The next day, Katara starts a fire and cooks us a breakfast of rice in a clay pot.
"Has anyone seen Toph?" she asks us.
"I haven't seen her since she stormed off yesterday," Sokka replies.
"I think we should go look for her," Katara murmurs.
"Ah, let her have fun with her rocks," Sokka waves the question away. "I'm in no rush to have her and the new girl yelling at us again."
"I have a name!" I swat Sokka on the arm.
Suddenly, the ground rumbles and a hole appears in one of the walls of the temple. With a grunt, Toph army-crawls out of it and down the slope of earth she's pushed out.
"Toph," Katara exclaims, "what happened?"
"My feet got burned!" Toph explains, her red feet sticking up behind her.
Katara moves closer to get a good look at the damage. "Oh, no!" she exclaims again. "What happened?"
"I just told you," Toph growled, "My feet got burned!"
I laugh behind my hand at her humor.
Katara glares. "I meant how."
"Well, I kind of went to see Zuko last night."
The rest of the group responds with groans of disgust. Katara opens her pouch and releases the floating water again, which begins glowing as she tries to heal Toph's feet.
"I just thought he could be helpful to us," Toph defends herself, "and if I talk to him, maybe we could work something out."
"So he attacked you?" Sokka asks.
"Well, he did and he didn't," Toph bites her lower lip. "It was sort of an accident."
"But he did Fire bend at you?" Aang persists.
Toph sighs in defeat. "Yes."
"See?" Sokka says as I help Katara lift Toph to the fountain. "You trusted Zuko and you got burned. Literally!"
"It's gonna take a while for your feet to get better," Katara tells Toph, ignoring her brother. "I wish I could've worked on them sooner."
"You and me both," Toph agrees.
I look into the clear fountain water to see the ugly burn marks on her feet. If Zuko really meant to attack Toph, wouldn't he have burned her whole body?
"Zuko's clearly too dangerous to be left alone," Sokka decides. "We're gonna have to go after him."
"I hate to go looking for a fight, but you're right," Aang agrees. "After what he did to Toph, I don't think we have a choice."
"He's crafty, but we'll find a way to capture him." Sokka assures himself.
"And stoop to his level?" I retort. I had gotten the crash course in the four elements and the group's history with Zuko last night after Toph had left. I still don't agree with them, but it puts their arguments in perspective. "Would you really want to do that?"
"If it keeps us safe, then yes," Sokka fires back.
Katara continues to work on Toph's burns.
"Now I know how the rest of you guys feel," Toph groans through the pain of the healing. "Not being able to see with your feet stinks!"
I feel someone staring, an ability I've tuned over my 17 years, and glance up into the crags of the cliff. Not a second too late, I shout, "Hit the deck!" An explosion rocks the entire temple. As we hurry to get out of sight, I see Zuko swing into the bulky man on a rope.
"Stop!" we hear Zuko shout at the assassin. "I don't want you hunting the Avatar anymore! The mission is off; I'm ordering you to stop." The muscled man throws Zuko aside like a rag doll, and aims another shot at us. I see Zuko throw a flaming ball of fire at the man, but he easily deflects it. Again Zuko is cast aside as another explosion hits us. The explosion makes contact with the stone and a piece hits me squarely in the forehead. The last thing I think as everything fades to black once more is that I should really stop passing out so often.