Do you know that old joke about the 13th rock division?
No? It goes a little like this:
Ming - the commanding general of the Earth kingdom's troops, General Iroh - the Dragon of the West and in charge of the siege, and the commander of the 13th Rock Division are in a bar right outside the besieged city of Ba Sing Se.
The 13th commander is listing his division's latest exploit against the Fire Nation, and Iroh listens from the side, mildly amused at the damages the man falsely claim against the Dragon's armies.
The Earth General, growing tired of the ridiculous boasts turns on the man, saying: "That is wonderful, Commander, but I think you've helped our troops enough for now, don't you? Why don't you go desert and help Iroh's armies for a while?"
The commander is stunned speechless, but Iroh interjects smoothly: "Well, as it is not my habit to turn down a gift ostrich-horse, I can only graciously accept. After all, 599 days is too long for any siege. I shall take your offer and put these men under the command of my son, Lu Ten, and on the morrow we shall see if this city truly is as indomitable as you all claim.
(And on the 600th day, Lu Ten falls in battle, the Dragon of the West suffers a mental break-down at the loss of his only son, and the siege is broken.)
*Last night*
~Z~
The ground shifted and boiled with animalistic panic. It moved accompanied by a young girl's shriek: that calm and solid nature of this element broken by the sheer terror of a twelve-year old master bender, as her form scurried back - away from him - on all fours.
"Wait!" Zuko called. But the ground lurched, again, and spat him out sideways.
Rocks spasmed, pulling him away from its epicenter: a blind little girl, trying to protect herself from the perceived threat;
from Zuko—from the big, evil fire-bender set on burning and hurting her, set on continuing what he had just started.
And suddenly, that was too much to bear.
Maybe it was quitting. Maybe it was giving up, but surely petrifying little blind girls could never be the right thing to do.
Right?
.
So this time Zuko did not rise again; rather, he let himself drop back and watched the girl scurry into the bushes and out of view.
'Great going Zuko!'
A full week of chasing the Avatar and his group, and when he had finally caught up with them, they had flat-out refused his offer to join them; attacked him even. And now, when the only one of their party willing to talk to him had sought him out, Zuko had mistakenly attacked her.
After a full minute of staring at the ground, past numb arms resting on knees, Zuko voiced the question:
"Why am I so bad at being good?"
The earth-bender was long gone by now, and so it was only his inner critic that answered. Idly, Zuko wondered if it was a bad sign that voice lately sounded like his little sister, Azula:
'Yes that was amazing. Thank you for your help, Zuzu; in one brilliant stroke of good intentions you've managed to divide our enemy's forces and wound his earth-bender teacher. With friends like you, the Avatar hardly needs enemies.'
To Zuko, her high laughter sounded like the chimes during their family's winter-solstice dinners: high, stale and fake.
'Aw, but don't worry about it, Zuzu! At least that's not all you are bad at -you were pretty lousy at being evil too.'
Ah, but wasn't that the heart of it? Azula may always lie, but it was when she spoke truth that her words really cut.
It was like that old joke about the 13thRock Division he had heard in Ba Sing Se: a division rumored to be the most incompetent and unlucky to have ever been put together. The one the Earth Armies had abolished years ago, never to use the unlucky number again for any unit.
-'Don't you think you've helped enough…?'
Hell, the Avatar and his friends had not even accepted Zuko's help yet, and he had already caused more damage than he ever had as an enemy.
But what else could he do? He really did want the Avatar to win. He really did understand Azula had to lose here; by proxy, perhaps his father as well. They were bad people, both of them. Zuko realized that now.
He also realized he might have taken a bit long for it to sink in. The ex-prince fully understood why the Avatar's little group had trouble believing anything he said. A week hence, in Ba Sing Se, he had joined Azula's side and attacked them with near-fatal results. Zuko might regret his actions now, but that did little to heal the Avatar from the lightning-strike.
As for Uncle Iroh…Zuko shied away from the memory. He had never thought to see that expression on Uncle, so full of disappointment and hurt. After that look, Iroh had turned away and refused to look at his nephew again.
.
So, had he run out of options already?
Aang and his friends were refusing his help, even his surrender. Was he, Zuko, ex-prince of the fire-nation, whose one remarkable trait was that he never gave up…going to quit after only one try?
Zuko supposed he could follow the group: dogging their steps as he always had, and simply refuse to quit until they either killed him or allowed him to join - Zuko didn't really believe they were capable of murder, so he could wear them down. Then again, with Azula on the trail he would likely do more damage that way than good.
And had Zuko not just proven that, even if he had no bad intentions, he was quite capable of hurting his would-be allies?
What could he do…?
.
Oh.
.
.
Well, that was pretty simple.
With a sigh, Zuko struggled to his feet, taking a moment to clench his fists and scowl at the ground.
He didn't like this. But then he wasn't supposed to, right?
Penance, redemption...
.
The best part was that this would work, no matter how badly he screwed up. No - it would work even better the more he failed. And no one needed to trust him for this either. Except for maybe… Well, as long as he didn't find a need to tell her any blatant lies, or get in her way too obviously, she probably wouldn't deign to notice anything suspicious either.
With a sigh Zuko turned around to retrieve his panicked ostrich-horse, and descended back down into the forests, down the slopes he had climbed to get here.
.
He only hoped Azula would be somewhat pleased to see him back.
.
.
*present*
~T~
The Blind Bandit danced out of the elder girl's grasp.
"No, really! I'm pretty much convinced it was an accident." ."
Toph only got scoffs for answer though, the water-bender's nagging objections bouncing off the cave walls. Katara was always like that: Motherly.
Right now, she was mothering over Toph's burned feet. Her Actions accompanied by muttered complaints and threats towards the Fire Nation prince. Like those would do more good to the burns on her soles then the water-bender's healing.
It was freaking Toph out.
"Will you give it a rest? Look, it's not even that bad."
Toph, six-time Ruble Champion running, shoved the water-tribe girl backwards, jumped to her feet, and did a little twirl for emphasis. Then, she landed in a solid stance, feet apart.
It was a good thing Toph was so tough: anyone else would have been rolling on the floor blowing at her feet for that. Or at least failed at Toph's trade-mark cocky grin; her feet hurt like a bad pun. Still, a few blisters seemed more bearable then Katara's constant fussing.
Of course, the little Mother Hen-Duck was not quite willing to let it go at that; Katara made a vexed sound, and with a: "Don't do that, you crazy earth-bender!" tried to grab for Toph's feet again. Of course, the greatest earth-bender of all time could break and move her stance easily enough.
Why couldn't the water-bender understand that Toph could take care of herself? She was blind, not actually handicapped! And if she needed help, she would ask for it.
Sheesh!
Well, no; actually the 'Blind Bandit' would rather eat life rattlesnakes then ask Sugar Queen for help, but that was beside the point.
Toph felt the girl make another grab and back-stepped, ignoring the water-bender's exasperated calls that she was hurting her feet.
Ye-ah! Because you keep making me have to turn on them, Sweet-Stuff, duh!
But goading Katara on would only make her try harder, and Toph's feet really were hurting bad.
"Shouldn't you be looking after twinkle-toes instead?" she thus deflected. "He almost died only a week ago, you know."
For emphasis, Toph pointed in the boy's general direction. He was propped up against Appa, a blanket draped over his shoulder, chest wrapped in bandages. Aang sat there quietly, face turned their way with what Toph imagined would be laden eyes. No interrupting and averting the girl's quarrel. No jumping around, no happy-innocent remarks…
If that alone was not enough of a clue to how bad he was doing, his labored breathing should at least be a dead give-away.
The ploy could not fail; Katara turned, gasped, and ran to the Avatar's side.
"I'm sorry Aang! Did we wake you?"
Toph knew they had, but Aang would not want to worry her.
"No, Katara, I was done resting." Toph could hear his attempt at a smile in his words.
"How are you feeling?"
Lousy, though Toph.
"Okay, I guess," he answered.
Wow, the blind girl corrected herself internally. If Aang wasn't even trying to lie about it, he was doing abysmal.
The fourth and last human member of their party seemed to notice Toph's worried frown, because Sokka crab-stepped towards her, and noted in an aside: "He didn't want breakfast either, after you two woke him up. He's got to be pretty bad."
They stood silently for a moment, frowning as Katara mothered their friend. But just as Toph thought to point out that a loss of appetite was probably not the sign of imminent death it would have been if it had been Sokka suffering from it, she noticed the scrape of wood on bowl.
She gave him a derogatory stare, her words sharp: "So you thought you'd just help yourself to Aang's portion then, Meat-man?"
Toph felt him shrug, and Momo, the flying lemur, used the gesture to ease his landing on the boy's shoulder.
"Waste not, want not…"
A small flock of birds passed the opening of the cave.
Suddenly, Toph thought that was weird. It was mid-morning; there should not be any predators out scaring whole flocks of birds. But they had obviously been startled… and there had been more birds, earlier. Toph's feet were too sore for delicate work, so she sat herself down, and used her hands to do what she usually did with her soles: she felt.
Deep into the rock, searching the whole densely forested mount the cave was located on, feeling the earth, the rocks, the plants and the trees, roots cutting into the soil. And the tremors!
So many, many tremors.
"You guys, we have company coming," Toph sighed. "Lots."