Chapter Eight

Toph nearly fell out of the tree. The high mineral content in the branches made it possible for her to see him well enough to know he was being completely sincere.

At war within her were equal parts elation and panic. Well, she only had herself to blame. After all, she'd asked and he'd told her.

She sat there next to him with his arm around her and simultaneously felt completely at ease and completely distraught. He must have realized that she wasn't ready to respond because out of nowhere he launched into a tale about the time Uncle Iroh had taken him to a fire-rhino pull when he was a little boy.

She countered with a story from her Earth Rumble days when the Boulder and Fire Nation Man had tag teamed against her. "Fire Nation Man?" he laughed in disbelief. "Let me guess—serious bad guy, blew fire using flammable liquid."

"Yep, and he went down in miserable defeat every time," she replied playfully. "Didn't stop him from trying again the next week though. The crowds loved to hate him."

"How many years will it take to put this war behind us?" Zuko suddenly said seriously. "Will it take two hundred years of peace to make up for one hundred years of war?"

"I hope not," she answered. "It's all about balance, not competition. Once things are back in balance, the world will be able to move on. Everybody can move on."

"Tell that to the guys who've taken over my ship," he replied angrily. Zuko looked up at the sky. "Let's get moving."

"Is it sunset already?" she asked, even through she already knew the answer because she could still feel the heat on her face.

"No, but by the time we cut through the woods back to town, it will be," he replied.

They made their way down from the tree. Zuko insisted on leading the way. She agreed sweetly, remembering that she'd bended away the last ten feet of handholds. If he wanted to be all gentlemanly and go first, he could just deal with that.

To her disappointment, when he reached the last foothold, he merely hung from his hands and dropped lightly to the ground. Then he reached up for her. She shrugged resignedly and dropped into his arms. He took advantage of the moment to give her a quick kiss. Then he began to walk into the woods.

"Wait," she said, pulling him back toward the wagons. "If we untie the zebramules, they'll go back into town alone and Shen will know something's wrong."

"Or the wagon could be boobytrapped," he replied. "It's better to leave it."

Toph tapped the ground lightly with her foot, extending her concentration out to the wagon where the two animals grazed calmly. "I don't see anything," she ventured.

Zuko nodded and they walked back toward the wagon. Suddenly his right leg gave way underneath him and he began to stumble. "Run." He barely managed the word as he reached for the dagger that hung at his hip. Then she felt a sting in her shoulder and the world began to spin. She tried to bend a tent around them, but the ground only gave a shudder beneath her before her concentration slipped.

Distantly, she could see the man's feet hit the ground as he slipped from his hiding place on the underside of the wooden conveyance. She watched as he gave Zuko as savage kick in the ribs. When Zuko groaned and tried to move, the man held up something in his hands and she heard a sort of swishing sound.

As she slipped into unconsciousness, she could only hope it was a sleeping drug and not poison.

Toph awoke to a nasty metallic taste in her mouth. Her head pounded and her stomach rolled with the constant motion. She desperately wished for some ginger candy.

The next thing she noticed was that she was completely blind. She was not in contact with any bendables. No earth, no metal, not even gan wood. She reached up to her arm, but her meteor bracelet was gone. Her rings had been taken from her fingers as well. Somebody had been very well informed.

She lay on a rough wooden bench on a thin mattress. She felt around her and realized that she was in some sort of small room with a low ceiling. A boat. The movement and room shape suddenly made sense. She was in the cabin of a boat.

She listened carefully for any sound of her captors or Zuko. Silence. Then she began to feel her way across the cabin until her hands came into contact with a body on another bunk. Her throat constricted in fear as she ran her hands across Zuko's chest and face.

She heaved a sigh of relief as she felt his breath on her fingertips and knew he was still alive. But he was so still. She placed her ear against his chest and listened. His heartbeat was slow—too slow. She remembered that he'd taken a double hit of the drug.

Toph sat there on the floor, feeling helpless. She felt helpless and blind and hated every minute of it. If only they hadn't gone back to the animals. If only she'd seen the man hidden underneath the wooden carriage.

She rested her head on Zuko's chest. Then she had an idea. They'd taken all her bendables, but had they possibly missed something of his? She began by making certain his hair was still down and that he hadn't worn an ornamental ring in his topknot. Then she checked his tunic pockets, running her hands over his chest and sides and down his arms and fingers. No rings. He'd never seemed like the jewelry type, but she was taking no chances on missing something.

She ran her hands down his sides over his waist, but his belt was gone. The metal buckle had been too obvious. Then down his legs to his boots, but she was out of luck there as well. No buckles, just smooth leather. She sighed in disappointment, then blushed as she realized what she'd done. She'd just taken an extremely good look at his entire body. She might not do it again, but she knew she'd never forget.

Then it came to her—buttons. She hadn't checked his buttons. The longsleeved shirt he wore under his tunic had ties, but his top trouser button was metal. The second her fingers touched it, she had a sensation like the sun coming from behind a cloud. She could see something. She could see him.

Just as she thought, his heartbeat was very slow. Regular, but slow. She thought of pulling the button free, but decided that until she had a very good idea of a use for it, it was probably better to leave it to hold Zuko's pants up. Then she blushed again.

Shaking herself, she decided to explore the rest of the cabin, hoping to find something else. To her dismay, the room was completely empty apart from the bunks. The door was solid wood with a thick wood grate set into the top half, presumably to allow their captor to look in on them without coming inside. The room also smelled funny.

She resigned herself to captivity—at least for the moment—and dragged the mattress off her bunk to the floor next to Zuko. At least she'd have something relatively soft to sit on until he woke. Then he could burn their way out of there--provided she could find a way to keep them from drugging him again. She rested the palm of her hand over the metal button, glad to have a way to keep an eye on him.

The minutes dragged on into what seemed like hours, but she couldn't exactly be sure. Finally, Zuko took a deep breath and his heart rate began to climb toward normal. He was beginning to wake up.

Unfortunately, just at that moment, she could hear sounds from down the hall. A man called out, "Time to give sleeping beauty another dose."

"What about the girl?" Toph thought she could recognize the voices of the two men who'd captured Ling.

"She's harmless. She's got nothing to bend. I just don't want his highness shooting lightning up my ass," the first voice laughed.

Toph whispered urgently in Zuko's ear, "Sparky baby, don't move. Don't breathe." She kept her hand on his shoulder, pressing him into the bunk in warning.

She listened with all her might for the man's steps down the hall. When he came in the door, she would metalbend that button into a razor and slit his throat. To her dismay, the steps stopped at the door with no sound of opening.

She had to stall the man until she could figure out what to do next. So she stepped between the man at the door and Zuko's sleeping form, shielding him. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Step aside, little girl, unless you want to take another long nap yourself," the man snarled.

"Please, don't do this," Toph begged. "You'll kill him."

The man actually hesitated a moment. Don't move, Sparky, don't breathe, Toph mentally commanded. Zuko lay absolutely silent behind her.

Desperately, Toph generated a few tears. It really wasn't that hard to do. "Please," she whispered.

The man actually sounded a little sympathetic as he answered. "These darts have been carefully measured. We won't kill him. There's no ransom for a dead prince. Now step aside."

Darts, she thought. Some kind of blowgun? That would explain the swishing sound she'd heard at the road.

"Step aside," the man repeated firmly.

She slowly moved away from Zuko, extending her earthbending senses out into the room. Darts are made of metal. Please be a metal dart. She felt toward the door.

The man took a deep breath and she braced herself. The instant the dart left the blowgun barrel, she reached for it, desperately trying to catch it before it buried itself in Zuko's thigh.

At the door, the man grunted and said, "You can pull that out, but I'd avoid the tip. There might be enough left on it to knock you out for a while."

Toph stood there dejectedly, tears running freely down her face, as she heard the man walk away.