ZW 2009 Day 4: Cactus Juice

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Disclaimer: recognizable dialogue belongs to the creators, not me.

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Shifts

AU of The Library and The Desert: When Team Avatar wanders into the wrong corner of the Earth Kingdom, they run into some old enemies, get lost in a massive desert, and discover the wonders of cactus juice. What could possibly go wrong?

Toph just knows this is going to be bad. She lands on shifting earth when she jumps down from Appa, and everything is blurry. There's a hole in the ground somewhere-no, not a hole, that must be the stupid ice fountain Katara wants to see-and it must not be that great because everybody sounds disappointed. Whatever. A hunk of ice is just as lame as any other hunk of ice. She feels familiar footsteps somewhere, but with all the flying around Twinkle Toes does and this stupid sand, she's not sure who it is (or where they're coming from, for that matter).

Things happen in the background, though Toph can't see any of it and therefore doesn't feel obligated to pay it much attention. She hears someone spit and Sokka squawk, coins hitting surfaces and swords slicing the air. And maybe some coconuts. Pretty boring stuff. And so is this stuffy professor guy yammering about historical relics and sky bison and Aang's fruit pies. But since she can't see anything anyway, Toph takes the drink someone puts in her hand and swings her feet up on what she's hoping is a table, and she listens.

An ostrich horse clucks outside, and Appa growls at something but she doesn't think it's the ostrich horse. The rest of the group takes the snobby professor outside, but Toph is going to stay right here, thank you very much, and stay she does. She can hear Aang and Sokka shouting, but whatever they're shouting at moves away pretty fast. Toph cocks her head-they almost seem to be gliding, but who knows what she's actually seeing, anyway. Those familiar footsteps are back, and that's the more important thing because they're accompanied by a voice that doesn't belong to the group.

"Hello, Toph."

"Well if it isn't General Fatso."

She's met with a rumbling laugh. "Not so fat anymore, I'm afraid. All this traveling has been hard on an old man."

A new set of footsteps is approaching. "I get it Uncle, your back hurts, your feet hurt, and you want tea. Well they don't have any tea in this place."

Toph feels it's safe to assume this grouchy sounding jerkface is the nephew that the old man wouldn't quit droning on about. "So this must be Lee." She can feel the heat rolling off the nephew. Weird.

"Who are you?" This guy is awfully demanding, but Toph's kicked the collective butts of people grouchier and tougher than he is.

She thrusts one hand in the direction of the voice. "Toph Bei Fong, best earthbender in the world."

Apparently, Grouchy Nephew Lee isn't in the mood for introductions. "Sure you are. Uncle, can we leave now? There's nothing here."

General Fatso moves a little, probably looking around the room, but Toph can't tell what with this floor being wood on top of sand and all. "Ah. I think I've found our friend."

Color Toph confused. "Me?"

General Fatso pats her shoulder, which nearly throws her off balance. Apparently this posture in the chair isn't as solid as she thought. "No," he chuckles. "Not unless you know a way to get us to Ba Sing Se."

Now that, Toph thinks, is an interesting proposition. "I just might."

"No. No way Toph. Nuh uh nope." Sokka clearly has no interest in bringing an old man and his nephew into their group, but Toph is not so easily deterred.

"Oh come on, Sokka. He's a nice old man who gave me tea and told me stories back when I ran away from the group. And if he tries anything I can earthbend his butt."

"What about his nephew, Toph?" Katara's voice holds that simpering, self-righteous worry that always frustrates the ever living mud out of Toph. "What does he look like?"

Toph rolls her sightless eyes. "Oh you know, the usual. Tall, dark, handsome. Just your type, Katara."

Katara seems impressed. "Really? How tall is he?"

Toph snorts. "Sure, ask the blind girl more stupid questions." She ignores Katara's screeching. "What do you think, Twinkles?"

Aang, if anything, seems excited. "Sure! The more the merrier! And I don't usually say things like merry…"

"Pristine, merry, wow Aang, really expanding the vocabulary there." Sokka's voice is dry and sarcastic, and it speaks to Toph on some deep level she wasn't quite sure existed. "Anyway, we don't even know these guys. We can't just let them waltz in here and come with us while we go look for maps of the Fire Nation."

Toph has to admit he has a point. But it's too bad, because General Fatso makes very good tea. She trudges back to the tavern, or smoothie shop, or whatever it is, stubbing her toes several times along the way. Stupid sand.

She bumps into Grouchy Nephew on her way in. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Calm your tits." It's something she heard Sokka say once, and she's ashamed to feel herself blushing as the words leave her mouth, but she likes the way it rolls off her tongue. And it leaves Grouchy Nephew speechless. "Where's your uncle?"

Grouchy Nephew pulls himself together. "He went to play Pai Sho with some old guy. He said to wait here."

As the words leave his mouth, Toph feels General Fatso waddling closer. "I believe I've found our friend, Nephew."

"Good," Toph mutters, "because my loser friends don't want to bring you with us."

She thinks General Fatso might be bowing. "Do not trouble yourself, Miss Bei Fong. Lee and I shouldn't have any trouble at all."

"Cool." She punches him in the arm.

"You see, Nephew, I always told you Pai Sho was more than just a game."

They finally find the library, after hours of searching, and Toph is pretty sure she'd rather get lost in the sand than have to ride around on Appa one more minute. "You guys go ahead. Books don't exactly do it for me."

Sokka stops, probably to look at her. "Why?" There is silence for a few moments. "Oh. Right."

Toph snorts. "Appa and I will stay right here." The rest of the group hasn't been gone long when Appa begins growling and Toph notices something is changing in the sand, almost like it's being spun around in tornadoes around her and the library. "Who's there?"

Appa growls louder, and she feels the sand whipping more slowly. A ring of people surrounds her, and there are two or three large blobs that she thinks might be some kind of sand sleds. One of them has another two people on it, but they're tied up and don't seem conscious. "Give us the bison."

"Who are you?" Toph sinks into an earthbending stance, for all the good that'll do her.

"Stand aside, girl."

Toph doesn't like the man's voice, and she doesn't stand aside, but flinging sand at him doesn't do much. "What do you want?"

"We're taking the bison." She swears she can hear some kind of evil, greedy smile in his voice.

"No." She focuses on the sand, on each grain, each particle of dirt, and she solidifies it under her feet. It helps, a little. She can see eight people around her, plus the two on the weird sand sled, and they're all in their own stances.

Before she can strike, sand whips her face. "Take the bison! The girl's no threat to us. And leave the prisoners. The bison is worth six of them."

Well, that's just humiliating. Toph gathers as much sand as she can and throws it at the sandbenders. She misses them, but the blow tears the sails off two of the sleds (gliders?) and blows the hats off two of the benders. Which isn't much, but Toph thinks at least her aim isn't horrible. They throw ropes past her that wind around Appa, and she's about to break them when the ground begins to shake. Everything stops for a moment. Appa roars. "The library is sinking!" She tightens the sand around her feet and grabs the library on its way down. She can slow it down with earthbending, but it's heavy and it's sitting in all that awful sand and she just can't stop it and then the sandbenders have Appa and there's nothing she can do about it. They speed away from her, dragging the growling sky bison, and tears slide down her face as she struggles to hold up the library. "I'm sorry Appa."

Just as she thinks she can't hold it up any longer, Aang, Sokka, and Katara fall out of the sky, and she lets the library fall.

"Where's Appa?" Aang's voice has a sharp edge that she's not used to, and all she can do is hang her head and shake it a little.

"The sandbenders took him."

"How could you let them take him? Why didn't you stop them?"

"I couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-"

"You could have come got us. I could have saved him."

There wasn't time! I can hardly feel vibrations out here and they snuck up on me!"

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa; you wanted him gone!"

"Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives." Good ol' Katara, to her rescue.

Sokka has more important things to think about. "Who's going to save our lives now? We'll never make it out of here."

Aang stiffens (or maybe it's a breeze, who knows). "That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

Katara's voice softens. "We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now."

Aang's voice is cold. "I'm going after Appa."

Toph feels wind rushing through her hair, and Katara's footsteps are faint in the sand. "Aang, wait!" Katara's shouts don't bring Aang back, and when she stops, everything is quiet.

Suddenly, Toph hears a grunt. "This has been a hard week for an old man."

Toph's head snaps up. "General Fatso?"

Sokka spins around and grips his boomerang. Katara reaches for her waterskin. Sokka's voice is too shrill for a warrior, but he postures like one anyway (stupid Sokka). "What are you doing here?"

General Fatso groans and pushes himself up off the glider. "My nephew and I are fugitives. Unfortunately, the sandbenders took quite an interest in the bounty on our heads."

Sokka points his boomerang at the still-unconscious Grouchy Nephew. "Give me one good reason not to kill him." Toph hasn't heard Sokka's voice this hard in a long time, and it sends chills up and down her spine.

General Fatso's laugh rumbles across the sand, and Toph is, for once, confused. "The Fire Lord would have us killed." Katara gasps. Toph is further confused by how happy about that he sounds, but General Fatso has always been an odd one. "My nephew has suffered a strong blow to the head; he is no threat to you."

"Great. Just great." Sokka seems to have relaxed, but not a lot. "So now we're stuck in a desert with no Appa, no Avatar, and two firebenders who used to spend all day trying to kill us!"

"We never meant to kill you!" General Fatso seems to be waving his arms, but Toph is really getting tired of trying to see in this sand. "We were only intending to capture you!"

Sokka scoffs. "Oh yeah. And then what, take us back to the Fire Nation so somebody else could kill us?"

The old man chuckles. "You have such a dry sense of humor."

Sokka tries to bicker for a while longer, until he realizes (to his consternation) that Katara has started using water to heal Grouchy Nephew's head). "Katara! We're in the middle of a desert! Don't use water on him!"

"He's hurt, Sokka."

"So?!"

Katara apparently doesn't really care about using the last of their water and Sokka doesn't care if Grouchy Nephew, whose name is actually Zuko (at least that's what Toph gathers from the conversation) never wakes up. Toph is very quickly bored with the two of them and turns to General Fatso (Iroh?), who is standing next to her placidly. "Can we just leave them here?"

Toph can't see much, but she's pretty sure she can see his belly rumbling.

By the time night falls, Zuko is still unconscious, but they've rescued the sand sled glider whatever it is and dragged it and Zuko behind them. Katara hopes that when Aang comes back, he'll be able to airbend into the sails to get them out of the desert. In the meantime, they're heading north to Ba Sing Se, Katara says, because they have to get this information to the Earth King. To Sokka's surprise, General Fatso has no problem with that. Zuko might, but he's not going to wake up any time soon in Katara's estimation.

By the middle of the afternoon, they've drunk most of Katara's bending water. She apologizes for it tasting swampy, but it's all they have.

"Not anymore! Look!" Sokka, obviously, has found something.

"Shut up, peasant," Zuko growls.

"Prince Zuko!" General Fatso waddles to his nephew's side with Katara close behind. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Uncle. Where are we?"

Sokka seems to take issue with being interrupted. "Guys! There's water in these!"

"Just a minute Sokka." Katara seems to have moved closer to Zuko. "You hit your head pretty bad."

She must have put her hand on his shoulder or something Katara-like because Zuko suddenly jumps off the sand sailer (sand sailer. That has a good ring to it) and shouts, "Don't touch me!"

"Patience, Prince Zuko. Katara saved you from a horrible headache." He pushes Zuko closer to Katara. "You can thank her properly while I look at Sokka's plants.

Toph ignores the two of them. She's far more interested in Sokka and Iroh, who seem awfully unsteady on their feet. Sokka mumbles something about a friendly mushroom while Iroh starts dancing with Momo. "Uncle! What are you doing?"

"Dancing with the Avatar, Prince Zuko. He's quite light on his feet."

"Uncle!"

Toph snorts. Whatever was in that cactus juice needed to be bottled up and sent to her parents for their after-dinner drink.

"Why is Toph on fire?"

"Sokka, you shouldn't be eating strange plants." Katara's her usual bossy self, Toph notes. That might be a good thing. "And Iroh, you should know better."

"No kidding," Zuko grumbles. "Last time he ate a strange plant he ended up with his throat swollen shut."

Iroh sputters. "Prince Zuko, I was trying to make tea. Do you think this cactus water would make good oolong?"

Sokka inhales and exhales dramatically. "I suppose, your flamey firebendy-ness dragon sir."

A sinister smile grows across Toph's face. She's going to get her some of that. And she does.

Toph wonders if this is what seeing is like. The vibrating lines around her are different than usual. The white lines aren't white at all, and the black is shades of light she doesn't understand. "Maybe you're seeing coloooorrsssss," Sokka slurs, and it occurs to her that he might be right.

It's almost dark, and Katara and Zuko have been herding them north for hours. "We better stop for the night," Katara murmurs, and Zuko must agree because she feels hands on her shoulders forcing her to sit down. She hears the wind, suddenly, and it's very loud but she doesn't really care until a large blob lands next to her. Feels like Twinkle Toes.

Toph swings her fist but misses. "Heyyyy Twinkles. Where've you been?"

"Looking for Appa, Toph, what's wrong with you?"

"The three of them drank cactus juice, Aang. They're a little out of it."

Toph plops down in the sand and begins to pick her toes. "My feet have boogers."

"EW!" Sokka screeches and scoots away from her. "Momo, save me from her grubby little toes."

Something thuds and starts roaring. "General Fatso stop snoring it's hurting my ears." Her voice sounds strange and monotone in her ears.

Katara apparently said something to Aang, because he steps back from her and shouts some nonsense about never getting out of here without Appa. Iroh is still snoring and she's about ready to bend him back to Earth Rumble 6. Everything is so loud and this weird thing going on in her vision is starting to make her dizzy. Toph stops picking her toes and puts her head between her legs.

"Sokka, do you have any ideas to get us out of here?"

Sokka giggles. "Why don't you ask the circle birds?"

Katara sighs. "Zuko?"

Toph doesn't hear what he says. They're just so cute. Blurry, but cute. She wonders what would happen if she tried to bend sand. She can bend metal, what's sand? So she jerks a big pile of sand under Zuko's feet and chortles at his girly little shriek. Next thing she knows, he's lying on top of Katara on the desert floor and apologizing because Toph must have done something and he's sorry and then Toph's laughter is bright and shrieking and she's breathing in sand.

"Toph!"

"Kiss him, Sugarqueen."

"Keep your Fire Nation hands off my sister!"

Toph wishes she could see because she's pretty sure there's drool coming out of Sokka's mouth and she hopes Zuko and Katara look stupid. Iroh keeps snoring, and Toph wonders about the sand glider thingy. "Hey Katara, what about the sail thing."

They better be grateful she remembered. Wait. Who was supposed to be dragging the sailer thing? Was it her? Oops.

That's okay. Katara and Zuko can go get it. Or Aang could. Why hasn't Aang asked about Zuko and Iroh yet, anyway? Toph decides she no longer cares. She's going to take a nap.

When she wakes, Aang is gone. Her head is pounding, but she feels far better than she did. From the sounds of the snoring, Iroh and Sokka are still asleep, but she thinks Katara and Zuko might be sitting together. She thinks she hears Katara offer to heal his scar (what scar?) with the spirit water, and she hears something about mothers, and she hears something about loyalty and the Fire Nation and family. Eh. Sappy stuff. Toph rolls over and goes back to sleep.

And the next time she wakes up they're on the sand sailer, and Katara isn't yelling at Zuko. Zuko isn't growling angsty things back.

"I think Momo likes you," Katara says, and Zuko grumbles as he tries to detach the lemur from his arm.

"I think he's coming down from cactus juice and he's dizzy." Well. Maybe not super angsty. Grouchy Nephew still lives into his name though.

General Fatso has a smile in his voice. "I'm glad we ran into you, Toph. I believe this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship for my nephew."

Toph takes a moment to wonder what would have happened if Iroh and Zuko had been a day behind them, but she decides she'd rather not think about it.

"The sandbenders said they sold Appa to merchants in Ba Sing Se," Aang announces. "So that's where we're going."

She's slightly offended no one woke her up for a confrontation with the sandbenders, but oh well. There will be things to destroy in Ba Sing Se. And she doesn't have to fly anymore. All in all, life is good.

A/N: Not super Zutara, I know, but I think the beginning of a friendship is almost as good as anything else. I may continue this later, but we'll see. The muse is starting to wear out a bit.