When Katara finally returned with candle in hand, Toph was sitting upright on the bed, arms crossed and expression impatient.
"Took you long enough," she greeted. "Now spill."
Katara sank onto the bed beside her with a sigh, wondering how to explain things while divulging the least number of secrets. If she just said, point blank, "It wasn't Zuko's fault so he didn't deserve the blame", Toph would start asking questions and never stop. But if she went into too much detail, it would be obvious when she skimmed over any facts.
Hoping to stall for some time, Katara searched the room for something of interest to mention. The most obvious thing her attention was drawn to was the general mess of the room, though she doubted Toph would be too pleased with that conversation – she would probably just call her a nag then pester her into giving the full story on what had happened that morning. Letting her gaze drift across the room, she searched for something else of interest. Her eyes landed on the short wooden headboard, where light from the candle flame caught on unnaturally deep grooves. Leaning slightly to the side so the light shifted, she realized they were characters – words.
Now, why on Earth would Toph, of all people, have words carved into her headboard?
"Where are those from?" Katara asked, nodding at the markings. When Toph raised an eyebrow in confusion, she clarified, "On the headboard. There's carvings."
"Oh." She reached up a hand to gently run her fingers over the indentations, pausing to feel out each individual line. "It's nothing."
But Katara could tell otherwise; Toph's fingers didn't fumble or search, instead moving across the characters with the familiarity of someone who had done so a hundred times before.
"Now, are you gonna keep avoiding the subject or are you actually gonna explain what went down this morning?"
Unfortunately, she knew pressing the issue would only make the young earthbender more curious and insistent about the topic at hand. Which meant that her little secret would have to wait to be revealed another day.
Shaking her head slightly, Katara decided to just plunge right in."You guys were being really annoying, so I left the kitchen to find some peace –"
"Already know that part, Sugar Queen. Quit stallin' and get to the goods."
"Anyway. I ran into Zuko, and he kept nagging at me and wouldn't leave me alone, and I was already angry thanks to you guys, so I hit him with some water and . . . things got a little out of hand."
There. The truth; flawless but unrevealing.
Still, Toph wasn't entirely satisfied.
"What was he bugging you about?" she asked, lying back on her lumpy mattress with her arms folded behind her head.
"He kept saying that I needed help and that I should talk to his uncle," she said, waving her hand in a vague circle as she spoke.
"So he was showing concern for your well-being and you got pissed off?" Toph hummed thoughtfully, a devilish smirk crossing her lips. "I'm starting the think a change of nickname is in order."
Katara held her breath – was that it? Just a simple questioning of Zuko's behaviour and a change in nicknames? No way; Toph had to have something else in store for her. She wouldn't wait all day to torture her and then just let it slide by with a simple explanation. When it came to Toph, explanations were never simple.
"But," the younger girl said, the single word causing Katara to release the breath she had been holding in an audible sigh, "that's not quite what I wanted to know."
"Well, what do you want to know?" Katara huffed, crossing her arms. The continued questioning may have been predictable, but that didn't make it any less annoying.
"Why did you lie and keep Snoozles from pulverizing him?"
"Because," Katara said, pulling her knees to her chest and scowling down at her toes with the candle gripped tightly in one hand, "he wouldn't have deserved it, and I'm too good a person to stand by while someone is unjustly punished."
Toph snorted. "Bull-rooster shit."
"Do you want me to rinse your mouth out with soap?" Katara scolded, shooting her a look. All that time spent in Earth Rumbles, not to mention gambling, had taught her some pretty nasty language.
"You can try."
With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Katara decided to let it drop. "What makes you think I'm lying, anyway?"
"You aren't; you're just withholding the full truth."
"No, I'm not. Zuko may be a jerk, but I still don't want him taking the fall for something I did."
Eyes closing in obvious contentment, Toph's smirk grew to a grin. "That's what you think."
"Of course that's what I think!"
Toph either didn't notice the annoyance in Katara's tone or chose to ignore it. Lifting one hand from behind her head, she made a shooing motion, saying, "Go sleep on it. It'll make more sense in the morning."
With a huff (who was Toph to tell her when she was right about her own motives?), Katara rose from the bed, candle in hand, and stalked from the room. She didn't make it halfway down the hall before Zuko's door creaked open, his head poking out.
"Everything alright?" he asked after a tentative moment. Judging by his alert eyes and non-bed-ruffled hair, he hadn't gone back to sleep yet.
Storming over, Katara thrust the candle at him, snapping, "Here. Take it. I'm done."
He barely had a chance to grab it from her hand before she was stomping off down the hall again, turning in to her bedroom, and slamming the door.
XxXx
The sunlight shining in through the window highlighted the dust and lint hanging in the air, making Ty Lee's bedroom feel more grimy and dungeon-like than usual. There was also a chill that lingered even on the hottest of days, something Ty Lee believed was the fault of ghosts but Mai suspected was a result of the temple being built almost entirely out of stone and sitting so low in a canyon.
Regardless of the cause, it made Mai miss the palace that much more – at least it was always warm there, if not overly so.
Not that she would ever go back. Azula's presence was enough to send her thoughts far from that possibility.
"So, what's the plan with Zuko?" Ty Lee asked, brushing out her short hair. There was no real mirror in the room (a fact that she had despaired over for their first day in the temple), but she had found a particularly large chunk left from a mirror that had been shattered in one of the bathrooms. With a little cleaning and a frame made of twigs, it was perfectly functional and – Mai had to admit – added a little charm to the otherwise dull room (she was beginning to understand why the monks had called them "cells").
"There is no plan."
"You're just gonna wing it?" There was a giddy lift in her tone, as if the excitement of merely saying it was enough to make her burst.
"No," Mai deadpanned, lying back on the flat, non-cushioning pillow, hands cupping the back of her head. When Ty Lee turned to her with wide eyes, brushing forgotten, she elaborated, "He's made it clear that he has no interest, and I don't think chasing after him will help."
"No!" Ty Lee whined, dragging out the syllable as she crossed the room and flopped down beside her. "No-no-no! I can fix this. Let me find some make-up and a cute outfit at the market, then I'll do your hair up all pretty and trap you in a room with him and not let you out until –"
"Ty Lee."
There was need to say anything more; she got Mai's message clear enough. But that didn't mean she would shut up.
"I'm not giving up on Sokka! Come on, Mai, you've gotta at least try!"
"I think I've tried more than enough."
There was a pause. Ty Lee sat up, crossing her legs lotus-style and folding them against her chest like a shield. "Well . . . What're you gonna do? You're not . . . leaving, are you?"
"No," Mai said, voice quiet to match Ty Lee's sudden shift in mood. "Where else would I go?"
"But won't you be . . . you know? Bored?" She said the last word extra-quiet, like it was some sort of taboo. In a way it was; boredom was one of the few things Mai openly and frequently expressed hatred for.
And she was right. The Air Temple brought a whole new meaning the word "dull". Everyone else seemed content, busy with chores and training and their own interests, sometimes going so far as to complain about how much they had to do (well, okay, the last part was mostly just Katara. Mai hated her more for it).
As she contemplated the dreaded boredom bound to consume her, motion in her peripheral caught Mai's attention. Propping herself up, she saw Jet passing by, hook swords in hand. Seeing her, he raised his weapons to her as if in greeting, lips drawn into a smirk.
Or maybe he was taunting her because he, too, had found his niche.
"I think," Mai said when he had disappeared down the hall, leaning back against the wall behind the bed, "I'll get a hobby."
Author's Notes: Early chapter! 8D Merry Christmas/Kwanzaa/Chanukah/whatever else you may celebrate!
I may or may not have a quick drabble posted later today. Depends.
Disclaimer: "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and all of its characters are property of Nickelodeon, which I am in no way associated with.
