Unbidden
Vallon's dreams have been whirling, nonsensical nightmares and overwhelming weakness has left him flat on his back exactly where the Water Tribe couple stood over him in the healing… how long ago? It seems to the big earthbender like something that happened in another lifetime.
In his wild imaginings years have gone by without him being able to lift a limb, or even his head. He hears voices and then they are swept away by the buzzing noise that fills his ears.
Cool cloths are placed on his head; he knows that's real. A delicate hand presses his forehead and cheek to discern his temperature. Cool, soothing water sweeps over him; soothing the aches for a time.
His eyes flicker open and he dimly places Ahni's face in the fog. She smiles down at him as a stream of water rises from a pitcher by the bed and she covers her hands with it. He's transported back to a cave where the pain in his midsection was lethal and another healer brought him back.
But this healing is one of many he's been vaguely aware of since he watched the assassin's blade enter his body. Shouldn't he feel better by now?
Panic sets in and he searches Ahni's face for clues as to why in the world he's still half dead. She gives him none. Just a calm smile and a gentle shushing and water; that wonderful, cool water flowing over his fiery skin.
Vallon closes his eyes as Sokka bends toward Ahni's ear.
"She's just pulled in to port." Vallon hears the Water Tribe captain say through the excess noise that rushes back into his fevered brain.
She's here. He thinks as sleep overtakes him.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Yukio climbs back onto Farmer Fu's cart with a groan. This is the third fight they have won for the farmer. Apparently his canary-toads are more than a luxury. Their secretions are considered an aphrodisiac and so the cargo with which they travel is a draw for thieves and lonely men alike. And there seem to be a lot of both in Dirt Land.
They've managed to rather quickly defeat all comers with their now textbook teamwork. First it's divide and then it's conquer. Lily leads her opponents toward large, heavy obstacles and Yukio uses his strength and agility to throw his foes into one another in crushing body slams.
It was fun the first two times. This time it might also have been fun if not for the gossip they'd managed to overhear as they'd waited for the ruffians to get close enough to attack.
Yukio looks at Lily who might just be a greener shade of gray than he is.
"Do you think it was the same house?" He asks her.
"I don't know. It was the same night. But we left four people unconscious, not three dismembered, decapitated bodies." She replies, a tremble in her voice showing her anxiety.
"But they said I had been seen in the area." Yukio closes his eyes hearing the words again.
Well, all I know is that Prince Yukio was seen near the house where they found those poor people all cut up and dead. And now I've heard he's missing. Maybe even here in the Earth Kingdom. I'm sure it's true because my best friend's son works on a ship that goes to the Fire Nation all the time and he was in the capitol when the news broke. If anybody turns up without their heads and other parts, we'll know it's that prince come to kill us all.
The old lady had ended on a shudder as the mutterings of her cohorts had begun in earnest.
Farmer Fu had taken himself away from the area, ostensibly to fill their canteens, but he always tends to disappear when an ambush is sensed. It's just as well. He's no fighter and likely Yukio and Lily would be distracted trying to be sure of his welfare rather than giving their full attention to the fight if he were to hang around.
But thanks to his uncanny ability to disappear at the right time the farmer is unaware of this latest bit of news. Although the old man is unwilling to engage in combat, that's simply evidence of what both teens have come to see is a keen intellect. Once he hears the gossip, it won't take the farmer long to put two and two together and come up with a fugitive prince.
"Don't worry about it." Yukio whispers to Lily as the old man nears. "We'll be there soon enough and he'll have no idea how to find us once we separate."
"I just want this to be over." She sighs, her head in her hands.
Yukio feels a stab of disappointment in his chest and turns his eyes away from her distraught form.
In spite of this latest shock, he doesn't want this journey to be over. Not by a long shot.
What's he got to look forward to after this particular adventure? Prison and no Lily.
If he could slow the whole process down, he definitely would.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I've come to a decision." The Fire Lord tells the twins as they stand before him in the throne room.
Both Taoki and Kenya had been surprised to receive a formal summons. Typically they are dressed down or complimented in security meetings. They've seen few of those since Prince Yukio's disappearance, but nonetheless they continue to be considered family. The order to appear has sparked their imaginations in the worst way.
"My lord?" Taoki fills the awkward silence.
"I've made a decision concerning the two of you and your future in the Fire Nation." Zuko replies.
Okay, this is not a conversation the twins had wanted to have for a very long time. Resisting the urge to glance at each other, they stare up at the Fire Lord with anxious inquiry.
"Don't look so scared." Zuko smiles slightly. "It concerns your grandfather."
Great, that old jackal. Kenya thinks. What havoc can he wreak on our lives after death?
"His lands and title were turned over to me when he committed treason. I've held them for the past five years in safe keeping for the two of you. I was planning to hand it over to you later, perhaps on Yukio's eighteenth birthday, but I need a presence in Imiyo now." Zuko explains succinctly, his calm voice completely at odds with the life-shaking import of his words.
"T-Taoki's oldest." Kenya can't believe he just stammered. He clears his throat. "He should be baron."
"Kenya." Taoki begins, fully intending to argue the entire thing regardless of the presence of the Fire Lord.
"There won't be just one. Part of the problem with your grandfather was that his lands were too vast and important and he misused the power. I'm splitting it into two seats. The new title comes with the orchard land from the Xu Lan River to the mountains and the family title controls the town, the port and the portion of the forest that ends at that side of the river."
"Two?" Taoki just blinks at Zuko, wonder where his brain is and if he can appear any more stupid at this moment.
"Yes. I'm creating a new barony and one of you will hold that title while the other holds the existing one. I suggest Taoki hold the family title since he's the eldest and Kenya take the new one, but it's up to you to decide. I plan to hold the ceremony tonight and have you on your way first thing tomorrow morning so decide in the next ten minutes or the scribe won't have time to prepare all the documents to my satisfaction."
And with that the Fire Lord stands on the dais, steps down to the marble floor and strides from the room.
Ten minutes? Taoki thinks. It'll take us that long to lift our jaws from the floor.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"So you've given up fighting altogether?" Chin asks Suki as they eat their supper in a circle that includes Bokkusu and some other officers.
"When we expanded the group I was given the leadership position which is more administrative." She replies, washing down a bite with water from her canteen. "But I still get to train the warriors from time to time and spar with them. If there's a reason for me to be involved in action and I'm close enough, I'm all over it." Her mouth curls at the corner, obviously relishing the idea of fighting again.
"So you travel back and forth between Omashu, Ba Sing Se and Kyoshi Island." Chin surmises, barely noticing the other officers have finished their meals and, one by one, are leaving to wash their plates in the nearby stream.
"Pretty much. I like to keep on the move. I spent most of my life protecting Kyoshi Island, but getting involved in the war kind of woke an interest in travel." She laughs wryly, "Which is an odd thing since I spent so much of that time in a brig on a ship."
"I thought you handled yourself very well in there." Chin says sincerely. "In fact, you won quite a few admirers while you were our unwilling guest."
"I know. Especially that one who kept trying to strip search me in the middle of the night."
Chin's eyes spark with an old anger.
"He joined the insurgency after the war. He is no longer a problem to anyone." He says darkly.
Suki nods, somehow comforted by the commander's reaction. There actually had been several guards who had made it their business to protect her from the unwanted attentions of her most ardent admirer, and she wonders if Chin was one of them.
"The insurgency was horrible." Suki says sympathetically.
"Yes. And unnecessary." He responds softly, obviously not willing to talk about it.
"I remember Sokka used to want to go and help in some way. But his father told him he'd probably make things harder on Fire Lord Iroh and Prince Zuko. They were both ready to give aid if asked though." She says, a twinge of pain in her heart for the past.
"Oh I can just imagine the uproar if the prince was flanked in battle by two Water Tribesmen." Chin smiles.
"So Hakoda was correct." She chuckles.
"Most definitely."
It's right about now that they realize they're alone. Even Bokussu has gotten up and left without a word.
Firelight dances in Chin's bright, golden eyes and she holds her breath. He says nothing however; just sits there looking at her with that little smile on his face.
So Suki says nothing either.
The muffled laughter and murmurs of the soldiers in the camp filter to them and blend with the crackling fire and his smile turns to a look of pensive curiosity; his brow slightly furrowed and his head ever-so-slightly tipped to the side.
"Are you finished with your supper?" He finally asks, his voice low, nearly a whisper.
Startled by the mundane question after what to her had been a fairly intense moment, Suki can only nod.
He takes the metal plate from the ground in front of her, stacks it on his own and stands gracefully. He holds his hand out to her and she takes it, although she can rise just as beautifully and the sharp, warrior in her instinctively rebels at the assistance.
But if she hadn't accepted it she wouldn't have felt his warm, smooth palm against her own, so she marks it a fair exchange.
He drops her hand once she's on her feet and they walk side-by-side to her small tent where they stop and face each other. He bows to her.
"Thank you for sharing supper with us. It was our privilege to have your company." He says, his smile warm and friendly.
"My pleasure." Suki suppresses a tiny giggle and wonders where that hint of girlishness came from.
Chin nods once, turns and walks toward a group of young men who seem to be cabin boys or squires. He hands one of them the plates and keeps walking to his large tent.
Suki watches Chin until he's disappeared behind the flap.
"I think he likes you." An impossibly deep voice from behind her makes her jump out of her skin.
"What? Oh …" She inwardly curses herself for letting down her guard as she turns to the box-shaped security man. "Um, what?"
Bokkusu smiles at her discomfort. For once he's happy to make a woman nervous.
"I think he likes you." He repeats with a flashing grin that could be friendly or menacing; only he knows for certain the intent.
"Nonsense." Suki replies, regaining her composure. "He's very polite."
"That he is."
Suki hears the words in her head, tries to stop them and fails miserably. "He's a womanizer, isn't he? No man can be that good looking and that nice without being spoiled rotten by every woman he turns those glowing golds on."
"He is what he is. He's never intentionally hurt a single soul who wasn't an enemy of his country." The deep voice turns to granite. "Are you an enemy?"
"I'm a warrior for the Earth Kingdom." She lifts her chin defiantly. "I have no quarrel with the current regime of the Fire Nation. If Fire Lord Zuko produces an heir the likes of his father, I'll revisit the matter."
Bokkusu's chuckle is like a low rumble of thunder and he bows to her just as Chin did a moment ago.
"You'll do." He says as he turns and walks away.
"Yeah, well …" She says under her breath before realizing he 's long gone. "The nerve." She hisses.
She steals one last look at the commander's tent and tucks herself inside her own for the rest of the night.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I love you." A trembling whisper swirls into Vallon's dreams.
That awful buzzing is still assaulting the interior of his skull and he fights against another episode of dry heaves.
Vallon swallows and his parched throat sticks together. Choking slightly he opens his mouth before his eyelids can flutter open.
"Water?" The whisper he loves asks him before he can make his request.
And before he can even nod, a cup presses into his lower lip and cool liquid trickles lightly into his mouth.
Focusing tightly on the face over him he's alarmed to see tears running down Toph's face.
This has to be a dream. No, a nightmare.
Toph never cries in front of people and there are definitely others in the room.
"I love you." She chokes again, running her graceful hand over his brow and down his cheekbone to his jaw.
"I'm … " Vallon's not sure why he wants to tell her he's dying. He's afraid Ahni might try to sugarcoat things. Best to be prepared. But he can feel himself fading before he can get that second, crucial word out.
"Sssshhh." She says, pressing her lips lightly to his.
"I'm …" And like night falling he slips gently back into dreamland.
After several minutes of memorizing Vallon with her touch Toph rises from the bed and wipes her fist across her eyes.
"The blade was poisoned, wasn't it?" She says with barely contained fury.
"Toph," Sokka begins but stops when she holds up her hand.
"I want to do the interrogation of the suspect." She says flatly. "I want to do it now."