Travelling.

--

"I'm going out. Be back in a month or so, bye."

Home had gotten boring again. Actually, pretty much everything was boring nowadays. Some days she nearly regretted participating in the biggest single event of her life- of anyone's life- when she was so young. She wouldn't trade those days for anything, even the worst of them, but the rest of her life was just... denouement.

She really shouldn't be complaining about how stressful her life wasn't, but she hated to be idle.

So that was why she was going to Omashu. Sokka was, to the best of her knowledge, living there these days, and Aang had been around there lately. She hadn't seen either of them for the better part of a year.

Stupid Katara. She just had to grow up, didn't she?

It had been better when they were children.

She amended that. It had been better when they had all been children. She was still a year shy of technical adulthood.

But it had been better, no matter how you constructed the sentence. No one had got married, and while Aang had to do the impossible, at least no one was asking him to do everything.

Now everyone was, at any given time, at least two hundred miles from at least three of the others.

This was not an acceptable equation. So she was going to unbalance it.

--

It took nearly a week to get to Omashu.

When she got there, she was given mildly unwelcome news.

"I am sorry, Toph, but they left nearly three weeks ago. They were headed North," Bumi explained, as if he didn't have anything more important to do.

"North. Huh."

Wait a moment.

"They?"

--

Mai and Sokka? Really?

It had taken Toph a while to get her mind around that, not least because it took her almost ten minutes to even remember which one Mai was supposed to be. At first she'd thought it might be that schoolgirl Aang had danced with back in the Fire Nation, which had put a whole different spin on things.

Oh yeah, Zuko's ex. Well, wasn't that a strange turn of events.

--

Well, they weren't exactly making it hard to follow them. They seemed hell-bent on leaving a trail of extremely petty devastation across the Earth Kingdom, a veritable mini-Ozai of unpaid restaurant bills, utterly one-sided bar fights, and stolen pillows.

To be fair, they had mailed the pillow back later.

After a couple of weeks making inquiries- a dull and time-consuming process- she found that the pair had turned sharply West, and moved a lot faster than they had before.

This also meant that they stopped being so noticeable, and Toph quickly lost the trail.

One evening, she overheard two people discussing a rumour. Apparently, a warrior had appeared out West, challenging anyone he came across.

A warrior wielding a black sword.

Well, at least Toph knew why they had come out this way.

--

She caught up to them a week later.

She felt them before she heard them, walking side by side down the road. But she heard them soon enough.

"Sokka, we've been doing this for hours now. Can we stop? I don't think he's going to show."

She felt rather than heard his sigh.

"I guess you're right. I mean, after all hiyah!"

The boomerang bounced harmlessly off the wall of earth.

"Toph?"

"Who were you expecting?"

"...You know, I don't think you can really use that one in this situation, since I was pretty obviously not expecting you. But how've you been?"

"Eh, alright, I guess. You know how it is."

"To live the life of the idle rich? Can't say I do. Mai, you know what the idle rich do, right?"

"Nothing."

"Well, there you have it. Come on, let's get back to the inn."

They fell into step. Back in sync in moments, it was like the last five years just melted away, and they were on the road, telling idiotic jokes, laughing at other people's expense, constantly trying to get the better of one another. She couldn't believe how much she had missed this.

It was only afterwards that Toph noticed Mai had become part of the background.

--

They had rented a room for her at the inn, and invited her to join them on their search in the morning.

Well, Sokka had. Mai still hadn't said a word to her.

--

Their plan, once Sokka had explained it to her, had seemed sensible, and simple. Let it be known that they were looking for the guy with the black sword, walk around in the area he was known to be, wait for him to intercept them, and get the sword back, by whatever means seemed easiest.

It was apparently a lot easier on Sokka's conscience when he had heard that the guy was supposed to be a total jerk.

--

It had been a long three days. Three days of walking around in the baking sun. During that time, she was fairly certain she had heard Mai say a total of maybe twenty words. Admittedly, she wasn't around Toph all the time, so maybe she got all her talking done at night.

But it had been great seeing Sokka again, and he had made the three days of walking seem fun.

But now they were at an end, because the guy had shown up.

She knew it was the sword from the moment he had got within a mile. No other metal was quite the same, and she had her bracelet to compare it to. It was him.

"Great."

"Why? Intimidating?"

"A little."

"So! You are the ones who are looking for me."

Sokka stepped forward.

"You've got my sword, buddy. I'd appreciate it if you gave it back."

"Hmm. No."

Sokka sighed. "Oh well, I tried. Now I'm afraid I'm going to have to kick your ass."

"Ha!" The man barked, so harshly that the exhaled punch of air shuddered throughout his body. "Well, if it is a fight you desire, you shall have it!"

Sokka drew his blade, pacing forward.

"Seriously, you're just going to embarrass yourself. Tell you what, you give me the sword, I'll give you a couple really impressive scars, you make up an interesting story, and you'll make a lifetime's worth of free drinks."

"You talk a good fight, little man."

"That's it? No rider? Just a compliment? Man, you suck at this."

The two men padded around each other, Sokka's mindless banter distracting from the stance he was preparing.

"I gotta say, I understand man. I mean, I've seen your mom, and it's a testament to your spirit that you even learned to talk."

"Enough! You die now!"

The man swung wildly, but Sokka was ready, stepping back and deflecting the wild charge with ease. Finding his footing, he swung around, the arc of his blade aiming straight for his opponent's neck.

The swords met with a punishing clang, and Mai's heart spiked. Grinning, the man used his greater height and mass to lean over Sokka, who was slowly being pushed back.

Toph could feel his sword straining to keep its edge. Unconsciously, she stabilised the ground beneath his feet.

Then the man jerked backwards, twisting his sword over his head, and swinging two handed towards Sokka's head but his blade tore upwards, faster than Toph could hope to follow, and there was a scream of steel and Sokka was left with half a sword.

Mai jerked forward and a knife was in her hand in moments.

"No," Toph hissed.

Mai ignored her, and threw, but the blade went wide and-

Sokka's head jerked back in a spray of blood.

Mai's heart went haywire, and she began to move forwards, but Toph forced herself to ignore that and feel.

Sokka's heart, beating fast, but steady, pumping blood. A cut on his face, over his left eye. Long, but shallow. Didn't touch bone, which was a miracle in itself. Non-fatal, not even a life-threatening injury, as long as it got treated. He was fine. Fine.

Except now there was blood streaming down his face and effectively blind in one eye and there was a maniac with a sword preparing to split his skull in two-

Toph could see it coming. Sokka's stance was eloquent. She could feel his muscles bunching, could practically hear the power building up, rushing from the earth.

Mai slowed. She could see it too.

Oh, this was going to hurt.

Sokka unwound, one muscle at a time, stacking up and accelerating and building up the kind of momentum normally reserved for rampaging elephant-bulls and unloading it all right into the man's poor defenceless temple.

Toph winced in sympathy- she felt that one. The punch was beyond textbook- it was the trendsetter. It was as if the greatest artist in the history of the human race had decided to branch out into the medium of pain, and his canvas was that guy's unwitting and unprepared face.

There was a pause, both combatants freezing, to better admire the majesty of that single blow, and then the man crumpled like a paper bag caught in the rain.

Sokka exhaled for a moment, flexing and unflexing his hand.

Then he turned around.

"Feel free to step in any time, guys."

Toph shrugged. "Didn't want to get in the way."

"We thought you wanted to be macho and duel the guy. You were taunting him, and so forth. Seemed like a guy thing."

"Yeah, I was trying to distract him, you know. So one of you could hit him in the back of the head."

Mai had moved up to Sokka, and was peering intently at his wound.

"That's going to scar. Hold still." She dabbed at the blood with a cloth, cleaning his face. "We should get that looked at when we get back in town."

"You worry too much."

"That's because I have to do your worrying for you, as well. It's very thoughtless of you."

"Hey, I've done alright so far."

"You've survived long enough to get to twenty-one. That's not actually a great feat, you know. Most people manage that."

Now it was Toph that felt left out.

Sokka bent down, and picked up his sword, reunited at last. He held it with the same disbelieving care that most people reserved for their first-born babies.

"Oh, look at that. He hasn't even tried to keep it clean. Oh, this will not do at all."

--

They were back at the inn. Sokka had been patched up by the local physician, who had apparently done terrible things to his face with a pot of green stuff, and put a bandage over his eye. He had then commandeered polish, a cloth, a wire brush, and a whole bunch of other things that Toph couldn't identify, and vanished into his and Mai's room.

He had been in there for hours now. Mai and Toph were lounging in the lounge. They were the only people there.

Conversation had yet to arrive. Perhaps it felt uncomfortable.

Well, Toph couldn't stand the silence any longer.

"So... you and Sokka, huh?"

"M-hmm."

"How's that working out for you?"

Mai shifted slightly.

"Alright, I suppose. He's entertaining. And it beats sitting around at home all day."

"Heh. So, how'd you two meet?"

Mai shifted again.

"Earth Kingdom. I chased him down and tried to kill him. You weren't there at that point."

"I meant afterwards."

"How can you first meet twice?"

"Whatever." Toph shook her head. "Look, I just want to make sure I've got a few things straight. I was trying to be tactful, but I'm not gonna bother now. Look, you like Sokka, right?"

"I am dating the guy."

Toph took that as a yes.

"Good. So it's only fair to tell you that if you hurt him, and you're ever within a hundred miles of any of us again, it will not go well."

Mai paused, taking this in.

"Why can't we just sort out any petty revenges between ourselves?"

"Sokka's too chivalrous. It's a failing of his."

"Chivalrous."

"Yeah, you know, code of honour stuff."

"Toph, just this morning he suggested I should have knifed a man in the back of the head while he was distracted by honourable single combat."

"Yeah, but to be fair, he was really bad at hinting."

--

I am of the humble opinion that Mai and Sokka would badly misunderstand the term "destructive relationship". Normally, other people's property is rarely involved.

Also real conclusions are bourgeois nonsense and should be shunned.

Also I read too much Seanbaby.