Two Truths and a Lie
There was a mild breeze blowing around the open courtyard of the Western Air Temple, but the tension in the air was still thick enough to cut with a pair of chopsticks. It was evident in the upward pull of Sokka's lean shoulders, in Aang's unsteady foot scuffing and pacing. In the way that Appa remained suspiciously silent in his favorite corner. Animals had a way of sensing these things, perhaps better than most people could. Toph knew all about the introspective and understanding quality of even the largest beasts; she'd experienced it firsthand, after all.
Katara was moving from task to task erroneously, not quite completing one before jumping to her feet and transitioning to the next, swinging her head (and, Toph presumed, her long thick hair) behind her in a self-important fashion. Toph knew Katara let her looks empower her, that she used them as a second skin, an armour. Most women did. But Katara betrayed the patented ferocious attitude by looking over her shoulder every minute or so, checking the rounded archway that lead to where Toph knew Zuko sat in his room. If he would be emerging at all, it would be from that hallway.
Of course, Toph could have given Katara more than enough warning that Zuko was coming. She had subconsciously concentrated on his movements throughout the day, memorizing the surprisingly light footfalls and how he paced the boundaries of the small room Sokka had dumped him into earlier. But Toph was a reasonable human, and of course every reasonable human would rather delight in watching Katara's harassed, repetitive checking than disclose any such valuable information.
Toph, in contrast to her friends, was feeling quite pleased with herself, laying back on an elevated stone throne she'd carved and hoping that Katara got a crick in her neck tomorrow. Of course, she'd grown to tolerate and enjoy and- dare she say it?- love the Waterbender in her months with their gang, but Toph was also resolute in their need of the Firebender and she was glad that Katara's weird grudge, the one that caused her heartbeat to spike ferociously when she was in the same room as Zuko, was given a side seat in their decision.
Katara, apparently deciding the morning's dishes had been washed enough, approached Toph's imposing seat and stood over her with her arms crossed. Toph carefully angled her unseeing eyes to where the girl's face probably was- a habit she'd had forced into her from her manners coach at the Beifong estate- and cocked a brow.
"Can I help you, Sugar Queen? I've got a lot going on right now." She clenched a hand and began to bend a carving in the headboard of the stone throne behind her. Maybe she could make it say 'fuck off' in a fancy script. She bit down on her bottom lip, concentrating. Perhaps her painstaking reading and writing lessons, taught from a raised script and much frustrated screaming on Toph's part, hadn't been for nothing after all.
Or maybe they had, because Katara didn't seem to notice the rapidly appearing carved profanity above Toph's head.
"I just wanted to tell you- you'll have to make another bowl. For dinner tonight."
"Ah," Toph grinned up at her. "Look at you playing hostess. Don't go trying to poison him now. At least no more than usual, okay?"
Toph reached down and extracted a large rock from the rubble left by Sokka's hero, the infamous Combustion Man, and dug her fingers into the delightfully rough material like clay until it resembled a bowl. Katara had made a habit of commissioning makeshift cooking apparatuses from
Toph, who had since crafted a set of rough stone bowls, an elevated metal sheet for firetop frying, and a spoon-shaped eating utensil when it became obvious The Duke had never learned how to use chopsticks.
Katara took the finished bowl from Toph and inspected it. "Wow, this is really nice, Toph!" She said.
Toph rolled her eyes. "You sound surprised. Like you assumed I've never interacted with a real bowl before."
"It's easy to forget, if I'm honest," Katara returned the jibe lightly. She moved her fingers across the smooth stone lip. "Why didn't you make the rest of them like this?"
"Just want to make our newest member feel at home. Since I'm the only one who's trying to at all, I've gotta put in more of an effort."
Katara's heart spiked in what Toph had learned long ago was mild annoyance. Fortunately, any possible retort was cut off by Sokka, who had been sharpening his battle-dulled boomerang with a whetstone, slouched against one of the remaining pillars.
"I've gotta hand it to you, Toph," he eyed the bowl in his sister's hands. "You really do know how to be domestic when you want to be, huh? Who would have thought?"
Toph grinned, pleased at the easy banter. "Let's just chock it up to a character flaw."
Later, the marginally-less-than-enticing smell of Katara's cooking wafted through the air and the boys came out of the woodwork, drawn to the promise of food. Well, all the boys except for one.
"Someone should get Zuko," Aang said as Katara handed him his dinner. Katara twitched at the name and dropped the bowl, and Aang fell to the ground to catch it before it spilled. "Sorry, Aang! Good catch!" Katara breathed. Her heartbeat was still wilder than normal, angry.
Aang's grin stretched his face so widely that even Toph felt the simpering smile. "You keep me on my toes!"
Toph rolled her eyes. Yech. "I'll get him," she volunteered, and stood quickly to pad down the stone hallway towards where she knew Zuko's room was.
She fisted a hand and slammed on the door four times. The door's hinge gave a resounding creak as he pushed it open. "Hey."
Now that he was closer to her, Toph allowed herself to get a better gauge of his form. The top of her head brushed his sternum and he was wide, steady, and carried his weight as if he were about to pick up and run at any moment; the light feel of a Firebender, the poised posture that suggested his royal status.
"Hey," Toph agreed. "I'm here to retrieve you for dinner."
"I'm not really hungry." His stomach gave a rumble and Toph felt a corner of her mouth lift in amusement.
"We're not so bad when you get to know us," she consoled through her smirk. "And sometimes, Katara's cooking is even edible. Though this might not be one of those nights. She's been distracted today, for some reason."
Toph turned from the doorway and began to walk back through the hallway. Zuko hesitated. "It's because of me," he said. Disappointment and resentment sounded fresh on his words.
Toph turned, mentally reprimanding herself for her style of sarcasm so effortless that it slipped from her tongue without the slightest lilt in her tone. He was much too serious to have caught it. "Of course it's because of you, Zuko," she said. "But I would bet there's only one thing you can do to make it any better. Now c'mon, I'm hungry. And you owe me, for burning my feet."
She smiled slightly as Zuko hesistated, then slowly followed her out of the enclosed hallway and towards the laughter and smell of food beyond.
After their first dinner together, Toph found Zuko sitting at the side of the temple, dangling a leg into the empty space beyond languidly and scratching Appa on the nose as the beast made a sort of contented purring rumble deep in his throat. Toph set herself down next to him, stretching her feet out, wiggling her toes contentedly when she felt him relax.
He checked behind him. The others were still sitting around the fire, talking amiably. They all seemed more relaxed than before. Food would do that, Toph thought. Even Katara's awful cooking.
"How did I do?"
Toph snorted. "Fine, Zuko. You've gotta get a lot more weird to stand out amongst the likes of them." She jabbed a thumb behind her shoulder in time for Sokka to make a horrible retching noise, accompanied by Haru and Aang's roaring laughter.
"It's not at all what I thought it would be."
"What were you expecting?"
"I have no idea." Zuko shifted slightly. "Aang is- a surprise. I guess I didn't realize that underneath everything, he's just a kid. Sokka is friendly, really friendly, and Katara-" Zuko huffed out a frustrated sigh. "She's just how I thought she would be, at least. And she treats me exactly the same as how she did when I was your enemy."
Toph furrowed her brow. Katara was not yet someone she had grown to understand. "Don't be an idiot, Zuko," she said. His heart jumped in surprise. "You've never been my enemy. What about the rest of us?"
Zuko shifted his weight a bit, to look at her. "You're alright." He seemed far more relaxed now, and the deep rumble of his own voice made the ground tremble in a fascinating way that Toph had only experienced in some older men. She settled closer to him, feeling the warmth radiating from his body. Deciding she liked his presence.
"I've got an idea," she said suddenly. "I've heard of this game the kids at my village used to play with each other. Two truths and a lie. Play with me."
Zuko's head turned towards her. "How do you play?"
"I think the idea is to say two truthful things about yourself, and one lie. And the other person has to guess which is which."
"Earth Kingdom culture is weird."
"Go ahead and tell me Fire Nation culture is any better, you freak!"
Zuko's heart picked up a little as he huffed out a silent laugh. "Alright, you've got a point. Let me think about my answer."
Toph threw herself on the ground beside him, dangling her legs off the edge as well. She coerced the stone to mold itself to her form, supporting her back and cupping around her thighs.
Zuko resumed his scratching of the bison's nose. "Do all Air Nomad animals have arrows on them?"
"Hmm. I don't think Momo does." At least, Aang had never mentioned it.
"The lemur? You named a lemur after a fruit?"
"Hey, I wasn't there at the time! It is not my fault what those imbeciles did before I joined the group." Toph insisted. "What Sokka and Twinkletoes do with their pets is their own weird business."
Appa grunted his assent beside them, ever the expert on such matters.
"So you've never seen any other Air Nation animals other than these two?"
"I've never-" Toph cut herself off when realization struck her. Well, this would be interesting. "I'm ready to go now."
"Be my guest."
Toph counted them off on her fingertips. "One- I am the proud owner of the Earth Rumble Six victor's belt, which I've held onto for years now. Although I think Sokka may have stolen it from me again, the desperate sap.
"Two, I was kidnapped by the Avatar so that I could teach him Earthbending. Quite a rude way to make a ride-or-die friend, if you ask me. Stolen from my humble beginnings for greatness. But it worked, so there you go.
"And three," Toph took in a little, steadying breath. She'd never actually told anybody this before. Nobody had been idiot enough to not realize it, frankly. "I'm completely, totally, irrevocably blind in both eyes."
Zuko snorted beside her. "Well, it's got to be that one," he said, more to himself than to her. And then, Toph felt a spike of his heartbeat as realization struck him. She turned her head to him, defiantly, wondering if he could see her eyes at all through her thick, obscuring hair. She felt him lean forward towards her, extending an arm.
His warm fingers brushed Toph's brow, gathering up silken strands of her hair and pushing them aside lightly. Toph shivered at their heat but remained, defiant and amused, training her eyes to where she thought Zuko's would be. She blinked them innocently, wishing at that moment more than anything that she could see what he was as he examined her quietly.
"Agni," he breathed softly into her face. Toph inhaled in the scent of dark leafy tea lingering on his breath. She flashed a large grin up at him. "You're an anomaly, you know that?" Zuko asked.
"Thank you." Her grin widened. "So now that I've set you straight on your first guess, what's your next one?"
"Oh." Zuko leaned away from her again, propping himself on his arms. Appa made an insistent noise, and Zuko resumed his nose-scratching. "I guess the Avatar didn't kidnap you, then?"
Toph laughed. "Of course he didn't! You think someone like me could be kidnapped by anyone? I mean, it almost happened once. But I was just too good for them." She stretched her fingers, cracking some of the joints in satisfaction.
"But you're tiny, Toph."
"Hey!" She jabbed a finger into his face. "I prefer deceptively sized, thank you."
"So, how does it work?" Zuko's voice was warm, as if he were smiling at her. "Your ability to fight so well, I mean. Despite- everything."
"I feel the vibrations in the earth," Toph answered, enjoying his awkwardness. I can tell where everything is that way. At least, if it's touching the ground. Momo keeps sneaking up on me, the little rat. Because he flies most of the time."
"Hmm." Zuko murmured, analytically. Toph felt his face turn towards her again and linger for a long while. "Yep, still an anomaly."
She punched him in the arm. "It's your turn, Zuko."
He rubbed the sore spot contemplatively. "Let's see," he said, touching his fingers to the ground as he counted off his own. Toph felt an immediate rush of gratitude. "One, this is the first time in my life that I haven't been destined to be Fire Lord. Two, I spent years at sea on a tiny ship with my uncle." He swallowed. "Three, I was once smuggled away from bounty hunters in a large ceramic pot."
Toph gave a great shout of laughter at the last and Zuko jerked in surprise. "Where was your uncle for that?"
"He was in a second pot right next to me, of course."
Toph laughed even harder, feeling tears well up behind her eyes, slumping back to the stone floor beneath them.
"What's so funny?" Zuko was definitely smiling now. His voice had a happy lilt to it.
"Just-" Toph huffed out between giggles- "The prince of the Fire Nation and his esteemed and chubby uncle! Smuggled away from bad guys in large flower pots! I can't imagine. But then again, I totally can!"
Zuko chuckled quietly next to her. "So what's your guess, then?"
"Oh, the first one. Obviously."
"Obviously?"
Toph snorted. "There are befits to being able to feel vibrations in the ground, you know. Like feeling heartbeats. And one's visceral reaction to lying."
"I can't believe it," Zuko said. "You convinced me to play this game with you when you were cheating all along?" He sounded good natured enough, and Toph grinned her wide grin again.
"Have you ever wondered how we keep escaping from all those awful situations? How even
those idiots-" she gestured behind her- "escaped from you? It's because we cheat. Welcome to Team Avatar, Zuko." She stood, stretching, and touched her fingers to his shoulder lightly in farewell, walking back towards the heat of the fire.
"Why won't she even try to understand?!"
Zuko punctuated each word with a fiery blow of a fist to the wall of the Western Air Temple, rejoicing in the glorious sense of release from each punch. He watched the brilliant, colored fire, so different from his old bending, lick up each arm. He felt wonderfully, defiantly powerful, to be fueled by something that was not rage but frustration and the desperate need to prove himself, to simply be understood.
Katara's remarks at dinner had almost sent him boiling over. The insinuations that he was now a threat for their team, because he could bend again. Her petty smirks, the way the rest of the group cringed while she attacked him. Zuko didn't know which hurt worse; the insinuation that he was nothing without his flames- he'd managed pretty well for himself in Ba Sing Se with his beloved dao swords- or her persistent, flat-out refusal to see past his mistakes and to the person he had become. He jumped again at the wall, scorching it with a fiery kick that left his toes numb through his gold embossed boots. He tried to push away the nagging idea that underneath it all was the lingering fear that he would never again be good enough; never be accepted by them; never be able to crawl from the hole he'd dug for himself from stupid mistake after stupid mistake.
After dinner and a hurried clean-up, where Zuko had tried to suppress the smoking heat of his shaking palms, he'd wandered the temple carelessly until finding another in a long series of open rooms. Zuko had checked that there was nothing flammable (he couldn't imagine Aang's face if the boy caught him deliberately burning away pieces of Airbender culture), and had started training, hurling his new fire at the thick stone walls until his muscles ached and sweat rolled from his brow and down his naked torso. He'd lost track of how long he had been there.
"Damn, Sparky. What has the temple ever done to you?"
Zuko finally turned away from the significantly scorched stone, breathing heavily, shocked that he didn't hear the Earthbender approach. He figured Toph could be surprisingly quiet when she wanted to be, understanding and loving the element underfoot. He looked at her, still trembling from his outburst.
"Sparky?" he asked.
Toph aimed a grin at his face and padded over to him. "With how you assaulted that poor wall? I think 'Sparky' is pretty accurate."
Zuko bit his bottom lip and looked over at his victim. It was blackened, with large scorched streaks stretching out for feet in any direction. He turned away from it, sickened.
Toph waved a small, creamy hand dismissively. "Don't worry about the stupid wall. I can knock it out. Or maybe we keep it, for artistic value." She settled herself on the hard stone beneath her, tucking one leg neatly under the other.
"Artistic value?" Zuko settled next to her, shocked to feel the stone dip to take his weight and mold to his form. Damn, Earthbending was so useful sometimes.
Toph rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, you know. Like one day, after we've beaten the Fire Lord and become renowned war heroes, people will visit the Western Air temple in reverence; here's
where the Avatar slept, here's where Sparky wounded the greatest Earthbender of all time, here's where he proceeded to throw a fit when Katara was awful to him."
Zuko snorted. To anyone else, perhaps, he would have denied his motives behind needing to take out his anger. Katara carried a lot of influence with the group. Zuko noticed how Aang adored her, how Sokka would clearly do anything to protect her. Even Teo and Haru pinked in the cheeks when she was nearby. But Toph seemed the least affected by the Waterbender, and also had the frustrating ability to be completely immune to Zuko's own impassive act, reading other parts of him instead. It would make her ridiculously useful in political situations, if they all made it that far. His stomach dropped.
"Hey Toph," Zuko said suddenly, desperate to escape his current line of thought. "What's your last name?"
"What?" Toph jumped a little and Zuko felt a rush of pride that he, too, could take the little Earthbender by surprise. "What makes you think I have one?"
Zuko smirked. In the Fire Nation, citizens only had last names if they were part of a great family. A last name was a status symbol, a heightened class, a way to impress upon those introduced to you that you were to be feared and respected. He had figured the older traditions hadn't died out in the Earth Kingdom either, not with their legendary stubbornness.
Zuko eyed her. Toph's thick, shining black hair was styled upwards as always, exposing the nape of her neck. "Well, here, for one," he said, lifting a hand to the soft skin. Toph leaned into his hand, clearly anticipating it. "When you're not thinking about it, you fall into a stiff, upright posture. You'd never do it so instinctively unless it had been drilled into you as a child from some sort of manners coach." Zuko remembered his own none too fondly, the reprimands he would receive when he failed to act up to par, the physical lashings from his father upon receiving a bad report. He shuddered.
"And here-" he moved his hand to hers, crossed on a knee. Her upper hand twined itself through his, upon the touch. Zuko decided he liked it. "I was also taught how to place my hands, so that people couldn't read what I was really thinking. Trained impassivity to heighten the reverence of the future Fire Lord. And third, speaking of, you know words like reverence."
Toph shot a withering glare in his direction, and purposefully slumped her shoulders into a horrid posture. "You're so annoying, Sparky." Her hand remained in his. Zuko gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's Beifong," Toph said, heaving a great, resigned sigh. "Toph Beifong."
Zuko's brow furrowed. "I definitely think I've heard of the Beifong family," he said softly. "A long time ago, probably. Or maybe I traveled through your city at some point." Zuko figured that he'd missed quite a lot, when he was quite literally dying of hunger in the Earth Kingdom.
Toph grinned slightly. "I wouldn't be surprised if you'd visited. It sounds like you stalked Aang everywhere. You'd remember if you'd been to Earth Rumble Six, though." Her expression became a far-off look. Zuko watched the moonlight catch in her bleached eyes and illuminate them to a silver glow. She heaved a sigh. "I hate my parents. I hate them so much. I don't want a last name, or their estate, or their stupid legacy. As far as I'm concerned, I gave it up the minute I ran away to train Aang. I just want to be myself, now. I'm already better and stronger than they could ever have made me."
Zuko felt a rush of empathy for the girl beside him. She'd certainly picked the right person to speak with on the subject of horrible parents. He thought of Sokka and Katara, who clearly adored their father beyond words; of Aang, who was raised with many caring parental figures, even if they didn't agree on the best way to raise him. Aang had told Zuko about the premise of his
disappearance, as they flew back from the Sun Warrior ruins and were caught in a rainstorm. The rest of them couldn't quite understand what it was like to have their own parents hate, and desperately try to change, them. "You hate your parents?" He joked. "I wonder what that's like?"
They sat in silence for a while before Toph jumped up, hauling Zuko to his feet as well. "Alright. Let's go."
"Where are we going?"
Toph gave him a dangerously wide smile. "We are going to sleep, Sparky. Because tomorrow, I'm going to show you why I'm the greatest Earthbender of all time. And you'll need to rest as much as possible to even try and keep up."
A/N: I found this story about two years ago like I did a few others but sadly they were taken down along with the original author. This story is one of the few that I loved so much that I had to re-release it for others to enjoy it much like I did. Nothing was written by me other than this note at the end.