"I told you, you might as well be totally blind on the left side. When are you going to stop pretending that eye works?" Toph extended her sweaty hand downwards.

Zuko reluctantly grasped it and accepted the help up. He'd hit the ground a lot today. "It works fine."

"Can you prove that?" Toph grinned and backed a couple steps away from him, stretching her arms one at a time. "I'm winning every round, so I think I might be right, buddy. Might be the better judge of what's going on, pal."

The house they were renting for a few weeks was in the wilderness outside of Yu Dao. Their official tour of the town as Firelord and his Lady had ended that morning, when the ship back to the Fire Nation left, taking their very official servants and stewards and allies back to the palace. As far as anyone outside their private circle knew, they were on the ship, too, headed back to the Fire Nation to rule side by side.

But actually, they were dicking around for a couple of weeks first. Literally, Toph hoped.

They'd found their house around lunchtime, and Toph immediately discovered that it had an atrium layout: walls and rooms all around, and a big courtyard in the center. It was perfect for sparring.

"We should take a break," said Zuko. "We haven't even seen the rest of the place."

"I've seen as much as I'm gonna see, Sparky. Besides, a break?" Toph grinned, punching her open palm. "How about you earn it? Fight me, bitch."

"Do I have to be your punching bag?" Zuko sighed, getting back into his firebending stance. "Don't you have students for this?"

"It's not as much fun to beat them up. They're actually good."

Zuko groaned.

"It's in both our interests to brush up on our skills, anyway," Toph added more seriously, straightening up and feeling around her pockets for a handkerchief or bandage. She found one, and circled around behind Zuko. "We've been having a lot of reckless sex. You better be prepared to keep a kid safe in the next a year or two."

She felt his heartbeat go crazy when she mentioned having children with him. Since she was standing behind him, she felt free to smile. He was adorable sometimes.

"I'll be ready," he said.

"You'll have to prove it to me." Reaching up, she tied the cloth around his head, making sure it covered both of his eyes. Her fingers lingered on his face, especially when she felt his heartbeat accelerate in a different way. "Well, that's interesting," she smirked, running her hand down his cheek and the side of his neck. "First, let's work on your weak left defense."

"Wait-you can't seriously expect me to fight without seeing. I'm not an earthbender."

"You are gonna fight with it on," she laughed. "Why else would I blindfold you?" Touching his face lightly, she could tell he was blushing from the particular way the heat was distributed. Ha. " We're not going to start out full-force." She pulled away and positioned herself a couple steps in front of him, sinking into her own unconventional stance. "This is a training exercise. Don't firebend. We'll go hand-to-hand."

Without using the earth for anything but sight, Toph was on the defensive. She hadn't quite forgotten how fast and skilled Zuko was with a sword, but she didn't think it would translate so well into hand-to-hand sparring, and she definitely didn't think he'd kept up with his training while stressing out about diplomacy and assassins and paperwork. But when his first move was, ironically, lightning-fast, she barely sidestepped his fist.

"Good," she said breathlessly, taking up a shorter defensive stance, which would allow her to move a little more quickly. "Follow my voice." Another strike; another. "Follow my footsteps." He still favored his right side, but that was probably habit and muscle memory working against him.

She'd picked up a few tricks observing Aang, and she stepped lightly, watching Zuko's attacks grow more confused when she stopped speaking as often. "Alright, stop." They both straightened, but when he tried to take the blindfold off, she smacked his hand.

"Here's what I want you to do: follow the 'hollow' part of the sound. The walls around us echo, but where I'm standing, it'll be dampened, because I'm blocking the sound from coming back to you. Swing your head from side to side. Get the full scope of what you're hearing." She paused for a long moment, letting both of them listen closely to the ambient noise of their temporary home: birds chirping, the wind rustling the leaves of trees, animals skittering in the grass, the old wind chimes hung in the corner of the courtyard. "Use all of your senses. I probably smell pretty bad, for example."

He exhaled hard, about as close as he ever got to laughing.

"Put everything together into one big picture. Visualize. Then attack. Again." She backed up, and they began another round. He was still quick, but more measured this time. She positioned herself silently between him and the wind chimes; he paused, and found her, and she grinned, although no one would see it. His childhood had left him convinced that he was a dunce, but he was a respectably quick learner, Toph reflected. She'd taught many who were worse.

She led him on a merry chase all around the courtyard. One corner was lined with gravel, and Toph wondered if he'd noticed it. She had, of course, while doing a sweep of the place, but it might not be as obvious to someone who had saw with their eyes and not the earth. She leapt back onto it, reveling in the crunch beneath her feet. She didn't even bother to use earthbending to dampen the sound.

Zuko leapt forward to follow her, then yelped.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Are your tender baby feet having trouble?"

"No," he said, sullen. "I'm fine."

They zigzagged back towards the other side of the atrium, over dirt and a little grass, and one particularly big decorative boulder.

After forty minutes of practice, she was covered in sweat, and he probably was, too. "Ni-" she started.

His hand darted out towards her voice; Zuko caught her forearm and sunk low to the ground, sweeping her feet out from under her. She hit the earth with a thud that drove all the air out of her lungs, his body poised above hers.

"-ce work," she finished, when she got her breath back.

"Are we done for the day?" he asked, in entirely the wrong tone for sparring.

"If you want." Being under him changed her tone, too. Reaching out, she ran her hand down his chest. It was slick and wet. Well, now she was, too.

"Do you want me to keep the blindfold on?"

That was a new twist. "You trust me?" She raised her hand to cup the side of his face, her thumb swiping sweat away from his cheek.

"You trust me when you can't see."

"Yeah," she admitted, and smiled. "But you're not very good at being blind, and I'm not very good at being nice."

"We'll practice," he said.