*whud* The man in fire-nation red garb struck the clay wall of the tavern and slid down slowly. All about his fellows lay sprawled on the floor. Standing in the eye of the carnage was a small girl with vacant white eyes. Her green and yellow clothes were enough to identify her as earth-nation, even if one overlooked the jutting barbs of earth that rose up from the tavern floor. Her lips curled into a sardonic smirk, and after nothing but moans arose form the men around her she asked, "That the best you got?"

"Little Girl…" *thwack* the man who had begun was silenced by a spar of stone rising up to snap him in the chin. As he tumbled back the girl pointed accusingly and shouted.

"I'm not little, I'm just short okay? I'm *eighteen* already!" The girl stomped her foot and the whole Tavern shoot on its foundations. She crossed her arms and fought to kepe her bottom lip from jutting into a pout.

"We… We know who you are Toph Bei Fong." The wizened tavern owner peered over his counter, "We know all about you. Please, you have defeated all the warriors here, please leave my tavern."

"Yeah yeah…" Toph waves a hand back over one shoulder as she headed for the door, "Just cause you all are wussies don't be blaming me."

"Tiyashi…" the man who had paid for calling Toph little moaned out the word like a curse.

"What… you still got some fight in you?" Toph turned a bored glance back over her shoulder.

The man coughed and pushed himself up onto his hands, staring up at Toph through fallen bangs, "Tiyashi…. Go there… and you'll meet your match."

The hate-filled glare was common enough, but the man's level voice was counter to the usual bile of the defeated. Toph flexed her toes against the earthen floor. "Yeah right."

A all chunk of the stone wall detached itself and bounced off the man's head as Toph continued out the door.

"Finished?" a bored and long-suffering voice asked from beside the doorway as Toph stepped out into the evening air.

"Pshh, they didn't even warrant breaking a sweat.. I mean.. the tavern's still standing!" Toph felt the figure beside her rise through the shifting of his feet.

"When're you gonna get bored of this Toph? I mean, beating up washed up Fire nation holdouts seems… so pointless."

"You didn't HAVE to tag along Haru." Toph accused, poking out a finger at roughly the older man's chest, "In fact, I don't think I remember inviting you."

Haru took a cleansing breath and let it out in a sigh before shouldering their collective knapsack, "You know why I'm here. Your parents offered good money, I just figured traveling with you would be a lot more polite than trying to trail you like a shadow." Haru raised his gaze to the faint stars,"They mean well, you know? You don't know how lucky you are to have parents to be overprotective."

Toph set her jaw and punched Haru in the arm,"Yeah.. whatever." The short earth bender stepped lively, making Haru trot to catch up after rubbing feeling back into his arm.

"Where are we going?"

"Some town called Taiyashi. You're the one with the map, which way is it?"

Haru fumbled with his bag, not thinking of asking his shorter companions to slow down. He managed to get the map out, creasing it only once more across its allready battered form. "Umm.." he said, trying to read and walk at the same time,"It's.. back the other way Toph.."

"Ugh!" Toph threw up her hands,"Why does everythign in this stupid country have to be so stupidly made and why do all the people have to be so incredibly stupid about accepting the avatar?" She turned on her heel and stalked back the way she'd come. Small stones along the trail bounced and shook in sympathy with her unspent emotion.

Haru blinked after her, then jogged once more, stuffing the map back in the bag and biting his lip, now was a bad time to bring it up it seemed but there wasn't really any time left, "Toph…are we going this year?"

Toph stopped short, so fast that Haru almost ran over her,"Going?"

Her voice dripped so much tied up venom that Haru winced, but foraged on bravely, "Going to the reunion. It's five years tomorrow."

The sound of the cricketbeatles was the only thing in the are for several moments. Haru barely dared to breath, wondering if this was the day he saw the barely contained shambles of his companion finally go to pieces.

When she spoke Toph's voice was filled with the kind of nonchalance that can only be forced,"Oh, it'll probably just be stupid old Zuko and twinkle toes again. Maybe when Aang shows up I'll go… or something." Toph finished with an idle wave over her shoulder, dismissing the topic altogether. Without another word she continued on, and Haru gave up, trotting along beside her.

***

"So, it's just us again then?"

"Looks like it."

A scarred man stood quietly on a wide balcony. The sun shone down, plainly revealing the burned flesh down the left side of his face. It clashed sharply with his well-manicured appearance. A high mandarin collar famed his face and the long robes of state fit him well. In his topknot sat the eternal flame that marked him out as the Fire Lord. Fire Lord Zuko, ruler of the Fire Nation, the Great Reconciler as he was known.

Another man stepped onto the balcony from the shadows of the room beyond. He was clad in the soft blues of the water tribe, and the blue and white beads of his people clicked lightly as he moved, twined as they were in the thin braids that fell to his shoulders. His face was youthful, but there were already at the corners of his eyes the creases that marked him out as a troubled man, a thinker in a time of troubles. He crossed his arms and raised a hand to stroke the neatly trimmed Goatee that served to widen his narrow jaw. "It's so strange. Five years doesn't sound like much, but, here we are."

Zuko turned from gazing out over his capital and let his gaze rest on the other for a moment before replying,"Yes."

The silence dragged on, and the water-triber's face went from expectant to gently annoyed. Just when he opened his mouth to speak again Zuko quirked a smile of his own, "Katara couldn't make it?"

"She could." The reply was flat,"But she won't, not until we agree to help hunt for Aang."

Zuko turned back to the vista beneath them and rested his hands on the railing. He sighed after a long moment, "You know Sokka, I don't think he wants to be found."

Sokka stepped up beside Zuko. His hand dropped form his goatee but his arms remained folded, "I think you're right. I don't know why he left, but he had to have a reason. Just try to tell that to Katara though."

Zuko's reply was an outburst, "It's not like the Fire Lord can just up and go wandering across the world, even to hunt the Avatar." He gestured wildly as he spoke, and for a moment Sokka saw a Prince rather than a Lord beside him. Zuko recovered himself quickly, realizing his mistake, and tried to resume an quietly aloof pose. Sokka wasn't going to let him get away with it.

"Besides." He waves a hand dismissively, "Your Avatar hunting license probably expired YEARS ago didn't it?"

The joke was lame, but they both laughed out of sheer need for relief. At the end of it Zuko looked pained though. He asked by means of distraction, "Toph? Suki?"

Sokka shook his head, "Suki hasn't left Kioshi Island since the wedding." He had said it naturally enough, but paused once the words were in the air. Zuko made an abortive move to put a reassuring hand on Sokka's shoulder, and covered it by folding his hands in the sleeves of his robes.

"I'm sorry." He offered up lamely.

Sokka shook his head, but he didn't meet Zuko's gaze as he spoke, "It's not as hard as you might think. I've been all over for so long, and she had to stay on Kiyoshi. Something like this was kind of inevitable I guess. We had some good times. I still love her." Sokka's voice had grown thin as he spoke, the last was barely a whisper.

Zuko coughed and repeated, "Toph?" desperate for a distraction.

Sokka came back at that, "Toph? She's still tearing up your countryside as far as I know. Battling her way through old expatriot haunts for whatever reason. Haru's with her, watching out for her as best he can." Sokka eyed Zuko now, "How can I know this and you not?"

Zuko pulled a long suffering face, "I'd heard, but I'd hoped it was some other blind earth bending girl." He spread his hands and gave a helpless shrug, but his face grew serious quickly, "She's going to get herself, and Haru into trouble if she keeps it up."

"I know, I know." Sokka sighed. He rubbed a hand back through his hair, "I have some time before I'm needed back on the expansion of Ba Sing Se's outer wall. I'll see if I can find her and talk sense into her. It didn't work last time but…" he didn't finish the sentence. Zuko could fill in a couple different endings, and wondered how accurate the one that went 'I wasn't single then.' was.

There was another protracted silence as both men stared out over the city as the setting draped the landscape in slowly diminishing reds.

"Zuko?"

"Yeah Sokka?"

"When did we all stop having fun?"

Zuko answered with the last hints of lights dying out in the west, "The day that 'happily ever after' simply became 'tomorrow'."

***