Author's note: Thank you guys for the reviews! They really keep me going. This chapter is a bit lackluster because it's a segue, so sorry about that. :(

It turned out that an twelve-year-old child selling the Republic Times on a street corner is not a reliable source of information. There had been a "dragon" in town, or something like a dragon, but its handler had gotten testy and no one had seen them since. Personally, Toph felt like the whole situation reeked of Aang and his animal-hoarding antics. If there was a dragon out in the world, Aang would surely sense it and adopt it immediately. Maybe that's where the dragon had fucked off to after its brief stay in Yu Dao.

Unfortunately, there were more pressing matters at hand.

The Viper Bat Triad bullying an entire quarter of the city was bullshit, whether they had kidnapped a dragon or not. With the exception of excursions to visit friends since the end of the war, she'd made Yu Dao her home, training dozens of students just outside the city. In a way, she felt resp…

No, I don't! I am not the r-word for anything or anyone. She banished the thought.

Instead of thinking too hard, she rounded up her lily-livered students, headed up by the surprisingly capable Penga in her absence, and paid a visit to the north shore.

The week that followed wasn't one she cared to remember, afterwards. Toph didn't spend a lot of time thinking about morality, but she had a feeling she'd crossed several ethical lines while interrogating and rooting out the Viper Bats. She didn't regret any of it.

—

The most annoying part was the press. Newspapers used to be a rare luxury that took months to travel from the printer to the nobleman who would read it, at a leisurely pace, with morning tea. Now, they were out mere hours after something happened, and everyone read them. Well, everyone who couldread.

"This one's great, Sifu," Penga told her on the eighth day, the morning after they delivered the last of the criminals to the mayor's manse to be tried. They were in Toph's quarters in her school, making a lazy breakfast of last night's leftover noodles before Toph moved on to Gaoling. "An opinion piece by some guy named Kizu says that the evil Firelord's networked and organized the Viper Bats invading Yu Dao."

"Ozai?" Toph snorted, swinging one foot up onto the table to stretch her leg. "That guy couldn't network his way out of a paper bag."

"No, your Firelord," Penga said.

"Then they're really reaching for a story. He hasn't done anything remotely evil in, oh, nine years or so. And wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before I wipe it off for you, Penga."

"How do you know I'm grinning?"

Toph hoped she was giving her former student an incredulous stare. "Excuse me, did we just meet? I always know."

Penga laughed and shook out the paper, honing in on another article. "People are pretty pleased with us. They call us the heroic constables, and you're the 'war hero' who leads us."

"They wrote all that, and they couldn't bother to mention that I'm also the greatest earthbender in the world? Hacks."

"Maybe they thought everyone already knew that," Penga suggested. "Anyway, that's not all. You know how the mayor's gonna head up a city council with representatives from all over? He mentioned last night, at the press conference, that the city's big enough to need a police force when that happens, and–"

"Please tell me you're not thinking of joining in on that," Toph groaned.

"–he thinks the metalbending school would be perfect."

"That's so fucking stupid. For one thing, they'd need every kind of bender to fight triads. Probably nonbenders with top-tier technology, too, you know? Crime's getting organized now."

"Well, sure, but metalbenders are the ones making a lot of that technology, sifu! It's probably smart for metalbenders to run the police. I mean, we're making the new metal airships, at least. And cannons. And those thick cords for suspension bridges. And–"

"Blah, blah, blah," Toph cut in. "Whatever, I have other things to worry about. It's about time for me to keep traveling. I was just supposed to be passing through Yu Dao."

"And there's your wedding." Penga had that stupid grin on her face gain; Toph could tell from the particular twang in her voice. She'd probably get along great with busybody Katara. "So what's he like?"

"You've met the Firelord."

"Well, not really. I mean, there was that one time he marched on Yu Dao and we spun all those helmets around, and he was leading the army."

"Yeah." Toph waved her hand in the air. "You saw him then. That's what he's like."

"He was like a million miles away! What's he like?" Penga insisted.

Toph sighed. She didn't want to talk about this. It was time to distract Penga with her favorite topic. "He has nice shoes. Leather, curly toes, a stripe of gold embroidered down the front."

"Ohhh," the younger woman said. "Sifu, do you think–"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll bring you back Fire Nation shoes the next time I'm there. If you take care of the school. And don't join the police," she finished, pointing at Penga.

Penga laughed. "No problem."

—–

From Yu Dao, there were two ways to get to Gaoling: by boat or by taking a jagged route over land. The boat would have been faster, but Toph refused to subject herself to that again unless there was a need.

She also didn't mind taking the long route. Maybe she'd have an excuse to leave Gaoling sooner, that way.

Some of the older, bigger roads weren't well-traveled anymore. Overland trade routes were changing quickly in these post-war years, as centers of trade and manufacturing moved. Yu Dao was growing faster than any city anyone had ever seen, and instead of roads cris-crossing the Earth Kingdom, mostly leading to Ba Sing Se, Yu Dao was the new magnet for trade. Roads radiated out from it in practically every direction, and the road between Yu Dao and Ba Sing Se was ridiculously popular. She avoided it completely.

Toph quickly crossed over to the lesser-used coast, sometimes using sandbending to propel herself along boring stretches. There were dozens of tiny fishing villages along this route, plenty to stop at for a couple of meals a day, and she spent her nights in earth-tents, just like she had back when the gang was traveling the world together.

And though she tried not to think of it, she missed Zuko so much that it hurt. It had been easy when she was in the Fire Nation and knew he was only a few days away. It had been even easier while she was busy with the Viper Bats in Yu Dao.

But now that she was in the wilderness, sometimes it felt like a physical pain in her chest, as though a hole had opened up there and nothing could fill it but the sound of his voice. She missed feeling him train with her students, every step of his skilled footwork leaving an imprint on her mind as the heat from his fire buffeted her face. (Maybe she'd first fallen for him then, sparring with him, or hearing her irritable friend gently correct a child who had made a mistake.) She missed the way he'd pout and whine and sometimes rage after his stupid council meetings. She missed sitting down with him and his uncle and having a cup of tea and beating Zuko at pai sho so badly that he crossed his arms and accused her of cheating while Iroh laughed and laughed.

She always waited until she was alone to visit some of her memories and fantasies, because she had no idea how much showed on her face, and she had no intention of sharing that side of Zuko with anyone. Though they'd only begun to be lovers, he had already treated her to one amazing night, and she looked forward to others, many others. Maybe he would agree to make love to her outside, under the stars, in that corner of the garden where they'd first confessed their love, if she built a structure there for privacy. Who would have the balls to stop her? The garden was traditionally the domain of the Firelord's wife. It wasn't her fault that no Firelord's wife had ever been an earthbender before.

And then sometimes she found herself wishing, in the quietest way, that he wasn't the Firelord; that that particular burden hadn't fallen on his shoulders, and he could be free travel the world with her, complaining about the food and being uncomfortable around new people. (How had she ended up loving all of his most annoying bullshit? When had it even happened?)

But she was proud of him, too, for restoring the honor of the Fire Nation, even if it inconvenienced her and made him cranky.

Maybe she missed him so much because the only other thing to think about was the impending meeting with her parents, and Zuko was vastly preferable to them.

She would think of them when she arrived, she told herself, and not sooner. For most of her life, they'd been a source of pain and stress; she wouldn't give them an ounce more of her energy than she had to.

—

Three weeks later, she recognized the outskirts of Gaoling. The whole town lay over a slab of distinctive rock; she wished she didn't know that, but her long childhood had been filled with tedium, and she knew every inch of Gaoling better than she knew her own body. The town square was the same as she remembered from her rare, brief outings; even the reverberations from the Earth Rumble arena felt the same as she remembered, when she walked past it at a distance.

Her feet hesitated more with each step as she grew nearer the Beifong estate. This place and all its wealth was hers by rights, but she didn't think she'd ever be returning to it to enforce her claim. Maybe, if she was lucky, her parents would miraculously have another child who wasn't blind and a curse on their family.

At the outer hedge, she stopped. Another little walk and she would be at the front gate, where a guardsman would ask her to identify herself, and then it would all begin. She passed her hands over her face and took a deep breath, steeling herself.

An air bison rumbled in the sky above.

By the time Toph confirmed that her heart had not, in fact, stopped after that shock, she felt Appa's six feet hit the ground nearby. She strode over as fast as she could.

"Hey, Toph!" said Aang. "We found you."

We. He said we.

A pair of human feet hit the ground, too heavily to be Aang's.

"I thought you might want me here for this," said Zuko.

She walked straight into his arms, and stayed there for a very, very long time.

"Ugh, oogie," said Sokka.