Chapter 7: Things Heat Up, after Cooling
As Toph once again made her way across fields and roads (setting local commerce back by several months), she considered the ramifications of the information she had discovered. Instead of going to Ba Sing Se, the pirates were heading for the Water Tribes. But to which one, the pirates Toph had interrogated hadn't been clear about. Toph had decided to head for the Southern tribe, it was closer and where her friends lived… Sokka and Katara…
It had been so long since she'd seen either of them, several years in fact. The pair had always been busy with rebuilding their tribe, but they had always made time for her when she had arrived to visit them, although this had happened very rarely, as Toph hated visiting places where foot ware wasn't optional. They had kept in touch, using Sokka's hawk, the one with the stupid name – whatsisname, Birdy? Beaky? – but eventually their correspondence had dried up.
Now she was off to see them again, but with bad news in tow.
Toph had left Mei behind with her reclaimed property, even though the girl had been extremely persistent in trying to find a way to join Toph on her journeys, stopping short at physical threats. Toph could relate to her, being kept in a stinking swamp, with nothing to do and all of the world so close, yet unreachable.
As Toph sailed through the land, she could sense the limits of the earth approaching. All around her was a fuzzy, but tangible, surrounding to be perceived, but a short distance away in front of her, it completely vanished.
When she was just a short distance away from the darkness of her mind's eye, she stopped, searching for a means of transport. There was a village to her left, with what seemed like a small dock. She decided to walk the short distance, in order to avoid unnecessary attention. There she would hopefully be able to hire someone to take her to the Southern Water tribe.
***
When Toph reached the shores of the lands of the Southern Water tribe, she sensed a familiar presence. Unlike with Zuko, who she hadn't met in a decade, her separation from this person's familiar gait had been a lot shorter, ensuring a better memory. She ran swiftly into a tavern, where the loud sounds of a carnivorous beast grumbled with satisfaction as it devoured great amounts of meat.
Toph jumped and hugged a man with a wolftail (the self-proclaimed masculine offspring of the ponytail) from behind, who had been standing before a buffet table, where he had been prowling the table like an animal, grabbing whatever tempted his taste buds and devouring it with the efficiency of a machine.
"Sokka!" Toph cheered.
"Mrmphf? Oph?" the bewildered man attempted to ask with a mouthful of food. This futile attempt ended in a furious fit of coughing.
"You have no idea how glad I am to see you again," Toph said as she continued to squeeze Sokka with a dangerous amount of affection.
"Khaff! Oph, plz sop shweezin meh," Sokka gagged.
After Toph finally released her iron grip around Sokka, and he in turn stopped choking on his food, he asked her: "Toph, what are you doing here?"
Toph could barely contain her excitement, erupting into an explosion of exposition. She eagerly explained everything that had happened to her in the previous days with Zuko and the pirates with such speed and intensity that Sokka could barely follow. She recounted all the thrilling moments and stunning revelations with an enthusiasm she was becoming used to once again after meeting Zuko and embarking on her journey. It was only when she turned to the less desirable aspects of information that her pace began to slow.
"Soo… you aren't here for the spicy wings," Sokka asked her as he gave the buffet table a conspiratorial sideways glance.
"Did you listen to anything I said?"
"Yeah, Zuko's back, world in peril, smelly pirates… nothing new, nothing we can't handle," Sokka muttered distractedly. If the piece of food being eyed so intently were a conscious being, it would have tried to edge away discreetly.
"You can't be serious. You can't – should I give you and the roasted moose lion some time alone?" Toph said, finally noticing the object of Sokka's desires.
"I'd like that. I'd really, really like that," Sokka said as he once again advanced on his helpless but succulent prey.
Eyewitness accounts of what happened next differ greatly. Fishermen at the docks would say that nothing more than a small tremor occurred. A pedestrian walking past the restaurant would claim to have seen tables and food flying out the windows with a man screaming, "Not the meat! Not the MEAT!!" The restaurant's owner would give long irritated rants about a short woman, who first messed up his carpets and then rendered these worries moot as food was splattered around the entire premises.
Toph found Sokka near the water where he had landed, on his knees, holding out a hand longingly towards the water. "It was the biggest steak I'd ever seen…"
"Sokka, I say this with all the love in the world, forget about the damn food!" Toph exclaimed, adding seriously but offhandedly, "And get me some shoes, my toes are freezing."
***
"How are we moving?" Toph asked as she tried to get a good look at the cylindrical contraption she was in through her feet. It was solid steel, she could tell, but she didn't sense any rumbling machinery contributing to the inertia she felt.
"Well, it's all very complicated," Sokka said, turning his head around quickly to peer out through a porthole. He was sitting in a relaxed pose on a long bench on the other side of the large cylinder.
Toph, sitting across from him, raised her inquisitive eyes from the floor. She cocked an eyebrow knowingly. Just because she couldn't see anything with her eyes didn't mean they were useless. Knowing stares always unnerved people, but when it came from blind opulent eyes, she knew they were even freakier. She'd have her answers soon enough.
"Oh really?" Toph said tauntingly. "Something so complex a simple girl who likes to roll around in the mud couldn't even hope to understand. Pardon my arrogance, oh! such audacity."
Sokka was silent for a moment, still staring outside, and then he said meekly, "… No harm done."
Toph faked injury. "Please, accept my sincerest apologies."
Sokka gulped nervously.
"Knowing you it must have been something incredibly difficult and –"
"Alright, alright. Enough. I'll explain. No need to resort to further acts of mental torture," Sokka said as he turned around. "The basic design is all my idea, naturally. Of course, the Mechanist did all of the technical stuff. But anyway, you know how they have that transportation system in Ba Sing Se with earthbenders pushing them along?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, on one of my many ambassadorial missions to Ba Sing Se, I got to thinking, how could we do that in the Water Tribes? We could really use technology like that here. We've established several new small villages around the country. Even though the distances can be fairly easily traversed by ships, it's all rather impractical. You can't just take a ship whenever you want to."
"C'mon Sokka, hurry it up," Toph said with a small yawn.
"Yeah, well, I came up with an idea how to use the system with waterbenders!" Sokka said, now very ecstatic.
"But we're still on ground," Toph observed.
"But we have waterbenders bending steam into large containers at the stations in which we stop occasionally. Then we use the pressure built up by the steam to launch the container we're in!"
"Ok… I don't really get it."
"It's best not to think about it too hard," Sokka admitted, and then once again glanced out the window. "Ah, we're here. Welcome to the grand capital of the Southern Water Tribes!"
The cylinder came to a jarring halt, knocking the usually surefooted Toph down on her knees.
"Yeah, the system still needs some work," Sokka said, helping Toph back onto her feet. Then he led the way out through a door. "Maybe some kind of straps in the seats… Seat-straps? No. Seatbelts? Ugh, now that just sounds stupid…" he muttered to himself as he led the way out.
If Toph had been able to see, she would have been thoroughly shocked by the grandeur of the village from where Sokka and Katara had left on they're journey with the Avatar. It was now a large sprawling city, with large, tall buildings scraping the skies. The Southern Tribe's architecture differed greatly from the Northern; everything was asymmetrical, tryingto look as natural as possible. There were no corners or sharp edges to any of the icy buildings. The buildings were formed from spiralling ice, which ultimately made most of them resemble icebergs.
"I see you expanded the palace," Toph remarked, since all she could really see was the outlines of the buildings against the ground. This was what she hated about going to either of the poles, she could barely see anything. Even with a pair of shoes that had dangerously thin soles, she could barely make anything out. And then there was all that annoying snow.
"C'mon, it's almost dinner time," Sokka said, hurriedly leading Toph towards the grand palace with its giant spiralling spires.
***
"OM NOM NOM!" Sokka went as he devoured his way through his meal.
"Grand ambassador, must you eat now, here, during our meeting of stately matters?" Gendo, the Master of the Treasury asked, deeply offended by the young man's lack of etiquette.
Toph burped a reply that sounded faintly like sorry.
Gendo sighed patiently. Great, another one.
"Don't mind us, just carry on. I'll object to anything if the need arises," Sokka said after he finished swallowing.
"Guys, I know you're hungry, but there are such things as manner," Katara said, frustrated by behaviour she hadn't been able to kick out of either Sokka or Toph for years. Not that she hadn't tried, much to the annoyance of the pair.
"Sorry," Toph and Sokka muttered in unison, before they continued eating, trying they're hardest to chew quietly.
"Thank you. Please Gendo, continue the meeting," Katara said.
The meeting progressed in a typical tedious manner. Toph and Sokka both remained quiet for most of the meeting, both happy that they had food to concentrate on instead of having to listen to all of the bureaucracy. Even when they had finished eating, they didn't dare say anything; hoping silence on their parts would speed up the meeting.
While Sokka reminisced over his previous meal and planned for the next one, Toph couldn't help but worry about the news she would be required to tell all the representatives at the end of the meeting. She had told Katara (and Sokka again) everything, and they had both agreed that the council should be made aware of the situation. Toph was starting to feel rather nervous.
"Now that our meeting is nearly over," Gendo said in his dry voice, "we have one more important matter to attend to. An envoy from the Earth Kingdom is here with dire news."
Toph gulped nervously. Socializing with high class was easy enough, it was talking about serious matters she had never been able to get the hang of.
"Bring him in," Gendo said to a guard standing at a large doorway.
"Yes, sir."
Him? Toph gaped with both Katara and Sokka by her sides, both looking equally bewildered.
A short, fat man bundled in thick furs entered the hall.
"Greetings, great and noble leaders of the Southern Water Tribes. My name is Dang, and I come from the Earth Kingdom with dire news," Dang said in a nasally voice, after he sneezed loudly a couple of times.
"Don't listen to him, he's a pirate!" Toph shouted, rising up as she pummelled the table. "He stole important documents from the Fire Nation!"
Dang stared at Toph with a mixture of shock and fear, but recovered quickly. "I am an official envoy of the Earth Kingdom. Like all great Nations of the world, we employ spies upon our enemies. Yes, I have important Fire Nation documents, and trust me, it's better that we know of their impending attack."
"What?!" several people at the meeting shouted, startled by these dangerous news.
"Yes, I regret to inform you, but the Fire Nation is planning another war. Troops, supplies, and machinery are being moved to frontiers. Weapon production has reached a level as high as it was during the previous war. It's all in these documents," Dang said as he threw a pile of papers onto the table. Many people furiously grabbed at them, eager to see if all these horrible claims were true.
"Oh my…"said Gendo as he skimmed through a report. "This is terrible. There's actually a plan for invasion in here with places of tactical importance highlighted."
"Yes, as you can see, our nations are once again in peril from the depraved forces of the Fire Nation. That is why I am here on behalf of the Earth Kingdom to present to you an alliance. This time we can stop them, if we work together. With our united front we'll be able stop another senseless war," Gendo said as he wiped his nose.
"That – that's not true! I met the Fire Lord just a couple of days ago, he has no intention of starting a war!" Toph insisted.
"I can't believe Zuko would advocate war either, no one's been more adamant about peace than he has," Katara said with a gloomy stare at Dang.
"All lies so he could prepare for war in secret and continue the war his father failed to finish. Trust me, the royal family is full of crazy, power hungry fiends who'll do anything for the taste of blood, especially now that they have a chance for vengeance," Dang said, taking a seat at the table and helping himself to some of the drinks still left on the table.
"No, it's not possible…" Toph said quietly, but then mustered her courage again, "I'll be meeting the Fire Lord tomorrow. I'll bring him here so he can personally persuade you all that there is nothing to fear. Sokka I need your fastest ship."
"Sure, just take my order and they'll give you anything you need," Sokka said mutely as he furiously searched for a pen and paper. He quickly scribbled something on it and handed it to Toph.
"Hurry," he told her in a voice that was almost lost in all of the commotion the reading of the documents had caused.
"You're not coming?" Toph asked.
"I think I should stay here and make sure nothing hasty happens," Sokka said, looking around at the other officials.
"Yeah, we're very important to in the politics of The Tribe. We'll make sure you have enough time to get back before anything's decided," Katara said with a reassuring smile on her face. Even so, she looked sort of deflated.
"Ok, I'll be back soon with Zuko," Toph said, after which she gave Dang a nasty glower.
Toph stalked out of the room, fuming. She had to hurry in order to get to Zuko as fast as possible, she couldn't risk being late. Not now when the fate of the world hung in the balance once again.