She had already run past the village when she realized that she needed to stop. Her cheeks were stinging. She slowed, pressing her hand against her heart, feeling its rapid rhythm beneath her thick fur coat.
"Dammit," Toph muttered under her breath, her voice thick and angry through clenched teeth.
The sun was still barely shining its light over the ice. She inhaled deeply, the air cleansing her lungs and cleansing her thoughts. She had to learn to control herself. Another deep breath. Like a stone. Like a rock. Solid. Immovable.
The sun sparkled across the terrain, casting its rays against her clouded eyes. She could still see them, though. They were warm and bright, smiling from the west.
She had been so focused on running that she had forgotten her destination.
Despite the fact that what she really wanted was to put as much distance between Sokka and herself so that she might avoid another awkward encounter, Toph really did want to check up on Zuko. She whirled around, and the snow shifted beneath the soles of her boots. It felt funny.
Thankfully, Katara had given her a long-winded tour of the village, so Toph knew the approximate locations of all the various huts. Sadly, there just weren't that many. From a girl raised in the Earth Kingdom, the South Pole was miniscule.
She was getting used to the snow. It wasn't like she was loving it or even liking it. But she had definitely learned to use it to her advantage. She had to walk slowly though. If she stepped just right, the snow sent fuzzy vibrations through her calves, the ice prickling the eyes of her thick, ropy muscles, allowing Toph to see around her with a three-foot radius. It didn't look right to her. It didn't look right at all without the clear, beautiful contrast of stone carving her path of sight, but it was definitely doable.
She approached a hut, and she instinctively knew that it was the one that Katara used for healing. At first, having a 'healing hut' seemed like a ridiculous notion to Toph, but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Katara was still the only water-bender of the Southern Water Tribe, making her the only healer, and thereby making her the most sought-out woman in the entire tribe. Everybody came to her, some with the tiniest complaints of symptoms, and Katara insisted on helping them all. She merely insisted that they not rampage her home as well. She had even set up a strange organization of timetables for when she was available. Toph didn't really understand it, but then again, she didn't really care.
She approached the hut slowly, taking the necessary precautions to make sure she wasn't simply intruding in on somebody's home. The precautions weren't necessary this time, however. Zuko and Katara's voices could clearly be heard.
Toph laughed under her breath.
It was time for some old-fashioned eavesdropping.
She pressed her body up against the side of the hut, craning her neck awkwardly to the side in order to hear perfectly. A strange humming sound emanated from the doorway. That must be Katara's healing.
"I won't ask any questions, Zuko, despite the fact that I have plenty," said Katara, using her distinctive motherly tone. "And if you don't hold still, it won't heal right."
Zuko groaned. "It's just frostbite."
"I'm guessing you didn't know the frostbite can essentially make your limbs fall off?" Katara said smoothly. She seemed calm enough, so Zuko was going to be okay. Toph, however, shuddered. She couldn't imagine losing something as crucial as a limb. She wouldn't know what to do. Sure, she'd overcome one disability, but earthbending can only take a girl so far.
Katara healed in relative silence. Toph was just about to prowl on in when Zuko spoke.
"I'm sorry I worried you."
"Worried me? Worried me? You did far more than that, Zuko. I was so close to throwing away my entire tribe's traditions, traditions that have been held up for centuries, just so I wouldn't go insane from sitting idly by."
"I'm glad you didn't come, Katara."
"What?" she said incredulously.
"Abandoning tradition is like abandoning your honor. You would be very, very upset afterwards. I don't want to see you upset."
"I'm upset right now," she groaned, finishing off her healing with a final whirl of water. It splashed back into its pot, and Katara picked it up, capped it, and put it back on the shelf. Zuko sat up.
"What do you want me to do?" Zuko asked.
Toph could slice through the tension emanating out the doorway. She strained her ears, catching the slightest sounds perfectly. Katara licked her lips, the tongue rolling across her bottom teeth, and smoothed her hair back. Zuko stood, walking closer to her.
"Please, I can't stand to see you angry." He placed his hands on her shoulders, his fingers slowly curving around to trace her collarbone. Her fingers danced up to greet his. He bent down, burying his face in her thick brown hair. Katara swallowed. Her heartbeat fluttered, like a moth trying to escape its cage and flee to the bright white light.
He whispered into her ear, "I hate it when you're upset. I just want you to be happy."
"Zuko…" she moaned. His breath rolled sensually over her bare neck, and she turned into his arms, facing him. The muscles in Zuko's arms tensed and relaxed as Katara pressed herself closer to his body. Her face slipped comfortably against his chest.
"I want to make you happy," he breathed.
A tear escaped her eye, and it began to roll down her cheek.
"I'm sorry," she croaked, "I was… I just kept picturing my life without you. I don't think I could... I don't think… I… I…"
He cupped her face in his strong hands, rubbing his thumbs gently over her cheeks, catching the stray tear with his tender caress. He craned his neck lower and lower, and she straightened her back, standing up on her tiptoes.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "I am the one who should be apologizing." Katara sniffled, failing to control her emotions.
"I love you," he said.
Toph couldn't restrain herself anymore. As swiftly as a lion, she pounced through the entrance. By the sound of it, Zuko and Katara were centimeters away from locking lips, sealing their love.
"Hey, Sparky, you okay?" Toph asked. "You got frostbite?"
Katara yelped and pushed against Zuko's chest, flying into the shelves of various medicinal waters. The jars shook, tempting gravity to pull them to the ground.
"Toph!" Katara yelled, shoving her hands back into her mittens and stalking toward her. "You just scared the living daylights out of me!"
Zuko laughed loudly and curled his arm around Toph's shoulder, jostling her around. Good old Zuko. "Toph!" he cried, pulling her into a close hug.
"Whoa! Back up," she said as she pushed him away with a punch to the arm. "Personal bubble and all that."
He laughed, rubbing where she had hit. "Hey, I'm already damaged, don't mess with me even more."
"You're fine," Toph groaned. "Stop being a baby."
"You're fine," Katara assured him as her heart rate just began to slow. She turned back to Toph. "What're you doing? Weren't you with Sokka?"
Toph focused, controlling her breathing, controlling her mind. She wouldn't let it get to her, even though Sokka's voice kept repeating in her mind. I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.
She missed him too.
"I thought I should check up on the Fire Lord here," she said, punching Zuko in the arm again. And I just so happened to overhear a few interesting little tidbits…"
Katara leaned back against the shelf. "What sort of tidbits?" Her voice sounded nervous.
"You know, that whole 'I love you' thing?" she mocked, smiling as she did.
"You little sneak!" Katara growled, "I hate it when you eavesdrop, I hate it!" Zuko grabbed her, laughing as he pulled her back so she wouldn't wallop Toph across the face. Toph laughed with him.
"You two are unbelievable!" Katara yelled, shaking Zuko off and pointing her finger at Toph, her eyes shifting between the two. "It's just like four years ago all over again!" But saying this only made Zuko and Toph laugh more, and made Katara that much angrier. She threw her arms up. "You're hopeless! I'm going to get ready for tonight, so please, grow up a little."
With a huff, she left, leaving a chuckling Toph behind. Zuko sobered up quickly, and returned to the long wooden table in the middle of the room. She followed him, splaying her hands out over the wood, feeling the knots curl beneath her fingers. He grabbed his boots and began to lace the left one up his leg.
"So, cheating on Mai with Katara? Shame on you. I would've thought better of the Fire Lord. Especially a Fire Lord obsessed with honor. How… dishonorable!" Toph smiled widely. She really didn't care about Zuko's personal life. He could have a thousand concubines for all she cared. She just wanted to poke fun, to remember old times with her friend.
Zuko tugged the second boot on his right foot.
"Mai died," he said.
Toph's breath caught in her throat. It was like a huge weight pressing against her chest, forcing the air to seep out of her lungs. Her stomach dropped, and she scrabbled around for her words. That wasn't right. This wasn't right. Zuko was lying. He had to be.
"I'm not lying," he said in a sad voice, reading her thoughts easily.
"What… happened?" Toph asked, her voice hushed and filled with disbelief. Zuko patted the table, letting the wood run across his hand, inviting Toph to sit and listen to his tale. Toph pulled herself up, swinging her legs childishly. Zuko sat next to her, their thighs barely touching.
"I'm not telling you this for sympathy. I'm only telling because you asked, because you're my friend, and because I refuse to let my name be tainted as an adulterer."
Toph grimaced. She was just having a little fun. "I was just messing around," she confessed, clasping her gloved hands together in her lap.
"I understand," he said wearily. "You cold?"
Toph nodded. "Down here? Always."
Zuko thrust his hand out in front of him, and the flames shot out into the cold furnace. Instantly, Toph felt the heat from the fire dancing across her cheeks.
"Why didn't you just heat yourself up after you fell in?" she asked, remembering that he had originally been in here for healing, not just regular old chitchat about his girlfriends, those both past and present.
"I figured it'd be cheating," he said offhandedly, "I refused to do anything that the Tribe might hold against me."
"Why?"
"You'll see soon enough," he said. They entered into a short silence, broken when Toph asked him a second time, her curiosity trumping her good manners.
"What happened to Mai?"
Zuko inhaled deeply and exhaled so that tiny flames escaped his mouth. Toph's legs stopped swinging as she focused on what her was to say.
"Mai and I were supposed to be together. She loved me, and I was honor-bound to never leave her again. I… I loved her too," he disclosed. He leaned back on his elbows, and soaked in the heat of the fire he had created. Toph could sense that his mind was taking a visit to the past. "We were going to wait until Mai turned sixteen before we got married. I knew she didn't care, but her parents insisted on sticking to the legal age."
Toph's thoughts flew back to the whole reason for running away in the first place. She was sixteen. She was legal, eligible for marriage. Everything kept reminding her of her age, of her duty to her family.
"So the wait was only going to be a year, year and a half long," Zuko continued, luring Toph's focus back with his voice. "We were both very happy then. A few months before the scheduled wedding date, Mai was coming down to visit me again, since she had moved back with her parents after the war ended. She was on the Liung river… in northern Fire Nation, only a few miles from the capital. A group of men, from what I've heard were furious at her father, destroyed her boat. It capsized, and as it sank, it pinned her to the river's bottom. The river rose with the autumn rains," Zuko's voice strained. "And then she drowned."
Toph had no words for the sympathy that she felt, so she remained silent. Only the crackle of the fire filled her ears, Zuko's heartbeat pumping at a steady rhythm, his eyes blinking back the tears he refused to shed again.
After he had composed himself, Zuko began again, "I was desolate for months upon months, and being in my station, I wasn't free to let my emotions take me. Not even at her funeral was I allowed a single tear. My anger, my sadness, my despair were all bottled up deep inside me, hidden by my duties to my country. I was even shirking many of my duties because I was spending so much of my time trying to control my emotion. But everything changed when Katara accompanied her father when he was sent as an envoy for the Southern Water Tribe. After one of our many world meetings, Katara found me by the turtleduck pond. She opened me up, Toph, she let me wail and mourn and curse and scream. She let me do what nobody had done before. She let me feel.
"She spent many hours consoling me, holding me. After some time, she started crying herself, and I discovered that she was as broken as I was."
"Wait," Toph interrupted, "Why was Katara so upset?"
"That would be her tale to tell. I would not give her secrets away so easily, Toph."
Despite the fact that her curiosity was eating away at her, Toph understood. She knew what it was like to be unwilling to tell a secret, be it your own or somebody else's, even if you were telling the secret to a friend. She had her own secrets.
"I understand. Keep going."
"In the end, Katara and I needed each other. We needed each other so we wouldn't fall apart. And this… this need soon blossomed into something more. It blossomed into love."
Love.
"Although Mai will always hold a place in my heart, I love Katara, Toph, I truly do. In the years following our heartbreak, we learned to live in the present, and we learned to hold on to what makes us happy. We held to each other, clinging to one another for happiness. And I'll never let her go."
Toph couldn't help but smile. She bowed her head, letting her long dark bangs shade her face. If only she had someone who truly loved her, someone who wasn't after her money or her fame.
"I'm… I'm sorry about Mai. You and Katara are very lucky to have one another," she finally said after some time.
"What? No mean comments? No poking fun?"
"For now," she admitted, lifting her head to showcase her smile to him. Zuko curled his arm around her head, pressing her face roughly into his chest with a light chuckle. She proceeded to slip out of his hold and shove him away, faking an angry look. "Whoa, I know this is a touchy moment, but I'm not getting that touchy."
Zuko smiled. "So, enough about me. I would interrogate you on your love life, pestering you for details until you ripped my tongue out, but I have to get ready." Zuko hopped off the table, landing lithely on the cold ground. With a flick of his wrist, the warm fire disappeared, the comforting heat with it.
"Ready for what?" Toph asked as she slipped off the table, making her way towards the door.
"Our right of passage ceremony? Don't you keep up on anything anymore?" he said with a laugh and a wave as he walked out.
"No, obviously not," she whispered to herself as she slowly made her way back to Katara's room. Creeping through the snow was still difficult, but manageable. The sun had fully hidden below the horizon; only a few dull sunrays crept across the barren landscape. Now that she was alone again, searching for Katara, her curiosity burned inside her chest.
Katara hadn't mentioned anything to her, had she? Zuko had said that she was heartbroken, but what could she be heartbroken about? Both Hakoda and Sokka were alive and well.
Toph racked her mind, but she couldn't think of anything. But then again, she wasn't one to judge for withholding a secret or two. Toph had her fair share of secrets and lies lying dormant and hidden behind her pale eyes.
"Katara?" Toph said as she entered the home, pulling the curtains to her doorway aside with a swipe of her hand.
"Hmm?" Katara hummed absently. She was perched in front of a mirror, combing her fingers through her thick hair.
"Why were you heartbroken?" After she said this, Toph thought that she should be a little more sensitive, but her voice came out flat and uncaring. Typical Toph.
"What are you talking about?" Katara asked, swiveling her body towards Toph.
"Zuko told me about Mai. He told me about you two."
Katara turned back to the mirror, the blush rising up her cheeks, her heartbeat vibrating through the chair, the floor, Toph's feet, Toph's chest. There definitely was something that Katara wasn't sharing, and now Toph was determined to uncover that secret.
"It's… it's hard for me to… explain."
"Just spit it out, Sugar Queen." Toph sat on the bed, rolling her back out.
"Fine! …It wasn't mutual."
"What wasn't mutual?"
"Aang and I. It wasn't a mutual break-up," Katara confessed, wringing her hands in her lap. Toph had thought that it would take a lot more to wheedle it out of her, but hey, now she understood.
"I knew you'd break up with him!" Toph exclaimed, throwing her arms above her head, stretching her body out above the quilt.
"I didn't," Katara said, the volume barely above a whisper. "He broke up with me." Her voice quivered. Toph swallowed. So Zuko wasn't the only one still hurting; they truly were a blessing to one another. But before Toph could comment, Katara launched into her tale.
"I knew Aang and I were never meant to be. He's the Avatar. I'm just… me. But I desperately wanted him to be happy, despite my own fears of being hurt. So on that day that I kissed him back, I knew the deal had been sealed, and I couldn't go back on it. I grew to love him. I loved him dearly.
"Two years after the end of the war, Aang decided to put an end to it. He was the Avatar. He had to help people, not spend his time in a relationship." Katara stared in the mirror as she spoke. Staring at her own blue eyes, staring at her own past. "I told him I was okay, but what could I do? He's the Avatar, and I refused to let my emotion hold him back."
"And then you went to the Fire Nation," Toph commented, noting how Zuko's story weaved its way through Katara's, linking the memories into one.
"Yes," said Katara, "And I'm sure Zuko told you the rest of the story?"
"He did."
"He was a lot more broken than he let on to you. Just so you know. But he healed me, as I healed him."
Toph sighed. She was happy for her friends; she really was happy. She just wished that she could be happy, too. She wanted to release her secrets. Maybe then… maybe then…
"Katara, I have something to tell you, too," Toph said slowly, each word coming out with a struggle.
"Yes?" Katara said offhandedly as she pulled her hair into two loopy pigtails.
"Well, I… I waited so long… well, see, back home there's… and I-"
"Katara!" yelled Sokka as he stumbled into the doorway, cutting Toph's sentence short. "Dad needs you at the ceremony, pronto. He wants to run through the steps with you beforehand."
"But-"
"Hurry, you only have ten minutes." His voice seemed urgent.
Katara groaned, standing abruptly. "Fine. I don't even have much of a role, and Dad is making such a fuss about it! Gran-Gran is the same way!" She kept mumbling and groaning as she stepped past Sokka with a final huff.
Toph stood from the bed, ready to follow after Katara.
"Stay, please," Sokka begged. He wasn't giving her much of an option though. He leaned against the doorway, blocking her path.
Toph sat back down and took a deep breath. She was going to keep under control. Stable. Immovable. Like a rock. Like a rock. Like a rock.
An awkward silence permeated the air.
"Did you get shorter?" Sokka finally asked. Toph could see his wide smile through his tone of voice.
"No, I just didn't monstrously grow into a giant. Unlike you." The words flew out of her throat before she could stop them.
"Hey, I'm not a giant!" Sokka exclaimed as he crossed his arms, trying to defend himself.
"Sure, then I'm not blind," she joked, rolling her eyes. Sokka burst into laughter, and soon Toph lost it too. She threw her head back on her shoulders, her laughter coming out in short, heavy bursts. Sokka started laughing harder, and before she knew it, Toph was laughing so hard, tears escaped her eyes and rolled mirthfully down the sides of her face, landing in the sides of her hood.
When she finally calmed down enough to speak, Toph said, "I haven't laughed that hard in a long time."
"Me either," Sokka admitted, wiping his own eyes. He peeked out the window in the ceiling, catching sight of the moon. "It's time," he said. "Ready?"
"Ready for what? I still don't understand what's going on half the time here. Your traditions are so… weird."
Sokka resumed his leaning stance against the doorway. "It's the ceremony for the right of passage. We have a feast afterward, a kind of party."
"I thought you already did the right of passage thing?"
"Yes, well this is the ceremony. It's the final ritual, and once they complete this, they will be considered men in out tribe."
"You said party… right?" Toph asked as she slid off the bed and stood up to her full height. She barely reached Sokka's chest. He had grown so much.
"I said… party."
"Alright," Toph said, punching one hand into the other. "Sounds cool. I can dig parties."
How was it that he can make her so comfortable in the span of a few minutes? Toph didn't know, but she wasn't going to question it.
Sokka started laughing again as the two were walking out into the cold.
"What?" Toph asked.
"You dig parties? Get it? 'Cause you're an earthbender?" Sokka said, laughing. He slapped his hands against his knees.
Toph rolled her eyes.
"Not funny, Snoozles," she said, covering the smile blooming on her face. She couldn't help it.
"It is, and you know it."
"Yeah, no."
She was laughing on the inside, but she just wasn't going to let him know. It was just another secret, bottled inside.
She started walking in the direction of the healing tent, assuming that the ceremony would be in the center of the village.
"No, not that way," Sokka said as he grabbed her gloved hand, pulling her the opposite direction. "It's outside the village."
He led her along a path that Katara didn't take her earlier.
His hand was warm.
She knew she should let go. She should be the rock. She should be independent.
But she didn't want to let go.
…His hand was warm.
x.x.x.x
a/n: Woo. Now we're getting somewhere. ... I think? Reviews are greatly appreciated! They motivate me~ :)