Chapter V

It was nighttime. At least, Toph guessed it was nighttime. There was less noise, at any rate. Most of her friends had gone, either to the newly made rooms of the old fart's expanded house, or to little houses of their own, to sleep.

Toph's face soured at that, and she took a pull from the bottle of ice wine she'd liberated from Pakku's secret stash. Houses. Yeah right. Houses her cracked toenail. Houses were four-walled, warm buildings that had solid floors, actual doors, and weren't made of stupid, frigid, non-earthbendable ice!

Really, this whole winter holiday had been a complete bust. She'd been reduced to seeing things only in the vaguest, fuzziest of shapes, since ice made for horrible vibrations and the closest solid concentration of earth was the sea floor deep below them. Sokka's suggestion of getting her a seeing-eye-penguin was funny enough, but only after she'd really had time to think about it. And by then she had already finished pounding the blubber out of him for suggesting it, so it would have been bad taste for her to then admit to his humor.

Bad taste. That reminded her. She gulped again at the wine, pretty much the only Water Tribe thing she found palatable. Honestly, how did these people live on tentacles and fish and sea prunes day in and day out and not go completely crazy? Oh wait, they've chosen to follow Sokka's suggestion of rebuilding all Southern Water Tribe villages onto huge floating icebergs so they can combine and part the whole nation as they want to. They are crazy.

At least their wine was alright.

Grumbling, Toph staggered over to the firewood pile and threw a few more logs into the hearth. She heard the dying flames sputter at the new fuel, but she spat some wine onto the logs and was rewarded with the sound of the fire flaring up once again.

Man, Pakku sure kept some strong stuff in that cabinet. Probably why it had been locked. Toph took another pull and went back to her pile of blankets. She wondered briefly if the heat she got blooming from her stomach and racing to her fingertips and toes was how firebenders felt all the time. Or Mat, for that matter.

Speaking of, where was that flighty dunderhead? He'd left right in the middle of their ice fishing trip, stiffening in his seat beside her like she'd goosed him (which she might have, to be honest. They'd snuck along a fair amount of booze to keep themselves warm as they fished.) before jumping up and running out the door, yelling words over his shoulder like, "Work" and "Emergency" and "Silent Night, Holy Night, is suddenly no longer silent nor holy." By the time she'd thrown on those stupid heavy boots that kept her feet from freezing against the ice and stumbled outside, he was gone.

Another frown, another pull. Needless to say, Toph was not happy about having to trudge blindly back to the village by herself. Maybe it was a good thing Mat hadn't yet returned from his mysterious work trip, because for several days afterward she would still grind her teeth and mumble some choice Earth-Rumble expletives under her breath whenever his name was mentioned. Which happened every now and again, when one of her friends commented on how well his little mistletoe tradition was catching on and lifting moods left and right.

So now, being a little drunk and pretty much the only one of her friends who hadn't kissed someone beneath some mistletoe yet, Toph was feeling slightly less inclined to knock Mat into next week. But only if he came through the door like right now.

Even inebriated, Toph's patience was limited.

But then, a sound at the door. This was it, time to move it or loose it. Toph rocked off the pelts and padded over to the hearth, killing the fire with a bucketful of snow and dashing the room into darkness. Hey, if she had to be blind, why shouldn't he? She wobbled towards the archway, feeling for the border of the bamboo mats with her toes. She counted the tired, trudging paces of the figure as he approached, pleased to hear heavy boots crunching on ice rather than the lighter, softer pace of a girl's shoes. Toph winced at remembering Suki's recounting of her ambush and took one last swig of wine.

When the steps came close enough, Toph took a single steadying breath and launched—or perhaps fell—forward at the approaching figure. She heard a surprised gasp from him as they connected, and as the heavy furs she'd had over her shoulders fell to the floor strong, masculine arms instinctively wrapped themselves around her, hands resting in all the right places.

"Mmmm," she burrowed her face in his chest, reveling in his internal heat. "Birdy, yer'so warmmm."

From above her issued a surprised, strangled squawk. Toph paid it no mind as she inhaled his scent. Strange. Gone was the ever-present smell of citrus and road dust,replaced instead by the faintest tinge of ashes and old leather. Something about that niggled in the back of Toph's brain, but she'd come too far to let that stop her.

Toph took in a deep breath, then let it out. The figure above her recoiled slightly, but she just giggled and pulled him closer. "M'srry 'bout that. Been tryin' to keep warm with some wine..." She let the bottle drop from her hand. It fell with an empty clunk as she brought her arms up to twine around his neck. "But now yer back, so I don' need it."

He made a token resistance again, and this time Toph frowned. Hadn't they been dancing—in some occasions, literally—around doing this for a while now? Why was he so hesitant? Well, he wasn't flying away this time. Not on her watch.

"Ya'know Birdy, erry' ones been goin' on about yer little tradishh—hic—tradishhin." Toph went on tiptoes now, pulling herself up while she pulled him down. She could feel his breath pour over her in hot, shaky breaths. Spirits, what a worry-wart. "I've been waitin' fer y-you t'come back 's I can...we can try it."

"To-mmmf!" A token excuse was cut off when Toph closed the gap and sealed her lips to his. From all she'd been told, the best parts of kissing happened after tongues got involved, so Toph took advantage of his still open mouth to get right to the good stuff. Moans were made, from both sides, and if she wasn't so busy sucking face, Toph would have done a little victory dance. She settled for molding herself closer to his frame and smiling against their kiss. Finally, after years of no-so-patient patience, she he had him!

She paused for a second to breathe, and again he started to protest. She silenced his raspy resistance before he could finish the first word. Again the niggling arose in the back of her mind, but rather than work out why Mat's voice suddenly bothered her, Toph instead deepened the kiss yet again, invading his mouth forcefully and fully—fueled by equal parts impatient desperation, nervous anticipation, and more than a little inebriation.

By now though, the surprise had worn off. He brought his hands between her arms and moved them apart, breaking her hold, grabbing her hands, and pulling backwards in one swift movement.

"To—Toph!" he gasped out.

She was breathing hard too, and by the amount of heat she felt pooling in her face—among other places—she knew it wasn't just from exertion. Angry and more than a little hurt at being so ardently denied, Toph broke his hold and groped blindly for his shoulders. "What? What the heck is wrong with..." She trailed off when instead of his shoulders she got his cheeks, and felt their respectively smooth and leathery textures. The niggling resurfaced, harder than ever, and suddenly she knew why she smelled smoke instead of citrus, heard rasping instead of svelte, and felt one very large facial scar.

"If you'd stop trying to strangle me with your tongue and let me talk," Zuko hissed, "I think you'd figure it out."

If Mat had been there, he could have said with assurance that no one in the history of all fiction had gone from that drunk and horny to that sober and mortified in such a small amount of time. But since he wasn't, all everyone got instead was the loudest, most bloodcurdling yell the south pole had ever heard, followed quickly by a Fire Lord shaped hole in the side of Pakku and Kanna's igluvijaq.

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