A/N: Ok, first and formost, I would like to apologize to all of my loyal readers who have been patient with me. Scorched Earth has now hit 140 reviews!! Woohoo!
Yes, I know, no thanks to my updates (or lack thereof).
I would also like to wish this story a happy birthday, since it has been in existence for a year, and still hasn't been finished (grumbles).
College sucks, have the roomie from hell, didn't have a computer for two weeks and the computer I DID get is a Mac that I can't figure out how to use…
Yeah. Quite the trip, hehe.
For those of you looking for a lemon in this story, I have decided to repost this story onto or as a separate story with the lemon in THAT, rather than have it here on ffnet. Too many young un's, and I don't want my account deleted either, hehe.
Anyways, I hope that this little bit of fluff and humor will make up for my long absence. And without further ado, enjoy!
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Snow erupted for a brief moment, a small burst of flame blasting apart more than 10 feet of the hard-as-concrete avalanche in a single blow, a single hand gripping the side of the newly made hole and heaving a coughing and sputtering Zuko from its depths.
On his back was a bewildered Toph, her sightless eyes portraying rare look of slight alarm.
"What… the hell… happened?" Toph muttered, collapsing in a heap as Zuko unceremoniously dumped her onto the hardened snow next to him.
"The avatar seems to have had a bad day," the fire prince coughed, moaning slightly as his arms protested any movement.
"This was from Twinkle Toes?!" she snorted.
"It seems that the avatar… (cough) hasn't slacked off in his training much…"
They both panted in silence, the light snow that was remaining from the avatar's incredible attack falling lightly about them, falling to join their brothers on the ground below and beginning to cover the two panting individuals laying face up in the snow.
"Hey, Princess?"
He felt his eye twitch. "Yes?"
"Question…"
"Go for it," Zuko said, his breathing returning to normal. After all, fire bending relied on the breath, and trying a high level fire technique with no air to start with was difficult, much less under many feet of freezing snow.
"How strong are you?"
He blinked, and then snorted. "What the hell kind of question is that?"
Rolling over to face her with a face half contorted in male defensive posturing, his expression immediately softened when he actually saw her blush.
"Well… er…"
"What?" he half snapped.
"I… kinda can't move my legs…" she muttered embarrassedly under her breath. He blinked at her stupidly, and she half cursed under her breath. "You're…" She sighed irritably. "You're going to have to carry me."
Zuko blinked twice in a comedic pause, reviewing recent events that would cause her immobility as Toph's face only ripened like a tomato with each passing second. Ah yes, Ty Lee's hit…
An embarrassed snort oh Toph's behalf brought him back to reality. "Are you… actually asking for help?" he asked tentatively.
"YES!" she blurted. "I can't move my legs, so I can't really walk, okay?!"
He gave a slight snort in response, heaving himself up from the snow and looping arms underneath her knees and lower back and lifted her up in a quick scoop.
She squeaked slightly, but he didn't take note of it as he held the small pale woman in his arms, shifting his weight to achieve the new balance.
It felt… strangely comfortable…
A cold breeze ripped at their clothing abruptly, causing Toph to huddle closer cutely, and Zuko couldn't help but snicker slightly at the girly movement. She clenched her fist as if to punch him, before she (regretfully, it seemed) unclenched her fist and settled back down.
The fire prince gave a slight sigh, before looking around the area to get some even slight inkling as to what in the hell he was supposed to do next.
Aang's little instanta-ski-slope had buried everything in the immediate area, Zuko realized to his chagrin. Turning his head from side to side in a broad arc, only the snow-topped trees (nearly eye level, he noticed,) rewarding his scouring eyes.
"So… why aren't we moving?"
Face morphing into a scowl, Zuko "accidentally" slipped holding Toph in response, before giving a gruff "Because I have no idea where to go."
There was a silence, made slightly awkward by the fact that neither was moving in the cold and Toph could feel her unbidden growing urge to crawl up inside the shirt of her "savior" for the heat it promised. "Well, you could find some shelter so we don't freeze our butts off…"
Zuko snorted at his own stupidity, before trudging off in a random direction, Toph held tightly in his arms.
He couldn't see any other footprints around… it hadn't been too long since the avatar had dropped the giant dandruff heap and buried the town, so either they were dead or Iroh and the water bending brat had saved the villagers in some fashion.
Looking to one side, he saw a gigantic scorch mark in the shape of a tea cup where the snow had stopped short amidst some rubble.
Most likely the latter…
Giving a slight snort of amusement, he continued onwards, Toph's added weight (although admittedly very light,) pushing him farther into the snow than he would have liked. He paused a moment, before looking back over towards some stray parts strewn about the area, a look of confusion on his face.
Then, a look of annoyance crossed his scarred features. Of course, that's why there were no footprints… that thrice-damned water bending peasant had probably covered their tracks to prevent Azula from following, if his detestable sister had survived…
Of course, that also meant that he and his little "bundle of joy" wouldn't be able to find them very easily either… from what he could tell, Toph couldn't "see" very well at the moment, and the 10-foot layer of snow wasn't going to make it very easy to rejoin with Iroh and the others by tracing their footsteps through the earth…
It was then that it hit him: they were utterly alone. No food or water other than the heaps of snow about, although that snowstorm might have…
His thoughts were cut short as his "passenger" shivered strongly, before cursing her own weakness. Her clothing was wet and her lips were showing the slightest hint of blue…
Giving himself a mental slap on both cheeks, he continued onwards into the woods in a search for shelter, which was quickly becoming desperate.
An hour passed, and Toph was curling tighter and tighter in his arms, her small form's shivering now uncontrollable in her wet clothing.
Zuko looked hopelessly around for something other than these darned tree tops, his brow furrowing as another frustrated growl escaped his lips. Taking a great intake of breath, he blew a small fireball into the snow, and was rewarded with a miniature tunnel flowing down into its depths. Swiftly sliding down the side with Toph, he deposited her in the bottom, melting the snow a bit more and with a sigh of relief noticed that the frozen water nearly instantly re-melted, securing the sides of the tunnel.
Scrambling back out, he scrounged the surface of the snow, grabbing bits of tree branches that had been blown off, and gathering them into piles in seemingly random locations.
"I don't like being deposited, you know..." Came a frustrated, albeit comical response from within the tunnel.
Under normal circumstances, seeing Toph in a bit of humility would have caused a snort of laughter, if not a small snicker, from the otherwise stoic prince, but the tone of her voice was nothing short of frightening to him. Her usually steady, erupting heat was enough to cause his "heat sense" to go bonkers. But now... Now, that heat was dwindling, the chattering of her teeth apparent through her words as her small body struggled to maintain its heat.
She would die soon unless he could help it. They both knew that, and here she was cracking jokes...
What a woman, he mused.
Swiftly returning with a small armful of wood, it was too meager to start a good fire with. It would burn out in a matter of hours, and the most important goal that he needed to accomplish was to dry out their clothes. Wet clothes invited hypothermia; something that Toph herself was only moments away from.
Cursing under his breath as Toph shivered in a darkened corner, he sent a blast of flame at the tiny branches. He snarled as it met a layer of caked-on ice, meeting the layers with blast after blast of flame, each more desperate than the last as he could see Toph slowly collapsing under the cold.
"DAMN IT ALL!!!" He screamed, only a tiny ember the revealing itself from his efforts. Leaving his work behind, he crawled over to Toph, pressing his body against her own. She tried to shove him away weakly, obviously surprised at the action, but another huge shiver running through her body worked against her, and she slumped against the frozen ground.
Snorting irritably, Zuko swiftly took off his shirt and breathed another miniature fireball, promptly drying, if at least drying his wetted clothing.
"W-what are y-you d-d-doing?" She stuttered.
"Our clothes are wet, we won't be able to get warm this way." He stated simply, and began to tug at her shirt.
She immediately stiffened, and attempted to stop him. "W-what?!"
"Your clothes are wet, take them off and I can dry them."
A blush met her cheeks, as she tried to pull her shirt back down once again, but his hand, warm and gentle yet forceful, grabbed her milky fingers in his own.
"Strip."
She snorted mentally at how crude that had sounded, but her strength drained and fading from the cold, she felt her shirt being pulled over her head, and with a quick breath of weak fire, she felt a warm mist of water in the air about them.
She felt the cold shivering come about in full swing, and she reached for her shirt expectantly, before she was swiftly pulled into her the lap of the fire prince, earning a very un-Toph-ly squeak. Before she could protest further, however, a warm blast from the prince's mouth washed over her, instantly drying out the wrap she wore around her chest and part of her pants.
Her body shuddered at the sensation, instantly leaning towards him subconsciously with the additional heat, curling up against him as she found her head nuzzling (against her will, she told herself) into the crook of his neck.
For a split-second eternity, they just sat there, before Zuko pushed her off lightly onto the slightly-dryer snow and pulling his own shirt on.
"We need some more firewood…" He said awkwardly, pulling away from her. "I won't be long…"
"Oh…"
She heard him depart, feeling strangely helpless.
And for the first time since meeting this new Zuko, she truly felt alone for a moment.
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Fumbling around…well, blindly, she managed to find her discarded shirt, and slipped it on.
Sheesh, her shirt smelled like him, she noticed, hugging herself to try to absorb as much heat as she could from it. Mentally, a part of her wanted to scoff at how absurdly love struck she was, (not that she would admit she was love struck in the first place,) but another part of her just scoffed back and relished in the heat she was getting.
The heat slowly faded, and she padded on her hands and knees in the depths of their "burrow." The strong blasts of freezing air quickly told her where the entrance was. There was, however, a very slight problem.
As spacious as the interior was, it wasn't nearly large enough for the both of them to sleep, unless Zuko intended to…
Sightless eyes narrowing slightly, she huffed. Men…
Although her feet were still fairly useless, her crawling around yielded some results about the landscape underneath them. She may not have had the stance that earth bending usually required, but she did have her determination, dammit! Determination that was fueled by a very cold breeze wafting up her pants right now…
Punching the ground a few times, the frozen grass and layers of mud were more stubborn, and she cursed slightly at how slow it was to move. But, soon enough, it shoved downwards into a deeper hole: one that would not melt above their heads, she mused.
She continued onwards, pushing back the earth a good 10 feet into the ground in a general spiral, making sure that a groove was at the top. Zuko was a body capable of generating a lot of heat, (she dismissed the innuendo within her thoughts,) but he would no doubt want to make a fire. A fire meant smoke, and without somewhere to go, smoke would kill them even faster than the suffocating cold around them.
"Toph?" An inquiring voice came from behind her, accompanied by shuffles down the snowy passageway.
"Down here!" She called back, punching the nearby frozen rock once more.
"What the hell did you…" he started, before he dropped what sounded like a large cluster of rocks and branches off to the side. "Oh… impressive…" He said, not trying to hide in the least the slight awe in his voice.
"Thank you," she half-chirruped, crawling back over to a corner of the cave and sitting down with a plop. There was a pause, and she felt his eyes on her. "What? I'm not HELPLESS you know!"
"Well obviously," Zuko snorted. "It just amazes me that you can do this much bending even without a solid stance, is all."
Toph blinked. "Oh… How did you know about an earth stances?"
"Uncle knows a lot of stuff, if you can pry him away from tea for a while," Zuko chuckled, plopping down on the opposite side of the miniature cave and set about constructing a small fire at his feet, illuminated by a small fire balancing on his nose.
The comical scene was lost to Toph, who merely closed her eyes and listened to the rustle of his mildly-calloused hands snapping branches and putting them into a neat little pile.
The fire was lit swiftly, and in a nice warm rush, she felt the fire's flames all over her body.
They had no food.
Thanks to Aang's blizzard, they had no idea which way was where, and were completely lost no less than 5 miles from where they had previously made their home…
But at the moment… all Toph could think about was the steady warmth in front of her.
Zuko's hands stopped moving for an impossibly long second, before a slight sigh escaped his lips. "I'm not really sure what to do from here…" he admitted, his voice soft.
Toph's face fell, and another silence took their little "burrow," the unalloyed stillness only broken by the occasional pop of burning wood.
"Well… the village wasn't THAT big… but they weren't that small, either…" Toph said, half to herself and her companion lifted his head. "Considered most of them were civilians… I doubt they would have been able to get THAT far…and with Twinkle Toes, Sugar Queen, and your uncle, they should be fine."
"It's not them I'm concerned about…" Zuko muttered, slouching against the rough side of the burrow. "We only made it half a day's walk because of our clothing situation…" She felt his eyes go to her feet, and she shuffled uncomfortably as she pulled her meager light clothing around herself indignantly
"HEY!" Toph snorted huffily. "I like to be able to see when I'm walking, so I don't wear shoes with soles!"
"I got that, but because of Ty Lee's hit, you can't 'see' at all, can you?"
Toph opened her mouth to retort, before she shook her head. Sheesh, I must look like a little girl…
Zuko sighed once more. "You've already told me you can't walk. So, that means that for traveling, I'm going to have to carry you, both for the sake of transportation and to keep you from getting hypothermic…"
"HEY!" the blind girl outright shouted. "I may not be at my peak, but I'm no-where NEAR helpless, alright?!"
"Yes, you are helpless. At least in some ways…" Zuko snorted.
"No I'm—"
"Earth bend!"
"W-what?" She blinked, despite herself, somewhat bewildered at the sudden request.
"Make a hole in the ceiling so that we can see sunlight. Now!" his voice demanded, and she felt him shift into a crouch, apparently ready to dodge an action on her part.
"But that will cave in the entire cavern!" she retorted, peeved by his obvious obliviousness.
"It wouldn't for a master earth bender," he pointed out. "And as you've said, you're the greatest earth bender in the world. And if not the most powerful, certainly the most skilled."
"Don't be sarcastic with me, Princess…" Toph glowered. "We don't need that right now."
She felt him pause in movement for a moment. "It wasn't sarcasm, it was the truth. Didn't you feel it?"
Thinking back on it for a moment, she realized that she hadn't even been paying attention. "Say it again…" she said cautiously.
An intake of breath, and then his smooth voice filtered into her ears.
"I, Zuko, exiled prince of the fire nation, firmly believe that Toph Bei Fong is the most powerful earth bender on earth."
She paused, before a slight blush tinged her cheeks. "You… you really think that, don't you?"
"You would have been able to tell if I was lying, wouldn't you?" Zuko snorted once more. "But, you're also…" He waited a moment, obviously trying to choose his words carefully. "…vulnerable. You can't walk and can't earth bend, and thanks to the clothes we're wearing, we can't travel far before we freeze again."
She didn't answer, just curling into a slight ball and trying to absorb as much heat as she could from the flames.
"I can warm you up every so often," he continued, "but that takes energy…"
And they had no food, much less any idea where to find it during the dead of winter.
"A lot of it?" she half whispered.
She felt him nod, then slump against the wall. "We only hunted in the fall. All of the game will be either hibernating or… gone…" Rough hands ravaged through his long locks, slightly grimy from contact with the burrow's walls. "We're going to have a hell of a time finding food here…"
Toph felt her face fall against her will, before she shuffled around the fire next to him. "True, but since when has life not been hell?"
She heard a snort of mirth from him as he sent another small jet of fire into their miniature fireplace. "I guess just take it one step at a time, huh?"
The earth bender nodded, and to her surprise she felt his arm wrap around her, pulling her closer to him. And while for a moment, she wanted to retort and resist, that urge was quickly drowned and suffocated as she just sighed and leaned into his warmth.
Worries could wait until tomorrow. For the moment, it was time for to be warm.
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Sheesh, this took longer than I thought.
Once again, terribly sorry about the delay, however now that I'm actually home, unemployed, and have a computer, I should (notice the "should") be able to write more frequently.
The story's in its final stretch, thanks for all the reviews, I'll update when I can!
Reviews appreciated as always!
Dak