She sat among sun dappled grass along the yawning banks of a weeping stream, eyes resting on the curve of red-orange where the sun spread from beyond the distant horizon. Fingers splayed before her, cold water and summer humidity forming crystallites above upturned palms, and for a moment, she could almost feel at peace.
"You're calm,"
Blue eyes turn to stare at ashen feet, the green of battle clothes she'd stitched herself just two nights before. There was a tenseness to the muscle there, the tight curl of soot-covered toes and skin that pulled taut over the curve of short calves.
"Hey, Toph."
Silence, at first. Katara turns back to stare at the horizon, where the blue of the ocean meets the blue of the sky, the sun still so slow in its ascent.
"Sweetness."
A hand brushes her arm, stubby dirt-crusted fingers gripping onto the swell of bandages where heated metal chains were lucky enough to sear. Toph doesn't say much afterwards, shuffles til her knees meet Katara's thighs and leans back the same way she does, toes just barely submerged in stream-water.
"It's pretty out here,"
Katara says, eyes on flowering plants she couldn't hope to name. Wide-petalled, and beautiful, the colors of sun and fire; near nothing like the saxifrage that grew above melting ice by midsummer bearberries, or the pasque flowers Mom used to collect to decorate her hair, those long summers when the ice melted just a little more, and the welcome heat gave way for something more delicate within the southern tundra. She sighs, crystallized water dispersing.
"Is Zuko alright?"
An odd silence from Toph, not incredibly long, but just long enough for Katara to suspect….
"He's still talking to Azula,"
A short pause. Pale eyes look beyond the trickling stream, to where turtleducklings clamber along the rocky alcove by the garden walls.
"Sokka's there waiting for him, he didn't really say anything about it, but I know he's scared of Azula."
A wry smirk that didn't quite catch her brows the way it usually would. Katara tried to smile along anyway, weary of water-damped feet and fingers that tug through clamping grass and mist-drizzled dirt.
"But Zuko's okay?"
Like a nattering in her head, memories of those short minutes she'd spent within Fire Princess' chambers. Zuko and Azula shoulder to shoulder, the arrogant quirk of Azula's lips when she'd first pulled back the curtain. 'Peasant,' a cold welcome, like ice-water in a furnace. Dampening and ruining, and all she could do was watch and listen and try to understand how—
"Far as I can tell,"
Toph draws back wet feet, plants them firmly against the grassy bank.
"Huh, seems like him and the crazy princess finally settled things."
She sits up, hands spread out beside her. Dark brows furrow.
"Oh,"
Katara gives her a look, long and confused.
"Oh? What do you mean, oh?"
Toph purses her lips, pale eyes watering.
"Toph?"
Toph shakes her off, hands coming up to wrap around her own shoulders, like there'd been a chill in the humidity of the morning breeze. She tries not to be hurt by it, tries really, but….
"N-no, it's fine, Katara. He's fine."
She sighs, more shudder than air. Unseeing eyes glued onto her feet, toes wiggling free of dirt, her heels dipping once more into cool stream water.
"Then why—"
Toph stops her with an outstretched hand, grubby fingers a ways from her eyes.
"No, nuh-uh, you don't get to ask me to do that!"
Katara frowns some, digging her palms into damp soil as she tries to clamp down surging irritation—!
"…Toph?"
It's Suki, running across cherry wood flooring like the spirits themselves were lapping at her heels. She had a bag in hand, some rope in the other. Though she'd seen them (she had. Their eyes had met briefly, blue against a darker blue, one worried and one determined enough to catch a flame on the wind, and Suki had nodded at them) she didn't stop running, setting a blazing trail towards towering oak-wood doors by the very end of the hall.
"Huh."
Toph frowns, sightless eyes turning upwards.
There's a chittering from where spindly cherry blossom and maple leaves tangled in a mesh of forest-green by the arching rooftops, something like Momo nibbling at a peachapple, or Sokka hacking at old wood. Katara looks up, too, tries to spot whatever it was through the strengthening blare of morning sunlight and the otherwise bush of the greenery.
Nothing.
"Zuko's with Sokka,"
Toph says suddenly, already on her feet again.
"What?"
A sudden gale from the pulsing sea, salt thick on summer breeze. Katara takes a breath, even as it seems Toph is set on moving.
"What about Azula?"
The earthbender makes a gesture, one small flick of her fingers that has stream-stones rumbling.
"She's in her room, quiet."
And that's never really been a good thing. Katara gets up as well, dusts off the dirt clinging still to her dress. The sun is a little brighter now, the sky a clearer, lighter blue. The heat came sharp with a little more than just humidity.
"Where are we headed?"
There was no shouting, no sudden bursts of fire and lightning. But they could never be too sure. Waterskin filled to brimming, bandages tight were wounds could no longer heal. They had little time, and with how they'd wasted it— well, they were packed and ready to take off, if Appa could hold (and he would, he would) they could make it to the Western Air Temple before Azula could gather strength enough to shoot them out of the sky. With Zuko injured and the moon gone and—and Aang….
Breathe Katara. Breathe.
"Where are we headed?"
She asks again, calmer this time. Toph regards her with narrowed, too-pale eyes.
"Zuko's— his heart's acting wonky. Not like before, when we'd arrived the first time,"
She pauses, more to gather herself than to add dramatics. Her voice sounded so small… she licks dry lips, pulls herself together enough to just speak.
"He's sad… I dunno why,"
Except she did, they all did.
"But whatever Azula said, it got to him."
A small, clenched fist. Tears stream down pale cheeks, one slow trickle at a time. It's not something she would normally allow, but when Katara draws her into a hug, Toph doesn't fight it, not really.
"Sokka's tryna calm him down, but you know how Sokka is,"
We have to go. Unsaid, but it didn't need to be. Sokka wasn't good at feelings, not like Katara was. And with how unstable Zuko was, health and otherwise, yeah. They needed to go, now.
"I swear,"
Katara mumbles, hand around Toph's as they quickly peeled through long, empty palace halls, towards the courtyard where Appa was being watched over by Iroh's remaining White Lotus contacts.
"I swear if she did anything to him, I'll kill her."
And Katara would not cry, even if her lips trembled and her eyes stung with the force of withheld tears. She wouldn't give Azula, the firelord the satisfaction of seeing her crumble, even if they couldn't see her at all. Even if it hurt to hold it in, even if the very air felt like fire she was forced to breathe—
"Sweetness,"
Grubby hands squeeze her own.
"I'm okay,"
She says quietly, breathing in the coolness of sea-touched summer air as she and Toph broke into the courtyard.
"Katara!"
A low, long grumble.
Appa. Zuko resting in the saddle, Sokka by Appa's head, Suki somewhere…somewhere….
"Are you both alright?"
Her eyes land on Zuko, one arm over his eyes, the other clutching at the fabric above his chest. Sokka smiles, a crooked thing that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"You wouldn't believe what happened!"
Toph breaks away from her then, walks up to where Sokka is, hands on her hips. Whatever it was Sokka was about to tell her, it's lost in the face of Toph's stare, and, like always, they burst into argument. Waving hands and screeching words and she sees Zuko shuffling off to the back of the saddle, wincing even though he probably (most likely) didn't want to.
"Hey,"
She climbs into the saddle, rests a hand over his arm before he accidentally pushes himself back onto the courtyard. He startles, then winces again with the sudden movement. Katara tries to smile.
"Let me help with that."
A water gloved hand breezes over white-wrapped flesh, pulling at knots in chi and blood and trying, trying to mend.
Not enough, not even close to enough.
"I'll try again when we're up in the air."
Zuko nods some, bleary pale gold eyes just barely open.
"Thanks 'tara,"
He slurs, patting her gently on the wrist. There's a smile there, somewhere, hidden by pale features, the pull of exhaustion she was sure he could feel.
"Anyway!"
Her brother, loud and disconcertingly excited.
"You'll never guess what,"
"You said that already!"
Toph, seven feet of stomped dirt in the air. Her lips were pursed, jaw set in that way younger kids did when they had to swallow a catowl of complaints and try to mend socks cos Gran-gran didn't have the time to help them out with it.
Maybe Sokka had been stringing her along a good enough while.
"Sokka, what do you mean?"
Blue eyes, not quite smiling, but not as sad as they had been.
"Well, you see here,"
She hears it before she sees it, a whirl of steel on steel; the familiar puff of heated air.
"Azula decided to be a nice sister and let us a parting gift."
Not as large as the war balloons, but dark like the night sky and bare of any nation insignia.
"What…"
Toph blinks from beside Appa, tumbling into the saddle with a caterwaul that sounded something like "cheese" but was maybe just muffling fabric and the squish of the saddle against her lips.
"She didn't lie after all."
Not Sokka, nor Toph. She looks down, where she was sure Zuko had dozed off.
"Damn Sparky, how'd you convince her?"
Gold eyes didn't look back at her. Stuck on the airship like they would be stuck on fire, those long, sleepless nights she'd spent on the beachside, when he'd been just as awake as her, but was never aware she was ever there.
"I didn't."