"I feel naked."
"The robes are light, they're designed that way. You have clothes on, honestly."
"...I still feel naked."
Aang rolled his eyes at Toph's words and she again tugged at the hem of her shirt as if that would make the clothing change weight. He had left the room while she'd dressed (as if he hadn't seen her mostly disrobed before, there was hardly any need for bashfulness now) and waited outside until she'd called him in for help fitting the weird dawn-orange robes. Granted Toph had no idea what orange was, nor even what the concept of colour was, she still felt the nagging sense in the back of her mind telling her that these robes were not supposed to be ten feet in front of her, let alone draped over her petite body.
Annoyed with the long sleeves, Toph grunted, stopped in the corridor and again tried to peel them back. Every time she did, a few steps back and they were already sagging past her elbows. She had on the same outfit as Aang; double-layered trousers with brown underneath and a loose yellow shirt beneath the pale grey mantle resting on her shoulders. Her trademark green-and-yellow headband still fixed on her head and wrist and ankle guards set in place, she felt very out of place and exposed.
"You look nice," he commented.
Toph deadpanned in a you said what now? kind of way.
"Oh, er, right."
They continued walking. Toph padded along at the same stride as him, her lips curling into a very slight smile, one that would not be seen unless he were gazing directly upon her mouth. Being blind, she pretended not to care about her outward appearance; she was who she was and she didn't need to prove herself to anyone. Deep down, though, her heart betrayed her mind. It wasn't the first time, however, she did care what other people thought of her, and she felt a pang of relief that she promptly shoved out of the forefront of her mind.
"I have to go back to the Fire Nation Palace," Aang said sadly. "I have to keep working with Zuko and Kuei, and I can't be gone for too long. I'd have hoped to spend some more time with you and Gyatso and everyone else."
"Iroh's already gone back, hasn't he?" Toph frowned at the thought of the old man leaving. He had been a very good friend to her. "To help Sparky?"
"Yeah. Zuko can't do it on his own, so we sent him back with Arya on a Sky Bison and dropped him off on a secluded spot at Ember Island. Nobody saw them, and Iroh will have made it to the Palace by now." There was a pause between them as they stepped outside and took one of the winding paths that would lead down to the bottom of the mountain. It was good to just walk with one another; the zigzagging path was veiled by wispy clouds as they got lower.
"So, Kyoshi's teaching you Airbending, huh?" Toph blinked in surprise at Aang's question. She had briefly forgotten that he knew she could Airbend, and even more surprised that he had remembered who her mentor was. Perhaps Gyatso had told him of the journey? It made sense with all the time they'd spent together. "How are you learning it? Do you go to the Spirit World?"
"She enters my mind when I sleep or meditate," Toph replied. "She's been training me for two months. She thinks I learn quickly but my Airbending could still use a lot of work."
"Well I'm a Master, how about I give you some pointers?" he suggested, glancing towards the arching bridge that would lead them down onto an isolated platform.
Toph frowned slightly. "I don't think Kyoshi would approve on someone else giving me training," she said. Though she did tell me to practice and find a second mentor … I don't know. Does this count as her training me, since it is technically her incarnation?
Aang smiled rather than becoming disheartened. "Well, she can't complain if it's just training," he prompted. "I mean she tells you to practice, doesn't she?"
"Yeah. She sets me tasks and tells me to complete them within a certain time. The last one was finding out a way to trap someone using a combination of Earthbending and Airbending."
"Any ideas on that yet?"
"...well, a few, but I've not tried them yet."
"Great! Then let's go try them." Toph's eyes widened as he grabbed her wrist and started pulling her towards the bridge.
"Twinkletoes-!"
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
"You can take care of yourselves for a week, I'm sure," Toph grumbled as she fixed her tunic back into place and unthreaded the obi from her belt. She was leaving with Aang to go back to the Fire Nation, not just to spend some time away from the temple, but also so she could get more supplies.
The Airbenders weren't so happy about her leaving them, which both flattered and annoyed her. As much as she liked how they trusted her to help them, they were far too dependent. Did they honestly expect her to live the rest of her life in the Southern Air Temple? Whatever they thought, it wasn't going to go down that way. She did have a life and she was going to live it. Being the guardian of the Airbenders was one thing, being completely enslaved to them was another. They had guards stationed on the slopes and plenty of food to sustain them for that length of time.
If I disappear from the face of the earth, people are going to ask questions. I need to keep making appearances. That and Aang has to be around to help with the proceedings in the Harmony Restoration … thing. Earth, I hate that name! What was Snoozles thinking?
"Let's go," said Aang, giving her hand a slight squeeze. It was more for himself. Aang was devastated at the thought of having to leave Gyatso, who couldn't leave the Temple or his people. Whipping Appa's reins, he looked back over his shoulder and called, "I'll bring you back some souvenirs!"
Toph skidded off the runway, spinning a few times as she latched onto a wind ribbon and started skating through the open sky. Appa roared a farewell as he took off.
It wasn't even a minute before Toph, flying by Appa's side, looked back towards a dark shadow and smiled. Gyatso was soaring alongside them, escorting them despite the need to remain at his home. Aang laughed as he twirled his glider over his head and jumped to fly beside the elder Airbender.
"I thought you weren't coming."
Gyatso smiled slyly. "I'm not, but that doesn't mean I can't see you off. Now let's see how good your flying is."
Toph rolled her eyes as the two began spinning and performing stunts around her. While gliding on top of her 'rail', she reached into a parallel current and smacked the two gliders away, smirking as the two Airbenders screamed in surprise. "You Airheads stay outta my way!"
Gyatso branched off and doubled back as soon as they came within sight of the edge of Fire Nation territory. Darkness and torment encompassed the stones of his eyes as he laid his gaze upon the accursed land, and he sounded increasingly desperate to get back to the temple once the mass of volcanic land became visible on the horizon. Aang watched him go with worry and fell into step with Toph, who either hadn't noticed the sudden palpable tension or didn't care. Gyatso rose above the clouds and vanished into the sky.
Toph hadn't felt anything from the flying monk, but if she had, she wouldn't have cared. After being victim of genocide, he and his people would need to get over their rational fear of the Fire Nation and step foot on the land outside of their Temple. Eventually they were going to need to leave.
When they both arrived at the Fire Nation capital a few hours later, it wasn't as peaceful as they'd expected. Rising with the sun were abusive chants and riots, and Toph saw guards defensively lining the walls of the royal palace, shouting at jeering protesters. Aang's stance became stoic. Toph followed him up onto the wall but pushed past to them to where Zuko stood, heavily guarded, in the courtyard. Surrounding him were several generals and war veterans.
"What's going on?" she demanded.
Zuko let out a sound of relief and swept through his escorts, pulling Toph into a grateful embrace that she didn't reciprocate. "You're back," he said in a tone like he were thanking something spiritual for bringing them back to the palace. "Earth Kingdom militia. They're rioting all over the city, Toph, tearing down houses and driving away anyone dressed in red."
Iroh, who had considerably slimmed down since before the end of the war, squeezed through a gap in the gathering of men and women. "They're looking for Azula. She's burned down three more villages and one of the major ports."
"You haven't caught her yet?" Toph didn't believe her ears, but she could believe her eyes. She could see wriggling ripples of vibrations all over the city like floods hitting the ground scattering raindrops. At the presence of the Avatar, they seemed to have settled somewhat, but there was considerable damage and hearts were still racing in fury and anger. "Why do they think she's here?"
"We have no idea. But Kuei's getting even more agitated that more land is being destroyed. We need to find her and put a stop to this."
"Look out!"
A large boulder flung from behind the wall came hurtling towards them. Leaping up, Toph intercepted it and kicked it back, sending it straight into the scattering crowd. There was a collective roar, like another crowd charging, and the air was filled with the sound of fire and earth colliding. Loyalist Fire Nation citizens were angered at the riots and fighting back for what was theirs.
Except it was only worsening the situation.
"Stop!" Aang was shouting. "Stop this madness!"
Joining him on the wall, she stomped and brought her fists up, making a portion of the wall higher to keep them out of the fighting. "They're too enraged to listen," she told him.
Aang sucked his lips briefly and then jumped, bringing his staff down in a circular motion and splitting the clashing forces apart straight down the middle. Redirecting an air current, he made a sharp movement left, and one section of the crowd skidded thirty feet back, and he repeated this with the other side as well. Then, when there was no one in the way, he snatched some water from the atmosphere and froze a wall of ice between them.
"That's enough!" he shouted. "Everyone stop fighting."
The Earthbenders started yelling over each other, waving their fists around defiantly, their words a jumbled, incomprehensible mess.
"Quiet!" Aang shouted back.
Toph grabbed his arm. "Move," she growled, pulling a chunk of the palace wall off. She launched it straight at the crowd of Earthbenders, snarling down at them from her perch. "Next person to say or do anything gets more of that. Is that clear?"
Silence.
"Wow, I guess I should've thought of that." Aang said to himself. Toph folded her arms. "Listen. We're doing all we can to find the ones responsible for destroying the villages, but we need more time."
"Time? How much time do you think it'll take to burn down another of our villages?"
"The Firebenders certainly didn't give us any time."
"What's taking so long?"
There was a low, crazed cry from somewhere, which quietened gradually. Toph blinked in bewilderment as she recognised Foamy-mouth Guy, arms flailing and mouth, well, foaming. Several Earthbenders squinted at him uncertainly as he fell into a rabid, twitching heap on the floor. Toph 'glanced' at Aang, who shrugged.
"Uhhh, okay. Well these things take time. We're doing our best, and that's all we can do right now."
"Well your best isn't good enough!"
Toph zeroed in on the heckler. "Oh, and you think you could do better?" she snorted.
Aang frowned. "Maybe not, but we're trying. And you guys crowding out here and wasting our time is only delaying our progress. Instead of causing more trouble for the Fire Nation, you should be back at your homes helping to provide for your communities." As their expressions turned a mixture of uncertain and understanding, he added, "don't worry, we'll sort it out. Your voices are important to us but at the moment you're being too loud and scaring innocent people who have nothing to do with what happened to your villages. If you have complaints I'd be willing to hear them out, but not right now. The best thing you can do for us is go back to your homes and stop rioting, okay?"
Despite the calmness falling over the crowd, Toph remained on high alert, attentive for anyone who thought it wise to attack the Avatar in the spur of the moment. Slowly it began to disperse, and seeing that the riot was over, the angered Fire Nation citizens began to turn and walk away.
Aang waited until everyone was away from each other and then melted the ice wall with a defeated sigh. "That could have ended badly," he murmured.
Toph lowered the wall, turned towards him and then padded towards Zuko. It could have ended badly? Something told her it hadn't ended at all.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Toph had no complaints when Aang, after a busy day of working and discussing the Harmony Restoration Movement with several Fire Nation officials, crept into her room in the dead of night and collapsed onto her bed with a groan. Actually she hadn't been lying on it; she'd been standing near the window, gazing out and unable to sleep. Yangchen's prayer beads sat morbidly around her neck, the earth talisman resting over her chest and sightless eyes studying everything and nothing.
Change was a funny thing. After killing Ozai, she hadn't been expecting everything to get better, but that had been simple speculation. Time had passed since then, and now she was actually living it. It felt like everything was passing by so quickly … everything good, anyway. Katara was still comatose. Azula was still on the warpath, with an armada of soldiers around her. Her family was splitting; Sokka at the Southern Air Temple, Zuko confined as the new Fire Lord, Katara unable to wake up, Aang having to run around and pick up the pieces and Suki was rebuilding Kyoshi Island.
Her break from the Air Temple certainly wasn't as great as she had hoped it would be.
"Five people dead," Aang reported, rolling onto his back. "Five innocent people dead. All because of these riots. These never happened when Ozai was alive."
"Sorry to burst your misery bubble but Ozai isn't alive," Toph said quietly without turning around. Sure she felt bad for the five people, but was it really her problem? She had enough to deal with. She couldn't care.
"They shouldn't be dead, Toph," Aang shouted, clawing at his forehead in a grief-fuelled rage. "They should be at home with their families! The war is over." He sighed, shaking his head. "One of them was a child. Nine years old, three years younger than I am. He had his whole life ahead of him."
Toph lowered her head and remained silent, simply pretending to watch the rest of the world go by. Because this was the aftermath of a hundred years of violence? More senseless violence? She irritated and shocked Aang when she laughed to herself, a disappointed sort of laugh, a condescending kind of laugh. Like she was somehow better than everyone else, when she herself was violent. "You'd think after so long people would just want peace, right?" She leaned against the window and shook her head, folding her arms over her developing chest. "War is just a reason. An excuse. It just makes it obvious to the ignorant. It doesn't cause the violence. We do."
Aang's eyes closed and he sighed through his nose. "I want to stop it," he said. "I know I'm too late, but I have to do something. But I don't know what."
Toph walked away from the window and brushed the backs of her fingers across the night stand as she made her way over to the bed. She knew where it was from the sound of Aang's voice, but not where everything else was. The carpets in the palace made it impossible for her to see and she was simply too tired to Airbend currents inside of the room for her aero-sense.
Aang wrapped an arm around her as she threw herself backwards onto the mattress and folded her arms behind her head. Toph just let him fiddle with her sleeves and trace the creases of her tunic. If it stopped him whining long enough for her to think, so be it.
For a while they just lay there, not talking, just thinking. Then Aang's fingers began to trace her neck, her jaw, gliding over skin like the feather-light steps he did when walking, like a paint brush tickling her. Any better mood and he probably would have kissed her, but he didn't. Neither of them felt up to tonsil hockey.
Something bothered Toph. Nothing specific, just something, like it was nudging her conscience and telling her she had forgotten something. Except she hadn't; she had brought everything from the temple, and she didn't need to talk to anyone about anything. Arrangements for more supplies to the Air Nomads had already been ordered—blankets, food, mostly medicine, though Zuko remained sceptical about where Aang had been for a week and why Toph didn't tell him much about where the village was.
"Something doesn't feel right," Aang said at last. "I feel like I'm forgetting something."
Oh well, at least he wasn't talking about the dead kid any more. Toph turned her head toward him and knew he was observing her, or at least looking at her.
And then the silence just aggravated her, and she felt her real self coming back. Earth, what are we doing? She wondered. "Get up, Twinkletoes, and let's go raid the kitchen. I'm still hungry and I can't get there on my own."
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ x ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
"Faster," Kyoshi ordered. "Keep your knees up."
Toph grunted as she ran the obstacle course made for her by Kyoshi. Without Earthbending or Airbending, she had to complete each set in a certain amount of time or less, and any longer, the Avatar spirit made her do it again until she had. Now Toph might have been mistaken, but she had thought that she was supposed to be learning how to Airbend, not how to complete an obstacle course while running like she had Kyoshi's fan stuck up her butt.
Kyoshi had been training her harder as of late. Toph had mentioned it. Once. And she'd been forced into running another five laps while avoiding eight boiling hot watery tentacles from an octopus form. Then she decided it just wasn't worth it, and pushed herself on, even though she was tired and sweating like geysers had sprung from her armpits.
Toph had Azula to blame for this.
Ever since she'd burned Kyoshi Island, it was like Kyoshi had decided to force more and more ideas onto her. She never spoke of it, never answered her questions, as if she rejected any association with the Island which was so very obviously named after herself. Maybe she was angry, Toph didn't know, that her warriors had failed to stop outsiders from destroying the ex-peninsula—again—and her way of releasing her pent-up frustration was by taking it out on her student.
In which case Toph wasn't too happy to be her personal punching bag, but she'd bear it simply because she had done the same thing to Kyoshi. And because she had grown to like and respect the big-footed Earthbender.
"Too slow!" Kyoshi shouted impatiently. "Do it again!"
Rows of rock walls stood before her as she moved back to the start of the course. She had to climb over five of them, crawl beneath a ladder of stone while Kyoshi blasted fire over her head, and then run five laps before wading through a pit of water waist-deep and climbing out the other side. Is she mental? There was no way I was too slow for that round. But she kept that thought to herself. Kyoshi was training her and she was in do-it-or-die mode. Toph figured that even though she wasn't too interested in dying so soon, she wasn't going to let her mentor see her as weak.
That was her mindset until Kyoshi deepened the water pit while she was half-way across. Then Toph lost her temper.
"Are you insane? I can't swim!" she snapped, panicking because she could only scrape the bottom of the pit when she was submerged and stretching her feet out as far as they could go. Every breath she took she had to kick herself off of the surface, and she couldn't see which way to go to reach the side. If Kyoshi had also widened the pit, not even death would stop Toph from snapping Kyoshi like a twig.
"Now's a good time to learn how to swim." Kyoshi replied coldly.
Toph choked on water for what felt like hours, but was only minutes, as she struggled to get back to solid ground. It was only when she disappeared beneath the water and didn't resurface that Kyoshi finally reached in and fished her out with one arm.
Toph looked pitiful, shaking with exhaustion and trembling with the effort just to speak. Adrenaline rushes sure were fun but drained her energy afterwards. Her bun had fallen out, her hair tumbling wildly over her shoulders, and she could barely keep herself upright. She shuddered as Kyoshi Waterbent the water from her lungs and dried her off, and flinched warily when the large Avatar made a move towards her.
"Are – you – done?" she rasped, gasping for air. "Have you finally finished torturing me, or are you actually going to just fucking kill me already?"
Kyoshi sighed after a moment and scooped her up into her arms, walking away from the course. She laid Toph down and made a move to heal her injuries, but Toph, with a short burst of energy, slapped her hand away.
"Don't be stupid. Let me heal you," she growled.
Toph glared at her mentor. "You just tried to drown me," she seethed. "You don't get to give me orders." There were bruises along her arms, legs and face, the pale skin on the back of her arms felt raw and a cut on her face. If Aang was awake and could see her now, he was going to flip his shit. "What is wrong with you? What part of I can't swim didn't you understand?" Kyoshi was stonily silent. "Damn it, Kyoshi! I'm not your enemy!"
"No, you're not," Kyoshi murmured, dropping the water around her hands. She lowered her head shamefully, eyes half-closed. If Toph had been able to see her, she wouldn't have lowered her guard. Toph, however, couldn't.
"Then why?"
Again her only response was silence. Something heavy rested on Kyoshi's shoulders—Toph didn't need to be blind to sense it. She slumped as if with defeat, like she'd hoped for something and had them crushed. Kyoshi knelt by her side and just stared at her, or past her, Toph could only feel it through the prickle of hair on the back of her neck.
Kuruk's words again ran through her mind.
"She's been rather annoyed over the past few days about something, mumbling something about you and Kyoshi Island and snapping at me whenever I tried to ask about it. I dunno, I figured she was PMSing."
Toph shook her head and sighed. "I knew it. You're disappointed."
Kyoshi jolted with what seemed like surprise. "No, I'm not."
"Yes you are." Toph cough-grinned. "You're disappointed in something. Either in me or in your warriors."
"I'm not disappointed in you."
"Then in your warriors," Toph deduced. She knew she was right when Kyoshi did not respond. "If you needed a punching bag, all you needed to do was ask. I would have come, you know."
"...I know. I'm sorry."
Toph's expression flashed to shock, and before she could respond, Kyoshi had kicked her out of her own mind to the sound of shattering glass. Aang sat over her vigilantly, and as she opened her silvery-green eyes slowly, the only thing he managed to get out was, "y- you were ch- choking..."