Chapter 2

Like a Thief in the Night

I startled at the unexpected, familiar voice. For a brief second (which will shame me until the day I die,) I actually thought Uncle Iroh had actually spoken to me from beyond the grave.

I peered around the tree to find a woman lounging comfortably against the other side, arms behind her head and feet planted firmly on the ground, where they belonged. She was chewing on a blade of grass, a fact that would seem strange for anyone else, but for her, I wasn't even a little surprised.

My face burned in embarrassment. "Hi Toph," I mumbled, trying to ignore the fact that I thought she was the ghost of an old man for a moment.

She grunted her greetings. I shuffled back to my side of the tree and leaned against it, one leg extended, one bent to give my elbow a resting place. I laid my head back against the trunk and winced as a wayward twig dug into my skull.

"Ouch!" I hissed.

Toph barked a laugh. "Kid, you are something else."

"I know," I sighed. "Did you hear what happened?"

"Of course I did. I hear everything!" She said in a mock-offended tone.

I groaned.

"Hey, look on the bright side. You actually fire bended a real fire ball!"

"Yeah, and it burned down the entire room!"

"Well that just seems like poor construction to me. Why would they make the place so easy to burn in a palace full of fire benders? Heck, why would you put anything flammable anywhere near a teenage Zuko?" She snorted, and I couldn't stop a small smile from creeping across my face.

"I'm sure they weren't exactly expecting any inexperienced, accident-prone benders to hang out in the war chambers..."

Toph paused at that. "That'll teach you to always prepare for the worst, I guess."

We sat quietly for a minute or two before she spoke again. "You come here a lot, huh?"

I nodded, and then remembered that she wouldn't see the movement and quickly said, "Yeah. Uncle Iroh and I have gotten pretty close."

To my surprise, she didn't laugh at the jibe. Instead, she took a deep breath and exhaled thoughtfully. "He would have liked you."

I sat up straight. "You knew him?"

"Yeah, we actually met right after I met Aang and your mom. We were friends, kind of."

"Was this before you met my father?"

"Oh yeah. I first came across your father shortly after that, when we were fighting off your crazy Aunt Azula. Uncle Iroh took quite a hit that day."

"What was he like? To you, I mean. I've heard hundreds of stories from Father, but I'm curious about what you felt about him."

"Smart kid," she chucked. "I am full of wisdom about this stuff. I met him when I was frustrated and upset with your mom, actually. I just left my home and was prepared to pull my own weight. I was so used to being independent and self-sufficient that I didn't realize what it meant to be a part of a team. I never had any siblings or anything, so being on my own was kind of second nature. But then I met your great-uncle Iroh. He was tracking your dad when he went on one of his solo journeys of self discovery," she added in a mocking raspy voice that captured my father all too well. "He stopped to make me a pot of tea and we talked. He was funny and strange, but I could tell he had a good heart and he really loved his nephew."

I smiled. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"But I think what made me like him most was his heartbeat."

"His heartbeat?"

"Yeah, dummy. The thing that beats in your chest and makes you not die?"

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks for the clarification."

"It was so strong and steady. He was a thoughtful old man, but his heart told me that he was a powerful guy who relied more on his heart than his fists. He was kind to me when he didn't need to be, but his heart beat so evenly that it felt like he did stuff like this for strangers all the time." She finished her story with a softer, more reverent voice than I'd ever heard from his rock-solid woman of stone.

I tried to picture it: young Toph and Uncle Iroh, sitting companionably and sipping tea. It was a comforting image.

"He was also a sneaky old fox, though." Her voice took on its normal assertiveness.

A shocked laugh burst from my chest. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Mother and Father told some stories about him and his little tricks. You can even see the michief in his photo here."

"There's a photo here?"

The nostalgia of the moment screeched to a halt. "Yeah... wait, you didn't know this is Uncle Iroh's tree?"

"How was I supposed to know? I'm blind!" From the corner of my eye, I caught her throwing her hands up in indignation. I fought off a laugh. "I was wondering why you brought him up. I thought you were just... I don't know... feeling his presence or something!"

I rubbed a hand down my face to control my laughter. She grumbled a string of words I probably wasn't meant to hear and definitely wasn't meant to repeat. But then she said, "Now that I think about it, I do feel like he's lingering here, watching over us and giving us words of wisdom. Crazy old man."

I sighed, brought back to reality with the abrupt seriousness in her tone. "I wonder what he'd say to me now."

"Probably some stuff about following your heart or something."

"Right."

Toph shifted a little and a pebble flew out nowhere and smacked me right in the forehead.

"ACK! Hey!" I jumped clumsily to my feet to stand over her, hands clenched in fists. "What was that for?"

She shrugged, unconcerned. "You were feeling sorry for yourself. It's a waste of energy and it just brings everybody down. Who cares what anyone else would say, what matters is what you have to say about it now. As long as you learned something from all of this, what's the problem?" Her pale, grey, sightless eyes peered out from beneath haphazard black bangs. Her hair was piled high and tucked behind an earth kingdom band Aang had given her last year for their anniversary. She had thrown a rock at him for being so sappy, of course, but I'd yet to see her go anywhere without it.

The corner of her mouth ticked upwards in a smirk. I couldn't help but smile a little too.

"Thanks Toph."

She waved a hand lazily. "Yeah, yeah." She rose up from the ground and tossed aside the blade of grass she'd been chewing on. "I have to get back. Those knuckleheads can't seem to get anywhere without me." She marched away, waving a hand behind her as she went. I watched her go for a moment before sitting back down against the tree.

I lifted my hand to my hair and plucked out the small, golden Fire Nation emblem from my topknot. I fingered the object in my hands thoughtfully. As far as royalty went, I was a far cry from the grace and dignity my parents effortlessly embodied. I never felt worthy of the crown I wore. I just wanted to sit and brood for a while.

But did I get time to myself to think?

No.

Who showed up?

The. Stupid. Cat.

A slinky body padded quietly through the courtyard and came to rest by a fountain. It sat there, licking its paw and staring at me with cold, yellow-green eyes.

"Youuuu..." I hissed with narrowed eyes. That little devil just continued to stare, unperturbed.

I looked away for a moment, brooding. Then, in a sudden and completely childish little tantrum, I shoved a fist toward the offending animal, willing my breath and my energy to make a blast of fire. I didn't want to hurt it, (well, maybe a little part of me did,) but I did want to scare it away from me my courtyard.

As expected, a pathetic little flicker proofed out of my fingers and dissolved into the night air.

"Ugh!" I shouted in frustration. "What's the point of being a fire bender if I can't even bend?!" I stood and kicked the ground like the helpless, irritated child I was. When that wasn't enough, I hurled the crown across the courtyard. It landed just inches short of the cat.

And even worse, the tantrum didn't produce a single spark.

But it did make me notice another shadow slinking through the darkness beyond the main gate. My eyes widened in recognition as the familiar form of the thief from the war room dashed off down the path toward the docks.

I hope that history will also note that I had a moment here where I thought about my options. It wasn't a long moment and it basically consisted of: Should I get help? Or should I go after him myself? It would probably be smarter to go get help. But my feet weren't exactly listening, and before I could take a minute to do the right thing, I was already racing through the air after the thief.

He was tall, that much I could tell as his long legs propelled him forward across the grass. From behind it was hard to see much else, but I glimpsed a dark mask with two protruding points peeking above his head like ears.

He actually reminds me a little bit of that cat. Wouldn't it be something if they were partners on a mission to destroy the Fire Nation.

My own thoughts were so amusing to me that I lost my footing for a moment. I straightened out before I hit the ground, though, and took off again, but I'd lost precious moments. He was far ahead of me now, nearly at the steps along the cliffside where his getaway boat was probably waiting. I pumped my legs harder, willing myself to just accomplish something good for once. Step after step, I gained more ground, pulling up close until I could almost reach out a hand and grab him.

Too bad I didn't think about what I'd do once I did. My fingers met cloth, and then, faster than I could blink, I felt the earth shift beneath my feet and suddenly I was falling.

Air rushed past me as I tumbled backwards and disaster struck as if in slow motion. The thief had dodged abruptly and now stood in a rooted earth-bending stance, hands extended toward the pile of loose dirt where my feet had once been. Only now my feet were on no dirt. I had come too close to the edge and was, illogically but predictably, falling straight off of the cliff. My hands reached out to grasp the air desperately as my heartbeat thundered in my ears. I felt like my stomach had flown into my throat and adrenaline momentarily blocked all of my vision out of sheer panic.

My first thought was to blame the cat.