Chapter 2: Swamp Roots
They landed on the Earth Kingdom mainland at the crack of dawn, when the night still wrapped Druk in shadows. The lights of a city twinkled like bright stars on the horizon, but everywhere else around for miles was plains. Zuko kicked up dust as he dismounted the dragon and started on foot towards the city.
Druk grunted in offense. The dragon sallied in front of him, apparently peeved that Zuko was wasting his time walking instead of jumping on his back.
"Get off my case," Zuko grumbled, "I can still walk fine."
Druk growled, planting his tail in front of Zuko's path.
He sighed, and brought a hand to the dragon's snout. "Just until the village, alright old boy? I'll buy an ostrich horse and ride from there."
Smoke trailed out of Druk's nose. Zuko was fairly certain the dragon was going to pick him up in his mouth and carry him like a baby tigerdillo. Instead, the beast buried Zuko in his mane, growling softly and sadly. Zuko kissed the distraught dragon's scales.
"You big baby," Zuko murmured as they pulled apart. He gave the dragon's mane one last brush. "I'll be fine. Now get back up there. I don't need you spoiling my vacation."
Rasping sadly, Druk circled around him one more time, as if inspecting him for damages. One last nuzzle, and the dragon shot up into the sky like a giant red flare. The golden point of his tail vanished behind the clouds.
"Such a worrier. Him and Izumi both."
Life in the Earth Kingdom plains plodded along at a simple pace. He bought an ostrich-horse for what was probably a rip off, but Zuko didn't mind. Money wasn't something he worried about as he set off across the desert, Druk watching over him somewhere above the gathering rain clouds.
Having beasts of burden was a dwindling practice, but was common enough in the Earth Kingdom prairies. Most families couldn't afford much else. All in all, it was nice to get away from the drone and buzz of city life, if only for a little while.
Rustic, dust swept villages spotted the plains, usually holding no more than 100 people, a single bar and a ramshackle motel. In most towns, Zuko gave his ostrich-horse a rest, played a game of Pai Sho on the porch of a diner, bought a bite to eat and tipped in gold coins before he left.
Sometimes, when daylight was running short, he'd knock on the door of the closest building around, usually a quaint farmhouse, where the residents never failed to show him hospitality. Once, he'd even stumbled across the campfire of a trope of wandering nomads, who then gave him a tour through a nearby mountain range, riddled with crystal caverns. They'd graced him with a singing of the ancient song, 'Secret Tunnel' a few, or a couple dozen, times.
Other times, when no house or campfire was in sight, Zuko set down on the bare sand. He'd light up a campfire, tether the ostrich-horse, lay down some blankets and watch the stars until sleep flickered them off. Some time while he slept, Druk would slither down from the sky, and Zuko would wake up with the dragon curled in a circle around them. Then, they'd be off again once the sun rose.
While his body whined at the constant travel, Zuko found his heart making itself at home on the dust trail. Memories of his younger days trailed alongside him. He passed the little harbour town he and Iroh had washed up on after the Siege of the North. He passed through many villages on the plains, perhaps one of them had been the town he'd taken refuge in when he'd been riding this trail alone. He made his way to Gaoling, where he'd once chased the Avatar's trail.
The city had changed as most cities had changed - the addition of electrical lines, wider streets, the blinking of neon and the growing purr of engines. Other things had changed since he'd made visits here as Firelord, more subtle ones. The Beifong family house had become some other rich family's home. The pictures of King Kuei that hung in most buildings had changed to that of his daughter, Queen Hou-Ting. She frowned haughtily from the corner of the room.
To the Earth Kingdom, their Queen was a deity. Her pictures hung everywhere to remind her citizens of her everprescence, and that to speak out against her was treason. Firelords however… well, the media had too many pictures of him tripping on stairways for anyone to believe he was god incarnate. That grounded view likely passed on to Izumi, although that was one of the things he hadn't regretted. The Fire Nation had had enough of rule by fear.
It was downcast when he left Gaoling. The rains started pouring an hour into his journey but it was still warm and his destination wasn't far, so he kept on. Druk, finally having enough of watching Zuko muck through the ground, walked besides him, one wing unfurled to keep the rain away. The dragon kept grunting at him to stop being a fool and just ride him already, but Zuko stayed planted on his ostrich-horse.
It was quite a sight - a dragon sheltering an old man on an ostrich horse - though no one was around to see it.
They kept walking, the ostrich-horse growing damp and ornery while the cold started seeping into Zuko's bones. Soon enough though, a dark patch cropped up on the horizon. The Foggy Swamp was spread out before them after another hour's travel.
Zuko dismounted and Druk rested his stiff wing, now that the treetops blocked out most of the rain. A draft breathed through the swamp roots, moist and earthy. The ostrich-horse was jittery, but they waded through the mud towards the closest tree. He laid a hand on the root, a thick bundle of fiber, wet to the touch. He knocked on it, as if a door.
He sat on the tree root and waited. A few minutes later, he heard a crash and a boom, and finally a wheezing laugh.
"Well, look who came to visit," Toph's milky white eyes sparkled, bright with mischief as usual.
"You bring me any gifts?"
Zuko rifted through his saddle bags and threw a brown paper bag at her feet. He relished the trust she had in him, because she stuffed a handful of the contents into her mouth blindly.
"Fire flakes!" she garbled, "You sure know the way into a girl's heart, Sparky."
Toph happily munched her fire flakes as she lounged on a swamp root just outside her cave. Curled up close by, Druk huffed steam contently out his nose. The dragon had always liked Toph. She was the only one of them that could still play fetch with him - Druk had grown out of sticks and other toys, and only Toph could still lob boulders for him. Drops of rain dribbled down through the roof of the trees, but neither seemed to mind.
Inside, Zuko sat on an outcropping stone, safe from the rain. The ostrich horse lazed by the fire he'd conjured up.
"How's your world tour going? Find enlightenment yet?" she joked.
"Not yet. Just some good tea and fine company."
"Fine company? Are you talking about me?"
"What else could I mean, dear Toph?"
She sneered, "Keep the fire flakes coming and you're not that bad a guest either." She munched on another handful to emphasize. "It's been awhile since I had company. Decent company. Those swampbenders aren't good for more than a pummeling," she smashed a fist into her palm. "Last time you visited was… oh, give take five years or so."
"Eight," Zuko quietly corrected.
"I said give or take. Before that, well, Aang used to stop by all the time. Not much of a party animal though. He came here for the 'spiritual enlightenment' and to 'reaffirm his connection to the world' and all that hooha. Lit up some candles and had me meditate with him. What an airhead!" she said with a smile, "We used to spy on you with the roots all the time."
Zuko frowned, "Well, it's nice to have my illusion of privacy shattered."
"Don't worry about it, Sparky. We didn't do it that often. You were always doing something boring, like sitting at your desk, working your life away. Wait, there was that one time we caught you-"
"I don't want to hear it," Zuko cut her off.
"Whatever you say, Firelord Hothead."
"I'm not Firelord any more."
"Oh right, you're ex-Firelord now! Welcome to the club!" the ex-Police Chief cheered. "We have joint ointment, long naps and the ever-present regret of all the years we've wasted."
"Wasted?" he asked.
"'Spent on worthwhile gains towards peace.' Same thing."
"Do you really think that?"
"Look, Sparky, try not to think about it too much. Just focus on spending whatever time you have left lazing around doing nothing. That's what I do."
Zuko furrowed his eyebrows. "You know I can't do that. I'm still an ambassador and the world is still far from peace. The world still needs me."
"You'd be surprised how well the world can do without you."
Dew pattered down from the treetops, the rain apparently having lightened. Druk yawned, breathing out mist.
"Toph?" Zuko spoke in the silence. "You know that's not true."
"I'm gonna stop you right there, Sparky. I don't need to hear you preach," she bit out. "I'm not some old sop drying out the rest of her days alone and bitter, alright. But facts are facts, and the world doesn't need us."
"What are you saying? You created metalbending. You spent most of your life beating back crime. Of course the world needed you."
"If I didn't discover metalbending, somebody else would. If we didn't stop the war, somebody else would. Maybe they would have done it centuries after us and not nearly as awesome as we did it, but it would've been done," she gave him a wry smile. "And fighting crime? Those criminals come back. Republic City isn't exactly a paradise after the years I spent on the beat. Face it: the world never needed me."
"So you regret it. All of it," Zuko said stiffly.
"Of course I don't regret it. Some of it sure, but not all of it."
"Then why spend all those years helping the world if you think it all amounted to nothing?"
"Because here's the thing, Sparky: I didn't do it for the world. I did it all for me."
Her words sank slowly into Zuko's mind. He still didn't quite fully understand. He was happy that Toph had made peace with herself, but it all felt a little… selfish. Perhaps, after a lifetime spent in service to world, you were allowed to be a little selfish.
"If you don't care about the world, why do you live in the swamp, keeping tabs on all of us all the time?"
"I really have to spell out everything for you, don't I?" She grumbled. "The world might not need me, but I sure as hell still need the world."
She laid a gnarled hand on the equally gnarled root beneath her and closed her eyes. Watching her kids maybe, or checking in on old friends; either way, she looked content. Zuko laid his own hand on the tree trunk, closed his eyes, and searched. Without a spiritual connection or seismic sense though, he felt nothing but the damp wood under his fingers.
"Now stop moping around!" Toph hopped off her root and shouted, "Aang might've been a bore, but you're just depressing. Let's go catch a big bug so we can make it into gumbo!"
