Iroh chuckled at the shocked look on Aang's face and the bemused annoyance on Chen's and said, "She does like making an exit doesn't she?" Before standing and offering the Avatar a hand to help him from his seat on the floor. "We will take a somewhat more circuitous route if you don't mind? My old stomach is to happy and full from this wonderful dinner to be dropping through floors." Aang rose with Iroh and Chen followed suit wisely keeping his mouth shut about where they were going and his personal opinion on the Avatar's presence there.
Iroh lead them down into a series of tunnels that Aang could since running throughout the catacombs of the school and its yards. The stone soon meted into carefully constructed metal rooms and hallways as Iroh lead them farther and farther down. They met the waterbending master Kikumi a few floors down and she and Iroh linked arms as they continued through a maze of passages.
Finally the came to a steel door with no handles, or knobs, but only hinges along once side and a indented circle carved in the middle. "Shall I?" Chen asked, but Iroh shook his head and blew a thin stream of fire at the door until the circle was filled and began to low red. Suddenly there was a click and the door separated into two panels which must have had water pockets stored in them as Kikumi bent apart with ease.
"They're always too hot to handle for a few minutes after he does that." Kikumi explained to Aang wringing her nose. "Any one can enter if they know how. Any bender can open the doors and there are panels on the walls that receive other forms of access as well for our non-bending members."
"Members?" Aang asked still unsure of what lay for them in the room beyond.
Iroh only smiled and lead Kikumi forward into the room. "Brilliant exit as always my dear." Iroh commented to Toph who was already in the room leaning against the head of a large table. There were others in the room as well and it was obvious that Toph was the youngest of their number. She and Chen stuck out in a room full of older men and women, but Aang's confusion cleared when he noted the symbol of the white lotus inlayed into the center of the table. Chen separated from their group and took up post behind her; a silent second to her presence int the room.
"News from the fire nation" an elder man dressed as a fire sage said taking attention of the room, "The Fire Lady seems to have publicly reminded the people that their heir might as easily be a waterbender as a firebender. They are demanding a trial of fire for any heirs born of their union."
Toph shook her head, "I bet our dear Fire Lord wants to kill his wife right about now, but the child isn't even born yet and most of the nation probably doesn't even know she's actually pregnant. Let's deal with it when the kid is actually old enough. If it's a firebender we may not even have to worry about it."
Iroh shifted uncomfortably on his feet and she turned to him raising an eyebrow, "The trial of fire as it concerns an heir to the fire throne is not a battle like the Agni Kia fought between two known firebenders. It was an ancient tradition meant to ensure that only a strong firebender could be born heir to the fire throne. An ancient and wretched tradition, it requires the testing of an infant still within its mother's body at its sixth month of development. If the child is a firebender, he or she can survive the trial otherwise it is… scorched out." Iroh finished shifting from side to side and clearing his throat.
"Dear spirits. You people burn a woman and her unborn infant from the inside to ensure it is a firebender at six months just because what some water tribe healing woman once told a Fire Lord that bending presents within six months of development? Some children take over a decade to first bend!" Toph all but exploded shaking her head in disgust.
Iroh's shifting became even more uncomfortable as he said, "I believe the appropriate date was found more by trial and error than a healer's advice…"
"Fantastic" Toph said pinching the bridge of her nose. "Either way we all know Zuko won't let that happen, so apart from civil war, what are our options?"
"If the child is a waterbender he could denounce it." The sage suggested and Toph rolled her sightless eyes.
"Perhaps denouncing the child is too strong of a word, but if he simply made other arrangements for the child outside of being heir to the throne, the child could still live a happy life with his or her family and a later child who is a firebender could take the throne." Kikumi suggested.
"We could make arrangements between the waterbending child and one of the northern water tribe nobles of appropriate age." Master Pakku suggested, "We would be happy to marry fire nation royalty into our bloodlines especially one of Fire Lady Master Katara's waterbending children."
"Ya, Fire Lady Master Katara is just going to leap for joy at the idea of her child being second rate because he or she is a waterbender not a firebender." Toph said sarcastically and Aang silently agreed, "Master Pakku, General Iroh, you will both report to the fire nation within the month. Stay close to Katara and Zuko, convince Zuko not to make any public announcements concerning whether this child will be their heir to the throne or not. So long as he has blood heirs and there is a reasonable assumption that they will keep making them he doesn't have to make any public decisions about who will take the throne after him. Iroh, you help convince the people that fire blood is stronger than water blood or some nonsense like that. Convince them this child will be a firebender and that for them to say otherwise is to doubt their own element and nation. It will be years before anyone actually knows if this kid can even bend anything so let's just keep the masses in check for now and keep them from over stepping themselves. Master Pakku, you will be there as a master healer to watch over Katara during her pregnancy, but also as an official delegation from the norther water tribe. Spread the word that you are interested in this child if it is a waterbender. Say that clearly if it's a waterbender it can't be heir to the fire throne, but that the northern water tribe has been looking for a way to strengthen its ties to the outside world and a waterbending fire throne prince or princess, even one that isn't qualified for the line of succession, would fulfill your master's interests. As long as we keep the masses thinking that the heir to the fire throne will be a fire bender and that a successor will be chosen if and only when a firebending child is born to the royal couple, Katara and Zuko can name whomever they want as successor to the fire throne and by the public gets wind of it, it'll be too late. I don't care if they put a waterbending princesses first in line for the throne, but the less the people know about it, and the more talk there is that the child will be married off unless it is a firebender, the better."
"Wise as always general." Iroh said and bowed quickly followed by a solemn Pakku.
Aang looked around the room as if expecting someone to stand up and tell Toph she didn't give the orders around this table of elders, but apparently she did, because the fire sage who had brought the issue to her attention was now bowing as well and saying, "We will see it done general."
Then her attention was on him, she lifted her face to his chin high and nose up as if daring him to question her decision, but he was silent and she nodded accepting his retreat.
"What's next?" She asked the room at large and an aged earth kingdom man, an accountant at the palace by the look of him stepped forward.
"General, if I may," Toph placed her hand flat down on the table, fingers splayed, feeling it's vibrations and he placed his likewise before him. Connection made and permission given, he began, "We've more trouble with he anti-bending movement. First it was the illegal bending rings, then it was the factories powered by bending, but now they're taking over schools and snatching children from their beds."
Toph's jaw was hard, "Explain."
"They've been stopping by the bending schools in the fire nation and earth kingdom. Even the northern water tribe has reported strange non-benders interfering in their schools of healing and warfare. They start by talking to the parents, trying to convince them to send their kids to their schools instead, but with the new laws in place, all of the bending children have access to bending schools paid for by the state so the parents are turning them away. Then they started going after the kids, the younger ones mostly, tricking them into coming with them or just dragging them out kicking and screaming. They pretend to be relatives or friends of the family and the guards at the schools assume the kids are just misbehaving because they're all under ten years of age. Then they stopped."
"When? How long have they been targeting the schools?" Toph asked voice like slate, cold and hard.
"We weren't sure at first, maybe three months now. I have only just been able to make the trip here myself. We were unsure about sending a messenger." The financier responded looking nervous.
"And my messengers weren't good enough for you? I send my men and women by twice a month, good men and women, benders and non-benders one of each in pairs. They travel the world the fifty of them. I pay them, I keep them, and I send them to the capitol at least twice a month. It is your job, as a member of this organization, and as a member of the royal court to report to them anything like this that is endangering the lives of our people, especially our children." Aang could hear the granite in her voice and something in the way she spat each word made him want to shrink back into the wall. It wasn't having a much different effect on the man before him as he wrung his chubby hands and pulled at his gold rings.
"We only wanted to be sure. We had to look into it, but we didn't have the people or the time. I'm a banker, my job is very important and when…"
What ever other excuses he was about to make were cut off by both of Toph's fists slamming down onto the table and causing the whole stone face to ripple with her fury. Under his soft leather soles, Aang felt the floor spike like someone tapping on the bottom of his foot, but it never quite connected. Looking up at Toph he saw Chen watching her attentively, she swiped her finger from right to left as if sliding it across the man's middle before nodding. Chen nodded silently and took his leave of the room by way of creating a metal door into a side hallway that Aang had not noticed earlier.
"I have the men Master Financier. I have the time. I have a very important job and that job is to keep the people of this world safe. I do that by training and deploying highly skilled teams of individuals to every edge of the world to report back to me, but they are only fifty strong. They can only be in 25 places at once. It is up to people like you, like the royal courts in the fire nation, earth kingdom, and water tribes, to collect goings on and pass them on to my organization so that we may ensure the safety of the people of every nation. Why have you failed in this duty?"
"We weren't sure they could be… well you know, two women traveling around alone like that, it simply isn't… we wanted to be sure that you got the right information… we felt that…"
"Who is we? Who else knew children were being taken and didn't think to tell anyone about it?"
"Well it's not as if we didn't inform the proper authorities."
"Bullshit, because do you know who the authorities inform when something is going on that involves more than one nation?" Toph demanded.
Aang wanted to speak up, he wanted to step forward, he wanted to be able to stand up and say 'me, they come to me. They come to the Avatar,' but he had been gone. For three years he had been gone and now, now they came to her.
"Well I'm sure someone told…"
"Me." Toph said voice pure stone and ice, "They come to me. It's my job to fix the world when it's broken. So I will ask you one more time, and I will know if you lie to me so tell me truthfully, why did you not report this sooner?"
"There was… well you see, they way things work in the Earth Kingdom, the real Earth Kingdom, I mean, not an isolated little island like you have here, is that when…" the financier's blubbering was interrupted by Chen's re-entry into the room carrying three bags full and clinking with coins in one large fist.
Toph shut the man's mouth with a stone manacle drawn from the table before him and said to Chen, "Report".
"He had three bags of coins in his room, two earth kingdom and one fire nation. He was collecting money from the families to get their children back from them. He needed time to collect their money so that he was already payed when you got their children released and returned to them. He has ledgers as well," The burley earthbender said pulling several smallish notebooks out of a back pocket, "Cities where the kids were taken from, the kids' ages, how much money the parents still owe him once they get their kids back. It's all here and General?" Toph raised an eyebrow, "Their new gambit is testing kids for bending. They're claiming they can tell as early as two. The anti-benders are banding together into groups like traveling circuses. Making their way from town to town and parents are paying them to have their kids tested. The next morning, the circus is gone and all of the kids predicted to bend with them. His ledgers have over 100 families that payed for him to get them back, but how much do you want to bet there are plenty more that couldn't afford to?"
Metal manacles ripped themselves out of the wall and shackled the financier where he stood beside the table. "Master Aranon," Toph said addressing another elderly man dressed in earth kingdom master's robes, "I believe the earth king is missing one of his subjects. I will write his letterhead myself, but if you would be so kind as to take charge of him from here."
"I will take him," Aang said stepping forward and offering out a hand.
"You have no power here Avarar. I suggest you sit back down." Toph said ignoring him and Iroh placed a warning hand on his shoulder before he could step forward again.
Master Aranon took the prisoner from Top with a bow and exited the room. "Chen, I expect all of the necessary documentation on my desk by tomorrow noon along with anything he had of import and all of the money he collected. You and Kikumi are in charge while I am gone. Keep my children safe."
"Yes General." Kikumi and Chen chorused.
"Avatar, you're with me, the rest of you, follow the orders you've been given and if you have a problem, figure it out on your own or bring it to Master Pakku and General Iroh in the fire nation. Meetings will be held there until further notice. Dismissed." The room bowed as Toph strode past taking the front of Aang's tunic in her fist as she passed.
"Where are we going?" Aang asked as he followed her up twisting passageways.
"Hello, missing kids, corrupt government officials, anti-bending groups, weren't you listening to anything back there?"
Aang took hold of her hand on the front of his shirt and tugged swinging her around to face him. Toph was struck for a moment, honestly floored that he had just turned the tables on her like that. No one but Chen had manhandled her in… ever, and even so, when he did it she was absolutely expecting it. Up until a few moments ago Toph would have said that Aang didn't have that kind of strength or determination in him, but the reality of how much he had grown in the last three years was finally starting to sink in as his grip on her wrist went from bruising to merely firm. "I noticed that you're the only reason the world hasn't fallen apart without me." He said softly standing over her in the darkness of the tunnel.
"Oh don't fatter yourself TwinkleToes you were in ice for a hundred years and the world went on without you. It's only been three."
"That's not what I meant." He said taking her chin with his other hand and tilting her face up so he could see it in the faint light cast by the rare glowing stones that lit the passage at odd intervals. "These types of issues, the ones that span across the nations, these are supposed to be my responsibilities not yours."
"Ya well, someone had to do them." Toph said pulling her chin out of his grasp and turning her face aside. "Sokka and Suki were off having a family and Sweetness and Sparky were trying to figure out how to fall in love without killing each other and you were spirits knows where so someone had to do it. I was just the only one without anything better to do."
"That's not true, you could have left it to Iroh and Pakku and Bumi, but you didn't you took over. Why?"
She shrugged again, "Like I said, I guess I just didn't have anything better to do. Besides, I have fifty pairs of eyes, they only have three. It just made since in the end. None of them could be everywhere at once, I could…"
"About that," Aang began only to be cut off by her exasperated sigh.
"Come on TwinkleToes, we can talk about all of that from the air, I have a stop to make to one of my teams tonight and I require our dear Appa's assistance."
"Sifu T, are you asking to fly?" Aang teased with a laugh.
"Oh shut up." She said punching his arm and leading them back up the path that was taking them to the stables where Appa was happily napping.
"Where to?" Aang asked from Appa's head as Toph, already looking green clung to the side of the saddle.
"South east of Ba Sing Se. Theres a small village there. My girls live there. There will be a house outside of the village with an over sized stables, you can land Appa there." Toph instructed. Momo curled up in her lap and soon they were off.
When they got well into the air Aang came and joined her. She had her eyes squeezed shut tight and her breathing was steady, but forced. Aang took one of her hands in comfort and partly to distract her and partly because he was really curious asked, "So fifty pairs of eyes?"
Toph chuckled weekly and said, "I got the idea from something Sparky said about a month after you left. He and Sweetness were at the school at the same time and he said it felt like being under the eye of Usogau. I wasn't familiar with the story since it's a fire nation myth, but Usogau is"
"The bear with 100 eyes." Aang said with a smile in his voice.
"Right, he watched over the sun and the first flame when they were infants. It was said that it took 100 eyes to keep those two in check and so Usogau became their guardian. I kinda figured that was what the world needed right about then. Especially after you left, it felt like the whole world was just a flame playing in a field of daisies, it needed a guardian, so I built the army of 100 eyes. Men and women split into pairs, one bender and one non-bender in each. Some of them have territories, some of them are assigned to people or missions, but they all report back to me in one way or another. From there, I send the messages where they need to go, I deal with it as the lotus, or I put a team on it to watch it. They never get involved unless they have to, they're just there to watch and report."
"So you built an army of spies, with which you now run the White Lotus society?" He asked and she could feel his heart rate spiking a little through his palm.
"I guess kinda. Got a problem with that?"
Aang smiled, "So many, but because it's you Sifu T, I suppose I'll allow it."
"Well good because you didn't really get a say in it after you left." The chuckle died in Aang's throat and he squeezed her hand tighter in his.
"I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry Toph. I thought I was fulfilling my responsibilities as the avatar by traveling to the temples and learning from my past lives, like the avatar used to, but maybe that wasn't the right choice."
Toph was silent for a long time leaning back against the saddle like she was looking up at the stars and Aang studied her surprised, but happy that she was still allowing him to hold her hand. "I was mad at you at first. Actually I was so pissed I didn't ever want be around you again, but then that first time you came to the western earth temple and I could feel you there and I almost left to go see you. I wanted to bust down the doors and demand to know what the hell you thought you were doing, who you thought you were to just walk out on us like that. How we could go through so much together and then years later just… nothing… and all because of a breakup. I wanted to slam you into the ground until you woke up and realized what you were doing… but I didn't. I had my students, and the school… I had my life and you had yours and I realized that… it didn't matter what you did with your life, because no matter what you did, I would always have the life that I made for myself with or without you.
That place, my school, it's a fortress. If the whole world fell, I could defend it single handedly if I had to. I don't need the world to be at balance or at peace. I want it to be, but my life doesn't depend on it. For a while that was enough for me, but then I realized, just look at who my friends are, the head of the Kyoshi warriors and the future chief of the southern water tribe, the fire lord and lady, and the ever blessed avatar… If the world burned and everything went to hell I'd be fine, but I'd be alone, and if there was one thing you leaving thought me it's that I don't want to be alone.
The Avatar used to be able to take years for training because there were people out in the world making sure that it carried on without the avatar. People who cared about the balance of the world and who were willing to fight to keep it. I didn't start the hundred eyes or take over the white lotus because I wanted to Aang. I did it because you needed me to so that you could go and do the things that you needed to do for your self."
Aang's response was quiet and subdued, "I know. I think that's why it's so hard for me to see you doing all of this. It's not your job, it's mine." Aang sighed and leaned back against the saddle beside her so that their shoulders touched and their clasped hands fit in the gap between their hips. "And Toph?"
"Hm?" She asked almost sleepily.
"The biggest thing I realized in my time away, was that I don't want to be alone either."
The entire trip from Toph's school to the village outside Ba Sing Se took less than an hour flying with Appa and soon they were landing in the field outside of the oversized barn. Appa groaned and plopped down well away from the warm shelter at which Toph only laughed and said, "I don't blame you buddy, Im not her biggest fan either." Before leaving the animals in peace.
Approaching the front door Toph banged on it loudly with her fist and yelled, "Hey, it's me, open up."
There was a long pause and the sound of a woman swearing like a sailor on the other side of the door before it was wrenched open by a pale looking June wearing a wrap around scarlet robe and a pair of house slippers. "Arie, put on some tea it's the salve driver." She yelled over her shoulder before saying reproachfully, "it's late, come back tomorrow." and making to close the door on them.
Toph held out a fist blocking the door and pusher her way into the taller woman's personal space, "Drop the sass sister, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important." June sighed dramatically and stood back out of the doorway allowing them inside.
The other woman, Arie, was in the kitchen bending water into a tea kettle. Her skin was dark and her black hair and light blue eyes spoke easily of the northern water tribe, but a scar across her left eye rendered it blind and a chunk missing out of her right cheek make her look sallow and older than her forty years should allow.
"You're not Toph's play thing, where's the big rock man?" June asked the hooded Aang.
"At home." Toph said ignoring Aang for the moment, "I thought you weren't having any issues with the nobles here. You said they trusted you as a part of the king's little menagerie of oddities from other nations."
June blew a long strand of dark hair back from her eyes and said, "Yes, yes, we're good puppets don't worry mother dearest, all the nobles love us. Especially when they think they can get us in bed together. They're a little disappointed after that falls through a few times, but these dolts just keep coming back for more."
"She's joking of course," Arie cut in, "I advise the king on official matters every other day as a part of the inter-nation coalition that he has going and June acts as my bodyguard."
"I am very good at guarding her body" June said suggestively leaning back in a chair to run a finger down Aire's side, "Have you ever been with a waterbender boy? no? Oh they're fun. It's a pity they're such a rare breed."
Toph couldn't help it, she could feel the heat from Aang's face from three feet away and busted out laughing. "Oh he hasn't just been with a waterbender," She said tugging back the avatar's hood and making June's chair fall to all fours with a clunk of surprise, "he's been with The waterbender."
"Avatar Aang, you grace us." Arie said clearly unmoved by her partner's antics. "The coalition is going rather well actually. Even though I was outcast from the northern water tribe nearly two decades ago for my… personal interests, Master Pakku has since been by to smooth the way more than once and my experience from my travels has made me an easy mediator between peoples of many regions."
"My my Avatar, you have grown up haven't you." June said standing and plucking at Aang's loose robes squeezing a bicep here or peaking in a neckline there. "You know, I've never been with an airbender. You think waterbenders are a rare breed, you should try getting your hands on an airbender, they are postively…"
"Enough" Toph said holding up a hand to halt June's inspection.
June sighed and reclaimed her seat, "Very well, yes everything is going splendidly. Arie sits and talks with the diplomats I drink and chat with their guards, bop a few on the heads when they try to catch a feel. Same old same old. Why?"
Toph rolled her sightless eyes, "Because there was just a major breach in your district. A financier who was recently brought into the fold for the white lotus has been taking payments from families with missing children to bring them back. The children are being taken by an anti-bending organization and he somehow caught wind of it when you two didn't."
June and Arie looked at each other for a minute a full conversation seeming to pass between their glance before Arie said, "It's here," and went to a stack of papers on the sill selecting one and bringing it to Aang, "We only heard about the missing children a few at a time. At first we didn't feel that they were connected. This is Ba Sing Se, children go missing all the time. They usually show up in one of the upper rings hiding out in a friend's house or disguised as a servant of a better house, but when they hit the schools, we knew it was different. We were going to put a stop to it, but none of the children in the schools actually went missing so we thought their plan fell through." She explained.
"Then a father came to me last week." June continued, "He's one of the delegate's guards and his little boy, only three, was tested for bending and disappeared the next day. They nailed a copper to his door with a brass nail."
"A brass nail? That's worth more in weight than the copper." Toph said confused and June nodded.
It was Arie who said, "We know. It sounds like a message. Maybe something about the worth of the person being more than the worth of the bending, but we didn't know it was an anti-bending group so we weren't sure. We've been out before the bread makers ever morning the last week checking to see which doors have coppers with brass nails through them. Aang has the list. We've found five."
"Only five?" Aang asked looking over the list of names.
"Is that not enough?" June snorted.
"The financier had over a hundred names of parents who had already paid him to get their kids back, fire nation and earth kingdom both." Toph explained.
"Not from around here then. Ba Sing Se has been quiet. This is a big city, but rumors spread like wild fire here. If that many kids were going missing someone would do something about it. They must be pulling from smaller villages and towns to try to keep the suspicion down." Arie reasoned.
"Are you bringing him back?" June asked.
"The financier?" Toph asked and June tapped her foot once for yes, "He'll be back by tomorrow evening if he doesn't give master Shun too much fuss."
"I'll be sure to look in on him." June assured her.
"Don't." Toph ordered, "Be on the lookout for this group and ask around about more kids maybe ones from outside the city. I'm taking this case."
"Your self?" Arie and June asked together in surprise.
"And why not?" Toph challenged.
"She's not alone." Aang reminded them and the two women silenced themselves.
Arie was the first to speak, "We simply meant that this is the first time that Master Beifong has taken a mission of her own. She usually heads the operation from her island and rarely ever leaves it."
Aang was watching Toph now, but she shrugged it off and said, "Times change" before thanking Arie for the tea they never touched, gathering the rest of the missives meant to be sent to her, and bidding the pair goodnight.
The ride home was quiet and the pair bid one another goodnight outside Aang's room. When Toph entered her room she already knew she would find no company there, but collapsed into her bed none the less alone once more.