I fell asleep a lot sooner than Zuko did, wrapped up in a blanket with his arm over me until I felt him stir next to me, having been woken up by something. I flinched, disturbed from my sleep and blinking as I felt Zuko sit up beside me. "Who's there?" Waking up properly as I sensed he was on the defensive, Zuko swept out a hand to form an arc of fire out of instinct, warding off whoever was approaching us as I hurriedly sat up only to see Toph standing there, her face lit by the fire as Zuko yelled. "Stay back!"
Earth bending a protective pillar in front of her as she yelled that it was just her, Toph stepped backwards right onto the dying embers of our fire and cried out in pain as I heard the embers hiss, my eyes widening as I flung aside the blanket. "Toph!" I hurried to her side as she fell down, seeing that her feet were both burned angry red and beginning to blister badly. "Hold on, I'll heal you." Instructing her to stay still I pulled water from the grass and earth and began to heal the soles of her feet before they could be too badly affected, though she yelled at Zuko angrily.
"You burned my feet!"
"I'm sorry, it was a mistake!" Zuko started to rush forwards to try and help but Toph, frightened from being attacked so suddenly, started to scramble away from him and me as well in a bid to escape, throwing a chunk of earth behind her as she started to crawl.
"Get away from me!"
"Toph wait, I need to heal you! Stop!" She continued trying to crawl away, throwing earth rocks at Zuko who dodged them as I quickly moved to catch up with her, grabbing her shoulder to make her halt, though Zuko wasn't helping by trying to get closer still in a desperate bid to fix what he'd done.
"Let me help you, I'm sorry." Reaching out for her, Toph cried out in a tight pitched screech as she struggled against even me, still overwhelmed and in pain from her feet.
"Get off me, get off me!" This time a column of earth shot upwards and slammed against Zuko's chest, making me look his way quickly with worry before I returned my focus to Toph.
"Toph, it's me! It's Kayo! Just calm down, I've got you. You're safe. I'm here." Wrapping her up in my arms I rocked her a little, hearing her crying slightly so I tucked her up close and comforted her, making hushing noises as Zuko began to get up again.
"I didn't know it was you, please…"
"Stay back!" I ordered him, knowing that if he came close now, Toph would just panic again. "Don't come any closer Zuko." He flinched with hurt, from being hit in the chest by a rock or from my words, I don't know.
"Please, let me…"
"I'll handle this, you just stay here Zuko. I need to take her back." Lifting Toph easily in my arms, I turned and hurriedly brought her away, following the most open path until we were a fair distance away from Zuko that Toph would calm down, letting me place her down against a tree where I used water to heal her feet more as she recovered from the shock. "There, feel better?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry I lashed out."
"Don't be." I laughed cheerfully, working on her feet to soothe the burns and minimise the damage. "It's natural to lash out when you've been frightened by something. How does that feel? Tell me where it hurts most."
"Aaah…that feels great…a little higher." Following her direction, I focused mostly on the heel and pads of her feet where the burn was worse. "I just wanted to talk to Zuko, but I guess you beat me to it. Were you guys…you know…sleeping together?"
"What?!" Alarmed, I looked up at her quickly. "No! I mean yes, but not like that. We just fell asleep whilst talking, that's all." I answered, going back to healing her feet some more, trying to do as much as I could to prevent her from coming up in blisters.
"What did you guys talk about?"
"A lot of things actually. He told me that he was sorry for hurting me back in Ba Sing Se, you remember all those burns I was covered in? They were from him. Slightly an accident, I would have been able to dodge if Azula hadn't caught me off guard. Anyway, he promised that he'd decided to be a better person from now on and that he was going to do better, though I guess I'll have to tell him he needs to work on not being so overly cautious all the time. he's always had that problem, so I'm sorry you got burned because of it."
"Technically, I got burned because I stepped on the campfire."
"Technically, yes." I agreed with a slight chuckle, dropping the water and squinting in the dark. "I can't really see at night, and there's no way back to the temple without me possibly wandering off the edge of the cliff and you can't walk." Telling me that she could still use her hands to feel her way through the earth, Toph directed me where to go as I carried her on my back, arms hooked underneath her so that she had a more comfortable seat.
"What else did you guys talk about?"
"We talked about him for the most part, about why this sudden change for the good had happened and he told me how his uncle had revealed that his maternal great grandfather was actually Avatar Roku." Toph whistled in response, making me tilt my head in agreement. "I know right? Anyway, we talked about that some more, then about how much he was sorry again, then about some other stuff as well. He told me that his mother might actually be alive after his father told him she was dead for years, and I told him about my dad, then we talked about Iroh and some other stuff. Oh, and he got a girlfriend that he dumped through a letter before leaving."
"Well that must suck."
"Exactly. I hit him for that. Actually, I seem to hit Zuko quite a lot. We drank tea too, basically it was like nothing had even changed." Toph listened to me as I walked, carrying her towards the temple which unfortunately, was going to be quite a hike.
"You like him, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean like the way a mom and dad like each other, you know." I stopped for a moment, staring over my shoulder at Toph who smirked at me, her face barely visible as my eyes adjusted to the dark. "See? I knew it."
"Don't be ridiculous, that's not…I don't…it's not going to happen." Bumping her further up my back, I carried on walking as I tried to hide the fact I was blushing. "I mean, I think he's handsome and all, but he seriously has a lot of issues he needs to work on. His temper for one, he's also grumpy and pig headed, annoyingly stiff and inflexible when it comes to rules, he's totally not my type at all. We're like polar opposites, literally! He's fire and I'm water. It'll never work out."
"You like him." Toph teased me, poking at my head as I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore her. "Admit it! I saw you two all cuddled up together. Well, my feet saw you cuddled up together. I think you two make an adorable couple."
"I think the burn on your feet has frazzled your brain." I retorted bluntly, making Toph laugh as she gripped on more securely with her arms. "When we get back we can have Katara take a look at your feet. She'll probably be able to do a lot more than me since she has more experience."
"They don't feel too bad, just sore."
"Well, don't walk on them just yet since they'll be raw and tender, which makes them more liable to cuts and infections." I warned her, continuing my trek through the woods. "He's not a total bad guy, you know, and he is sorry he got you hurt." I mentioned after a while and Toph hummed in acknowledgement.
"I know, I shouldn't have sneaked up on him like that. It was an accident."
"I doubt the others will see it like that though."
"Probably not, but despite what they say, we need Zuko. Aang needs a teacher. A real fire bending teacher. There's only so much you could teach him just from second hand knowledge." Toph said and I was fully in agreement, though I wasn't looking forward to us trying to persuade everyone else of that fact. "By the way…do you know who Jeong-Jeong is?" Unable to help it, I laughed.
"Nope. Not even a clue."
