Chapter Text
“We should rest while it’s still dark out,” Piandao said, his voice the only sound other than the shifting earth around them.
Toph grunted in response, turning her heel and shoving her fist out. They rose out of the ground, the earth becoming solid beneath their feet once more. The quiet of the underground was replaced with the steady buzz of insects in the air, and the shifting leaves from a distant treeline.
“How long do you think we have?” She asked, shrugging her bag off and moving to what felt like a clear enough area.
“I would estimate three hours before the sun begins to rise,” Piandao replied. “Perhaps a bit less. The sun is always more eager to emerge in the summer than in the rest of the year.”
Toph nodded. “All right.” She shifted her foot, locking her elbow in place in front of her, and a large rock tent shot up from the ground. “Can you keep watch? I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Of course,” Piandao said. He moved into the tent for a moment, his footsteps steady, though slower than usual. Toph felt the moment Azula touched the ground, her heartbeat joining in with the rest of the movement in the earth. “Sleep well, Lady Beifong.”
“Toph,” she said offhandedly. “Haven’t been a Beifong in a while.”
His head bowed. “Master Toph.”
She cracked a grin. “Better.”
Toph ducked into the tent, and Piandao moved out. She set her foot down, hard, and a slab of rock emerged for him to sit on. He said nothing, but stopped for a moment before sitting down. His hand moved, and she heard the shing of his sword being drawn.
Sokka was pretty good with a sword, and Piandao was worlds better. Toph felt comfortable enough raising her feet over the ground and getting some sleep.
She closed her eyes (not that much changed as a result), and let herself fall.
As she slept, echoes of her friends rang through her mind, too distant to reach, but clear enough to know exactly what they were saying.
“You know, you really are great at earthbending.”
“Stop stealing my socks, Toph, I know you’re the one doing it!”
“Your parents don’t get to decide your life for you.”
“If you throw anymore sand at me, I swear to La, I’m going to bend the entire ocean at you.”
“We love you, Toph. We’re family.”
“It’s okay if you mess up.”
“We’re in this together. You’re not getting rid of us that easily.”
When she woke up, her chest hurt.
She groaned, sitting up and setting her feet on the ground. She gave herself a moment to think through the haze of sleep, processing the signals her earthbending was sending her.
Piandao poked into the earth tent. “Good morning, Master Toph.”
“‘Morning,” Toph said. “Any clue what time it is?”
“Just an hour-and-a-half past dawn. We traveled extensively last night, so I thought it all right to allow you more time to rest.”
“Thanks.” Toph stretched out. “We should probably head out though, huh?”
“Indeed,” Piandao confirmed.
“Cool. Let’s go, then.”
She bent the earth tent back into the ground, Piandao moved forward and picked Azula up, and Toph slammed her foot down. The earth shifted around them, and they were back underneath it, moving through the ground. It was a matter that required her complete and utter attention. She would bend the earth in front of them out of the way, move them forward on a slab of rock that slid along the ground, and collapse the earth behind them back into place, all at once. The only differences were slight shifts in her footing with each movement, as well as a different turn of her wrist, but it was straining nonetheless, especially doing it over and over again.
She knew that this wasn’t going to last forever. As they made it out of the outskirts of Ba Sing Se, the forests would become thicker and the terrain would become rougher. More than anything, though, once Azula woke up and became lucid, there was no way Toph would want to sit in such an enclosed space with her, even one where she controlled every aspect of it. It just wouldn’t be a realistic solution anymore. For now, though, they would move like this.
“What was that Zuko guy like, when you knew him?” Toph asked when they stopped an hour later, sitting down as Piandao set up a fire to roast some nuts. Her limbs ached, and sweat was beading at her forehead from more than just the sun beating down on them from above.
Piandao hummed, the wood on the ground shifting as he set them up.
“I’m quite sure I’ve already told you,” Piandao said. “He was kind, and ambitious, and determined. He wanted very much to make a difference, and to help the world. Even while believing that the Fire Nation was only waging the war for good reasons, he wanted more than that.”
“That doesn’t really help me,” Toph said. “What about a story? You have any stories about him?”
“Of course.” Piandao shuffled through his bag and then a clicking sound filled the air as he struck the spark rocks he’d surely grabbed against one another. “I trained Zuko from the age of eight to that of twelve. He would spend about two months out of the summer with me. The first summer that he spent with me, he cried each night before falling asleep because he missed his mother, or his cousin, or his uncle. I learned of what was happening after about three weeks, when his movements grew sloppy from his exhaustion. He attempted to push through it, but he was young, and he was tired, so it was far too difficult to do so.” Piandao sighed. “When I had him stop because he seemed dead on his feet, he apologized to me for failing.”
“Failing?” Toph asked. “Didn’t he… try his best, at least?”
“His father would punish him for failure,” Piandao said. “He was accustomed to apologizing.”
Toph made a face. Her parents, for all their faults, had never punished her for failing at something. They would either encourage her, or they would tell her that it didn’t matter. Either way, they would speak with gentle, if slightly condescending, words. They would embrace her, and pat her on the head, and tell her that they believed in her, even if they didn’t.
They were always better at being good parents when they knew that she was listening.
She didn’t know how Prince Zuko would’ve been punished by his father, but she could not imagine her own dad yelling at her, berating her, hurting her , just for messing up in a lesson.
It was incomprehensible.
“What did you do, then?” She asked.
“I explained to him that as long as he was with me, he would not be punished as long as he followed the rules of the house. Failure would not result in punishment, as failure is a vital part of learning, and of growth.” He paused. “We also began to go stargazing each night before sleeping.”
“Why?” Toph had never seen the stars. They had been described to her as a bunch of little dots of light shining in the sky, but that didn’t really mean much to her.
Aang had explained better than anyone else had. The sky was as unknown as the ocean was. Cold, expansive, and unforgiving. Stars were the little spots of warmth that kept the night sky from weighing down on the world so much that it crushed it.
That was the easiest thing for her to imagine, of all the things she’d been told about it.
“He explained that, when he couldn’t sleep at the palace, he would go outside onto one of the balconies and observe the stars. He would often do it with his cousin, Prince Lu Ten, or his sister.” Toph was sure his eyes were on Azula, now, resting a few feet away. Her breathing seemed a bit shallow, her heartbeat just the tiniest bit faster than it should have been, as if she was anyone other than Azula caught in a lie.
Still, they were both steady, and it was clear that she was still fast asleep.
“Did all of that help?” Toph asked.
Piandao hummed the affirmative. “Thankfully. Once he was well-rested, things became much easier. I’ve never trained anyone with so much determination to succeed.”
Toph raised an eyebrow. “Not even Sokka?”
“No,” Piandao said, shaking his head. “Not even Sokka. Sokka had an innate gift with the sword, something that surprised both him and me. Zuko, on the other hand, did not, and yet he progressed at the same rate as my most prodigious students. He would fall down, over and over again, and every time, without fail, he would pull himself back up.”
Toph was silent for a long moment. Then, she asked, “Was he the reason you stopped taking students?”
Piandao’s breathing didn’t change, but the quiet stretched on. “Yes,” he said eventually. “He was. When he was thirteen, a few months before he was set to return for the summer, he had a disagreement with his father. No one quite knows why the disagreement occurred, but he was forced to fight in an Agni Kai.”
“An Agni Kai?” Toph made a face. “The hell is that?”
“A fire duel,” Piandao replied, his voice grave. “It’s an ancient practice, and a very traditional one, at that. It has had many uses over the years, and not many participate in them nowadays. Most commonly, it occurs when one slights another. An Agni Kai must occur to regain lost honor.” He paused. “It has also been used by the Fire Nation royal family when two members are fighting over the Dragon Throne. Oftentimes it would be two siblings, both feeling that they deserve the crown more than the other, battling to see who was more worthy.”
Toph scrunched her nose. “The Fire Nation is weird. In the Earth Kingdom, whoever’s crowned is literally just who is older.” She tilted her head. “Except with Bumi. Aang said he wasn’t royalty, but also has no idea how he became the King of Omashu.”
Piandao’s shoulders rolled, and it seemed that he had no better idea than she did.
“It is very important within the Fire Nation that the Fire Lord be the most worthy candidate. In the past, that has been interpreted as the Fire Lord being the most powerful.”
Toph snorted. “You don’t sound like you agree.”
A beat of silence. “Power does not equate worth,” he said softly. “The ability to lift a boulder over one's head does not make one a good leader. The choice to help those who cannot help themselves does. The ability to defeat a child in a fight over a disagreement does not make one strong. The choice to stand up for the right thing does.”
Toph let out a shaky breath and forced a smile onto her lips. “We must be pretty damn strong then, huh?”
Piandao’s responding chuckle didn’t sound very amused, but she wasn’t offended. She wasn’t trying very hard to be funny. “I suppose so.”
The nuts that he handed her were rather bland, no spices rubbed into them by calloused hands and no salted jerky to pair them with, but they were food, and she wasn’t going to complain. Toph had spent months on the road, camping and eating whatever could be found when there were no towns nearby. She could handle this just fine.
Her stomach still churned from exertion when they finished eating, but she brought them back under the earth anyway as soon as Piandao had finished stamping out the fire.
Toph didn’t know how dark it was under the earth. She had no idea how much Piandao could see with the small hole she had above them for air. Still, it must have been enough for him to get a good look at her, because after only another half-hour, he said, “Bring us up.”
She did.
Toph did her best to keep her breathing level as they emerged from the ground. She stomped a foot down and sat on the rock that shot up from the earth. Her hands tingled, and she brought up another slab of rock a bit higher to lean against.
“Why’d we stop?” She asked, her hands folded behind her head.
“We’re going to be walking from this point on,” Piandao replied.
Her brow furrowed. “Why?”
“The terrain is changing,” Piandao explained. “The forests are becoming more plentiful, as are the wetlands. Towns are becoming more commonplace as we get farther from the city. We’ll be reaching the beginning of the Northwestern Mountain Ranges soon, if I am not mistaken.” He paused. “And you’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” Toph retorted immediately.
“Master Toph,” Piandao said calmly, “It is rather obvious, I must say.”
She scowled.
“Are you well enough to continue on foot, or would you rather we rest for a bit?”
Toph held the frown for another moment before dropping it with a sigh that quickly transformed into a groan. “I can walk, I can walk.”
“Good,” Piandao said. “Unless I’ve terribly miscalculated, we should reach a village in the next two hours if we continue west.”
“Well, that’s all you,” Toph said. “I genuinely could not tell you where we were even if I was given a map.”
“Yes, I have a feeling a map would not help you much,” Piandao said dryly.
Toph grinned widely. “Lead the way, oh wise master.”
Piandao readjusted his hold on Azula as Toph bent her seat back into the earth. She wondered if his back or shoulders were hurting from holding her. He hadn’t said anything about it, but he also didn’t really seem like the kind of person to say something about it.
Piandao had miscalculated, as it turned out. Most likely, the second and third bouts of travel underground had been much slower than the first one. The first one out of Ba Sing Se had been fueled by adrenaline. After sleeping, her mind had settled, and she’d also gotten exhausted faster.
It took about four hours of walking to make it to the nearest village. They stopped no less than every hour, because, despite not complaining about it, Piandao was apparently getting rather sore from carrying Azula the entire time. By the time Toph took the lead when she began to sense the village walls in her feet, it was over six hours past noon.
They set up camp on the outskirts of the village, Toph bending a rock tent into position and Piandao starting another fire. He grabbed up his bag, mentioned that he’d return soon, and set off for the village gates.
Toph sat herself down on the ground, taking her meteor bracelet off of her arm and bending it into every shape she could think of.
Azula’s heartbeat increased, the steady movement of her chest halted, and Toph froze.
“Don’t move,” she called out, shooting to her feet and turning toward the tent, one hand out in front of her.
Azula took a few gasping breaths in. “What…” She breathed out, her voice strained. “What’s happening?”
Toph wasn’t sure if Azula was asking her or not. She stayed silent for a moment before saying, “You’re safe. You’re not in prison anymore, and you’re not going back there. Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not,” Azula replied, sounding as if she was out of breath. “It’s not. It’s gone.”
The crunching of leaves brought Toph back to her senses. She hadn’t even noticed the footsteps moving ever closer to them.
“Princess,” Piandao said, bowing low.
Azula was quiet.
“I’m unsure as to whether or not you remember me,” Piandao continued on, ignoring completely the fact that Azula hadn’t said anything. “I am Master Piandao. I taught your brother the art of the sword.”
That got a reaction out of Azula. “You… Zuzu?”
“Indeed,” Piandao said. “Master Toph and I brought you out of your cell. We are bringing you to safety.”
Azula let out a shuddering breath and then took another one in. Her voice was gravelly when she spoke. “Nowhere’s safe. It’s gone, now.”
“We’ll not know until we get there,” Piandao conceded. “However, perhaps it will be safe. Somewhere to rest and recover.”
“Resting is weak,” Azula said, and Toph had never heard anyone sound so tired in her life.
“Resting is a sign of strength,” Piandao countered. “Knowing your limits is important.” He paused. “It may be a good idea for you to rest right now. You seem drained.”
Azula must’ve been, because she didn’t argue. She shifted back into the earth tent a bit more, and Toph and Piandao stood there in silence for three minutes that stretched on forever, until finally Azula's breathing steadied with sleep once more.
“This is going to be easier than I thought,” Toph said once she was sure it was safe to. She kept a careful attention on the breathing and heartbeat of Azula, just ten feet away from her.
Piandao hummed. “Or harder,” he said, and Toph couldn’t find it within her to argue with that.
Dinner consisted of a piece of bread along with a few pieces of spiced jerky, both of which Piandao had purchased a good amount of in the town.
“Next time Princess Azula awakens, we should ensure she at least gets something to drink before sleeping once more,” Piandao said as he packed away the remaining food. “I would have hoped it possible this last time, but she didn’t seem to be in any state to do anything but rest.”
Toph nodded, her lips firmly pressed together. Her stomach churned, her head hurt, and her eyes stung for reasons that she couldn’t quite discern.
The next few days went by about the same. They would travel on foot, Azula passed out in Piandao’s arms, for as long as they could, until they stopped for the night. Sometimes they would stop by a town, sometimes they wouldn’t. It was always easier when they did.
One day, while Piandao was gone, Azula woke up again. She’d done so a few times, but it had, thankfully, been while Piandao was present. It was much harder to deal with her without him there.
“You’ve gotta eat,” Toph said firmly, bending a small slab of rock to push the bread even closer to Azula.
“Don’t presume what I need,” Azula said. Her voice lacked the bite it usually did in favor of sounding completely and utterly shattered. Still, it seemed she couldn’t help being contradictory.
“I can hear your stomach growling from over here,” Toph deadpanned. Azula made some sort of noise that was between a scoff and a whine.
Azula shifted so that she was turned away from Toph, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. Her shoulders moved erratically with her breathing.
Five long minutes passed before Azula shifted again, moved her hand, and plucked the bread into her grasp.
Toph turned her head so that Azula wouldn’t be able to see the triumphant grin on her face. While she would love to rub her victory in, she was sure that it would just result in a return to stage one. Piandao wouldn’t be happy to hear that Toph had gotten Azula to eat only to have her stop because of some minor bragging.
Toph bit her tongue and tapped her fingers against the ground instead.
The tiny argument they’d had must have drained all the energy from Azula, because she stayed silent as she finished eating, and as Piandao returned.
“I’m afraid we may have a problem,” he said.
“Yeah?” Toph asked, cocking an eyebrow. “What kind of problem?”
“The wanted poster kind,” he replied.
He didn’t pull out a piece of paper and wave it in front of her face as if she would know what it said, so she counted that as a win.
“So, what do we do?”
“The only thing we really can do is change our hair and hope that will be enough,” Piandao said.
Something grinded to a halt in Toph’s brain. She stewed over his last words for a long moment.
“Wait,” she said, “Are there… Are the posters of all of us?”
Piandao nodded. “They are.”
Her chest felt cold, her throat hurt, and Toph thought that she was going to throw up. For some reason, she’d convinced herself that there would only be posters of Azula. It made sense that there were ones of her and Piandao, as well. After all, she was pretty sure that they were traitors, technically. On the other hand, it was an aggressive reminder that she was against her friends, now. She was standing against everything that she had spent so long fighting for .
All for Azula .
(Azula, who was a bit younger than Katara was.)
(Azula, who’d had her bending ripped away from her.)
(Azula, who, at the end of the day, just wanted her dad to come and save her.)
Toph knew that she’d made the right choice.
That didn’t make it any easier.
“Okay,” Toph said, her voice strained. “What do we do, then?”
“I’ve taken my hair out of its topknot and tied it into a low ponytail,” Piandao said. “I was directly next to the posters and nobody recognized that it was I who was in them, so I believe it works well enough.” He paused. “It would be best if you changed your own hair as well, Master Toph. Perhaps taking it down?”
Toph scowled and shook her head. She hated having her hair down. Even in a ponytail, it was long enough that it irritated her. It was why she always wore it in a bun.
(Her mother had always loved how long her hair was. She’d brush her fingers through it and explain with words that Toph couldn’t quite understand exactly what it looked like. )
(It was the only reason she hadn’t cut it long ago.)
“Just cut it,” Toph said.
Piandao was silent for a long moment, and Toph’s scowl deepened.
“Are you going to do it, or should I just do it myself?”
Piandao sighed, his shoulders moving down a bit with it, before he said, “Very well. Are you positive?”
Toph dragged her hair from the bun, letting it fall and looping it back over her shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, get it over with.”
He did. He drew a smaller dagger that he had, stood behind Toph, and swiped through her hair in a single, clean motion. The hair fell to the ground, her feet letting her know the moment that it hit, and Toph almost stumbled as she realized how light her head felt. He’d sheared through the hair right below her ears. It turned inward, was a bit longer in the front from the angle he’d been at, and completely different from anything she’d ever felt before.
“Holy shit,” Toph muttered, her fingers coming up to clench at the impossibly short locks. “That’s fucking crazy.”
Piandao hummed, and she heard him sheath his dagger. “It’s much different from how it was before, at the very least.”
Toph yanked her bangs down over her eyes, the only thing remaining from her previous hairstyle giving just the tiniest bit of familiarity. “Hope so. It would suck if that was for nothing.” She nodded her head in Azula’s direction, who hadn’t moved a muscle since Piandao had returned. “What about her?”
“I can cut some of it off,” he said, “But it would be best if it was fixed by a professional.”
Toph didn’t know quite what Azula looked like, but apparently some servant had found chunks of hair, a pair of scissors, and a shattered mirror inside of the room in Ba Sing Se that Azula had claimed for her own before the war had ended. That was enough of an idea.
“So, what, we bring her into town?”
“Not this one,” Piandao said. “It would be best to be one where she won’t be recognized. Perhaps even one where the posters have not yet reached.” He shifted a bit, his head turning to face something surely in the distance, something that was too far for her to sense. “The Xinsui Mountains are just a few more miles west from here. It should only be about a day before we reach the first of the mountain villages. They take much longer to receive news than any in the plains do.”
Toph nodded. “All right, great.”
Azula had argued against getting her hair cut off, if her ramblings could fully be called arguing. Still, Piandao didn’t want to provoke her too much, and so they simply waited until she ran out of energy. As she sat there, her heartbeat slow but slightly erratic, the feeling of emptiness that her chi emitted as strong as ever, Toph kept careful watch ( heh ) of her while Piandao quickly worked to shear through as much of her hair as he could.
Toph didn’t know how effective it was, but Piandao declared it well enough, and they set off an hour later, as soon as Azula fell asleep. Taking full advantage of the few miles of plains they had to cross before they reached the mountains and the terrain turned too rough, Toph moved the earth beneath them, locking her and Piandao’s feet in rock before propelling them forward.
She dropped them right in front of the mountain path, and they began to walk, Toph focusing on making sure that she was ready for any stray boulders that might decide to try and crush them while they traveled.
Camping in a cave was not the worst, especially when she could feel whether there was anything dangerous inside. She picked a decent-sized, but empty, cave, one that didn’t connect into the extensive systems within the mountains that threatened to overwhelm her with their sheer number. Azula curled up in a corner of the cave as soon as she woke up, faced away from them. Toph bent a slab of rock down to curve over the fire pit and redirect the smoke outside. Piandao quietly sharpened his sword, and the only sounds were the shing of his blade and the crackling of the fire.
They made it to the mountain village, some place that Piandao said was called Shidai, in the early afternoon of the day after the next. Piandao mentioned that they’d skipped over the closest town in order to make it to Shidai, which apparently also housed a resort that he hoped would have professionals who could cut Azula’s hair.
It did.
“No questions asked,” said the head stylist of the resort when they approached her at her home. “If you’re willing to do it right now.”
“Of course,” Piandao nodded.
“Why no questions?” Toph asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m not working,” the stylist replied. “No reason to log it, no reason to ask questions.”
“So no one will know about this?” Piandao asked.
“Know about what?” The stylist shot back curtly. Piandao nodded, as if he was satisfied by that answer.
Azula was sat in the stylist’s chair when she finally spoke for the first time since arriving.
“I don’t want to get my hair cut,” she said, and her voice sounded hollow, as if she wasn’t quite in her body when she spoke.
“Apologies,” Piandao said, clearly making a conscious effort to not say Azula’s name. His heartbeat stayed steady regardless. “It is, for lack of a better word, a mess. It’ll be an immense improvement if it can be leveled out.”
Azula’s head fell to the side a bit, as if there had been strings holding it up that had just been cut. She said nothing more, and she didn’t argue as the stylist returned and went to work.
Toph stood waiting for an annoying amount of time, listening to the snip snip of the scissors and the quiet instructions that the stylist would occasionally murmur to Azula as she worked. Piandao stood still next to her, his back straight, his heartbeat and breathing as steady as ever.
“Finished,” the stylist said. Her head turned to face Piandao. “Rest of the payment, if you please?” It wasn’t much of a question.
“Of course,” Piandao said, bowing his head a bit. He left the room, following the stylist, and Toph moved toward Azula.
“You good?” She asked after a long silence.
Azula’s hand moved up toward her head, running her fingers through her hair. “It’s light.”
“Yeah,” Toph agreed, hyper aware of her own haircut once more. “It is. C’mon, the old man’s probably waiting for us.”
Azula didn’t argue, surprisingly, and followed Toph out. Piandao guided them to the market of the town, stating that he wanted the two of them to choose something to eat now that it was safer for them all to be out in the public eye.
As they moved through the stalls, Toph running her fingers over the contents of each bin that they passed, someone suddenly called out from the main square of Shidai, connected to the market by a rope bridge.
“ News! ” The voice exclaimed, their voice echoing through the canyons and over the chatter of the townsfolk. “ News fr’m the capital! ”
“ Get on with it, then! ” Someone else called out.
“ The Fire Lord’s been defeated! ” The first voice cried. “ His heir, too! The war’s over, we won! ”
There was a beat of silence, and then a roar of cheers bounced off of the stones. Azula stilled beside Toph, her breathing shallow and her heartbeat frantic. Piandao’s hand moved out and clasped Azula’s shoulder. Toph wasn’t sure if he meant to steady her or hold her back. She hoped Azula, through her crazed thoughts, would be able to recognize that crying out against this news would not be in any of their best interest at the moment.
Toph herself was rather shocked. She had known that the towns farther from Ba Sing Se and more difficult to access would receive news much slower, but she hadn’t realized that it would take so long for them to find out that the war had ended.
“When? When did it happ’n?” One of the vendors near them asked. His question was echoed by those around him.
“ ‘ver a week ago! ” The messenger replied. “ Durin’ the comet!”
The cheers erupted anew. Toph felt as people embraced one another, laughing, their heartbeats quick and light.
A woman near them began to cry, her shoulders shaking.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Piandao asked gently, his hand still resting on Azula’s shoulder.
“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “Yes, I… I don’ think I’ ev’r been bett’r. ‘t’s just…” Toph felt the woman’s breath shudder through her chest, her heart beating rapidly. “M’ husband, he… he died ‘n the war.” The woman swallowed audibly. “M’ son was only three. He… He’s got kids ‘f his own, now, and he doesn’... he doesn’ ev’n remember ‘is Papa.” She took in a gasping breath. “I just… Now I know ‘is death wasn’ f’r nothin’.”
Piandao was silent for a long moment before he said, “You must be a very strong woman, to guide your family through such a difficult time.”
The woman laughed. “Well, ain’t you a charmer?” The laughter tapered off quickly. “I don’ know if ‘m strong ‘r just stubborn, but it worked, didn’ it? And now it’s over.”
Piandao nodded. “Now it’s over.”
“Down with th’ Fire Nation,” the woman said, a sarcastic air in her voice. She raised her hand in the air for a moment. Somewhere nearby, another person raised their own hand.
“Down with th’ Fire Nation!” He exclaimed.
Another person picked up the cry, and soon it echoed around the walls of Shidai.
“ Down with th’ Fire Nation! Down with th’ Fire Nation! ”
Azula trembled just a bit, and now Toph was rather sure that Piandao’s hand was doing an immense amount of work steadying her.
Eventually, the cry morphed into people calling out praises to every possible thing they seemed to be able to think of.
“ Glory t’ Oma!”
“Glory t’ Shu!”
“Glory t’ th’ Earth Kingdom!”
“Glory t’ th’ Avatar!”
Toph felt her stomach churn. She knew for a fact how much Aang would hate hearing that. On the other hand, there was no way she could say that out loud. She could already imagine the questions. How would you know what the Avatar would say? Even if they were long gone by the time the wanted posters arrived at this town, the people would put two-and-two together, and then there would be a trail. Everyone would know exactly what way they had gone.
One thought to the way Azula muttered under her breath while she slept, the way she pleaded in her dreams for her father to help her, for her mother to love her, for her brother to come back, cemented in her mind all the reasons why they couldn’t have that.
And so, Toph stayed silent.
Wait and listen before striking .
She wasn’t planning on striking any time soon, but waiting and listening would certainly do her good regardless.
Toph was surprised at how long it took Piandao to drag them out of town. Despite everything, they still moved through the market, gathering up food for the next few days of travel. Azula numbly picked out some fresh, mountain-grown raspberries. Toph ended up just telling Piandao to grab her some pears. He took his sweet time moving through the rest of the stalls, people happy to hear the end of the war telling their horror stories of the Fire Nation to anyone who would listen standing at every one.
That night, as Azula slept and Piandao prepared to take first watch, Toph asked him why.
“I mean, she definitely wasn’t enjoying it,” Toph said, gesturing her head in Azula’s direction.
“No, she wasn’t,” Piandao affirmed with a nod of his head. “However, it was something that she needed to hear.”
Toph made a face. “What d’you mean?”
“Princess Azula has never been directly exposed to those hurt by the Fire Nation’s actions. At least, not those who are not actively battling her. She has never heard the stories of the everyday Earth Kingdom wife, son, daughter, mother, father. Those who have lost everything because of this war, and because of the actions of her family.” He paused. “It was important that she hear them.”
Toph nodded. “Yeah, that…” Her mind flicked to the way that Azula had wilted, supported only by Piandao’s steady hand. The way her heartbeat had stuttered, her breathing had shifted to that of someone with the wind knocked out of them. “That makes sense.”
Piandao hummed. “Get some sleep, Master Toph.”
She did.
When they were preparing to leave the next morning, Azula woke up as well. She sat against the wall of the cave, and Toph bet both of her hands that her eyes were watching them as carefully as possible.
“You planning on walking today or something?” Toph asked her as Piandao stomped on the remaining embers of the fire.
Azula said nothing, but got to her feet. It was clear that her balance was shaky at best. Toph slipped her pack over her shoulders as Piandao did the same for his own. The three of them began walking toward the cave entrance and slipped outside. Toph’s skin warmed quickly. It must have been a sunny day.
They walked through the roads and across the bridges that made up Shidai rather quietly. Things were just barely beginning to open up for the day. A few people in the streets called greetings to them, and one man offered to help Toph around the precarious steps carved into the side of a mountain to get to the next section of town. She was sure that Piandao would have to support Azula on the way across. She agreed through gritted teeth.
The man was steady, and she could tell through his heartbeat that he was telling the truth about wanting to help, so she was sure it was fine. She just hated having to accept help like that. She certainly didn’t need it. She could probably navigate those steps better than he could.
Still, most blind people weren’t able to see with their feet.
In fact, as far as both she and the entire world knew, there was only one.
One who really did not need people knowing her location.
So, she agreed, and clung to the arm of a stranger as he guided her along a path she could walk with her eyes closed.
(Obviously.)
They were on the outskirts of the town when Toph sensed footsteps approaching quickly.
“Someone’s coming,” she said. Piandao, his arm carefully supporting Azula, stopped, and moved her a bit in front of him, placing himself as a barrier between the person and her.
“Wait,” Toph said, narrowing her eyes. “I think it’s… the stylist. From yesterday.”
The person rounded a corner and Piandao nodded. “It is.”
“She’s carrying something.”
“She is.”
They stood there as the stylist stopped a few feet away.
“Can I help you with something?” Piandao asked, his voice rather light.
The woman shrugged, the movement a bit jerky with whatever she was carrying held in her arms. “You left these things at my house yesterday.”
Toph noticed that the woman spoke rather differently from the rest of the people of Shidai. Considering she worked at the resort, though, it made sense. She probably moved to the town for that job alone.
“Apologies, ma’am,” Piandao said carefully, “But those aren’t ours.”
“They are,” the stylist insisted. She placed a bag on the ground and then straightened. “And if they aren’t, then there’s no one who wants them, anyway.”
Piandao was quiet before saying, “Thank you, ma’am, for returning our things to us.” His head turned to Toph. “Could you carry that?”
Toph sighed as if it was a big struggle before bending down and scooping the bag into her arms. She slung the strap over her shoulder, it coming to rest at her side, unlike her other bag which rested on her back. “The things I do for you,” she said.
Piandao chuckled just a bit before turning to face the stylist once more. “Thank you again, ma’am.”
“Of course,” the stylist replied. She nodded firmly, her head moving with surprising purpose. “I wish you and your daughters good travels.”
For the first time in a long time, the steady pace of Piandao’s heart stuttered, skipping over a beat at the woman’s words. His mannerisms and attitude gave nothing away, though. Instead he said, “And we wish you well on whatever path life may take you down.”
The stylist snorted before turning on her heel and walking back into town as if nothing had happened at all.
Thirty minutes later, after walking in complete silence until that point, Toph asked, “So, are we gonna… talk about… that?”
“I was under the impression that there was nothing to talk about,” he replied. Azula was leaning just a bit onto him, but he gave nothing away as they walked. “Unless you believe there to be?”
“Nope,” Toph replied immediately, her jaw clenched and eyes prickling. “Not at all.”
The next town took only a day to get to, despite Piandao’s original estimate of nearly two. Even with the fact that she was walking rather slowly, having Azula moving on her own rather than being carried by Piandao definitely helped with maneuvering through the mountains. Piandao held tight to her shoulder to keep her steady as they moved, but the support seemed to take a bit of strain off of her, too.
“Where did you learn your stitching?” Piandao asked a woman at a stall in the next town’s market. “It doesn’t seem at all akin to this region’s.”
“I’m from a desert border town, actually,” the woman replied, her lack of mountain region accent clear. “Fire Nation destroyed our village. My sister moved here to live with her husband, so I packed my kids up and took ‘em here instead.”
“Why not Ba Sing Se?”
The woman sighed. “Our village was destroyed ‘round the same time the siege was going on. There was no way I was taking my babies there when it could fall any day.”
Piandao nodded. “Either way, your stitching is masterful.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, her voice a bit strained. Toph could feel her hands shaking behind the stall.
Piandao bought a cloak for each of them from her.
They finished their shopping, and Azula said nothing the entire time.
Some wealthy man in town had apparently seen Piandao’s sword strapped to his side and had wondered about how good he was, because he said that he had a possible way to make some more money, and that he would return to the cave before dark (not that Toph had any idea when that would be). Toph was left with Azula, still silent, and sat there awkwardly, focusing on a spider she could feel crawling along the cave walls.
Azula’s breathing was shallow, and she faced toward the ceiling, not moving.
“You comfortable over there?” Toph asked, not really looking for an answer.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Azula asked, “Why would they walk all the way here?”
“What?” Toph blinked, trying to process the question. “Who?”
“The woman in the market. And her family.” Azula paused. “Why would they walk all the way here? They could have lived in the colonies. Thousands do.”
“Maybe her kids were earthbenders,” Toph said. The spider had circled the same spot three times now, about five feet away and a little above her. “They would probably get taken away if they were.”
“They’d be fine,” Azula said, brushing off Toph’s words. “Hypotheticals.”
Toph thought for a long few seconds. “Why would they want to live somewhere that they can’t be free? That sounds like it would suck.” She hummed. “Plus, their home had been burned to the ground. ‘Destroyed,’ she said. It wasn’t just their home getting taken over. It was finding a new one. Why would they want to do it in territory controlled by someone else?”
Azula’s foot tapped against the stone rapidly, as if it was trying to keep up with the speed of her thoughts.
“It’s like…” Toph ran her tongue over her teeth, racking her brain for something to say. “It’s like if the Fire Nation was taken over by the Earth Kingdom.”
Azula scoffed. “As if it could be.”
“Hypotheticals,” Toph shot back, and Azula fell silent. “If it was, would you choose to live in a Fire Nation city taken over by Earth Kingdom people just because it was closer, or would you choose to seek out somewhere else in the Fire Nation where you could live freely among your people?”
Her parents’ lessons on how people work came in handy sometimes. Toph always preferred to be more aggressive in conversation, but she knew how to wait, and she knew how to listen, and she knew how to make other people do it, too.
Azula didn’t answer Toph’s question, but, then again, she didn’t really have to.
Two weeks and a day after they’d first left Ba Sing Se, they made it out of the mountain ranges. They managed to reach the next town before nightfall, and Piandao set them up in an inn for the night rather than having them camp. An extra cot was dragged into the room by the inn’s owner, and Azula slept in the back corner, Piandao by the door, and Toph against the left wall.
“We’ll be crossing the Gudao tomorrow,” Piandao said as he bolted the door.
The Gudao River was one of the main paths for water entering the West Lake from the Utuqaq Sea, the arctic sea that separated the Earth Kingdom from the Northern Water Tribe. The Gudao was a large river, being just over five miles wide, and, this close to the mountains, the water would be full of rocks and boulders that made the current rough and choppy. Coming from the arctic, it was bound to be cold, too.
“How?” Toph asked. “There a boat or something?”
Piandao shook his head. “The waters are far too dangerous around here.” It was nice to know that she was right, but it definitely made some things more difficult.
“What d’we do, then?”
“We’ll be taking the Gudaoi Bridge,” Piandao replied. Toph must have made a face, because he continued speaking a moment later. “You have no need to worry. It’s an earth bridge. An earthbender accompanies travelers, raising and lowering the bridge the whole way.
Toph scrunched her nose. “I could literally just do that for us.”
“How many earthbenders do you believe can?” Piandao asked.
“A lot,” Toph replied.
“Allow me to rephrase: How many earthbenders of your size do you believe can?”
Toph crossed her arms. He raised a good point. Toph was an exception when it came to earthbending. She was naturally skilled, of course, but if she had never run off and met the badgermoles, she never would have even been able to channel that power. She never would have learned to see , she never would have gotten to where she was.
She didn’t really want to wonder what she would be doing instead. How far would she have even progressed in her earthbending lessons? Would she have been allowed to?
Based on the way her parents acted, she wasn’t so sure.
“Fine,” Toph said. “Whatever. If the bridge people fuck up, though, I’m not just gonna sit back and let us all drown.”
She was sure Piandao was giving a smile to her as he said, “This is their job, Master Toph.” A beat. “And I would expect nothing less.”
Toph flipped him off, laid her head down, and tried to get some sleep.
The first public bridge crossing occurred two hours after dawn, but Piandao didn’t seem very keen on letting them get extra rest because of it.
“We still have a thirty minute walk to get to the bridge,” he explained as Toph groaned into her lumpy pillow. “And it would not do us any harm to peruse the market before we leave.”
Azula woke without much fuss, which almost made Toph feel gross inside, and the three of them set off a few minutes afterward.
Piandao purchased a few more of the mountain fruits, all preserved and meant to keep well for long distance traveling. They stopped for some sort of egg-on-bread meal for breakfast before heading off on the trail toward the beginning of the bridge.
There weren’t very many people crossing the bridge at this time, but still a good twenty people, including the earthbending guide and their own small group. Toph could feel what Piandao had meant when he said that the river was full of rocks. There were jagged stones pointing up at the sky and large boulders that formed small canyons between them littered across the riverbed. She could hear the way the water roared as it crashed against the rocks.
A bell rang.
A few feet away, a baby started crying. Toph grit her teeth, the whines grating on her ears.
“No need to cry, lil’ friend!” Laughed a new voice, coming from the same direction that a steady set of footsteps was. “Just lettin’ you all know it’s time to cross!”
The people around Toph didn’t shift with nerves. If she had to guess, they had all done this before. She wasn’t nervous, because her earthbending was there if she needed it. Piandao didn’t seem nervous, most likely because he was Piandao. Azula shifted around, but Toph didn’t think that it was from any sort of nerves on her part.
“Now, come along, friends, come along. Let’s all try to stick together now, hm?” The earthbending guide gestured toward the edge of the Gudao.
The group moved forward as one, Piandao’s hand carefully set on Azula’s shoulder.
“First crossin’ of the day is always the most fun,” the guide exclaimed. He stepped to the front of the group, set his foot down, and shoved his arm out straight, turning his hand so his palm faced the sky before clenching it into a fist. Slowly, his arm raised up, and Toph felt a small rumbling echoed by the vibrations in the earth as a slab of rock slowly rose up from the riverbed.
“Now, before we set out, you all understand that this trip is gonna be more dangerous than any of the ones later, right? The waters’re angrier when it’s early.”
The people around them nodded. It was clear that all of them were experienced in crossing this bridge.
Piandao nodded as well, and Toph along with him. Azula didn’t move, but Toph hadn’t expected her to. She didn’t argue, either way. That was something to be grateful for.
“All right, then!” The guide stepped back, waving his hand. “C’mon, c’mon, let’s get goin’.”
They all moved onto the newly-raised slab of rock. A wave crashed against the side of it and two men shifted more toward the middle of the platform. Toph could feel the biting cold of the spray of water.
The guide raised the next platform, the group moved forward, and the last platform was lowered back into the river, slotting neatly into the riverbed.
“Why d’you lower the platforms every time?” Toph asked the guide about a mile in. “Why not just make a full bridge instead of doing all this work?”
“Doin’ all this work is what gets me paid, lil’ miss,” the guide replied cheekily. “But it’s also ‘cause of the river. She doesn’t appreciate being contained. She’s merciful enough to let us cross like this. We don’t wanna disturb that peace.”
“You make this ‘peace’ sound fragile,” Piandao said. The guide chuckled.
“Oh, it is, friend, it is. We lose at least three guides a year to the Gudao. It’s a test, it is.”
“A test,” Piandao said carefully. The guide nodded. They moved onto the next platform he’d raised.
“Indeed. A test. Every month or so, the river’ll go after one of the guides and their group. She’ll put the guide to the test, let ‘em prove themselves. If they’re worthy of being one of her tamers, they’ll survive, and she’ll let ‘em and their group live. She’ll normally leave those guides alone for a good six months, too, before she might have ‘em prove themselves again.” Despite his words, the guide spoke fondly, and with the tiniest bit of reverence.
“Is the river alive?” Toph asked. The guide laughed brightly.
“What isn’t alive, lil’ miss?” Toph bit the tip of her tongue, and the guide bounced on the balls of his feet. “How ‘bout this? Look out there.” She felt as he raised his arm and pointed into the distance.
At something she couldn’t see.
“I’m blind,” Toph said bluntly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It would be best if she didn’t bring up the fact that she knew that he was pointing at something .
“Oh, spirits,” the guide said, his hand dropping. He paused, raised the next platform, and then continued. “Apologies, lil’ miss. I’d no clue.”
“It’s fine,” Toph said. “What were you talking about?”
“There’re two boulders a ways up from here,” the guide replied. “Both’ve got these gems in them that’re only shown when the rapids hit them a certain way. They’re the eyes of the Gudao. They’re how she sees each crossin’ who is guidin’ a group across. They’re how we know she’s always watchin’.”
Had Toph not lived the life she’d lived, she might not believe in the idea of a sentient river. One of her closest friends, though, was literally the bridge between the human and spirit world, the vessel for the Avatar Spirit, and the closest thing that the world had to a God living among men. Honestly, she would probably be more surprised if the guide had told her the river wasn’t alive.
“So she just lets you cross but sometimes tries to kill you?” Toph asked.
“She does far more than let us cross,” the guide said. “The Gudao protects us from the sea. Her mouth takes the brunt of the Utuqaq Sea’s might so its anger cannot reach us. She pulls the salt from her waters so that we may drink from them. She lets us plant along her shores and nourishes our crops. She lets us cross her waters rather than drowning us. Her only requests are that we not block the flow of her currents, and that we prove that those of us who attempt to tame her are worthy or doing so.”
He sounded rather defensive of the river. Toph hadn’t heard of many villages or people along her travels with her friends who had a specific spirit that they praised alongside the Great Spirits, but the guide’s words made sense. The Gudao River protected and helped them. Sure, the river killed them sometimes, but from what Toph knew of spirits, they all tended to do that. It made relative sense that they would praise the spirit that they felt they owed so much to.
Their group continued moving, one platform after another. Toph couldn’t see it, but she could hear the roar of the waters of the Gudao, the way that they crashed against the different rocks poking over the surface. The quick, whipping nature of the current sent vibrations through the ground as it shifted pebbles along the bottom of the river.
When they were around four miles across, Toph furrowed her brow and stopped her steps for a moment. There was a slow, steady rumbling below the riverbed. While the river was already trembling from the force of the water, this was different. She could almost feel the chi coursing through the small shakes.
There was a moment of still, and then Toph nearly fell to the ground as a tremendous quake occurred, something emerging from the riverbed, morphing in shape as it did, before it left the ground, escaping her senses. An enormous splash of water just a bit away broke out, drenching Toph and the rest of the group.
“Oh, spirits,” the guide breathed, his heart hammering in his chest. Piandao’s grip on Azula’s shoulder tightened. Toph could feel the way the other travelers, so calm before this, shook where they stood. “It’s Lady Gudao.”
Toph felt as the spirit’s base touched back down onto the rocks beneath the river’s surface.
“Does she normally come out for one of these things?” Toph called over the wind whipping up around them.
“No!” The guide replied. “Never! No one in livin’ memory’s ever seen her!”
“First time for everything,” Toph grit out.
“All right, everyone remain calm!” The guide exclaimed, doing his best to calm his breathing and regain control of the situation. “Lady Gudao has decided to test me this morning. I promise I’m goin’ to get you to shore, but you’ve gotta follow my lead. Got it?”
No one was able to respond before Lady Gudao raised her hand, someone screamed, and a wave of water swept over the group.
Toph jerked in place, her feet suddenly encased in an unpolished rock prison. The wave passed, and the rocks fell away. The guide lowered his hands, his shoulders trembling as he gasped for breath.
“Anyone lost? No? All right, we gotta go!”
The guide raised the next platform, and the group surged forward. Just as the last man was about to step onto the next platform, the spirit shifted her hand to the side, and the platform shattered . The guide gasped and stomped quickly, a small shock of rock shooting out and barely catching the falling man. Toph winced at the way his chest rattled as he fell against the rock. Another person moved forward, grabbed him, and pulled him up.
They continued.
Lady Gudao shattered platform after platform, often before all the people were all the way off.
When they only had about a half-mile left, Lady Gudao raised both hands. There was a beat of nothing , and then a shaking that grew from the center of the platform they were on.
“She’s breaking the-” Toph’s words were cut off by the platform breaking apart. Screams raised up around her, and she couldn’t feel the earth shifting, meaning the guide wasn’t doing anything to stop it.
She let out a quick groan, steeled her resolve, and stomped her foot down. This wasn’t her test , but she also wasn’t just going to let these people die. Plus, she didn’t feel like going through everything that she had just to die to a river spirit.
Toph, tilted back on the shifting, broken rock, shoved her foot down and twisted, reaching her hand out and grasping a mental hold on the rock of the riverbed below. A new platform shot up, molding around the shattered stones of the previous one, catching the falling people.
“Everyone here?” Toph called out, quickly counting the number of heartbeats she could feel. “Great, all right.” She turned to the guide, who was still shaking, his heart still beating so fast she worried it would pop out of his chest. “Listen, I know this is your test and all, dude, but I don’t really wanna die today, so I’m gonna take it from here, got it?”
“But-” The guide sputtered. “Lady Gudao, she’ll… she’ll be furious! No one would be able to stand her when she’s angry!”
“Yeah? Well…” Toph raised the next platform up, shoving people forward with a slab of rock as the spirit moved to flick her hand at their current platform. “She’s never dealt with me, now has she?”
Toph grinded her foot into the rock of the new platform as the one behind them splintered into dozens of pieces. “No one move!” She clenched her fists, pushed them out in front of her, and turned them in unison. Rock emerged to wrap around the feet of the people around her, tying them to the ground. She extended her stance, taking a long step and ending it in a hard stomp. The platform rumbled, and then Toph jerked her shoulder forward, causing the entire thing to move in the same direction.
“How are you doing that?” The guide asked, seeming to forget for a moment that there was an angry spirit trying to kill them.
“Questions later, please,” Toph replied, her jaw set.
Lady Gudao raised her hand and pushed it gently forward.
“Wave!” Someone cried. Toph raised her right hand, and a wall shot up, curved like a dome. The wave crashed against the rock, but Toph tightened her fist, and the wall held. She dropped it again, refocusing on moving their platform forward.
They were less than fifty feet from the shore when the rumbling in the platform started again. Instead of trying to hold the rock together against the might of a spirit, Toph pulled a platform forward from the shore itself.
“Everyone across!” She ordered, and footsteps erupted as the group surged forward. Toph leaped onto the platform, shoving the old one back into the ground before it could break apart and hit anyone with its shards. She stumbled onto the shore, pulled the final platform back in, and sat down, breathing heavily, freezing water dripping down her face.
She thought vaguely that with her shorter hair, she would dry faster than before. That was nice.
Lady Gudao faced their group, nodded her head, and then sank down, eventually disappearing into the riverbed. Her presence disappeared, and Toph let out a breath.
That would’ve been so much easier if Aang had been there.
“How… How did you do that?” The guide said as Piandao moved toward Toph and helped her up. “That… That earthbendin’ , it was…” He ran a hand through his hair. “How did you do that?”
“Practice,” Toph replied. “Plus, she did the same move for the same thing. Hand forward for waves, hand to the side to break the platforms, that kinda thing.”
“You said you were blind,” the guide said weakly.
“I am,” Toph said.
“Then how-”
“That’s none of you fucking business, now is it?”
“I just…” The guide let out a shaky breath. “I know it was my test, but… I wasn’t gonna be gettin’ us out of there, so… thanks, lil’ miss.”
“Yeah, yeah, no problem,” Toph said. She tilted her head to the side and squeezed some strands of her hair in her hand, letting some of the water drip out and onto the ground. “Everyone good?”
The group of people all nodded.
“Great, I-” Toph cut herself off. The swirling chi that had coursed through Lady Gudao had returned, near the bank of the river, just a few hundred feet away. The spirit’s figure appeared, then, the vibrations strong within the earth. A hand raised and gestured in Toph’s direction.
“The… The Lady Gudao would like to speak with you, I believe,” the guide said. “Do you need-”
“I got it,” Toph brushed him off. She glanced at Piandao. “I’ll be back soon. Hopefully.”
Piandao nodded, and a moment later Azula’s feet touched the ground again. Toph hadn’t even realized that Piandao had been carrying Azula on his back, but apparently he had. His hand rested on Azula’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said.
Toph gave him a nod of her own before turning toward the spirit. The figure shifted, the presence flickering in her seismic sense. She supposed that made sense. It was a spirit, afterall.
She stopped walking a few feet away from the edge of the shore, where it dropped off into the river. Toph twisted her hand to solidify the ground beneath her into a stronger rock, and then said, “Hey.”
“ Toph Beifong ,” the spirit said. Toph couldn’t tell quite where the spirit’s voice was coming from, but it certainly wasn’t just in front of her.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Toph said with a huff. “You wanna speak with me, right?”
“ Indeed ,” the spirit nodded, her head bowing low. “ You are not a guide, and yet you secured passage for you and your companions across my river. ”
“Yeah,” Toph said. “I did. Sorry about that, but I wasn’t really looking forward to dying this morning.”
“ It would not do for the Avatar’s earthbending master to perish in my waters, ” Lady Gudao said.
“Then why did you attack us?” Toph asked.
“ This guide was untested, ” Lady Gudao replied simply, as if that explained everything. “ I was not aware that you were among the group. ”
“Master Piandao and Princess Azula were there, too.”
Lady Gudao hummed. “ I know not of this Master, but the Fire Nation princess is familiar. ” She paused. “ I cannot sense her. ”
“You can’t sense her?” Toph asked, furrowing her brow.
“ I know not what she looks like, Toph Beifong, in the same way that I knew not what you did. I know your chi, though, as I know hers. I do not sense it .”
“Yeah, she…” Toph’s mouth was dry. She wet her lips. “She got her bending taken away. That might be it.”
There was a beat of silence. “ She what? ”
A pressure appeared in Toph’s mind. She winced, and the pressure faded.
“Aang took it from her, ‘cause she was hurting a lotta people with it,” Toph clarified. “That’s why Piandao and I are with her. We took her out of prison and are bringing her back to the Fire Nation.”
“ You are very noble, Toph Beifong, ” Lady Gudao said, her voice tense. “ Honorable .”
“I’m just doing what’s right,” Toph said.
“ As I said .” The spirit was quiet for a moment. “ The Avatar broke her connection? ”
“You mean took her bending? Yeah,” Toph nodded. “He did the same to the old Fire Lord.”
“ Fire Lord Ozai, ” Lady Gudao said. “ Yes, Lord Agni’s descendants are known to me. He has had his connection broken? ”
“Yep,” Toph confirmed. “After Aang stopped him from burning down the Earth Kingdom.”
There was another long silence before Lady Gudao said, “ That is acceptable. It was for balance. ” Her form flickered in Toph’s senses. “ How did the Avatar learn to bend energy? I do not know of any before him whom Lady Raava has granted that ability to. ”
“He said a giant lionturtle taught it to him,” Toph replied. She had no idea what in the fuck that meant, but she hadn’t really bothered to question it.
Surprisingly, it seemed that Lady Gudao did. She growled, and the earth rumbled for a moment beneath Toph’s feet.
“ A lionturtle ,” Lady Gudao ground out.
“Uh, yeah. You know them?”
“ All spirits know of the lionturtles, ” Lady Gudao said. “ They are the only things in this world completely removed from the jurisdiction of even the Great Spirits. ”
“You don’t sound like you like them very much,” Toph said carefully, her foot ready to twist and push herself away if she needed to.
“ Not many spirits do ,” Lady Gudao explained, shaking her head. Her voice was still strained, tight with anger. “ They tout themselves the keepers of balance in the world. They think themselves above the rules of nature simply because they are not enforced against them. They think themselves above the spirits that created the world they live in simply because they do not listen to Us. ”
“So… they don’t keep balance?” Toph asked.
“ They do ,” Lady Gudao said begrudgingly, “ But they do not do it properly. They bend energy, but energy is not meant to be bent by mortal hands. They change the paths within others because their own paths are changed, and they believe that it is the right way of things. ” She shook her head in disappointment. “ They are wrong. ”
“But it’s all right that Aang took Ozai’s bending?” Toph asked, rather confused at the spirit’s statements.
“ Defeating Fire Lord Ozai was necessary for balance, and if that was the only way, then things occurred the way they must. However, breaking Princess Azula’s connection was not necessary for balance. We spirits would have known if it was. It was an easier solution to a problem, but it was not the optimal one. ”
Toph let out a breath. “So, what… what’s going to happen to Aang, then?”
“ Nothing ,” Lady Gudao replied simply.
“Nothing?”
“ Nothing. He is the Avatar. Regardless of the choices he makes, there is nothing that the spirits will do to him as a result of them. He is The Bridge. The power of a Great Spirit flows through his veins. ”
“I… That doesn’t make much sense.”
“ No ,” Lady Gudao hummed. “ I suppose it wouldn’t .” She paused, but a tension hung in the air that Toph didn’t dare break herself. “ I grant you one request. ”
Toph blinked. “What?”
“ For surviving my waters, ” Lady Gudao said. “ You are not one of those who try to tame me, and so I cannot offer you protection. What is it that you would request instead? ”
Toph swallowed, her mind flickering through options. She wanted to consult Piandao on this, but she wasn’t sure if it would offend the spirit or not. Aang always did say that spirits were often rather testy. She could go over to talk to him and get this request taken away as a result. That wouldn’t be good.
Toph licked her lips and thought for a moment of the way Piandao rushed them along as they traveled, of the way they never stayed in one place for too long, for fear of being caught by whoever was surely following them by now.
“There are people after us,” Toph said. “Or, at least, there should be. They’re probably tracking us, so they’ll be here within a few days. They’ll have to cross then. Is there-”
“ I will slow them ,” Lady Gudao cut in. “ I cannot guarantee they will not find another way, but they will not find crossing over my river. Not here, nor anywhere from the Utuqaq Sea to the West Lake. For the distance that my waters reach, they will not be permitted to cross. ”
Toph bit down on her tongue for a moment. “What about…” She scrunched her nose. “There could be waterbenders… earthbenders…”
“ You speak as if they would be able to stop me, ” Lady Gudao said, sounding almost amused. “ I have claimed many an earthbender in my years, and no waterbender would be able to control my river were they working against me in the process .” A beat of silence. “ This is what you wish from me, Toph Beifong? ”
“Yeah,” Toph said, nodding. “They can’t… We need to get Azula to the Fire Nation. It’ll definitely be a lot easier if we don’t get captured along the way.”
Lady Gudao hummed. Her form, still flickering in Toph’s sense, shifted back further into the river. “ Then it shall be so ,” she said softly. “ Go, Toph Beifong. No one who wishes to cause you or your companions harm shall find safe passage across my river. You have my word. ”
Something in the earth rumbled beneath Toph’s feet: something purposeful and powerful. She nodded.
“Great. Thanks.”
Lady Gudao nodded and was still for another moment before she began to sink. Her form faded completely from Toph’s senses, and the current of the river, previously altered by the spirit’s presence, fell back into regularity.
Toph stood there for a moment more, bending her meteorite bracelet into a star shape, then into a ball, and then back again, before she turned on her heel and stomped back to where Piandao and Azula were waiting.
“Spirits take vows seriously,” Piandao said that night as they settled into an inn for the evening. “Deals, promises. If she gave you her word, then I believe that she can be trusted to keep it.”
Toph nodded. “That’s good.”
“Indeed,” Piandao said. “You made a good choice. Having the spirit of the Gudao River on our side is a major asset.”
“I wanted to talk to you about what I should ask for, but I didn’t know if she’d get pissed or not,” Toph said, shrugging.
“I likely would have said the same thing that you did,” Piandao replied. “It was wise not to try to speak with me. Spirits can be easily offended, especially ones that receive individual worship, such as Lady Gudao.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” Toph said.
Piandao hummed. “I suppose I am, though not experienced with spirits.” He sighed. “Rulers of nations tend to think rather similarly, though.”
Toph snorted. “Well, I hope this Fire Lord Zuko is different, then.”
“He will be,” Piandao said, conviction clear in his voice, his tone firm. “He is.”
“The more you say it, the more I believe it,” Toph said quietly.
Likely thanks to how certain of it Piandao himself sounded.
The next mountain range that they had to travel through, the Yuanlai Mountains, was made much easier by the fact that there was a valley path that cut directly through it. The mountains were older here, and smaller as a result, slowly sinking back into the earth over the centuries. Piandao gave some of the money that they had to a merchant in the room next door at the inn, and the next morning they were sitting on the back of his cart as the sun rose on the eastern horizon, heading through the mountain range.
That evening, Toph bent a rock tent in place for her, Piandao, and Azula, while the merchant and his partner slept soundly in their own tent forty feet away.
“Tell me more about the new Fire Lord,” Toph said.
“Zuko,” Piandao said.
“Zuko,” Toph repeated with a nod. She was lying back, her ankles propped up on a small slab of rock so that her feet dangled in the air. With her hands resting over her stomach, she couldn’t sense anything.
Piandao sighed from his spot in the tent, right near the entrance.
“He was certainly a storyteller in his own right,” Piandao said. “He would spend hours telling me about things that had happened since the last time we had spoken. He would do it during meals, or during training, or while we were walking through the gardens. It was almost impressive. He once retold the same story to me three times, one about the turtleducks in the palace pond. It was something along the lines of them almost looking like they were going to fight, or-”
“Dance.” Azula’s voice cut through the air, and Piandao’s fell away just as quickly. Toph put her feet down.
“My apologies, Princess Azula,” Piandao said, his heartbeat calm and slow, striking against the erratic nature of Azula’s. “What did you say?”
“They looked like they were going to dance,” Azula said, her voice raspy. “That’s what Zuzu said. He thought they were going to dance. Like the Ember Island Players.”
Piandao hummed. “Is that right? Well, it certainly has been a while since I heard that story.”
“Not much of a story,” Azula grumbled, more to herself than anyone else, it seemed, and then fell silent. Her heartbeat was still rapid.
Azula remained quiet, saying not a word more, and Toph raised her feet from where they had been sitting pressed into the ground.
Another five days brought them to the western edge of the Yuanlai Mountains, and one more after that to the port city of Mubeji, right in the middle of the Fire Nation colonies.
For what felt like the dozenth time, but was really only about the fourth, they found themselves back in another inn. Piandao paid for a room and, as soon as they’d all put their bags down, he departed once more, apparently heading out into the town to search for passage to the Fire Nation.
There was a tense quiet that settled over the room. Toph was sure Azula wouldn’t do anything irrational, especially not now that she was more lucid and could think a bit more clearly. So, she tried her luck.
“Your friends ditch you or something?”
Azula reacted with a full-body jerk, her heartbeat speeding up to be even faster than it had been before.
“ What? ” She hissed.
“Your friends,” Toph repeated dryly. “Did they ditch you or something? They weren’t with you in Ba Sing Se or anything.” She clicked her tongue. “What were their names? Mai and Ty Lo?”
“Mai and Ty Lee ,” Azula shot out, telling Toph information that she already knew.
“Yeah, them,” Toph said. “What happened to ‘em?”
Azula’s shoulders were shuddering, as were her breaths. “They were traitors,” she said, her voice so strained it sounded painful. “They got what traitors deserve.”
“So you imprisoned them,” Toph said. “Locked ‘em up and threw away the key.” She paused. “Or did you kill them?” She asked when Azula hadn’t said anything. “For being traitors? ”
“I didn’t kill them!” Azula exclaimed, as if it was out of the question that she would.
As if she hadn’t killed anyone before.
“How were they even traitors? Those two seemed so loyal it almost made me sick.”
“ Loyal ,” Azula snorted. “They were loyal . Loyal to the wrong thing .” She coughed, her body curling inward a bit. “They grew soft and weak . Too scared to do what was necessary. Too scared to do their duty , what they had to do .”
Toph scrunched her nose. “They didn’t want to hurt the Earth Kingdom. Was that it?”
Azula growled, an almost feral noise. “They were weak . They had to be taught a lesson, they had to learn what has to be done for the sake of what is right .”
“So you locked them up,” Toph said, raising an eyebrow. “You didn’t talk to them , you didn’t try to see things their way , you just locked them up when they didn’t agree with you anymore.”
Azula let out a shaky breath. “They had to be taught a lesson. They had to.”
Toph scoffed and leaned her head back against the wooden wall.
Maybe that was the best thing about Toph’s friends. All of them, in the end, listened to one another. Sure, some of them were stubborn, but they all cared about each other . They all respected one another, to the point that, even if they disagreed on something, they would be willing to hear each other out, to try and understand another point of view.
Well, maybe not every time , Toph thought bitterly, focused on the erratic beating of Azula’s heart.
Still, Toph and her friends had always worked the best when they worked together , listening to one another instead of having one person take the lead.
Things always ended out better that way.
“You know,” Toph said, breaking through the quiet once more, “You don’t have to hurt people to get what you want.”
Azula was silent, other than her raspy breathing, and Toph wondered if she had even heard her. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was stopped by Azula’s voice.
“Fear is the best motivator,” Azula replied. “When you control what someone fears, you control them.”
Toph didn’t believe that, because, in her time traveling, she had seen countless people, scared out of their minds, pick themselves back up, grab their weapon, and continue fighting anyway.
“Sure,” she said. “But it also means you don’t have any friends left at the end of the day.”
Azula made some sort of choking sound, something deep in her throat.
“I don’t need friends,” Azula said, her words surprisingly desperate. “Not when I control their fear.”
“All right,” Toph said. “But I’ve got one question: do you think that the Earth Kingdom wasn’t scared of you?”
“What?” Azula sounded almost confused at the question.
“Do you think that the Earth Kingdom wasn’t scared of you? Cause I know that they were fucking terrified . And yet, somehow, we beat your asses anyway.” She grinned widely. “Sounds like there’s something greater than fear out there, doesn’t it?”
Azula fell silent, and the door opened a moment later, Piandao stepping back into the room.
“We leave the day after tomorrow,” he said. “It’s late. Try to get some rest, and I’ll find us something to eat. We’ll prepare for the trip in the morning.”
He closed the door once more, and Toph felt as his footsteps moved down the corridor.
She flicked her attention back over to Azula, still silent in her corner.
Despite her shaking, for the first time since their journey started, Azula’s heartbeat was steady, as if something within her had settled.
As if something had locked into place.
As if something finally made sense .
Toph sighed, leaning forward and bending her bracelet again, feeling as the material shifted from one shape into another, changing the same way the tides of the war did, the same way the waters of the Gudao did, and, maybe, the same way that Azula one day would, as well.
(Hundreds of miles away, three pieces of a broken family grasped hands and watched as another group of warriors set off to chase after their missing part.
(With tears burning their eyes and aches in their hearts, they wondered as one when the change in the world stopped being all for the better.)