Chapter Six

"In the swamp?" Sokka repeated. "Is he crazy? That place is dangerous!"

"He has a guide," Smellerbee snapped defensively. "Bo is a good guide and a good fighter. They took treegeckos, so they can travel over land, water, or tree."

"But I still haven't gotten a message from my brother saying he's on his way," Mai said seriously. "Jet may not have made it to Ba Sing Se at all."

"He could be in trouble," Aang said seriously.

"Jet's pretty good at taking care of himself," Smellerbee replied slowly. "But I agree. He really should have been there and back by now."

"So there could be cause for worry," Zuko surmised. "And if Tom-Tom is with him, he could be in trouble as well."

"Looks like we're off on a rescue mission," said Sokka. "Who's in?"

"I am," Mai said firmly. "If my brother has been carried off somewhere in the swamps by an ex-bandit with a grudge against the Fire Nation, I want to be in on the hunt."

"Lady Mai," Smellerbee stressed her title just a bit too heavily, "Jet does not bear any ill will against you or your brother. He's just doing his job. He'll take good care of your brother no matter what."

"Well, I'm in too," Toph said. "I need to make myself a little scarce around Omashu anyway in case Bumi wants to try again to make me queen. And I'd rather you came along too, Sparky," she continued with a look at Zuko. Then she grinned mischievously and added, "Unless, of course, you'd like to spend more time in a hole in the ground as Bumi's hostage against me."

"No, I'll pass on that," Zuko replied with a shudder. "I'm in."

"Well, someone's got to stay here with the kids," Suki began.

"Suki, if you want to go hunting, I'll stay with the kids," Sokka offered magnanimously.

"Well, we don't want to overload Appa," Aang said, looking around at the group. "If Mai, Toph, and Zuko go, I can take one more and still feel good about bringing Jet and Tom-Tom back with us."

"In that case," Suki began, "it had better be Katara. There's plenty of water for bending in that swamp. Besides, I shouldn't take risks in my delicate condition, and Bumi has stayed with us often enough that he'll be fine with you two going."

Sokka looked at her with a mixture of pride and gratitude. He hadn't been looking forward to babysitting the three kids on his own.

Within moments, Aang had conferred with Smellerbee and Longshot long enough to have an idea of the direction Jet would have gone in the swamp.

"It won't be easy to cover it by air, though," Aang said thoughtfully. "The vegetation is so thick it'll be hard to see anything below the canopy. We'll have to stop and look for signs of travel on the ground as well."

The group made their way toward the door, but Zuko was stopped by a hand on his arm. To his surprise, Longshot pulled him away from the others.

"I remember you, Prince Zuko," he began. "Or should I say Li? I'm sure Jet remembers you too. He might remember that you were the one who got him thrown into Long Feng's prison in the first place." His words were accusatory, but Longshot's voice was soft and calm. Zuko realized he wasn't being threatened, he was being warned.

Even so, the warning burned at him and an angry retort sprang to his lips. "As I recall, Jet got himself thrown into prison when he wouldn't let well enough alone. I never wanted--"

Then Zuko broke himself off as he considered his own life in Ba Sing Se. He took a deep breath and began again in a quieter voice, "I'm not proud of the person I was in Ba Sing Se. I made choices there that I deeply regret. I hurt the people I loved the most. But I'm not the same man I was then, Longshot."

"Jet's not the same man, either, sir," Longshot assured him with a quiet earnestness. "Just give him a little time to see that if he needs it."

Zuko then realized what drove Longshot. He was afraid Jet would attack and Zuko would kill him. "Please, call me Zuko," he said quietly. "I'll do my best to see that Jet doesn't get hurt." And to himself Zuko added that he hoped Toph, Aang, and Katara did their best to see that he didn't get hurt while he was trying not to hurt Jet.

By evening, the group found themselves aboard Appa, peering down at the misty green vegetation of the swamp below. Katara rode up next to Aang on Appa's head, leaving Toph, Zuko, and Mai in the main saddle.

"I think Katara is worried about leaving Bumi," Mai said after a while. "I get the feeling they don't spend much time apart."

"No, Aang works really hard to be sure the whole family is together as much as possible, no matter what his job is at the moment," Zuko replied.

"That's good," Mai commented quietly. "It's important for kids to be with their parents."

Then they rode in silence for several more minutes. Toph snuggled closer to Zuko in the cool air. She put up with flying when necessary, but in the air very little was visible to her. Only Zuko really stood out to her earthbending sight. She could make out the general forms of Mai, Aang, Katara, and Appa, but not in any really great detail up there away from her bendable earth.

Mai sat at a little distance from them, peering over the edge of the saddle into the darkness. Toph had just made up her mind to ask her to move closer for warmth—she could share Zuko that much she decided—when Aang announced that they were landing for the night.

They touched ground to Toph's delight. At last, she'd be able to see again. But as she slipped off Appa's back into Zuko's waiting arms, she was sorely disappointed.

"What is this?" she asked angrily when her feet touched down.

"What is what?" Zuko replied in confusion.

"What is this we're standing on?" Toph gave the ground a little stamp with her foot in frustration.

"It's some kind of vegetation, I guess," Zuko answered. "It's green."

"I can't see it, Zuko," she complained. "I can't see anything. There's no earth anywhere around here—just mushy growing stuff and water."

She could hear as Aang and Katara spoke to each other some distance away and Appa whuffed as he sank to the ground to rest. Toph stretched out with her senses as much possible to try to find some earth, somewhere beneath her.

She might as well have been in a boat on a lake trying to find the muddy bottom for bending. It was down there, but so far away and so full of water that it would take all her concentration and effort to bring even a small part up to the surface.

She hated the swamp.

They managed to make a small fire out of whatever wasn't too wet to burn and had a bite to eat before settling in for the night in a close group next to Appa. Unfortunately, just as Toph curled up in the bedroll close to Zuko, she felt the urge hit.

Great. A bathroom break in the middle of the swampy jungle. Who knew what kind of critters were waiting in the unbendable wetness to pounce on her?

But Zuko was so warm and it felt so good to snuggle against him that she decided she could wait until morning when one of the girls could go with her. So she fell asleep.

However, an hour later, she woke again, the pressure in her bladder too strong to resist any longer. "Zuko," she whispered.

He murmured sleepily in response.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said.

Suddenly Aang was next to her. "It's my watch first," he said quietly. "Katara said there was a good place about ten feet away behind some bushes. I'll keep an eye out for anything prowling."

She regretfully slipped free of Zuko's warm embrace and slipped into her shoes, then warily made her way through the cool moist night air across the springy, soft ground/not ground.

To her delight, as she pushed through what seemed to be large bushes, she realized there were vines there that she could see. They stretched out before her like loose metal wires running through the jungle, and she decided they must have the same kind of mineral content that the gan trees had back on the Fire Nation islands. The high concentration of minerals showed up to her bending sight as faint traces of earth, maybe not enough to bend, but enough to see.

With relief, she also noticed that one vine ran back close to where Zuko lay in his bedroll. She could find her way back to the fire by following the vine.

Having something to follow made her a little braver and she pushed into the bushes along the vines just a few steps further to be sure she was out of sight. Once she had gratefully relieved herself, she turned back to follow the vine to the fire.

But something had changed. Before, there was only one vine that led that way. Now it seemed as though at least fifty vines led off ahead of her in different directions. She frowned in confusion, then picked out what she thought was the right one and began to follow it. As she walked back, the bushes felt like the same ones she'd passed through, but no matter how hard she peered out ahead of her, she couldn't see Zuko's sleeping form.

So she backtracked along the vine to follow the next most likely candidate. But to no avail. At last, she knew she was in danger of getting lost. It was almost as if the vines were changing on her each time, luring her away from the camp. Away from Zuko.

"Aang!" she called, but not so loudly she'd wake the others. Silence. "Aang!" she tried again. Still no answer. She listened closely to hear if he was calling her, but heard nothing but the quiet buzz of some kind of insect in the trees above her.

"Aang!!" This time she yelled at the top of her lungs, but her voice didn't seem to carry in the moist, heavy air.

Now Toph was beginning to panic. "Zuko!" she cried. But there was no answer. She knew she couldn't be more than fifty feet from camp. Why couldn't they hear her?

The vines led off in all directions, each one tempting her to run alongside until it took her back to Zuko, back to safety. But she knew the absolute worst thing she could do would be to move from that spot. The only chance they had of finding her was for them to search and for her to sit still.

Then up ahead of her, she caught a glimpse of him. Zuko was out there looking for her. "Zuko!" she called in relief and ran ahead toward him, her heart pounding with gladness.

However, as soon as she reached the spot, she realized it wasn't Zuko at all, just another tangle of vines.

"Zuko!" she screamed in desperation. Why couldn't he hear her? Where was he?

Beneath her feet, the ground sucked and pulled at her, almost as if it didn't want to let her go. She knelt down on all fours and reached for the earth deep beneath the layers of water and vegetation, but it only made a muddy lurch far beneath the spongy surface.

"Toph!" She thought she heard a voice in the distance.

It was Zuko. It had to be. Desperately, Toph jumped up to run toward his voice, calling to him.

Suddenly, the wet ground seemed to lurch beneath her feet, and she fell. She struggled to stand again, but beneath her, the ground continued to tilt and roll, sending her in a helpless slide down a slippery surface.

She scrambled desperately for a hand hold, but her fingers only tore up little patches of slimy moss. She could feel a slick wetness soaking through the fabric of her clothes as she slid faster and faster down the slope. Without warning, she found herself falling several feet into a pool of cold water that immediately closed over her head.

She hated the water even though Zuko had very patiently tried to teach her to swim. Now, the sudden shock of falling into the pool pushed her across the edge from nervousness into complete panic.

She fought for the surface, gasping for air, sobbing in terror. Then she saw her lifeline. There in her sight lay one of the vines, just in reach. She grabbed for it and pulled herself to the bank and out of the chilly water.

"Zuko!" she tried again, but terror had robbed her voice of the little strength she had left. She knew he couldn't have heard her. Exhausted, she collapsed on the softness of the vegetation and looked for the vine that had saved her. It was nowhere to be seen. There were no vines anywhere around.

As she lay there, Toph realized she was utterly lost, utterly alone, utterly blind, and utterly helpless. For a moment, she gave in to fear, put her head down and sobbed like a lost child.

Then she got angry. She lifted her tearstained eyes to face whatever lurked in the soft, wet nothingness that stretched before her.

"Whatever you are out there," she called with a last burst of bravado, "you've got me where you want me. Now, either tell me what you want me to know and let me go or just come kill me right here. But I swear on the earth itself that I am not leaving this spot. No more tricks, no more running!"

Silence.

Just the drip of water falling from leaves and the sound of strange insects and animals. A musty smell of rotting leaves filled the dank air.

Toph refused to be terrified, refused to give in to another bout of panic. Instead, she calmly lay down shivering in her wet clothes in the cool night air and tried to sleep.

To her surprise, she actually succeeded.

However, back at the camp, she hadn't been gone from her bedroll a minute before Zuko woke, looking for her. Aang sat next to the fire, poking at it with a long stick. Katara and Mai slept nearby, next to Appa. "Where's Toph?" he asked quietly, so as not to disturb the others.

"She just stepped behind a bush for a second," Aang replied, pointing in the direction she'd gone. "She hasn't been gone long."

"Toph!" Zuko called quietly. "Are you okay?"

There was no answer. He got up and followed the soft indentations of her tracks in the green surface behind some bushes, but there was no sign of her. "Toph!" he called louder.

There was no answer. "She'd not here, Aang," he called back over his shoulder toward the fire. "I'm going to look for her."

"Zuko, wait!" Aang's voice came as if from a distance. "Come back! The swamp has a way of playing tricks on you. It'll lead you away from camp."

"She can't have gone far," Zuko replied reasonably. "But she can't see anything out here, I have to find her."

"Wait," Aang's voice sounded very different and Zuko looked back to see the tell-tale blue glow of the avatar state in his eyes and on his tattoos. "Let me see if I can find her the way I found Appa." He knelt down, pressing his hands against the moist grass. "She's about a hundred yards ahead," he said at last.

"I'm going after her," Zuko said and took a few steps in that direction. "You stay here with the girls and Appa."

"Wait, Zuko! Take your swords!" Aang called to him again, but his voice sounded as though it came from much farther away.

Zuko turned back toward the campfire to retrieve his twin scimitars, but to his astonishment, there was no campfire. No Aang. Nothing. Just green darkness.

Zuko knew something strange was going on, something unexplainable. But that didn't stop him from needing to find Toph. "Toph! Where are you?" he called at the top of his voice.

Back at camp, Katara woke to see Aang crouching on the ground in the avatar state, his face a mask of confusion. "What's going on?" she asked sleepily.

"I'm not sure," Aang replied. "Toph was just here and Zuko too, but now I can't find them anywhere. It's like they just vanished."

After a few more minutes of concentration, Aang looked up at her and the avatar state slipped away from him. "I'm not completely sure this is the right thing to do," he began tentatively, "but something about the swamp gives me a strong feeling we're supposed to do nothing. Neutral jing."

"We're just supposed to let them wander off?" Katara asked incredulously. "You know how mixed up this place makes a person. And Toph can't even see anything out there."

"I know," Aang sighed and came back to have a seat next to her, his head hanging down in dejection. Then he looked up. "We'll give them until morning. Then if they're not back, I don't care what the swamp says, we're going looking for them."

Out in the misty darkness, Zuko walked. Minutes turned to hours as the night wore on. He must have walked miles, desperately calling her name. But by the time the first hints of sunrise began to color the sky, he'd come to one sure conclusion. Calling to her wasn't working.

So as the dawn broke and the sun rose overhead, he sought out an opening in the dense canopy where a little patch of sunlight could break through. He stood there in the circle of light and turned his face up into his element, letting the sun's rays fill him with its heat and power.

Then he spoke directly to the swamp itself.

"Whatever you are," he called in a strong determined voice, "I know you have Toph. I don't know what it is you want with her or why, but you need to know that I want her too."

There was no answer, just the steady drip of water on leaves and the morning song of distant birds. "Tell me where she is!" he demanded, fury and frustration making his voice harsh.

Again, there was no reply from the dense, damp greenery that surrounded him. "Toph can't bend in here, but I can," Zuko shouted in a loud voice, flames fueled by worry and anger bursting into life above his outstretched palm.

That got a reaction, he thought wryly, as vines began to descend out of the trees and stretch threateningly toward him. Zuko gave them a grim smile, then allowed the inferno to roll off his body until the leaves of the trees overhead began to brown and crackle. When the vines backed away, he allowed the heat to die back as well.

"Maybe you can kill me before I burn down a substantial section of your jungle here, maybe not," he called out into the mysterious depths. "Let's not find out. Just lead me to Toph and I'll leave you alone. Then if you have some business with her, we'll be glad to discuss it with you."

Up ahead, the bushes parted, opening a clear pathway before him. "Thank you," he said politely, but kept the palm full of fire at the ready. He didn't trust this swamp. Not one bit.