First of all, my responses to a couple of reviews I received.

sev7n: Good guess about Zuko's lack of bending, though I plan to reveal another reason flikely in the next chapter. As for Katara, well read this chapter for some insight.

OverlordNexas: Hopefully this chapter has some of the answers you were looking to see.

This chapter took me a while to write because I'm a very action oriented person, but I needed to get some things across through dialogue, arguably one of my weaker points. Also it is longest chapter so far, which didn't help the time it took. I hope this serves to answer some questions I've raised, if only in part, while adding a couple new ones. No more stalling, here's Chapter 4: Principle of Reprisal Part 1, Sibling Semantics.

Toph ceased walking and studied two small pygmy pumas playfully fighting not twenty feet from where she stood. Relying on her feet to feel vibrations in the ground, she received a much clearer image of the fight while standing still. One cat would attack the other, and the other would retaliate, a vicious circle that would have likely ended in one of them dead were they not playing. Toph briefly wondered where their parents were, for these were but kittens, but dismissed the thought.

"Are you coming or not?" questioned Zuko. "My camp is still another twenty minutes away, I made sure to set it up far form the village."

"Well at least you have some common sense sparky," retorted Toph. "Now if only you would have thought to stay away, you probably don't want to be seen."

"By the time anyone who's looking for me gets here, I'll be long gone. You don't need to be so concerned."

"Maybe," Toph sounded unsure, but started walking again if only to keep the prince from complaining further, thus severing their own series of reprisals before it turned into an argument.

"Hurry up Sokka, otherwise we might miss her," scolded Katara.

"Ah, come on sis. Can't we sit down and enjoy a meal, just this once?" pleaded Sokka, batting his eyelashes hoping for a shred of sympathy.

"You are sitting," pointed out Katara, gesturing to the Ostrich horses they both rode, dashing her brother's hopes. "You can enjoy your food all you want while we ride."

"But Katara," whined Sokka, obviously less than happy about the current arrangements.

"I don't want to hear it Sokka," Katara gave a quick whip of the animals reigns, and the ostrich horse began to speed up. "All we know is that Toph has a meeting in that village this morning, for all we know she's already done and gone. Besides we haven't seen her in months, if we don't catch her now who knows when our next chance will be."

"Come on Katara, never mind morning, it might as well be night. The sun is barely up, I don't know why these things aren't tripping over every loose stone. Speaking of them, these ostrich horses stink!"

"Good, maybe the smell will keep you awake. You can sleep after we get to the village, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to give you a place to sleep. If you're good I'll even let you sit and eat your next meal."

"You can't just treat me like a little kid all the time; I'm your big brother!"

"You're also supposed to be a great warrior, but you still can't get up before noon without complaining for hours."

"Hey, I was a great warrior," Sokka stuck his thumb into his chest. "One of the greatest, but the war is over. The world doesn't need any more fighting. I don't plan on being in any more battles, thank you very much."

"So then why do you still carry around that sword and boomerang everywhere you go?" Katara asked as she pointed to the weapons strapped to her brother's back and side.

Sokka's face became serious, a rare sight indeed, and he spoke in a grave tone. "Just because I don't plan on fighting anymore, doesn't mean I won't be ready if I have to."

Zuko and Toph sat beside a small fire; Zuko was prodding the fire with a stick, while Toph was searching through a large satchel. Each sat upon a stone chair, crafted by Toph to avoid sitting on the dirt but maintaining the feeling of contact with her element. With one hand, Toph flipped her hand, palm down and relaxed, upward, creating a table from the earth, and set the contents of her satchel on top; A small wooden box, a tea pot, several cups, and a water skin.

"It's still early in the morning, you want some tea to get your blood flowing?" she asked, gesturing towards the wooden box.

"Sure, why not," mumbled Zuko, still sore form the trouncing he'd received earlier. "How do you even know what you're making? You can't read the labels, don't tell me you can feel the tea's vibrations."

"Of course not, I know what it is by the smell. What kind of tea master would I be if I couldn't?" replied the Earth Bender, in a matter-of-fact tone. Taking the cover off the pot, she poured some water from the skin inside before closing it again. "You heat it, take too long if I have to hold it over the fire.

Zuko stared at Toph, insulted that his role in the world of things had been reduced to boiling water. Realizing nothing he did or said would change the girl's mind; he reluctantly took the pot firmly in both hands. "You'd make a good little sister, too bad I didn't get you instead of Azula."

"Don't know what that girls problem is, I would have kept around any big brother that I could beat up. It's like having a servant you don't have to pay."

Steam began to rise from the spout of the pot, and Zuko carefully set it down on the table. "That's as much as I can heat it without burning myself, and I've got enough of those."

Toph remained unsure if Zuko was joking or not until the prince cracked a smile and let out a short laugh. "Ah good," she spoke. "I was getting worried I might have broken you with that last stone."

"You mean the one that you threw at me on the way here, after we finished fighting?"

"That's the one," smiled Toph. "You shouldn't have let your guard down. Had me thinking I'd hit you one time too many."

Zuko checked himself over before replying. "I'd say you hit me about forty times too many," picking some sand for his ear, he flicked it into the wind. "Not to mention I think I have a thicker coating of earth than you typically do."

"Hey Sokka, why are you traveling with me?" asked Katara.

"What's this all of a sudden?"

"After we got back to the Fire Nation a couple months ago you said you were done with this wild goose hunt. I thought you had more important things to do."

"Yeah, well, something came up so I've decided to continue helping you. Besides that, what kind of brother would let his little sister go searching for a dangerous Fire Bender all by herself?"

Turning her head Katara looked to her brother. "Does this have something to do with looking for Suki?"

Sokka shook his head. "No, this is something else. Aang asked me to help, and even if I don't agree with what he's doing I can't say no to a friend."

Katara brought her ostrich horse to a complete stop. "Have you given up looking for Suki then?"

Sokka brought his own bird around so that he was facing Katara. "Of course I haven't, I won't give up will I find her."

"Sokka," began Katara, but Sokka cut her off.

"She's alive, Katara, I know she is, and I will find her. I just can't spend every waking moment of my life looking for her. The war is over but the world still needs a lot of help to get back on the right track."

"It's been four years, if she was still," Katara stopped in mid sentence. "She should have broken free by now, how can you keep going on and on?"

Sokka looked away from his sister, angry with what she was saying. "Look, nothing I've said these past four years has stopped your witch hunt for Zuko, so don't think there's anything you can say to make me give up on Suki."

This time is was Katara's turn to be furious. "Don't compare your search for Suki to my own for Zuko. I'm not doing this for myself; I'm trying to capture him so that the world doesn't have to fear him or any of his family ever again."

"Don't bother saying capture. Even if you don't do it, we both know what his fate is. The nations won't suffer the existence of any of the Fire Nation royalty, never mind one Aang has personally declared a traitor to the alliance."

"He deserved whatever is coming for him, that evil, conniving, thieving, scarred little-"

Zuko let out a great sneeze, almost spilling his newly poured cup of tea. "Nice one sparky, that's like five times in the past minute, got some dust up your nose too?"

"I just get these sneezing fits sometimes, don't mind me."

"Maybe someone is talking about you, an old friend maybe?"

"I don't have many of those, more likely an old enemy. Considering my reputation, I'd say anybody talking about me isn't a good thing," spoke the prince as he raised his cup to his lips. He grimaced as he took a sip, and forced the liquid down.

Toph was obviously insulted, and voiced as much. "Okay, I could feel you flinch, is my tea really that bad? I mean I don't mind it but it's not often I make for anyone else."

"That's not it, there's nothing wrong with you tea, at least as far as I know.'

Toph tilted her head to the side, her long hair falling over her shoulder. "Well, what is it then?"

"I just hate tea," explained the banished prince. "I have for years."

"The why did you even take a cup when you could have jus said no?"

"He would never have turned down a cup of tea. So long as I live, neither will I."

"Katara, I still think you should stop hunting Zuko."

"Why are you so serious this morning?"

"I just don't want to see my sister become a killer."

"Sokka, I'm just trying to capture him, you're way too worried over nothing."

"You know he's not being sent to jail."

"He'll share the same fate as his sister, I know, and I still say he deserves it."

"You'll be the one sending him though. No one else save Aang or Toph can fight on equal grounds with him, it's not some group of soldiers that are capturing him for his execution, and it's you. I don't want that on my little sister's shoulders."

"Sokka, you know what he's done. He betrayed Aang, he betrayed all of us! It was bad at Ba Sing Se when I thought he might have helped us, but this time he even said he was on our side. I warned him, he deserves what's coming."

"We don't even know what exactly happened, we just know what Aang told us."

"He betrayed Aang during the fight with Ozai, and he fled when we got there, that's all I need to know."

Zuko set down the now half empty cup of tea, Toph meanwhile was pouring herself a third cup. "Enough jokes," began Zuko. "I need to know why you wanted to meet; you know I've been busy."

"Yeah, yeah, dealing with all the remnants of your sister's little army," Toph chugged back half the cup and let out a belch. "I just thought I should warn you though."

"Warn me? Warn me about what?" Zuko's face fell from serious to simply confused.

"Any time now Twinkle Toes is going to make his bid for your throne. I don't know when, but probably within the next couple weeks, if he hasn't already."

"It's not my throne; I gave it up when I decided to help Aang master Fire Bending. Even if it was still mine, the people would never follow me after what I did."

"You don't know that! Do not make decisions for the people; the job of a leader is to carry out the decisions made by the people. That's why it's the citizens whom should decide who their rulers are, if you just elect yourself you're nothing more than a tyrant," Toph's face became sullen, and she seemed on the verge of crying. "Please, Zuko, I don't want him to become a tyrant. That's not the Twinkle Toes we used to travel with, I have to prove there's another way to peace."

Zuko put on a poker face, not wishing to show any emotion to the unusually fragile Toph. "What if there isn't another way? What will you do then?"

"There is a way, and you know it! The people, soldiers and civilians alike, followed you at the Battle of Sozin's Gate."

"Don't call it that!" snapped Zuko. "The people surrendered, there was no need for the alliance to attack that city; it was no battle."

"Katara, do you even remember what happened during the Massacre at Sozin's Gate?" asked Sokka, the two once again on the move.

"Don't call it that, you know as well as I do that it was no massacre," Katara was obviously upset at her brother's mention of that particular event.

"You're right, it wasn't," shrugged Sokka. "Though it would have been had Zuko hadn't stopped you."

"The city never really surrendered Sokka; he was trying to trick us. If I hadn't seen through it and ordered the attack he would have wiped us out, I saved us."

"I ordered my soldiers to attack, even after I'd told them to surrender," Zuko sighed, it was not a story he likd to tell. "Even if I only did it because the enemy had not ceased their advance, it was seen as dishonourable to surrender and then fight."

"But if you didn't the entire city would have been razed."

"The entire city was destroyed anyways!" yelled Zuko.

"It was, but it was after you evacuated the citizens."

"You would have attacked a city packed with people who had nothing to do with the war," Sokka was seething, never had he thought that his siter would have failed to realize the evil in her actions that day. "That's why any Fire Nation you speak with will call the Battle of Sozin's gate as much, because if not for Zuko that's exactly what it would have been."

"I can't believe you're defending him, after everything he's done!" Katara was screaming, not only was her own brother making Zuko seem a hero, but he was depicting her as a villain. "He was just using the civilians, they were just a shield, and when he realized that we wouldn't falter, he attacked us and withdrew them."

"Of course I evacuated the citizens; they were depending on me to keep them safe. I had to do whatever I could to do that, even if it meant forsaking my own honour and the honour of every soldier that served under me. I don't regret it."

"But you're still not happy about what you did and you seem to think it marks you as a person who can never lead the Fire Nation," reasoned Toph.

"I have learned to value life over honour, but the rest of my people are not the same as me. I gave the order to surrender, not once, but twice. I am everything that the Fire Nation, my people, despise."

"You're a hero to them, whether you want to believe it or not sparky. It takes a lot of courage to go against centuries of belief and tradition, but you did it."

"A hero, yeah right; the only person who came out of that a hero was Katara. The noble Water Bender who saw through the treachery of the Banished Prince," Zuko rubbed his bandaged arm upon mentioned his banishment, even though in the past he would touch the scar on his face.

"Maybe, but every single Fire Nation present at that battle thinks of her as a monster. I understand she has even earned the title Blood Bender, for not hesitating to spill as much as needed to win the war."

"You might be a hero to the Earth and Water nations, but you have know what the Fire Nation thinks of you. How many more titles are you going to earn before you give up this stupid vendetta?" Sokka made his gambit, his sister had to at lreast understand how those she attacked felt. Certainly his little sister had not fallen so low.

"Once Aang is Fire Lord it won't matter anymore anyway. He's the Avatar, Sokka, he'll set things right. He has to."

"Do you even remember what you did to that kid back at that village two nights ago? Or what you've done to others who you suspected of having information on Zuko?"

"I healed them after, and that's what has gotten us this far. Even with Aang's permission to find Zuko, not everyone is going to be helpful."

"We still don't have the slightest clue what continent he's on. Everything up till now has been a waste. What's more, I think you're confused; Aang never gave us permission to hunt Zuko, he told us to. I don't know about you, but back when I was serving in the army that sounded more like an order."

"What makes you think Aang is on the move anyway? It's not like you can feel him from hear, unless you've improved more than I thought possible."

"I got word a couple days ago from a friend that Sugar Queen is back on the hunt."

"Good, I have things to settle with her even if she does find me. Not that she will, she's been at it for four years and has had no luck," he smiled, trying to make light of the situation.

"No but she's been close even if she doesn't know it, I turned Azula over to her not a day after I ran into you. What's more, things have changed now."

"What has changed?" Zuko's face became stern, not certain he'd like any news that seemed to make Toph nervous.

"She's looked for you before eyes, but she's always done it on her own, well if you don't count Snoozles of course. Never before has she had an Avatar's blessing, and all the benefits that come with it."

Zuko leapt from the table, spilling what was left of his tea as the cup fell to the ground. "What?" He demanded.

"You heard me; she's been given orders to find you. Twinkle Toes finally realized that she's probably the only one who can and will bring you in, so he's given her all the diplomatic power she needs to track you down. On top of that, when I last saw her, she revealed that Aang had told her that you have an alias called the blue spirit."

Zuko said nothing, but grabbed his swords from the ground and began to skulk away.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk, I hear the Fell Crag is a couple minutes North, I figure I might as well check it out. Don't know when I'll be in this area again. Don't worry, I'll come back, I need my tent."

"Alright, just be careful not to fall in," waved Toph, she then proceeded to pour herself another cup of tea.

"You're wrong Sokka, Aang would never boss us around he sees us all as equals. He just finally understands the threat that Zuko poses."

"Yeah, the threat to him, you know he can't take the throne unless both Zuko and Azula are out of the picture. Why can't you see how much Aang has changed over the last four years? He'll do anything to achieve peace Katara, anything!"

"You don't know what you're talking about; he's just taking his role as Avatar a little bit more seriously. The war was horrible on everyone; he just wants to make sure that it never happens again. I don't understand why you're not taking the same position."

"I don't want another war, but I refuse to condone the execution of anyone, even Azula, as a means to that end. You don't end wars by taking more lives," Sokka kicked his Ostrich horse and changed direction.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'll come back in a bit; I just don't feel like talking anymore. Go meet Toph, I want to do some sight seeing."

"Sokka, stop being a child and come on, we don't have time for this!"
"I told you I'll meet up in a bit, just stick around the village for a while, I'll be back by noon," he waved off his sister dismissively.

"Fine, but be careful," Katara took up the reigns and prodded her ostrich horse forward.

Zuko stretched, and then clenched his teeth as he was reminded of the dozens of small bruises that dotted his worn form. He began the task of climbing the steep hill before him, the only thing blocking his view of the legendary Fell Crag. The sand and dirt made the ascent difficult, and if he was not careful he would slide right back down. A squawk from beneath him caused the prince to cease his movement and turn to look over his shoulder.

"You," he gasped, surprised to see Sokka sitting atop an ostrich horse.

The younger boy did not hesitate, leaping form his mount, and drawing both his sward and boomerang in one fluid motion. Zuko released his grip, and quickly began to slide downwards, leaping at the last second, drawing his sword and taking aim at the Water Tribe warrior.

Chapter 4: To Be Continued in Chapter 5

Sorry about the cliff hanger, but I plan on making the coming fight, and yes there will be a fight because unlike Toph not everyone is on good terms with the prince, a rather long one, to sat the least. A major note is that while most of the events from The Boiling Rock fit in fine, obviosly in my story Suki was not rescued. If I have time I'll write up my own version of events during TBR so that everything else remaisn accurate. This was not a chapter I was eager to write, but it needed to be done and I hope I conveyed it well. I tried my best to make it clear that Toph and Zuko have a sibling relationship, the constant switching between Zuko & Toph and Sokka & Katara was supposed to give a similar feel, but to be safe I even out right stated as much. I'm not shipping anything, with the exception of Sokka & Suki, and don't want anyone to think otherwise. Until the next time, as always, remember to seize the day.

-fallendeathlord