All of that pre-introduction comes to a head. Like Aang, Toph is 14, now, and she got fed up with her parents a long time ago, which means she couldn't possibly meet him under the same circumstances. Inventing circumstances that she could, well, that was part of the challenge in making an AU, now isn't it?
In the darkness, a shadow moved.
The days were hot, and the nights, stifling. It felt good. Familiar. The shadow flit through the trees along the road, waiting, watching. The night was his time. It was almost like having another identity. One rose with the sun, the other lived in the shadows. Always in tension with each other. But then again, his life had always been one of tension. The quiet creaking of a well greased axle caught the shadow's attention, and there was stillness in the forest.
Four. Four caravan guards rode on ostrich horses, spaced around the carriage. They were far apart. The ones at the front couldn't see the ones at the back. The shadow waited. He was close. He was close enough that he could have reached out and touched the side of the wagon. But that would have been foolish. So the shadow waited. One guard moved a bit faster, strutting past the shadow. He didn't even glance to where the threat lay. The other was farther away, but further behind. The shadow knew its prey.
A flicker in the darkness, and the shadow was moving across the expanse. Their eyes were accustomed to spotting dangers in the daylight. The shadow's could see everything else. They had been trained in fire and in ice, light and dark. He vaulted up, his blows terribly precise. A strike to the side of the head, and the man was tipped out of the saddle. The shadow grabbed the conical hat and slid it over his face.
"Jubei?" the nearest guard asked. The shadow gave a nod, but kept his head down. "Did you hear something?"
The shadow shrugged. The guard, mollified, fell back a bit. He took up a position near the shadow. He turned. "I can't believe he's got us working this late. It's not safe to go out at night."
The shadow shrugged. The guard turned to him. "What? Nothing to say? Usually you..." he paused, leaning close. "Wait, you're not..."
The shadow struck, a swift jab with exceptional power, throwing the other guard out of his saddle, vanishing into the woods off the path. Idly, the shadow moved closer to the carriage. Something caught its eye. It reached out and plucked a mask which hung amongst curios and oddities. It was an oni mask, painted in bright green and red lacquers. It suited perfectly. The spirit, now, moved even closer, pulling himself atop the trader's wagon. A flicker of movement, and he was inside. A whisper of blades. The trader was asleep. The driver was oblivious. The spirit could have just killed them all. But something stopped it. That wasn't why it was here. It rifled through the miscellany and found a locked box, quite light. It was the spirit's target. A flicker of shadow, and the spirit was back outside. Ostrich horses wandered away, warking amongst themselves. A flicker of shadow, and the spirit was gone.
Aang lay awake, staring at the waning moon. Bumi's loss was painful. He believed so strongly that his old friend was going to be the one who taught him how to earthbend. Now, he was lost in the Earth Kingdoms once again, trying to find somebody who had that mastery, that skill. Bumi had said, it would be somebody who waits and listens, but who else could do that as well as Bumi? He rolled over, his thoughts distracting him.
He sat up, staring at the sky. The morning would come soon, but there was no rest for him. He'd have to make it up on the flight. He considered a dozen different places he could go to find an earthbending master. Chin was close, but he didn't have any good memories of that place. Gaoling was big, and would probably have somebody like that, but it just seemed so... mundane. Everything that had happened to him so far seemed part of some grand tapestry. Just 'recruiting' a master would have stood out like an undyed thread in a masterpiece.
"You awake too?" Sokka asked. Aang's eyes widened.
"Yeah," he said.
"Something bothering you?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Just feel like saying 'yeah' all night?"
"Yeah."
"Then I guess I'll talk to you in the morning when you run out of them," he said, turning over. He didn't start to snore, though. He wasn't asleep. Aang got up, starting to walk around the camp. Eventually, he settled next to the stump where Momo was gnawing on a big beetle he'd managed to catch.
"I see you've got yourself breakfast?" Aang said. Momo turned to him and stared with those really big eyes and chattered briefly before resuming his meal. "I know, you can't really talk, but it's relaxing to pretend that I have somebody to talk with.
Momo chattered briefly. Aang scowled. "I'm going to pretend I didn't pretend to hear you say that," Aang muttered. "What am I going to do? I have to find an earthbending teacher, and it's got to be a special one," he paused. His mind went back to the swamp, and the things he saw. "And what about that vision I saw? That little girl in the white dress. The flying boar. What did that mean? And 'friendships that transcend lifetimes'?"
Aang shook his head. "Maybe I'm just overthinking this. Maybe I just need to do the sensible thing and learn from the first earthbending teacher I find."
Momo chattered at Aang. He turned to the lemur. "You know, if you're going to be like that, I'm just going to leave."
Momo finished the beetle and flew away. Alone in the dark. Yes, his friends were right over there, curled up in their sleeping bags, but some nights, he felt particularly alone. Some nights, he felt old. It had been a long time since he wept for Gyatso, for his mother whom he barely knew. For his father he never did. Those tears had gone dry. But every time he sat, alone, and quiet in his thoughts, they seemed to bubble back to the surface. Who would he have been if he wasn't the Avatar?
Aang imagined a hundred lives. The carefree airbender, happy and free, playing with friends. The charming rogue, who when given his people's choice of walking the Earth, chose never to come back. The sailor. The tinker. The chef. The priest. He thought of all those Aangs who could have been, but something always rose up, a single event which cut him off from that voyage of the hypothetical. Sozin's Comet, and the annihilation of the Air Nomads. There was hate in his heart. He could feel it. Every time he heard that name, it caused his blood to boil. He hated, and he hated that he hated. It wasn't right. It wasn't proper. It was against everything the monks had ever taught him about being an Air Nomad, about being a good person. But still he hated. And it felt good. It felt right.
He turned his thoughts away. Thinking about Sozin just made him upset, the same way that thinking about Ozai did. The same way thinking about Zuko did. But that was a different thing. With Sozin, with Ozai, it was the sickeningly sweet burn of knowing the face of evil, of wanting the world clear of it. With Zuko... it was more like regret. Regret that a hypothetical Aang couldn't meet a hypothetical Zuko, and make a hypothetical friend. It didn't matter. Aang was the Avatar. The last airbender ever to walk this Earth. But he would walk it his way.
The sun would rise soon. He wasn't getting any more sleep today. He ran a hand over his head. He definitely needed to shave, but he didn't doubt Katara would take care of that. She always did seem to enjoy taking care of him. There were probably reasons there that Aang didn't explore, but he figured if she wanted to talk about them, she would. Instead, he leaned down, and set a tiny fire in his hand, laying it onto the ground and building a pit around it. The least he could do for these friends, these loyal companions, was to give them some breakfast. Jook was always better warm. He smiled at them. Even when he was alone, they were always with him. Maybe, just maybe, he could really pull this off.
"Did you see that?" Aang asked from the head, suddenly. Katara looked away from mending Sokka's pants. He seemed to rip them every time he turned around, nowadays. Maybe he just needed to get new pants. She stopped her humming and leaned forward.
"No, what is it?" she asked. Aang pulled Appa around into a downward spiral.
"I saw somebody down there on the road," Aang said. As they spun down, Katara began to see it, too. He really did have incredibly good eyes. Appa landed, and Katara hopped off, looking at the girl in the road.
She was small, her black hair long and matted, and covered in filth. The rags she wore for clothing were also caked in debris and effluvia that she would rather not have thought about. And she was weeping quietly, almost like she couldn't stop. Katara moved toward her, and the little girl scooted away with a clipped yell. "Don't come any closer!" she shouted, her voice high. How old would she be? Aang's age, maybe?
"I'm not here to hurt you," Katara said, "I just want to help you."
The girl leaned forward and hugged her knees. Her hair covered her entire body, like another layer of clothing. How long had she gone without a haircut? How long had she lived without a roof? An instant of heat rose through her as she thought of who would put this poor girl through that sort of deprivation ran through Katara, but she had other impulses. She took another step toward her.
"What's your name?" Katara asked. "Where are your parents?"
"I don't know," the girl said. "I don't know where I am or how I got here."
"You can't remember how you got here?" Sokka asked.
"Do you think you could show us where you live? We could bring you back," Katara said.
"Right. Showing you would do me a world of good," the girl said, sarcasm entering her voice.
"Please, I don't want to leave you here. There are so many things that can hurt a girl in the woods. I just want to help you," she said. And she meant it. More than any other thing, Katara hated seeing children lose their parents. The girl stood, her eyes downcast, and walked toward Katara. Katara took her hand. "Good. Now let's get you onto Appa."
"What is that thing, anyway?" the girl asked.
"It's my flying bison," Aang proclaimed loudly.
The girl paused. "Flying bison? Give me a break. Those things have been extinct for a century," her voice didn't have any of the weeping in it anymore. The change was odd.
"It's right in front of you," Sokka said. "What does it look like?"
"I wouldn't know," the girl said, thumbing her locks out of her face. Her eyes, which would have been bright green, were covered over in a milky glaze. "I can't see."
Katara's heart ached for the poor girl. "I'm sorry. When did this happen?"
"Flying bison? Do we have to fly?" the girl sounded nervous. "I don't like that idea very much."
"Well, we can walk, if we need to," Aang said. "Isn't that right, buddy?"
Appa bellowed a bit, and Sokka rolled his eyes. "Great. Just when I think I get a break from walking all over the place, we've got to hold hands with the little blind girl. She wouldn't even notice if we flew her..."
"No. If she wants to walk, then we walk," Aang jumped off of Appa and walked up to the girl. "It'd be my honor to see you home. Where is your home, little girl."
"My name is Toph, and don't you forget it," she said, sounding a little annoyed. Tui La, this girl just switched gears like a lunatic. When she spoke again, her tone was softer. "And my home is in Shr-Wa. My parents will be glad that you brought me back."
"We're just happy helping somebody get home," Aang said. "I'm Aang. I'm the Avatar."
Toph just stared to the side for a moment. "Wow, you really believe that, don't you?"
"Kinda hard not to," Sokka said, messing around with his precious maps. Katara didn't see why he devoted so much time to them. "Shr-Wa isn't that far away. It'll take a couple of days, but since we don't have a set destination anyway, it's not like we're losing time."
Toph smiled then, but it wasn't the smile Katara expected. This wasn't the exuberant smile of a child to be reunited with her absent parents, full of joy and glee. This was closer to that smirk she saw on that firebender. Something was running through the girl's head, and Katara didn't know what. And it probably wasn't her place to find out. People kept secrets because they had reasons to. If the girl wanted to talk about it, then she would talk about it. It was obvious that she was doing poorly on her own, so Katara's instincts just kept prodding her. Do the right thing. Help the girl. And she would. Because that was what Katara was.
Toph couldn't believe her blind stinkin' luck, pun absolutely intended. All that she had to do was lie down and pretend to cry for a couple of hours and a bunch of witless saps just drops out of the damned sky to 'help' her. Of course, they were deluded and poor as the dirt behind her ears, but that just meant they would be perfect patsies.
"When was the last time you washed your hair?" the sugarqueen asked. Her name was Katara, but she was just so saccharine that it made Toph feel like she was chewing sugar beets by talking to her. Toph shrugged.
"Probably around the same time I washed my clothes," she said, kicking the pile of rags nearby. She had to admit, they were beginning to get bothersome, but they'd served their purpose. They made blind little Toph Beifong look nice and pathetic. And it meant that she could get somebody else to do her hair, which was always a plus.
"How long have you been out here, then?" Katara asked.
"A while," Toph answered. "Since the Fire Nation siege." It was a lie, of course. Nobody in their right mind would siege Shr-Wa; there was no point. No walls, no defenses, nothing worth invading. Well, except for her house, but that was a special case. Even though most of her body was submerged, she could still hear, if not feel, the goof wandering around, his belly grumbling. She could hear twinkletoes moving around the campsite like he wasn't completely tethered to the ground. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it with her own two feet. An Air Nomad. Weird days. Weird days...
"Oh, you poor thing," Katara said, working a particularly stubborn snarl out of Toph's hair. She never felt like taking care of it herself, because it was too much effort for not enough payoff. She didn't care what she looked like. Not really any incentive to. And even though it grated on her to have sugarqueen fussing over her like a surrogate mother, it was nice to be pampered a bit. The brushing continued. If she had her way, she would have kept at least some of the dirt on her; when she was clean, she felt a bit naked.
"Oh, it's not all bad. People are always willing to spare a coin for the little blind girl," Toph said. Also a lie. They didn't offer the money, but that didn't stop Toph from taking it. She had two nicknames, depending on whom one asked. To her parents, and the people they hired, she was The Runaway. Cute. To some other people, though, and she much preferred this one; she was the Blind Bandit. Finally, the sugarqueen finished and left Toph alone to dry.
"We'll be right over here if you need us, alright?"
"I can hear you, I can hear you," she said, pulling herself out of the pond and pulling the clothes Katara had set aside for her over herself. They were clean, which was disappointing, but at least they smelled a little funky. It must have been next to goof's socks or something. She silently wandered away from the camp, where Katara began to talk with her brother and... 'friend'... about what to do with Toph. It made Toph smirk.
Perfect lackies. They'd take her to her parents like a bunch of obedient little mummers, and they'd collect the substantial reward. Her parents, so relieved that their helpless little daughter was returned to them, would throw them a party. Toph would rob her parents blind (pun absolutly intended), steal anything worth taking, probably pause just long enough to nick the reward for bringing her safely back home from twinkletoes, then split before anybody knew what happened. It was the perfect heist. She bent a seat up to her, and leaned back, recumbent. How lovely it was when a plan just sorta came together.
She frowned. Somebody was approaching. From below? No way. She hopped to her feet, sounding back. The camp was far enough away that they wouldn't be able to hear much, but she didn't stake her reputation on that fact. Tunneling up out of the ground was an earthbender. Gahj Muul, a bounty hunter from Si Wong. She smiled at him.
"Oh, back for a rematch, are you?" she asked.
"Give it up, Bandit," Muul said. "I've got you surrounded."
"Oh, those scrubs?" she said. She flicked her hands forward, and the idiots who thought they were hiding behind the rocks found themselves being catapulted onto the dirt near Muul. Muul looked at her.
"Don't think you can escape justice, Bandit," Muul said, taking a horse stance. "I've tracked you for months, and I won't stop until you're in metal chains."
The others also righted themselves, taking up their low stances, preparing to earthbend. As if having a three on one advantage would have mattered. She smirked, then let out a light laugh. "Oh, you just don't seem to get it, do you, Muul? It doesn't matter how many you send after me."
Toph twisted her foot, sending out her earthbending to break one's stance, before flicking her wrist and launching one of the subcontractors away. She twisted more, bending a sledge-hammer of stone to bash the other one up and into the trees. He'd be feeling that one in the morning. Muul tried sending a wave of earth at Toph. She waited until just the right moment, then stomped forward and smashed the wave harmlessly into the ground. She took a demure pose. "You keep forgetting one important thing, Muul," she said sweetly. "I'm the greatest earthbender in the world. And you? You're just an afterthought."
She thrust her hands out once, then again with a flare. The stone erupted, catapulting Muul over into the trees. She could still feel him breathe, his heart beat, but it was the steady beat of somebody unconscious. Then, she felt somebody behind her. She spun around, her hands in the mantis form, but realized that it was sugarqueen and twinkletoes. She dropped her hands and stared off in a random direction.
"What happened down here? Toph, are you okay?" sugarqueen asked. Too easy.
"Did something happen? I was just drying off and I think I got lost," she said, innocent as can be. She felt Katara move forward and gently guide Toph back to camp. She really didn't need the help.
"Come on. Let's get back. Sokka's cooking dinner, and nobody wants that," she said.
"Yeah, I guess not. Come on, Twinkletoes, don't fall behind on us," Toph said. Aang became stock still, and she could feel his heartrate soar. Even blind, she could tell he was staring at her. Oh, crap. Had she just done something to give herself away? She couldn't look back. She had to keep walking. After a moment, Aang followed. She was going to have to be more careful around him. If he was, as he believed, really the Avatar, she didn't know what he was capable of. She just hoped he was capable of pulling off one big scam.
Zuko looked around the cave that they'd taken shelter in. The storm raged outside, relentless. He'd fallen so far. He was once a prince, and now he was skulking in caves. Shameful. Iroh hummed a tune to himself as he tended the fire.
"You could just firebend the pot," Zuko said. "It'd be easier than trying to find dry twigs in this weather."
"Perhaps, but we are fugitives, in a land not our own. Firebenders are the enemy here. If we firebend, we would be as much as claiming that we are spies. And the punishment for spying is fairly steep, I think you'll find."
"Nobody's here to see us? What could it possibly hurt?" Zuko shouted. Iroh just gave him a glance.
"Nobody is here now. What about later? Get into the habit now, so you don't slip up later. You need to seem like everything you do is normal, so nobody will be suspicious. In time, it will become normal," he put another little stick into the fire. It smoked and popped before starting to burn properly. Zuko shook his head. It was strange not to feel the tail moving as his head did. A lot of things felt strange.
"I don't want anything about this to be normal!" Zuko shouted. "This isn't my life! I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, and I don't want to live in this land of savages and idiots. I want to go home. I want my honor back."
"You need to learn patience, my nephew," Iroh said. "It is a virtue which many of our ancestors and mine held dear. One which has served our family well. Come, sit. We will have tea."
"No!" Zuko shouted. "I should be training. I should be preparing for the next time I fight the Avatar. I need to capture him, to bring him to my father..."
"How?" Iroh asked. Zuko sputtered to a stop. "And when you capture him, how will you bring him home? You have no ship, no crew. No way to cross the oceans. How will you bring him to my brother?"
"I... I don't know," Zuko said, sliding his back down along the wall. Uncle was right. He didn't have a plan. But that didn't mean he couldn't try. That was all he had left. Iroh smiled, smelling the steam rising out of the kettle. Zuko felt a smile come to his own face. How had Iroh fallen, just as far as he had, and remained so... pleased? Zuko shook his head. He reached into an inside pocket, and pulled out an envelope.
"What is that?" Iroh asked.
"I got this for you, Uncle," Zuko said, handing over the envelope. Iroh opened it, looked inside, and a beaming smile came to his face. He leaned down and breathed deeply of it. "Do you like it?"
"Jasmine tea!" he said with a laugh. "It's my favorite!"
"I know, Uncle," Zuko said. Of course, Iroh would never stop talking about tea, so something had to stick eventually.
Iroh smiled at the leaves for a long moment, but the mirth drained from his face. "Where did you get this?"
Zuko's face dropped a bit. "I found it," he said.
Iroh raised an eyebrow. "One does not 'find' jasmine tea," he said, disapproval heavy in his voice. "Where did you get it?"
"From a trader," Zuko said. Iroh stared at him, golden eyes meeting golden eyes.
"You stole it, didn't you?" Iroh asked. He set the envelope aside.
"So what if I did?" Zuko asked. "It's your favorite, isn't it?"
"I cannot accept what wasn't yours to give," Iroh said. "While I may savor the flavor of a delicious jasmine tea now, it would be stained by the disappointment I feel in my soul. There are other ways to make a living in this world, Zuko."
"I just wanted to do something nice, and you throw it in my face? Well, you can just..." Zuko stammered, then he punched a bolt of fire at the envelope, burning the leaves. He turned and left, sitting in the rain, facing the grey murk. Why was it always like this? No matter what he tried to do, it always failed, often spectacularly. He couldn't help the people he cared about. He couldn't get his father to love him. He could barely even remember Mother's voice. Everybody was right about him. He was a Dark Prince. Everything about his life was cursed. After a few minutes, Zuko noticed Iroh coming out and sitting beside him, in the rain.
"I'm sorry," Zuko said. "I just thought you'd like it."
"But you went about it the wrong way," Iroh said, staring into the murk. "Even the finest of gifts can be corrupted if they carry the wrong sort of price. You have to learn that you can always get what you want from life. The question is, are you willing to pay the price attached to it?"
"I don't know. I wish you'd just stop spouting all these riddles at me and give me some advice, or tell me what I did wrong, or something," Zuko said.
"You stole. And you lied to me," Iroh said. "But your heart was in the right place. That's more important that you would easily believe. Come, nephew. The fire is warm and the weather is miserable. Don't make me have tea alone."
Zuko stared into the rain, wallowing in his own misery, as Iroh went back into the cave. Part of Zuko wanted to stay out here. To feel that chill cut all the way through him, to grind against his very bones. But he watched as his uncle sat in front of that fire, humming a song that he no longer had the instruments to play. Zuko wanted his honor back. He wanted his throne. But somewhere, deep down inside, he just wanted to be home.
Shr-Wa was a mining town, and looked every inch of it. It was dug into the side of a mountain, cut from the very granite which was extracted and sold to areas where it could be of better use. Most of it was owned by the Beifong family, Aang had learned; amongst other things, their export of stone meant that mining the metals was childsplay. They were considered some of the richest people in the East Continent, if not the world. He landed Appa in their luxurious gardens, a fair distance away from the house which dominated the city. It would have been a palace, if it weren't constructed of the same stuff everything else was.
"This is your house?" Sokka asked. "It's enormous! You weren't kidding when you said they were rich."
"Yeah, I know," Toph said. "They like to show it off, too. Come on, I think I know my way from here."
Aang hopped down, watching as the girl walked along the path. There was something downright odd about her. It wasn't just that she wandered calmly as a cow pig in a poke, despite her blindness. It wasn't that she moved between expressed emotions faster than Katara on a bad day. No, it was the words she used, and the things she said. The instant she said that word, it sent that vision surging through his mind. The girl from the swamp. But he couldn't be sure. His vision was far away, unclear.
Ordinarily, he was a fairly good judge of people lying to him. But with her, he couldn't; he usually judged by looking into their eyes. Kind of a problem in Toph's case. She looked better now, though. Her hair, once dull and filthy, now ran black and shiny down almost to her knees. Aang watched where she walked. She must be following the path, he thought, but she defied that assumption by wandering onto the soil, moving around plants. Memory, perhaps?
She kept walking, and a stepped around a cat sleeping on the path. That didn't seem possible. If she was blind, how did she know it was there? Aang wondered, but didn't have to wonder long. Ahead, people in brown and yellow livery came running into the courtyard. They took up low stances. "Intruders in the Gardens! Inform the masters!"
"Wait! We're not intruders!" Aang said, waving his arms. "We're bringing back..."
"Mistress Toph?" one of the guards asked. He ran forward, and knelt in front of her. "Are you alright? Did these people harm you?"
"They brought me back," she said. No joy, nothing like that. Just a simple statement of fact. The guard turned to Aang and bent low.
"Thank you, young sir. Please wait here a moment while Ren Wei alerts the masters," the guard said, picking Toph up and carrying her to the entrance of the house. She had a sour look on her face. Aang couldn't understand it. Katara also looked suspicious, as did Sokka, but Sokka was always suspicious. No big change. After a few minutes, the house came alive, as a man in brown and gold clothing came rushing out of the building, scooping up Toph's small form and spinning her around.
"Toph! Spirits and gods, I thought we'd lost you!" he said.
"Oh, where is my little girl?" Toph's mother asked, leaning down to her level. "Are you alright? Did anybody hurt you? Oh, it's been so long..."
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Toph said. Annoyed. Why annoyed? Aang moved closer. She pointed directly at him. But how? "These people found me out in the country and offered to bring me home."
"You rescued my little girl?" Master Beifong asked. Aang nodded and was about to speak, but the man cut him off. "Then you deserve some sort of compensation. Oh, we were so worried about her. She's blind, and tiny and weak and helpless. We were so afraid that something had done something to her. She's defenseless."
"Well, I wouldn't say that..." Aang began but he was already moving back into the house.
"What is your name, young man?" Mistress Beifong asked. Aang bowed to her.
"My name is Aang, and I'm the Avatar. This is Katara and Sokka, from the Southern Water Tribe."
"The Avatar? Oh, my. We never thought..." she turned to her guards. "Ready the rooms," back to Aang. "Please, come in, come in. If I had known you would be coming to our little city, I would have prepared more properly. I don't think we've ever played host to the Avatar before."
"I'd have doubted if you did. I've been... away for a while," Aang said. He turned and shrugged to his companions. They shrugged back. Aang moved into the house, all of grandiose splendor on the inside, but his thoughts turned back to Toph. She moved around as though she could see, but everybody thought her blind. She always knew where everybody was, even if they were standing out of eyeshot. Was she really blind? And why did her calling him Twinkletoes bother him so much?
Time passed, in relative opulence, until dinner was chimed and the group was invited to dine with the masters. The dining room was every bit as ornate as the rest of the house, but it felt a bit too wide, too spacious. It felt a bit empty. Aang sat next to the head of the table, next to the master.
"I'm so pleased to have you here, young Avatar," he said. "And so relieved that you brought my daughter back to me. She vanished almost a year ago, and nobody I sent to locate her was ever heard from again. It was like the Earth just swallowed them all up."
Aang glanced around. She still wasn't here. "Tell me about her," Aang said. Something about this girl had his interest piqued.
"Well... um... there isn't much to tell," Master Beifong said. "She was born blind, and so small and frail. We had a lot of scares over the years. She never seemed to grow as fast as she should have, to be as tough as she should have. She always was our little lily, but... there just wasn't much to her. She's so delicate. I'm often afraid of touching her, for fear that she'll just... shatter."
"I'm pretty sure she's more resilient than that," Aang muttered. Louder he asked. "What's she like?"
"Oh, well, she's quiet. Doesn't speak out much. I think she's nervous around people," Master Beifong said. Aang just stared at him. That couldn't be more wrong. By the second morning, she was already telling some of the filthiest, most hilarious jokes that Aang had ever heard. And she didn't seem to mind one bit being surrounded by what were essentially total strangers. On a hunch, he used just a sprig of airbending to move Toph's plates about a cun to the left. He was about to mention the things he'd observed on the trail, when he turned and saw her enter the room wearing in a white dress.
The white dress.
It had to be her. Toph had to be the girl from his vision. He couldn't take his eyes off of her as she took her seat, and began to demurely eat her rice and dumplings. Which she knew the locations of, despite Aang's interference. He squinted at her, and she stared blindly back. He realized a question had been asked of him.
"Aang? Aren't you listening?" Katara asked, beside him.
"What?" he asked. He thought back, but couldn't grasp it. He had been distracted.
"Why did you come to the Earth Kingdoms, young Avatar?" Master Beifong asked.
"Oh. In order to become a proper Avatar, I need to learn earthbending, and this is the place to do it," he said, a little embarrassed to be so caught off guard. He looked at Toph's father. "Tell me, would Toph be an earthbender, by chance?"
"Well," the man said, as though uneasy. "When she was little, she got an inclination to learn, so we taught her what we could. But she's blind, and she couldn't master anything above the most basic forms."
Toph rolled her eyes, just a little. Aang had been watching for it. Aang leaned back a bit. "Well, I need to learn earthbending from the greatest earthbender the world has ever seen. Nothing less will do," he said. There, a tiny smirk on her face. "You know, mister Beifong, I think your daughter might be a bit better than she l– ough!"
Aang's granite chair had suddenly shifted back, making him lose his balance. She demurely ate some meat balls, as though nothing had happened. Beside him, Katara had started talking. "You know, it wasn't easy to find this place? A lot of people didn't even know you two had a daughter."
"Well, how are we going to explain her condition to them?" Toph's mother asked. "If she had been blinded, that would be one thing, but she was born blind. These people are superstitious, and they might see that as some sort of curse from the gods."
"I wouldn't say she was cursed," Aang offered. "More like gifted. Especially in regards to her earth–" This time, his chair lurched forward, slingshotting his head into the soup bowl. He slowly pulled it out, glaring across the table. Toph took a delicate sip of her own soup. Oh, it was on, now. Aang pulled back, mimicking a sneeze, and used some airbending to launch what remained in his soup bowl into a gentle arc through the air. It flew slowly enough that just about anybody could have gotten out of the way. Toph, her milky eyes staring in Aang's direction, didn't even try to dodge. It landed squarely on her head, spilling soup down her. She got to her feet, standing so fast that the chair, which probably weighed eight times as much as she did, slid back and crashed into the wall.
"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?" she shouted.
"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?" he countered.
"Aang?" Katara whispered. "What are you doing?"
Aang stared at the girl for a long moment, then turned to Master Beifong. "I apologize. I shouldn't have been so rude. I will leave you to your meal."
With that, Aang walked away. As he went, Toph's blind eyes followed him.
"You know, these meatballs are really, really good," Sokka said.
Night had stretched on. Aang stayed away from the small celebration that they'd thrown for his honor and for their daughter's return. The more he thought about it, the less this whole situation made sense. The swamp vision showed him the girl in the white dress. He heard her voice. The flying boar was even the symbol for this family! But despite everything, he couldn't get any traction with that girl. What was she hiding?
Gentle footfalls sounded at the door. He looked up, and there she was, hair cleaned again, after he'd dumped soup onto it. She looked at him, an absurd notion, considering she was blind. "Truce?" she asked.
Aang shrugged. "Truce," he agreed. "So what are you trying to hide from them?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said flatly. Even Aang could tell she was lying. She just wanted to know what he knew.
"Blind people can't see," Aang said. Then he realized how idiotic that sounded. "I mean, you always know where everything is, where everybody is. And it can't be memory, because you watched me walking away. I think you know more about earthbending than you let anybody else know."
She sighed, then sat on the ground next to him, splaying out her bare toes on the stonework. "I was born blind, that much is true. But I can still 'see'. I see with my feet. When I was young. Well, younger... I ran away from home into the mines. When I was there, I learned from some badgermoles the secrets of earthbending. They're born blind too, just like me, but they always know where they are. They see using earthbending. It's seeing with the tremors that everything makes as it moves on or in the earth. I always know exactly where everybody around me is."
"I see. Why did you run away?" he asked. She scoffed and spat onto the floor next to her.
"Do you see what I lived with?" she demanded. "Nobody in town even knows that I exist! I'm just this family's dark little secret, something that nobody talks about. Was I so wrong to want to live my own life, to have something that I could claim was my own?"
"I don't understand why they think you're so helpless," Aang said.
"Yeah, well, being a tiny blind girl might have something to do with that," Toph answered. Aang pondered a moment, then turned to her.
"If you wanted to be self sufficient so badly, why did you beg us to bring you home?" he asked. She flinched, but didn't answer. He shook his head. "Toph, how good at earthbending are you?"
"Reeeeaaaally good," she said. She reached out, and with nothing but one hand and a few gestures, she bent a fresco of the house, in perfect detail, into the far wall. She smiled, then. "Hell, I'm probably the best earthbender in the world. Earthbending isn't something I do. It's who I am."
"Then be my teacher. Please, I need somebody like you," Aang asked. She turned to him, then shook her head.
"I don't think that's going to work, Twinkletoes. I don't teach, and I don't think you'd want to be my student," she said. Aang sighed, then he looked at her again.
"Toph, do you ever believe that friendships can transcend lifetimes?" Toph stared at him, looking perhaps a little bit shaken, but the look fled. She forced a scowl onto her face.
"Don't tell me you're spouting Air Nomad foolishness at me now," she said. "You know my dark secret. Can we just leave it at that?"
"No," Aang said. "What are you doing here?" Toph looked like she was going to give a sarcastic response, but she jumped to her feet, her head swinging to and fro. Aang stood with her. "Toph, what's wrong?"
"We're under attack," she said. An instant later, a great mass of stone came hurtling down the hall. Toph caught it and spun around, flinging it back whence it came. Another figure smashed down a wall and strode into the hall. Without looking, she cast a hand back. A pillar of stone slammed him up through the ceiling. She had just gotten back into her stance, quite unlike any earthbender's Aang had ever seen, when the wall in front of Aang's room, the wall with her fresco, was torn back and away. Chunks of stone flew at the girl, though, an slammed her arms and legs against the wall. A tall man, very dark of skin but clean shaven, stood just outside in a horse stance.
"Blind Bandit, you are ordered by law to stand down on twelve charges of burglary, twenty three charges of gamesmaking, three charges of pilfery, and one charge of imitating a holyman for monetary gain," the man said. He turned to Aang. "Gahj Muul. Please stay out of my way, child."
"You have no proof I did any of that," Toph shouted.
"We caught you red handed. One charge of attempted burglary is definitely going to stick," Muul said.
"Oh, please. That guy was drunk and he could never identify me."
"I'm talking about this one," Muul said peevishly. Toph let out a nervous laugh.
"Oh, right. Well, you got me there. But you made one mistake."
"What could that be?" Muul asked.
"You missed one of my feet," she said. His eyes widened, and she kicked a block of stone at him. As he dodged, she pulled away from the wall, wrapping herself in a complete armor of stone, and charged through the now vacant wall and into the gardens. Aang followed, pulling his staff to him. Outside, there were a number of other people. Muul had not come alone. Upon seeing Toph, they all attacked.
Aang sent a blade of air out, flinging one of them over the wall and into the street outside, while another moved to hurl a boulder at the girl. Aang quickly switched to waterbending and snatched him away with water from the stream. But Toph? She was a force of nature. When she landed, she sloughed her stone guise, and just stood, stock still as the bounty hunters ran at her. Then, a wide smile grew on her face. Her movements were perfect, each happening at precisely the right moment. A flick of earthbending for maximum effect. Again. Somebody tried to wrap her in chains, but she dropped out of view, only to appear directly behind him, traveling through the stone, and flicking him hard, over Aang's head and putting him through the walls of her house.
Aang fought against one man with a truncheon who just didn't know when to quit. Aang couldn't break him with airbending, and he stayed in the wrong spot for waterbending. Aang began to bend small bolts of fire at him. Keep him moving, falling back. Nothing was intended to harm him; not by any means, but every moment the man defended, dodged, he wasn't moving at Toph. Aang had just set the man up when a column of earth shot out of the ground at an angle, and flung him into the air, through a window, and into a building across the street. Aang turned. Only Muul was left. He leveled his staff at the man.
"What did you come here for?" Aang asked.
"Justice," Muul said.
"Fei hua," Toph cursed. "You came here for money. Damn you, Muul! Do you know how close I was? I had everything set up, and you had to ruin it," she began to pace, and he followed her with his fists, but nothing else. "One more hour, and I would have been outta here, with every stinking cent that I could have carried. Then, I would've robbed the Avatar here blind, pun totally intended, of the reward money for finding me. But you had to show up and mess up my plans, didn't you, Muul. Well, however much I appreciate you smashing the Hell out of my parents' house, I've officially lost patience with you. Say goodbye, Muul," Toph said. Aang got in her way. She shouted up at him: "What are you doing, Twinkletoes?"
"Don't do this, Toph. You can't kill him!"
"Why not? He's just going to keep coming until he's dead or I'm in prison, and I'm a lot more comfortable with the former than the latter," she said. She scowled. "Besides, I was about to rob you."
"You still shouldn't do it," Aang said. "Please, I know in my heart that you're supposed to be my earthbending teacher, and I think you know it in yours, too."
"Don't even talk to me, Avatar," she said. He could feel her start to earthbend, but he hopped up as the earth slid, avoiding the toss she was attempting. He batted her aside with a ball of air, sending her flying into a shrub. Aang turned on Muul, but the bounty hunter was gone. Great. She got out of the bush, shaking with rage.
"Look what you did!" she shouted. "Now, he's going to keep hunting me! Do you know how much trouble that man has caused me?"
"I really don't, Aang admitted. "Why are you stealing from people?'
"If they aren't strong enough to protect it, then they ain't strong enough to have it, I figure," Toph said. She held out her hand, and the earth trembled under it. A large pack popped out of the ground, and she slung it over her shoulder.
"Please, Toph. You are the teacher I need. I know you can feel that it's true," Aang said.
"Get out of my way," she said, her voice low and angry. "I won't teach you anything. And if I hear you following me, I'll smack you down, you got that?"
"Toph," Aang said.
"Move," she said. He stared at her again. How had he messed this up so badly? Or did he just make the wrong assumption to begin with? He hung his head and stepped aside. Toph stomped out of the garden, creating a hole in the wall to walk through. He felt a hollowness in his soul, however. He was so sure. He sat down on the ground, staring at where she'd gone. It wasn't long before Katara and Sokka were out on the grounds with him. Sokka was still eating.
"Aang, what just happened out here?" she asked. He stared at all of the destruction, and hugged his knees.
"I think I might have just lost my earthbending master," he said.
And that night, as he lay unable to sleep, he thought of Toph. He thought of Zuko. He thought of all the Aangs that could have been, and all the friends that never were.
Fei hua - 'bullshit', more or less.