Zuko was pacing up and down the stairs. He nervously looked at the gates every minute or so, while Iroh, who was calmly seated on the ground, sipping his tea, looked at his nephew.
"Don't worry, Zuko, she will come. Why don't you sit down here with me, and have some tea." He raised his cup to his nose, savoring its aroma before taking another sip. "It's a new one, a special brew from the Jasmine Dragon."
"Not now, Uncle." Iroh smiled at his abrupt response. But after thinking about it, he might have come off as rude. "I'll have it later."
As if his prayers were answered, the palace gates opened, revealing a parade of green walking down the steps. There were maids and guards all dressed and decorated in Earth Kingdom garb. He saw a figure beneath the curtains of the palanquin situated at the heart of the formation, and felt a sudden shake go through his body.
It had been years since she had last visited the palace. The last time she did, she was almost forcefully kicked out by its own firelord for setting his courtyard on fire, which she believed wasn't her fault as she couldn't have induced the fire because of the single fact that she can't firebend, which he had rebuked by saying that maybe fires didn't only happen through firebending, but by a girl who was throwing rocks soaked in oil and lit by torches, screaming that everyone bow down to the 'melon lord'.
And the year before that, she'd sent the whole palace staff in frenzy when she sent the pavilions crashing down in a way Zuko thought only dominoes can. The last one had crashed into the royal temple, angering the Fire sages.
Yes, Zuko was shaking when he saw her entourage go through the palace gates, but whether or not it was from excitement or fear was something he really couldn't tell.
Toph stepped out the palanquin with as much grace as a kangadeer being chased down by a mooselion. As soon as she was out, she immediately ran for Iroh who was now patting his robes, and hugged him.
"It's so good to see you, old friend." Iroh chuckled. "You've gotten taller!"
"And the same to you, except I believe you've gotten taller sideways!" She had meant no offense at that part, and was glad that Iroh could take a joke. She ran towards Zuko next and punched him in the shoulder, eliciting a groan as he mouthed 'Really?'
"A few more of those hits and I think you'd actually have a chance of dislodging my arm, Toph." He rubbed the bruised part. Even if he hadn't seen it, he was sure that by the end of the day, it would still be there. She sure has grown, but her brute personality and strength still stayed with her, even intensifying. She's gotten prettier, too, but he'd probably die before he could say that.
"Quit whining, Princess-"
"Firelord."
"Firelady." She rolled her eyes. "Anyways, where's the fun at? I can't wait to get started!"
At the word 'fun' shivers immediately ran through Zuko's back, and more so through the maids in waiting. Everyone knew what Toph's definition of fun was, and it was definitely not tea parties and late night shopping. Toph was about to go into a stance, but was stopped by Iroh who had placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Actually we have something we need to discuss with you first." He said. "Let's go inside."
She was feeling a little bit, just a little bit, guilty when she ran off like that, leaving Zuko alone at the conference. Well, Iroh was there, but he was busy attending to the other guests to notice the young girl walking away, slipping beneath the shadows. Had she known that the invitation was for a stupid conference, some sort of gathering for the rich and famous, she would have never went in the first place.
"Such a pretty face, too bad her eyes are like that."
"I know, right? It's kind of creepy. I can't seem to stare for more than like, a few seconds."
"She would have been the perfect heroine. How sad."
She grit her teeth in annoyance. Iroh had told her that the conference was unexpected. They had forgotten that it was supposed to be the annual meet. She cursed the heavens for the perfect timing.
Maybe she shouldn't have left, but she just couldn't stand it all, not when she could sense the lies beneath the grounds, reverberating off her feet, in tenths and in hundreds. It made her sick. If she stuck around even longer, she would have passed out, or even better, probably puked on some poor girl's dress. However, that would be for worse, in Zuko's case. So, she decided to save his face and slip through the door, unnoticed, invisible.
She wandered aimlessly through the halls. The palace has changed, definitely, after her little fiasco with the flying boulders, and her pavilion dominoes. But it has changed even before that. After Zuko became firelord, he had been changing the palaces' interior, even adding a shrine dedicated to the past avatars.
Walking around, she found herself in a room she'd never been before. Its door was open, so she must have walked in by accident. It was a huge place, like a mini throne room. There were pillars at the side, but the amount of dust in the air and ground told her it had long since been abandoned. Though, she wasn't that far from the main hall.
She stopped walking when she found herself standing in front of something that she couldn't sense. It was something that wouldn't return her vibrations.
She studied her face in the mirror.
If only she could.
She sighed. What the hell was she doing? The thought hadn't crossed her mind, but somehow she had found herself standing in front of the glass, her hand touching its cold, smooth surface. She stood there for a few seconds, not entirely sure of what to do, then thought better and decided that she should probably get going. She still had a few more things she was supposed to do, and moping around definitely wasn't going to help lessen the workload. She figured she could probably plan her little pity party later on when things got better.
"Toph, what are you doing?" A male voice resounded throughout the room. She was caught by surprise, quickly sensing the vibrations in the ground, recognizing it to belong to a certain male Firebender.
Zuko.
How had she not noticed he was there? Crud, this wasn't the time for her senses to be dulling. Wait, why was he even there? Could he have abandoned the conference? She felt even guiltier at this, but she couldn't apologize now, not when the situation she was in was so awkward. She quickly thought of something smart to say.
"Nothing." She quickly took her hand away from the cold surface of the mirror. "I'm just… admiring the view, you know, the beautiful girl I see."
She said it as if it was a joke, like she didn't believe in her own words. He grew even more confused. What was she doing in this place? He thought that he had already locked the place down. After all, it was Azula's room. His eyes quickly scanned the mirror, noticing the cracks that almost threatened to cut the younger girl when she placed her hand not too far from it.
"Toph, you can't sense vibrations that pass through mirrors."
"I know, doofus." She said as a matter-of-factly, slightly offended that he dared try to correct her, of all people. She thought better than to take the offense into light, though, as getting out of the sticky position was the first on her list of things to do. "But… I'm assuming that if I could see, then I would see a beautiful girl staring straight back at me. Get my point?"
"Right…"
"And you don't believe me."
"Well, I should say, that wasn't very convincing."
"Well, I wasn't really trying to convince-" She groaned. "I'm gonna go."
"Wait, Toph-" Zuko began to say, but before he could even finish, she had already stormed out the room. He stood where she once was, looking through the glass, staring at it. Many years ago, he would have smashed the mirror into pieces at the sight of his scar. He would have seen a boy that had grown too quickly, that had seen too many gruesome things, and who was weighed down by the weight of his burdens. Now, he only saw the boy who had grown, who had gone through hell and lived to tell the tale. He saw, and wondered, what did she see?
He chased Toph down the hall. She couldn't have gone very far yet. He had spent a good deal running around when he felt the ground beneath him shake. He ran to the gardens, where the shaking was at its greatest, and saw the young earthbender moving rocks left and right. The ground shook beneath her feet, and with each pound and different stance, the grounds changed form. He guessed his gardener would probably cry at the sight of her work the next morning.
She stopped moving when he made his way towards her.
"Ah, sparky, I've been expecting you." She looked straight into his shoulder, probably expecting it to be his eyes, but he thought better than to comment on that. She seemed to have calmed down, probably having shaken off whatever heavy feeling was bothering her earlier through Earthbending, and he didn't want to change that.
"You have?"
"Yes, well, watching you run around like a mad man across the grounds was definitely interesting. But I figured you could probably use some help." She earthbended a rock over to her side. Zuko winced as she slammed it down, creating a huge crater in the middle of the garden. She sat, and proceeded on picking her toenails. "So, what do you want? Want to make a reenactment of the last time I was here, or the year before that? We have a lot to choose from, really."
He remembered what had happened the years before. Yes, he could definitely remember the screaming palace maids and guards, running for water and safety, and complete and utter chaos. He shrugged. "Nah, maybe not this time. Why don't we talk? We haven't really gotten the chance to all night."
"Yeah, well, if you didn't have all those buttkissers and goldiggers following you all the time, we might have had." Zuko inwardly laughed at how she had chosen to call the politicans and nobility of the kingdom. They'd probably demand for her head if they knew how she had spoken about them to their firelord. "This sucks. I came here for fun. I've been busy with the academy, you know? I came here to relax. When I got Iroh's letter saying I should come visit, I was expecting to spar and make your staff run for their lives. You probably planned all this to make the situation better, firelord mingling with Earth Kingdom ambassadors, a bright future ahead of us! You know, to be honest, I wasn't expecting to be all dressed up for some fancy party, for diplomatic reasons." She rolled the words in her tongue, making it seem as if it left a bad aftertaste in her mouth. It wasn't bad, actually, it was for a good cause, but all she could feel was disgust from how the higher-class treated the conference as some big marrying off party, nobility trying to win other nobility.
"You know that's not true." Zuko said, taking his seat at the ground beside her rock. He decided to face the pond, looking at the turtleducks just coming out of their hiding place. Poor things, they were probably frightened off by the sudden earthquake. He smiled as they formed a line, swimming off.
"Oh, I know it's true. As someone who has been witnessing things from the sidelines, I know very well when someone is genuinely interested to get in your pants, or when they they're trying to do so to get the gold out your pockets."
"No, Toph…" He grit his teeth in embarrassment. He couldn't believe to be hearing such crude words from a girl of eighteen years, but this was Toph he was talking to, he should have expected that. "I didn't mean that…"
"Then, what did you mean…"
"I meant that you're wrong about the letter. Diplomatic reasons or not, you're always welcome here. As we said, you just happened to arrive and we happened to forget that today was the meet. Uncle was missing you a lot, since, well, since you set the courtyard on fire…" He paused. "… which by the way, is still your fault."
"I couldn't have possibly-"
"And I stand by my previous argument."
"Fine." She scoffed. "Is that all you have to say, about the burning courtyard?"
"No, I wasn't finished." He coughed, and then continued. He stared at the turtleducks as he spoke. Toph might have noticed, since although she couldn't see, she was staring at the same direction he was. "And you can't blame Uncle on that letter. I was the one who told him to write it, although he was already planning it in the beginning. He probably wanted to get my permission to send it out since he didn't want to invite you and possibly have you kicked out again, him included so-"
"Wait, wait, wait…" Toph interrupted.
"What?"
Did he just say… that the letter was his idea?
"So, what you're saying is…" She drawled.
"What I'm saying is what?"
"…."
"Toph?"
"… that you miss me?"
There was a silence between them. He watched as the turtleducks happily splashed in the water. His face had gone blank as Toph cornered him with the sudden question. He took a deep breath. What would Aang say, he wondered. Something nature-y and out of the topic, probably.
"Well, yes, of course I miss you." He admitted. "Like I miss Aang, Katara, and the others. The whole gang. I miss them, yeah, I sure do."
"So," She grinned. "Why didn't you invite them?"
He was struggling, she could feel it. She didn't know why she was taunting him like this, or why she even wanted to know the answer. There were a lot of times, well most of the time, where she mocked the firelord, but this time, she felt that it was different.
She jumped down from rock that she had been sitting on, and strode to where Zuko was sitting, which wasn't very far off. She loomed over him, and the more that she did, the more he felt like shrinking. He stared at her. Illuminated by only the moonlight, her skin gave off a radiant glow that he didn't know she possessed. Her hair swayed in the air, locks falling off the bun that had probably taken the hairdresser hours to put up.
Toph felt his heartbeat calm. When she had cornered him earlier, it beat erratically, out of order. But ever since she stared at him, well, if she was even staring at him, and not anywhere but him, he seemed to relax.
"Alright, you win." He smiled. She couldn't see him smile, but the warmth in his voice was enough proof that he did. "I did miss you."
She grinned, the same grin that she had always had, that pearly white and toothy grin that she was known for. The girl, no, the woman he had seen touching the mirror was different. The woman who had looked into the mirror, who touched it, with a longing that made his heart ache. When she tried to see herself through the mirrors, who did she see? What did she see? He wondered at the infinite possibilities, and figured, he'd probably never know.
And she would never know.
"You're beautiful, Toph." Before thinking, he had blurted out those lines. Toph's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden declaration.
"Excuse me?"
He figured he's already sunk too deep to climb his way out, so he might as well go with it. "I know you'll never know what you'll see in the mirror." Her face soured at the mention of the item, and was about to comment on it, but was stopped shortly after Zuko spoke. "But if you ask me, all I see is a girl who has blossomed into a beautiful woman."
She snorted. "Now, sparky, you're starting to sound like your uncle."
He shrugged off the remark and went ahead.
"I've known you since we were practically just kids sparring in the mud, just kids tasked with a heavy duty to our nation. I've seen you through the years, how you've grown, and I can tell you that you've grown beautifully. Your beauty doesn't stop at the outside either. You are kind and intelligent. You are the epitome of someone who has grown in love and friendship, and someone who has known hardship, but has never given up." He took a long lingering look at her confused face. "You don't need a mirror to tell you how beautiful you are, Toph."
For a while, they were silent. Zuko remained silent because he had stayed true to his element, immediately jumping into the fire at the heat of the moment, and now he didn't know what exactly he should do. Toph, on the other hand, looked off into the distance. She was still looming over him, but her gaze was not to him, but rather, she stared blankly across the distance, trying to comprehend the sudden complement… or was that a confession? Was Zuko confessing? She didn't know.
For the first time, in a long while, the great and mighty Toph Bei Fong was speechless.
"Uh…" she broke of the silence. Her head bowed down, Zuko couldn't see her face. Without noticing it, Toph felt as tears began crashing down her face. She immediately covered her face with her hands as a reflex.
"Toph, are you ok?" Zuko stood from where he sat, taking her shoulders in his hands. Did he do something wrong?
"Uh, I- no, oh Agni…" She stuttered. Her chest suddenly felt full, as if someone had filled it up with air. She felt as though she couldn't breathe. Slowly taking into her mind what Zuko had said, her head had burst from the emotion that suddenly engulfed her.
What Zuko had said, everything that he had told her, felt like a breath of relief to her. She didn't know, not until she had it, how much she needed that reassurance. Yes, she was strong and she was powerful, but in the eyes of someone, she'd never known how she'd come off as. Sure, she might say she didn't need to know or care about how other people saw her, but it still affected her to some extent how she'd never be able to see, for her own eyes, how she'd grown.
And it was him, this dolt of a man, who had given her that reassurance. It was him, who had almost thrown her out the window of the palace when she almost destroyed the whole thing, who said she was kind and intelligent. Him, who would have spat in disgust when they were younger after seeing her bathe herself in mud, who told her she was beautiful. It was him, Zuko, who'd told her she'd grown up in the way that she'd always hoped to be.
She didn't need mirrors, he said, to know how beautiful she was.
She crashed to the ground, sobbing and laughing. She wondered when her heart would ever stop expanding, or whether she'd die from a chest explosion. She felt nothing but joy, and she hadn't felt this way for years, not when her troubles plagued her and when her responsibilities kept on piling up. She had no time to meet her friends. No time for having fun. No time to feel like she was loved in any way other than overprotective parental guidance or friendship.
She felt Zuko kneel beside her, holding her when she hadn't moved for a while as she gathered her thoughts together. She held his hands and said, "You know what, since it's taking such a long time for you to say it, how about I just say it for you?"
Zuko blinked, not sure where this was headed, but went along with it anyway. Too many things had happened that night already- his unexpected declaration, Toph breaking down, and her crying (which was still not a common occurrence). He looked down at her, who was resting in his lap and smiling.
"Alright, and that is?"
"That I love you."
His heart seemed to stop beating then and there.
"And if you lie," she continued. "I can tell, so hurry up and tell me I'm right already."
Zuko felt himself get trapped in a sticky situation. He felt as if he was holding the very woman who could either be his rise or downfall. A previously exiled firenation prince turned firelord, and a noble runaway. It would be the wedding of the century!
"Already thinking about wedding plans, sparky?"
"And how do you know if I'm even thinking that?"
"Well, from what I'm getting from your heartbeat patterns, you seem awfully happy." She sat up, now fully seated on his lap, finally getting her position right when she happened to look at him straight in his eyes. Slowly, she closed the distance between them, feeling electricity fly in the air.
He looked into her eyes, that pretty pale jade color that always seemed to captivate him staring right back. When she unconsciously closed her eyes, she felt his lips upon them. He smiled, and with a whisper, just before she would know how it felt to smile beneath the warmth of someone else's kiss, he told her she was right.
A/N: So, hello! This is (not) my first fanfic, but my last one was really horrible so I've decided to make a new one, and boy am I glad that I did! I've just started making fanfics because I got very tired of waiting for new ones to pop up (Toko is not the most popular pairings out there), so this is one of my first few. I hope I did well and I hope you enjoyed it. I, myself, feel that this is still very unpolished but for now, I'll leave it be.
Happy new year!