I know this is horrifically short, but a lot of work kind of piled up at once--not that that's any real excuse--so things sort of got hairy and this got pushed to the back-burner.
Dastardly I know! But I gotta drag up my grades kicking and screaming and then get some impressive GRE scores if I'm gonna get into the Grad School I want.
I am going to try to write a lot this weekend and build up a buffer of chapters, which would be a brilliant idea, but I don't know how that will work. Then again I didn't know how weekly updates would work either and that's been awesome...ish.
Still, so sorry, but if you like I could post my essay on looking at Shakespeare's work based on Pope's analysis of criticism. Or the one I did on power struggles in gender-crossed relationships in 'Wuthering Heights'. I know, dull as dirt and a horrible excuse. But I promise that even if I don't get a buffer built up, the next chapter will be longer...and hopefully interesting.
They had been forced to take shelter on a small island for three days when a storm hit. Katara and Sokka knew a little about the storms, they often got the tail end of the worst of them. Zuko and Iroh knew more having lived so long at sea. Hurricanes, they called them. Aang put up no resistance. He had slowly come to realize what everyone had tried to tell him: the past was passed and he could not change it. The Airbenders were still alive—in a manner of speaking—and all he could do was soldier on and win peace in the name of such people as Gyatso.
He still disliked storms and woke from nightmares filled with people screaming for help that would never come.
Toph was always grateful for an excuse to land.
They found a small island that, while large, was nothing more than rocks. Toph grumbled the entire time but she and Aang managed to flatten the ground and create a decent sized cave where they could wait out the worst of the storm.
Within hours they learned that a wet skybison smells as bad as rotten fish, and Iroh decided there was no better time to teach Aang how to heat things without actually lighting them on fire. Appa was dry soon enough though there was the lingering smell of burnt fur from when Aang got a little out of hand.
Iroh told some more of the campfire tales he knew, though now everyone listened with an air of trepidation, wondering if yet another would prove to be as true as the Legend of White Fire. Katara told a handful of Water Tribe stories that she could remember—Sokka often interjecting his own running commentary throughout—but most of the ones she could remember were about the Avatar.
Toph didn't know any stories, but she did share the tale of how she'd first discovered she could see with her bending, where she'd learned to bend properly; "Opposed to that sissy junk Master Yu taught," she snorted. She even explained how she'd become the Blind Bandit.
"You should have seen the look on Wei Fung's face when he got beat by a little blind girl." She laughed.
Even Zuko cracked a small smile over the story.
Katara tried to talk to him a few times, only to be shunned completely as though she hadn't spoken a word. She even tried just sitting near him in the confines of the cave; he got up and moved to the opposite side of the shelter.
She didn't agree with Sokka in the slightest about her supposed feelings toward the prince but she had to admit that it was very distressing to find him refusing to speak to her in the slightest. She tried to assure herself that she would be just as distressed if Aang or any of the others acted so coldly to her, but it was of little comfort. Because in the end he was still ignoring her and she still didn't know what she had done to make him angry.
"My mother insisted that I learn a variety of things. I might never be an Earthbender but I could be a scholar. She never agreed with the way my father did things, not entirely. She still felt that I was weak and to be protected, but she wanted a life for me at least. Even if it still wasn't the one I wanted." Toph laughed almost ruefully, although it was difficult to call anything she did rueful. "She hired all the best tutors and she was the one who finally convinced my father to allow me to learn even just the basics of Earthbending. My father would have had me locked away in a room doing nothing my entire life. I always hoped that at least she would understand my wanting more." Toph looked down at the ground and then away. When she started talking again she sounded far more upbeat than she had been before. "Anyway, I knew that there were animals that were blind and could still see, like badgermoles. I did a little research and grasped the basic concepts and then tried it for myself." She shrugged.
"I think it's amazing what you've managed to accomplish for yourself." Iroh beamed. Toph smiled in response. "And Katara as well. You trained yourself for a long while." Katara blushed at his praise and nodded.
"Only because there was no one else to teach me." She said with a shrug.
"Plenty of benders have teachers and do not come anywhere near your skills." Iroh assured them while outside the wind screamed it's fury. "But what drew you to fighting?" Iroh asked, turning his attention once more to Toph.
"A challenge." She announced. "I just wanted to test the limits of how well I could see at first. But then I was there, in the ring, and I was winning. I never expected I would win, or even come close to it. All my life I had everyone telling me how weak and helpless I was and suddenly I was beating men trained to battle and three times my size."
"Sokka was the same way." Katara announced with a grin that Iroh didn't miss. "The first time father took him to train to be a warrior he fell in love with the notion of protecting the weak and never stopped. He wanted to be a great warrior just like our father right away." Sokka scoffed.
"You've got it all wrong." Sokka said patting her on the shoulder and earning an annoyed look from his sister. "I was such an amazing warrior they begged me to join up with them."
Toph and Iroh burst into laughter and Katara soon joined them, which only served to annoy Sokka further. Zuko frowned and turned back to the fire and ignored the people around him—which he had been doing ever since they left the Northern Water Tribe.
Aang, huddled against Appa, was torn between being sullen and over-excited.
Something was bothering him, but he was trying to get over it. Katara assumed it was the storm. She knew that even if he had come to terms with things—or come as close to it as possible—that he still remembered what he considered a betrayal whenever there was a storm like this. She knew there was nothing really she could do for him, but she still wished there were something she could do for him.
They were all grateful when the winds died down and the storm clouds finally parted to allow a sliver of blue sky. Even Appa and Momo were tired of being confined to such a small space and were grateful to get on the move once more.
Toph wasn't happy about being in the air again but she was happy about moving once more they were all worried now that there was a fixed amount of time they had to raise an entire army and defeat the Fire Lord in; failure had always been a possibility but now it seemed so much more real and looming on the horizon.
Heading quickly toward Ba Sing Se there was a feeling of accomplishment even if they didn't quite deserve it yet. It was a feeling of hope.
"Have you ever been to Ba Sing Se?" Katara asked, always desperate to find a way to take Toph's mind off her apparent fear of flying.
"No." Toph grunted. "My mother and father went a couple times on business but I was never allowed off the grounds of our home. Remember no one knew I was alive and they couldn't go letting me out to get hurt after all." She snorted and then groaned softly when Appa lurched against a gust of wind.
"I was here once, long ago." Iroh said smiling. "Of course," He laughed, "I was stuck on the outside without a way in. It will be nice to simply enter the town like another traveler."
It was another two days of traveling before they saw the great city of Ba Sing Se looming on the horizon. When they camped out Iroh told them stories about the grandeur of the city and what beauties lay beyond the walls.
They were almost excited about what lay ahead of them. Every step of the way had been a battle and this seemed almost easy. They just needed to convince the king of the city to help them gather troops at the Fire Nation boarders and then it was just a matter of winning the fight. As close as the end was and as terrifyingly possible as failure was they had hope and really believed that they would be able to accomplish their end long before the comet came and Sozin earned a chance to return to the World of the Living.
Erica -- I feel terrible that you got all caught up and then I go and disappoint you. But I feel a short chapter is better than a missed deadline. Still, don't hate me too much. :) But of course I replied! I love my reviewers and the least I can do is reply to them when they take the time to make me smile with such AMAZINGLY kind words. And no worries about the review, I've done that with chapters and so I think I can let you off the hook
As for the problems with your computer, I don't know, sorry. But maybe it is just your computer. Do you have another you could use, like at school? It might be some of your virus software or something. Totally unhelpful I know. :(
Shard -- Well, we'll deal with it more later but remember he just said it would be okay, which is totally different than being actually faced with them in a relationship, or marriage or love or anything. But I'm glad you like it a bit and can understand it. :)