Travel & Accommodations
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Azula turned. Her eyes widened in shock at the bedraggled little girl standing in the doorframe. "Omigosh, Toph? Toph, is that you?"
"Azula? I made it in time, right? Please tell me I made it in time."
The Firebending princess took the Earthbender's arm and led her friend into the reception room where the guests were enjoying pre-dinner cocktails. Before she had moved back in with her parents (and subsequently moved out again a week later after being treated like a fragile little eggshell), Toph and Azula had gotten along famously when they had met, despite having been on opposite sides for a while. After all, they were both talented benders, smarmy, competitive, and had tongues sharp as whips. It was probably a prodigy thing.
"You're in time for dinner, but I'm afraid you missed the ceremony. Gods, where have you been? The messenger hawk came back without a response. We were afraid something had happened." She picked a stray leaf out of the girl's dirty hair.
Toph bit her lip. "I can't read Zula. Not regular writing. So I had to take the message down to the village so someone could read it for me."
Azula cursed. Sokka, you idiot, you were supposed to make that invitation in Braille!
"When I had a message ready to send back, the hawk was gone. I guess it couldn't wait. So I had to walk here."
The Firebender did a double take. "Wait, you walked from the Earth Kingdom?"
"Mostly. I don't like ostrich-horses – they're terrible on mileage." Toph took the drink Azula handed her and carefully tasted it before downing it in one gulp. "There was an earthquake at one point along the way, and I got a little lost and shook up. When I finally found the coast, I had to find a ship that could take me here, but I somehow ended up in the North Pole."
"You were at the Northern Water Tribe?"
Toph nodded. "Walking barefoot in the snow is no fun, let me tell you. So anyhow, I managed to get on another ship, but I got off at Kyoshi Island instead of the Fire Nation. Nearly lost a foot to that Unagi thing, I think. I'm not sure – it might have been an elephant koi that had tried to eat me."
"Elephant… koi…" The princess said slowly.
"So then I decided, to heck with it, I'm going to ride a rock all the way to the Fire Nation, even if it kills me. I just waited for sunset, hopped on the biggest rock I could bend, and pointed myself straight and fast across the ocean, heading west."
The princess's jaw dropped open. "But… it's a week-long boat ride from the easternmost island to Kyoshi! Toph, how did you survive that long while bending?"
The little girl shrugged. "Dunno. But didn't you once tell me that Iroh and Zuko survived on a raft drifting in the ocean without food or water for three weeks?"
Azula couldn't argue with that.
"Anyhow, I lost all my luggage somewhere along the way – not that I have any fashion sense being, you know, blind." She tugged at her bedraggled traveling robes.
Azula got the hint, snapping into hostess mode. "Say no more. I'll have you cleaned and prettied up before dinner, no problem."
"Thanks Zula. But one thing," she hesitated. "Could you… could you make sure I don't wear what you're wearing?"
The fire princess blinked and looked down at her puffy, frilly, lacy, furry, bow-covered bridesmaid's dress. "How…?"
Toph smiled grimly. "Hey, I may be blind, but I can sense fugly from a mile away."
