could read his pain clearly in the way it constricted his breaths and shook though his body. Without asking him she knew that he wouldn't be able to get up, much less walk behind her while she was bending. But needed to get him to Katara, somehow. Katara would be able to fix him. "I'm going to slide you on a rock while I make us a tunnel," she announced.
Zuko groaned dramatically. "That sounds horrible."
"Probably," she agreed. She had never understood why some people felt the need to lie in this sort of situation. It wouldn't make anything hurt any less, so what was the point?
"I think I'd rather just stay here for a while."
"Don't be stupid. The air'll run out." It was easy to dislodge the portion of floor he was draped out on and slide it towards the far end of the cave—less easy to ignore Zuko's ragged noises of protest. She could have lifted the slab of rock through the air, but then it would have been much harder and slower to excavate the tunnel ahead of them as she was doing now, bending the solid layers of mountain out of the way so that she could walk between them. Behind, they pressed together again, filling in the space she had briefly carved. "Aren't you glad I didn't leave you?" she asked smugly.
"No."
"If I'd left you you'd be crushed to death by now." Another rumble of the mountain around them provided her with ample punctuation.
"I'll take your word for it. I have no idea what's going on."
"I always forget how helpless you are without any pretty lights."
"You just wait," the Fire Lord muttered ominously.
At that moment Toph heard, felt, something through the rock. "Shut up," she said sharply, and froze.
"Why?" Zuko demanded. He shifted. "What's—ow—what's going on?"
"Be quiet, idiot." Amazingly, Zuko did as he was told, and she could pay proper attention to the tumbling, drilling vibrations coming from ahead and above.
"Hey!" she shouted, in sudden, joyful recognition. "Hey!" She stamped her feet against the floor, again and again, until she felt the source of the movement begin to turn towards her.
"What are you doing?" Zuko hissed.
She ignored him. "Hey! Over here!"
Zuko began to push himself up with his arms. Toph grabbed his head and pushed him back down again, in response to the protests from his body, from his heart and lungs, which he was trying to ignore.
A moment later the badgermole burst into her tunnel in a spray of soil and stones, padding unhesitantly towards her and poking at her face with its long tongue. Toph giggled and punched it in greeting.
"What's happening?" Zuko demanded.
"We're getting a lift," Toph told him, and laughed like a maniac at her own joke.
[]
She didn't want the ride on the badgermole to ever end. This was a proper way to travel by animal, feeling the vibrations of the earth travelling up from the badgermole's huge feet and working in tandem with it to push aside vast chunks of rock as if they were made of nothing at all, not whizzing through the sky so that her blindness was once again an obstacle leaving her almost helpless. Not that I don't love Appa, of course, she thought hastily, in case Aang had developed the ability to detect disloyal thoughts about his sky bison from afar, which was on the face of it unlikely, but not much less so than him suddenly being able to bend energy.
"This is horrible!" Zuko shouted, his voice muffled by the thick fur he was pressed against as he clung to the badgermole's back like a turtleslug. Toph, perched precariously on its nose but perfectly certain that she wasn't going to fall, felt a rumble of amusement from the massive creature. Its earthbending was efficient, purposeful and seemingly effortless. She felt herself becoming jealous and reminded herself that she was the only one anywhere ever who could metalbend. Her feeling of superiority restored, she could once again enjoy the ride.
It was entirely too soon that the wall of the mountain ahead of them became thinner and thinner until finally they smashed through the skin of it and there was just dull empty land ahead. The smoke smell was far away now.
Toph slid down and curled her toes into the topsoil. She had loved the ride, but there was still no substitute for having slightly damp, sun-warmed earth beneath her feet. She lifted some stones from the pile of rubble and pummelled the badgermole's side, to say thank you, and laughed when it responded in kind It reared up on its hind legs to slide Zuko gently down. Luckily it obviously realised that he wasn't tuned to the nuances of badgermole conversation, and didn't earthbend at him.
"Let's never do that again," Zuko groaned, once it had vanished back inside the mountain, its tunnel sealed behind it.
"That was amazing," Toph firmly contradicted him. She flopped down onto her backside and stuck her legs out in front of her, thinking. "I suppose I'll have to go back to Ba Sing Se now, since I need to do something with you."
"I would have thought of something," he said, a little sulkily.
"Yeah, yeah, Idiot Lord. You'd have burned to death without me."
"Would not."
"Would too."
Zuko tried to get up. "Ow! Ow, okay, okay."
Toph very graciously pushed upwards a pile of earth just behind him, and he gave a grateful sigh as he propped himself against it. "You're welcome," she said smugly. "I don't know how you all manage without earthbending."
Zuko snorted, but didn't bother to reply, so Toph tilted her head backwards and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face.
A few minutes later she had another thought. "Hey, Zuko?"
"What?" he asked wearily.
"Do you think Mai will give me a reward for your safe return?"
"Riding on that lumbering thing was not safe," Zuko growled.
"But will she?"
"You're welcome to ask her. It might distract her from yelling at me about trying to bring in dangerous criminals on my own."
Toph grinned. "Are you kidding? Watching you get yelled at will be tons better than a reward."
Zuko fell silent again. She betted that he was glaring. Sokka had described in great detail what Zuko glaring was like, and it sounded amusing enough that she wished she could see it.
She was actually getting a bit worried, because she had no idea at all how she was going to get them both back to Katara. Especially since the mountain had completely turned her around and she wasn't quite sure of the direction anymore.
"What's that?" Zuko asked suddenly.
"What's what?"
"That! In the sky, there!"
She shoved him. "Not helping!"
"Sorry, forgot." She would pay him back later. "Um, there's something that's sort of like a bird but... not really like one."
"Wow. So useful."
A second later Aang hit the ground like a falling rock and bounced up again in a gust of airbending. He sounded not the least bit surprised to see them. "Hey Toph, hey Zuko. Did you know there's been a massive forest fire?"
"Shockingly yes," Zuko said, with some irritation.
"What are you doing here?" Toph asked.
"Looking for you, of course! Everyone was really worried when you vanished and then we got a report from the Earth Kingdom authorities that they'd arrested three rogue firebenders who told about an earthbender going into the fire and we knew it was you."
"How?" Toph demanded.
Zuko snorted. "I'd say you're pretty unforgettable."
"Right!" agreed Aang happily. "So I went flying on my glider to look for you and Mai and Katara are on Appa, and I just called Appa on my bison whistle so they should be here at any moment."
"Mai?" Zuko asked, sounding suddenly nervous.
Toph felt a bit nervous herself. She wouldn't be able to slip away again unnoticed, she was sure of it. She'd had freedom, and now...
But when Katara and Mai arrived she was quite forgotten to begin with, and so went and curled next to the solid warmth of Appa while the girls huddled around Zuko and their voices and movements held fear.
After a bit Aang came to join her. "Is Zuko okay?" she asked.
He was sitting against her so she could feel the shrug of his shoulders directly. "One of the firebenders hit him right over the wound Azula made."
Oh. "I couldn't see it."
"Katara will fix him. She's good at it."
"Yeah."
Appa made a rumbling noise which was somehow immensely comforting. Aang dropped his head onto her shoulder and dozed. Flying was apparently tiring.
Toph didn't realise that she had also slipped into a doze until she was roused by someone kicking her foot gently. "M'awake," she mumbled, and then bounced to her feet as she realised who it was. "Katara! Is Zuko alright?"
"No," said Zuko, rather sulkily, but he clearly was at least quite a bit better since he was walking towards them, if very slowly and very heavily supported by Mai.
"I may just leave you here if you keep complaining," Mai warned him, completely untruthfully.
"He needs to rest and not do anything stupid," Katara said sternly, and then grabbed Toph into a hug without warning. Toph struggled weakly for a moment and then relaxed into it. "We were worried," Katara said. "Please don't run away like that again."
"You told on me."
"Toph, your parents were worried too. They had a right to know where you were, and that you were safe. And no, they haven't arrived in Ba Sing Se yet, but they will in about a week."
She squirmed. "Can we not talk about this now?"
"You've got until tomorrow," Katara said, quickly enough that Toph wished she'd pushed for a bit more time. "We'll all go home now."
"Home?" queried Aang, apparently waking up all in one jolt. He bounced up onto Appa.
"Iroh's tea shop. Everyone's still there."
Toph allowed herself to be heaved into Appa's saddle by Mai, who then gave the same treatment to Zuko (only with a lot more care), and then they were all flying through the sky, but Toph was too tired to dwell on her dislike of it. She snuggled up next to Zuko, who batted at her in token resistance. Katara pressed against her other side, waves of exhaustion from the healing rippling through her body. Aang was somewhere near Appa's head, whispering to him, and Toph knew that Mai would be sitting alertly upright, with Zuko's head on her lap, keeping watch over all of them.
She nearly fell asleep immediately, but stayed awake long enough to consider that freedom alone was all very well, but it was even better when tempered with moments of friendship like this which didn't, after all, take anything from her that she wasn't willing to let go. Maybe even seeing her parents again would turn out to be a necessary part of being her own person. Maybe.
Anyway, her friends would help her through anything ahead of her. And they were all going home.
Author:
frith_in_thorns Characters: Toph, Zuko (gen)
Warnings/Rating: None/PG-13
Word count: 3500
Notes: Written for
sholio , to (hopefully) make her happy :)Summary: Toph decides to leave. But since, as she knows, she's clearly the most awesome earthbender in the world, she can't get away from having to save certain friends. Such as a very overconfident Fire Lord.
[]
Toph left Ba Sing Se in the cool of the morning, hours before the sun's warmth would begin to spill down. Dew-damp hung in the air and was cold and slippery on the grass beneath her feet.
She had no particular direction in mind, instead following the ways where the earth felt best. She was also in no hurry, so was content with the pace which simply putting one foot in front of the other gave her.
As the sun began to warm the road beneath her feet she felt a flicker of guilt to think of her friends waking up about then (with the likely exception of Sokka) and finding that she was gone. But she had warned them, after all, that she would be leaving that day. "Anyway, I'm gone now so it's just too bad," she said aloud.
It was good earth she walked over, even while parts of the land nearby still bore deep scars from the war. There was an emptiness in those places which echoed back to her. The were still scars on her feet, too, which Sokka said he couldn't see, and will you get those disgusting things out of my face, but which she could feel when she explored with her fingertips. She would have asked Zuko if they really were not visible, figuring that he usually paid more attention to things, but then he would probably have started doing his thing of brooding guiltily for hours which was really boring.
She met no trouble until what she judged, by the heat on her face and the direction of cool shadows, was after midday. "There's a toll for the bridge, girl," demanded a voice which she instantly disliked. She had already noticed the man and his friend, of course, but had intended to ignore them.
"I'm just a little blind girl," Toph said, trying to make her voice shake. "I don't have any money."
"You'll have to hand over that gold band in your hair, then," said the second man. "Toll's from the government. Everyone has to pay." His body hummed gently to the unmistakable tunes of greed and dishonesty.
She had already lost interest. "Go away," Toph said, and tossed them into the river with a stamp of her foot. The sound of twin splashes and then some livid spluttering as the current dragged them away made her laugh.
She helped herself to their lunch, which was good but not as good as Iroh's cooking, and walked on as she ate it. She had to be responsible with her own supplies, after all.
That night she slept in a shelter she built in an instant from slabs of rook, and felt truly free. "Hey, Katara," she whispered to the night, "I do carry my own weight. I told you." That was something of a mistake, because she began to hear all of their different foot-falls resonating in her mind, and felt suddenly, bitingly, lonely. "Rock has no regrets," she told herself sternly. Then she slept.
And the next day Toph kept on walking, through a forest now, where quiescent roots curled and burrowed ever downwards deep below her, and thought fleetingly about her parents who she had again evaded, but mostly about how good it was to belong to no one but herself, to be tied to no one.
She could do anything she wanted.
[]
Fire! the land screamed. Fire! Fire!
Toph scrambled to her feet on the shaded bank where she'd been sprawling. A few seconds later the tang of wood-smoke began to sting the lining of her nose and the back of her throat. Fire sucked the moisture out of the earth, leaving it baked dry and a completely different weight and texture, so by stamping her foot and feeling the ring of vibrations it made she was able to tell in what direction the danger lay.
Several directions, it seemed.
She had felt the presence of a cliff-face some distance to her left so she called up a wave of rock and propelled it along, skimming over the land far faster than she could walk.
Then there were several pairs of running feet tearing desperately before her, and she skidded to a halt.
"Help us!" one of them shouted, fear pitching his voice high.
Toph recognised the accent easily. "You're Fire Nation! Did you start this?"
"No!" a different one shouted, a woman this time, and the lie was stamped through her entire body.
Toph slammed a shower of stones at her and felt her stumble backwards. "Liar! Burn in the forest!"
"Please, Earthbender!" the last man called, desperate. "It was self defence! We didn't mean the fire to get out of control."
"Defence against what? I'll know if you lie."
"The traitor prince," the woman said, defiantly. "He is no friend to the Earth Kingdom—we're on your side! Help us!"
Toph screamed, a wordless noise, and her wave of rock crashed forwards, smothering plants and saplings beneath it as she urged herself faster, faster, down the way the firebenders had come from, ignoring their shouts behind her. Their fire. It can have them if it wants to.
She could hear it now; the hiss and crackle and roar of flames in the near distance. "Zuko!" she shouted, but didn't hear an answer. She yelled again in frustration because she could have easily found someone who was moving, so clearly he wasn't.
As it was she found him mostly by luck, although she would never admit that either to herself or anyone else. "Why are you so stupid?" she shouted at his unconscious body as she heaved him from the ground with a spar of rock and onto her wave. Then she gripped his collar tightly in one hand so as not to lose him and, with the thickening smoke making her cough and hack, sped towards the cliffs faster than she had known she could travel, smashing obstacles out of her path.
She punched open a deep cleft in the rock-face, dragged Zuko inside by the front of his collar (although taking care that she didn't waste all her efforts by accidentally throttling him), and slammed the opening shut behind them.
It was cold inside the cave which she had made, although not unduly so, and the silence was almost strange after the cacophony she had raced through. Toph waited until she could catch her breath and her heart was no longer threatening to hammer its way out through her ears before she turned to Zuko. She thumped his shoulder. "Wake up."
He didn't, and she had no idea what to do next. "Please wake up?" she hazarded.
At least she could be sure he wasn't dead from the steady thump of his heartbeat as it travelled to her through the floor. Toph decided, having no idea at all what was wrong with Zuko, that she should instead try and find a way to get them both out before all the air got used up. She began to enlarge the cave, sculpting a tunnel to take them through the mountain and out the other side. She had no wish to risk the forest fire again, or even what would be the remains of it in several hours. "What stupid thing were you doing this time?" she asked Zuko, and realised to her irritation that she sounded not unlike Katara. "I might as well just leave you here," she said fiercely, not because she meant it but because it was something which Katara would never say, and Toph suddenly needed to assure herself that she had not changed at all on her journeying with the Avatar. She had always prided herself on changing for no one, on relying on no one, on being tied to no one.
Some time later, while she sat against one of the walls with her arms wrapped around her knees, Zuko stirred and groaned. "Ow," he said, and then, plaintively, "It's dark."
"We're inside a mountain," Toph informed him. "They tend to be, or so I'm told."
"Ow," Zuko said again.
"Did you listen to me?" Toph asked. She scooted over to him. "Unless you just fainted at the sight of the scary firebenders I guess you're hurt. Where?"
"In a mountain?" Zuko repeated.
"Were you hit on the head?" she asked him.
"Toph? That you?" His voice had sharpened.
"Yes, of course it's me. I just saved you from certain death, you know, so I hope you're going to be properly grateful."
"I thought you were in Ba Sing Se."
"I was," Toph said bitterly, "Until Katara decided to write to my parents and tell them so, the traitor." She waited for Zuko to tell her that her parents must have been worried, that she would have to go home at some point, and so on, the way everyone from Iroh to Suki had, but he didn't.
"They're in Ba Sing Se?" he asked. Toph was getting a little tired of the conversation speed, or lack of.
"Probably, unless they've given up and gone home again. Anyway, I ran off because anything's better than hearing servants say, 'But Miss Bei Fong, you must be careful,' all day, and having to be polite, and speak when I'm spoken to, and wear dresses."
"I'm sure you looked lovely in your dresses," Zuko said. If he hadn't been hurt she would have buried him under a rockalanche, and she told him so.
Which reminded her. "Where are you hurt?" she asked him, again.
"Don't know," he said. "I just hurt. Everywhere."
"Useful. I could poke you and find out what makes you scream."
"Do that and I'll burn your hair off," Zuko said. "Joking," he hastened to add.
"Do that and I'll crush your hands. Not joking."
"I believe you," he muttered darkly.
Toph could read his pain clearly in the way it constricted his breaths and shook though his body. Without asking him she knew that he wouldn't be able to get up, much less walk behind her while she was bending. But needed to get him to Katara, somehow. Katara would be able to fix him. "I'm going to slide you on a rock while I make us a tunnel," she announced.
Zuko groaned dramatically. "That sounds horrible."
"Probably," she agreed. She had never understood why some people felt the need to lie in this sort of situation. It wouldn't make anything hurt any less, so what was the point?
"I think I'd rather just stay here for a while."
"Don't be stupid. The air'll run out." It was easy to dislodge the portion of floor he was draped out on and slide it towards the far end of the cave—less easy to ignore Zuko's ragged noises of protest. She could have lifted the slab of rock through the air, but then it would have been much harder and slower to excavate the tunnel ahead of them as she was doing now, bending the solid layers of mountain out of the way so that she could walk between them. Behind, they pressed together again, filling in the space she had briefly carved. "Aren't you glad I didn't leave you?" she asked smugly.
"No."
"If I'd left you you'd be crushed to death by now." Another rumble of the mountain around them provided her with ample punctuation.
"I'll take your word for it. I have no idea what's going on."
"I always forget how helpless you are without any pretty lights."
"You just wait," the Fire Lord muttered ominously.
At that moment Toph heard, felt, something through the rock. "Shut up," she said sharply, and froze.
"Why?" Zuko demanded. He shifted. "What's—ow—what's going on?"
"Be quiet, idiot." Amazingly, Zuko did as he was told, and she could pay proper attention to the tumbling, drilling vibrations coming from ahead and above.
"Hey!" she shouted, in sudden, joyful recognition. "Hey!" She stamped her feet against the floor, again and again, until she felt the source of the movement begin to turn towards her.
"What are you doing?" Zuko hissed.
She ignored him. "Hey! Over here!"
Zuko began to push himself up with his arms. Toph grabbed his head and pushed him back down again, in response to the protests from his body, from his heart and lungs, which he was trying to ignore.
A moment later the badgermole burst into her tunnel in a spray of soil and stones, padding unhesitantly towards her and poking at her face with its long tongue. Toph giggled and punched it in greeting.
"What's happening?" Zuko demanded.
"We're getting a lift," Toph told him, and laughed like a maniac at her own joke.
[]
She didn't want the ride on the badgermole to ever end. This was a proper way to travel by animal, feeling the vibrations of the earth travelling up from the badgermole's huge feet and working in tandem with it to push aside vast chunks of rock as if they were made of nothing at all, not whizzing through the sky so that her blindness was once again an obstacle leaving her almost helpless. Not that I don't love Appa, of course, she thought hastily, in case Aang had developed the ability to detect disloyal thoughts about his sky bison from afar, which was on the face of it unlikely, but not much less so than him suddenly being able to bend energy.
"This is horrible!" Zuko shouted, his voice muffled by the thick fur he was pressed against as he clung to the badgermole's back like a turtleslug. Toph, perched precariously on its nose but perfectly certain that she wasn't going to fall, felt a rumble of amusement from the massive creature. Its earthbending was efficient, purposeful and seemingly effortless. She felt herself becoming jealous and reminded herself that she was the only one anywhere ever who could metalbend. Her feeling of superiority restored, she could once again enjoy the ride.
It was entirely too soon that the wall of the mountain ahead of them became thinner and thinner until finally they smashed through the skin of it and there was just dull empty land ahead. The smoke smell was far away now.
Toph slid down and curled her toes into the topsoil. She had loved the ride, but there was still no substitute for having slightly damp, sun-warmed earth beneath her feet. She lifted some stones from the pile of rubble and pummelled the badgermole's side, to say thank you, and laughed when it responded in kind It reared up on its hind legs to slide Zuko gently down. Luckily it obviously realised that he wasn't tuned to the nuances of badgermole conversation, and didn't earthbend at him.
"Let's never do that again," Zuko groaned, once it had vanished back inside the mountain, its tunnel sealed behind it.
"That was amazing," Toph firmly contradicted him. She flopped down onto her backside and stuck her legs out in front of her, thinking. "I suppose I'll have to go back to Ba Sing Se now, since I need to do something with you."
"I would have thought of something," he said, a little sulkily.
"Yeah, yeah, Idiot Lord. You'd have burned to death without me."
"Would not."
"Would too."
Zuko tried to get up. "Ow! Ow, okay, okay."
Toph very graciously pushed upwards a pile of earth just behind him, and he gave a grateful sigh as he propped himself against it. "You're welcome," she said smugly. "I don't know how you all manage without earthbending."
Zuko snorted, but didn't bother to reply, so Toph tilted her head backwards and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face.
A few minutes later she had another thought. "Hey, Zuko?"
"What?" he asked wearily.
"Do you think Mai will give me a reward for your safe return?"
"Riding on that lumbering thing was not safe," Zuko growled.
"But will she?"
"You're welcome to ask her. It might distract her from yelling at me about trying to bring in dangerous criminals on my own."
Toph grinned. "Are you kidding? Watching you get yelled at will be tons better than a reward."
Zuko fell silent again. She betted that he was glaring. Sokka had described in great detail what Zuko glaring was like, and it sounded amusing enough that she wished she could see it.
She was actually getting a bit worried, because she had no idea at all how she was going to get them both back to Katara. Especially since the mountain had completely turned her around and she wasn't quite sure of the direction anymore.
"What's that?" Zuko asked suddenly.
"What's what?"
"That! In the sky, there!"
She shoved him. "Not helping!"
"Sorry, forgot." She would pay him back later. "Um, there's something that's sort of like a bird but... not really like one."
"Wow. So useful."
A second later Aang hit the ground like a falling rock and bounced up again in a gust of airbending. He sounded not the least bit surprised to see them. "Hey Toph, hey Zuko. Did you know there's been a massive forest fire?"
"Shockingly yes," Zuko said, with some irritation.
"What are you doing here?" Toph asked.
"Looking for you, of course! Everyone was really worried when you vanished and then we got a report from the Earth Kingdom authorities that they'd arrested three rogue firebenders who told about an earthbender going into the fire and we knew it was you."
"How?" Toph demanded.
Zuko snorted. "I'd say you're pretty unforgettable."
"Right!" agreed Aang happily. "So I went flying on my glider to look for you and Mai and Katara are on Appa, and I just called Appa on my bison whistle so they should be here at any moment."
"Mai?" Zuko asked, sounding suddenly nervous.
Toph felt a bit nervous herself. She wouldn't be able to slip away again unnoticed, she was sure of it. She'd had freedom, and now...
But when Katara and Mai arrived she was quite forgotten to begin with, and so went and curled next to the solid warmth of Appa while the girls huddled around Zuko and their voices and movements held fear.
After a bit Aang came to join her. "Is Zuko okay?" she asked.
He was sitting against her so she could feel the shrug of his shoulders directly. "One of the firebenders hit him right over the wound Azula made."
Oh. "I couldn't see it."
"Katara will fix him. She's good at it."
"Yeah."
Appa made a rumbling noise which was somehow immensely comforting. Aang dropped his head onto her shoulder and dozed. Flying was apparently tiring.
Toph didn't realise that she had also slipped into a doze until she was roused by someone kicking her foot gently. "M'awake," she mumbled, and then bounced to her feet as she realised who it was. "Katara! Is Zuko alright?"
"No," said Zuko, rather sulkily, but he clearly was at least quite a bit better since he was walking towards them, if very slowly and very heavily supported by Mai.
"I may just leave you here if you keep complaining," Mai warned him, completely untruthfully.
"He needs to rest and not do anything stupid," Katara said sternly, and then grabbed Toph into a hug without warning. Toph struggled weakly for a moment and then relaxed into it. "We were worried," Katara said. "Please don't run away like that again."
"You told on me."
"Toph, your parents were worried too. They had a right to know where you were, and that you were safe. And no, they haven't arrived in Ba Sing Se yet, but they will in about a week."
She squirmed. "Can we not talk about this now?"
"You've got until tomorrow," Katara said, quickly enough that Toph wished she'd pushed for a bit more time. "We'll all go home now."
"Home?" queried Aang, apparently waking up all in one jolt. He bounced up onto Appa.
"Iroh's tea shop. Everyone's still there."
Toph allowed herself to be heaved into Appa's saddle by Mai, who then gave the same treatment to Zuko (only with a lot more care), and then they were all flying through the sky, but Toph was too tired to dwell on her dislike of it. She snuggled up next to Zuko, who batted at her in token resistance. Katara pressed against her other side, waves of exhaustion from the healing rippling through her body. Aang was somewhere near Appa's head, whispering to him, and Toph knew that Mai would be sitting alertly upright, with Zuko's head on her lap, keeping watch over all of them.
She nearly fell asleep immediately, but stayed awake long enough to consider that freedom alone was all very well, but it was even better when tempered with moments of friendship like this which didn't, after all, take anything from her that she wasn't willing to let go. Maybe even seeing her parents again would turn out to be a necessary part of being her own person. Maybe.
Anyway, her friends would help her through anything ahead of her. And they were all going home.
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