Cruinne watched as Toph's hands slipped over the stone in front of her, fingers gently carving and shaping the rock. Flecks of dust and larger pebbles fell away as she chiseled away, bending and pulling at the solid mass until a sparrowkeet slowly appeared out of the formless mass, wings spread as if it were about to take flight.

There were other statues scattered all over the area—badgermoles, turtleducks, sabertoothed moose lions, and all other manner of creatures Toph encountered on her journeys. Once Toph perfected the form of the animal she was tasked with creating, Cruinne would run her through the paces of creating their shapes with less thought, less time, until she could recreate them with hardly a jab of her hand.

Turning his attention back to the sparrowkeet Toph finally stepped away from, Cruinne hummed to himself. Toph needed much time to perfect this practice, but that didn't surprise him. She was working on old memories informed primarily by her seismic sense, and any sort of memory is flawed and subjective. Still, she was coming along nicely.

Cruinne nodded once—an acknowledge of the model passing his critique—and Toph stomped on the ground, once hand pushing forward in a sharp jab. A second sparrowkeet statue rose all at once from the earth, identical to the first and created in a fraction of the time. Forming a perfect recreation from scratch was more difficult than copying something that's already been made, but Toph would reach that point one day. That day was not going to be today, though, and it wouldn't be any time soon. There was still much Toph had to learn before she could approach that sort of mastery and spontaneity, as human earthbenders always seemed to believe their element to be the most rigid and inflexible.

"Good. I think we can move on from this for today," he announced after a long moment of studying the tiny avian form. He didn't miss the exasperated huff from Toph, but he didn't comment. He knew she was frustrated, that she knew that he was delaying her, but there were some things that he couldn't simply teach her. For her to truly master his element, she needed patience. She needed to come to some realizations on her own, without any outside help. The reason the badgermoles hadn't taken to all of his lessons had nothing to do with their blindness but their inability to imagine a world that existed above the earth that was still intrinsically tied to it.

"What next?" Toph asked brusquely. She didn't mean any disrespect as she clapped her hands together, ridding them of the dust from her stoneworking, but her annoyance about her training was beginning to bleed into her every interaction with her master. For all she'd experienced, for all that she'd seen and done, Toph was still hardly more than a child to be carrying all the weight and stress she did.

"You'll be working with Rhyu for the remainder of the day. Come." Toph didn't need to be led back to the train, but she still followed after Cruinne as he turned and began walking away. "Zuko is making progress in his meditation, but Rhyu feels that it would be best for Zuko to learn to maintain concentration regardless of what is happening around him. Rhyu will keep you safe from the heat of the volcano, but he will not protect you from the lava within."

"I'm going to start lavabending today?" The shift in her attitude was almost staggering. An unbidden grin brightened Toph's features, her posture sliding into something straighter, prouder. Cruinne was slightly worried that she wouldn't react well, and he wasn't sure if this unexpected glee was more favorable to anger.

"Lavabending will likely be difficult, though it is less abstract than magnetism," he said, trying to curb her enthusiasm early. They boarded the train car and, with a lazy flick of his hand, Cruinne shifted them into motion hurtling in the direction of the house. The volcano Zuko climbed each day wasn't far off. He had minutes to talk her down. "Lavabending is more fluid than anything you've ever done. If you experience much difficulty, I would recommend you approach Uisce or Katara. Waterbending forms may not come naturally to you, but lava behaves much like a liquid."

"Sweetness and I used to teach Aang together. I bet I can get this easy."

Cruinne didn't say anything to discourage her, but he still worried. When he left Toph in Rhyu's capable hands and the young earthbender began manipulating the molten rock all around her almost immediately, those concerns were anything but mollified. If anything, they grew stronger.

The badgermoles failed to learn to manipulate magnetic fields because they were so content and proficient with what they had mastered. If Toph mastered the other earthbending forms—if she was content with lavabending and metalbending alone—she'd never truly achieve mastery. He would have failed to pass his lessons on again.

It was with a frown that he moved to track down Uisce. He didn't like relying on the spirit he often considered his sister—a very annoying, pompous sister—but he couldn't deny that she was often more perceptive than he was with things like this. As far as Cruinne could see, it was only appropriate that Uisce's new student was just as nosy and caring as the waterbending master.

As expected, the two waterbenders were at the lake. They had created an ice floe out in the lake, and Uisce was seated in a chair formed from ice as Katara manipulated water into complicated forms, freezing it into rigid lines, odd angles that were slowly brought together to create… more furniture? As Cruinne turned his attention off of the benders, he could see other pieces of furniture, mostly transparent but shining in the sunlight. A table, two chairs, and a sofa were slowly making the ice floe into a sort of living room. Cruinne couldn't judge, especially since he was forcing his student to do much the same with less mundane objects in mind, but he couldn't believe that sitting in a chair made of ice would be at all comfortable.

He walked out to the ice floe without missing a single step as he left the shore, stone rising from the lakebed at his call to form stepping-stones. As he moved across the water, he was mindful to lower the stone pillars behind him. Uisce was always such a pain when he messed with her lake without her express permission.

"Cruinne!" Uisce greeted with some surprise as Katara finished another chair, placing the fourth chair at the table just in time for Cruinne to step onto the ice. There was a fine sheen of sweat on the young waterbender's face despite all the ice surrounding her, and she gave a nauseatingly grateful look at her master when Uisce smiled gently and gestured for the girl to sit in the chair she'd just created. Student settled, Uisce turned her attention back to the earthbending spirit. "What's troubling you, brother?"

"Toph is excelling at lavabending," he explained succinctly. Katara perked up at the mention of her friend, smiling brightly until she seemed to realize that Cruinne wasn't exactly proud of Toph's accomplishment.

"Is there something wrong with that?" Katara asked cautiously when Uisce frowned, her eyes searching Cruinne's face. Neither of the masters responded for a long moment, caught in some unspoken conversation, but it ended with Uisce sighing with defeat. "Master?"

"Katara. I would have liked to delay this conversation, but Cruinne is right… I understand that you are aware of the technique known as bloodbending." It wasn't exactly a question, but there was an odd lilt in Uisce's voice that prompted Katara to respond, squaring her shoulders even as her stomach rolled at the mention of the technique.

"Yes. I met a waterbender in the Fire Nation who practiced it. Who abducted innocent people with the ability." Katara had sworn that day in the woods to never use bloodbending again. She knew the technique and it terrified her. Even now, after so much time, she could still feel the pulse and call of the blood within others when the moon was nearly full and it left her disgusted.

But… she had used it, hadn't she? She had broken her vow to never use it again. She had used the ability in anger, in rage, against another person. The newer leader of the Southern Raiders could have been a monster, but he probably hadn't deserved to have his own body wrenched away from him as she had done. Almost worse was the fact that Katara, despite focusing so hard on the man before her in those moments, was unable to ignore or forget how Zuko had flinched away from her, eyes wide with a light that could only be described as terror. He had smothered it quickly, and he had never brought it up, but Katara had seen it. She knew what sort of monster she had allowed herself to be in that moment.

"It is an alien, inhuman thing to possess control over another being," Uisce commented, her eyes sad and solemn. "It is one of the great weights of our training, to recognize water in all its forms and to recognize the seemingly unnatural places where you may draw power and leverage from. However, one of the blessings of this training is the perspective that power will not always compromise your humanity… Bloodbending is a tool that can be wielded to harm or to help."

"You want me to use bloodbending?" Katara asked, leaning back sharply with shock that Uisce would even suggest such a thing. That she would even—

"You already have, Katara," the waterbending master said, still so gentle but immovable. Katara's mouth opened in protest, but Uisce raised a hand to silence her. "Not against the raider. On Zuko. It was weak, hardly noticeable as what it was since the skill is so untrained in you, but you used bloodbending to assist you healing him after he was struck down."

The Agni Kai. Memories rose up suddenly, fresher than they had any right to be after nearly a month of time gone. With how exhausted she'd been lately, Katara had been spared nightmares for so long that she could almost pretend that the memories were less horrific, less scarring. By glossing over the facts instead of the emotions that still bleed raw from those memories, she could pretend that the wound Zuko suffered was less damaging than it had been. She could pretend that she hadn't felt his blood mumbling sluggishly against her healing touch as she demanded it moved.

And it had.

A strangled sound escaped Katara, a fog lifting from her own memories. Zuko had died, hadn't he? For however brief a moment it was, his heart had stopped beating. She had worked to convince herself that she had imagined it—fear and adrenaline had combined in a horrifying cocktail—but Zuko had died. The water coating her hands melted away, absorbed or dissipated by the heat still arcing through his body, but she was still bending, moving and pushing blood through his body. And she had reached into him and squeezed.

"All bending represents different ways to interact with the world around you. You already live your life with some of those decisions made, consciously or otherwise. Learning more, expanding your ideas of waterbending, simply means that you will be making more decisions."

"But what if I choose wrong?" Katara's mind was in chaos, still reeling from her recent revelations. She'd chosen wrong before. She'd made poor choices, leaning on selfish and foolish reasons. If she learned more, if she were stronger, the consequences of her poor choices would only worsen.

Still, Uisce smiled. There was a warmth in the master's eyes that worked to smooth over the turmoil of Katara's mind and she found herself breathing more steadily as Uisce reached across the icy table to grab hold of Katara's hand, squeezing gently. For a bright, irrational moment, Katara could see her mother in the curve of Uisce's smile before it was gone.

There was still trepidation squirming in the pit of Katara's stomach, but it quieted slightly in the face of Uisce's certainty. After a long moment of thought, Katara found herself nodding slowly.

She would learn to bloodbend, but never to do harm. Katara had fought tooth and nail for her right to fight, to protect what was important to her. If bloodbending—even in its most gentle forms—could help keep her people safe, her friends alive, then she would master it.

Dinner was anything but a silent affair even considering Awyr's absence, given her work in the physical world. While Katara's mind was still full of thoughts and fears of bloodbending—fears of what she might become if the power ever grew intoxicating—Toph was almost as energetic as she ever had been. Despite magnetism still eluding her, she had taken to lavabending with an almost breathless ease. This was, of course, much to Zuko's endless indignation, since Toph's secondary task was to break his concentration.

Rhyu spent much of dinner moderating the very descriptive and somewhat exaggerated dialogue between the two teens, with both assuring the table very animatedly that the other was lying or mistaken and that Zuko hadn't screamed like a girl when the lava first came flying towards him and that Toph hadn't nearly fallen off the platform, only to be rescued when Rhyu grabbed her tunic like a momma pygmy puma. When dinner finally came to a close, Zuko was somewhat sullen that he hadn't been able to maintain the calm, meditative mindset that he set out to maintain. Toph, happy with her victory, dragged the pensive Katara away to get ready for bed so that the firebender could brood in peace.

Or, that had been Toph's plan—after all, things like matchmaking took time. Ba Sing Se wasn't built in a day despite any earthbender propaganda, and a sustainable relationship between her in loco parentis friends would have a slow start as well. Toph hadn't considered Katara pulling away slightly, hadn't seen the contemplative and worried looks that Katara had been throwing towards the firebender all throughout dinner. Toph, still riding the high of taking to lavabending so easily after weeks of failure, hadn't taken her friend's much-different emotional state into account.

"Katara?" she asked, uncertain. But the waterbender had waved her away with a bright smile and an assurance that she'd be inside in just a little bit. Toph walked away with a frown, mind finally turning and breaking its happy momentum as she absorbed the first real lie that Katara had given her in weeks.

Katara continued to move towards Zuko, though, so Toph resigned herself to walking away. Or, more accurately, she resigned herself to closing the door to the small hut they lived in so that she could overhear whatever was going on. If this was something that was going to interfere with her own plans, she needed to know about it. Her seismic sense would catch any indication from the two that they would be coming back to the hut, so she could safely listen in. Even if they spoke too quietly for her to hear, there was a lot she could discern from their body language, and they couldn't hide that from her no matter where they went in this valley.

Despite her pride in her wide-ranging seismic sense, Toph was still somewhat surprised when Katara rejoined Zuko at the dinner table, close enough that their soft voices drifted in through the open window. It was hard to pick up every word, but Toph could still make out Katara's quiet greeting.

"Zuko… can I talk to you about something?" A thousand words were said in the shuffling hesitation of Katara's footsteps. Katara didn't approach anything with hesitation except her own emotions, her own doubts. Zuko leaned back in his chair, either noticing the same or simply surprised at the waterbender's presence.

"Uh, yeah. What's up?" Toph didn't need to be anywhere near the firebender to feel him cringing into his chair, his heart already thundering. It was times like these that she wished that she could see, so she could see if Zuko really was blushing or if it were all in her head. Still, Katara took the invitation on face value, pulling a chair out and slowly settling into it. The two teens stayed there, sitting quietly in the lowlight, as Katara no-doubt gathered her courage to say what was on her mind.

"You remember the Southern Raiders… What I…" Toph strained to hear Katara's words, but couldn't manage it. All she knew was that—whatever happened—it was hard or heavy enough to collapse the strong set of Katara's shoulders. The waterbender seemed to curl into herself, protecting her core and making her a smaller target. Whether it was fear or shame or sadness, Toph didn't exactly know, but the weight of it was familiar.

Zuko only nodded, waiting with the patience and reticence of an introvert. Zuko excelled at silence and allowing others to speak. It was when it was his turn that the awkwardness took over.

"Uisce spoke to me about bloodbending today." That caught Toph by surprise. She remembered old Hama, but she also knew how Katara felt about the stuff. "I'm going to learn how to control it better." Or maybe she didn't know…

Zuko took the news better than Toph, who smothered a surprised choke. He merely leaned back in his chair. The moment of silence was longer and heavier this time, but it ended when Zuko slowly reached out for Katara's hand.

"Can I… show you something?" he asked, attention focused on Katara. Toph could feel her nod, could feel Katara's heart begin to thrum faster when Zuko pull his hand back. Zuko was still for a moment, breathing deep and steady, and he opened his hand. Katara gasped, but Toph frowned; it wasn't as if it was the first time Katara had seen Zuko firebend, so what was the big deal? The heat faded away at once, the flame smothered as Zuko closed his hand into a fist. "It's what I'm working on, with the meditation. And I can't see it without thinking about her. About that day… Rhyu thinks that outside distractions are why I can't sustain it, but I can handle Toph throwing rocks at me. Lava's new, but it's still Toph. It's…" Zuko's voice drifted off, and Toph began to worry—began to contemplate opening the door and interrupting her two lovebirds—but then Katara's hand reached out swiftly, unflinchingly to encircle Zuko's wrist. The tension melted out of Zuko's body in that moment, his hand relaxing to take Katara's, and Toph could almost sense the absolutely disgusting look that would be in his eyes as he looked at Katara. That was almost as gratifying as Katara's posture shifting in response, leaning closer to the firebender and reaching to put her second hand on his.

Satisfied with the turn of the conversation, Toph declared the conversation as a success and began to move towards the bathroom. If the two came back and Toph wasn't ready for bed, Katara wouldn't bat an eyelash at Toph's apparent lack of good habits. Zuko might have some concerns, though, so it was best to quit while she was ahead.

Published 5:20, 7.24.20

Updated 3:41, 10.4.21