we all want love/we all want honor
Part 5: you don't get what all this is about
"Have you gone blind? Have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?"
- Lauren Aquilina, "King"
Toph woke up to the rumbling of thunder. She got up and threw on some clothes, then left the room.
Where's Uncle? Rainy days always put her in the mood for some of Iroh's tea. She headed in the direction she sensed his heavy footsteps, then paused. Iroh was going down into the engine room, where several of the crew members were sitting.
Toph didn't spend much time around Zuko's crew. They didn't understand what a young Earth Kingdom girl was doing on a Fire Nation warship. Most of them also fell into the category of people who mistook blind for weak, helpless, fragile, and, on occasion, deaf. Needless to say, she didn't particularly enjoy being around them. Zuko, for all his bluster, had never made the mistake of underestimating her.
She knew they felt uncomfortable around her, too. If she walked in on whatever conversation they were having in there, they'd stop talking, and Uncle's quick but steady footsteps told her this was something important to him.
She turned to leave, but then she realized what Iroh was saying.
"Try to understand. My nephew is a complicated young man. He has been through much." Were they talking about Zuko in there? She pressed her palms to the door, listening.
"When Zuko was thirteen years old, he decided he wanted to sit in on one of the Fire Lord's war meetings. He told me that if he was going to be Fire Lord someday, he needed to learn all he could."
Thirteen. Zuko was less than two years older than her, so that would have been... Right around the time he was banished.
"I agreed to escort him in, but I warned him not to talk. The elders would not be pleased to take advice from a mere boy." Uncle sighed. "If only he had listened."
"What happened?" The captain- Lieutenant Jee, if she remembered correctly- seemed curious.
"General Bujing has never been the kindest man," Iroh continued. She heard mumbles of assent from Jee and the others. "He suggested that they sacrifice the 41st division- which was made entirely of new recruits- as a distraction so stronger soldiers could attack from the rear."
"What do those spoiled nobles care about some fresh meat, right?" Jee grumbled.
"My nephew cared," Uncle Iroh said. "He stood up in protest, asking Bujing and the rest how they could think of betraying soldiers who loved and defended our great nation."
Toph smirked. That sounded like something Zuko- brave, foolish, honorable Zuko- would do.
"Zuko was right, you see, but it was not his place to speak out," Uncle was still talking. "And there were dire consequences."
Dire? How dire? She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"After Zuko's outburst in the meeting, the Fire Lord became very angry with him." From what she remembered of the man back when he was still Prince Ozai, she could believe it. "He said the challenge against the general was an act of complete disrespect! And there was only one way to resolve this."
"Agni Kai," Lieutenant Jee said, understanding. "A fire duel."
"That's right," Iroh said. "Zuko looked upon the old general he had insulted and declared that he was not afraid."
Agni Kai. Toph recalled waking up, several weeks earlier, to hear several crew members talking about how Zuko had challenged Commander Zhao to an Agni Kai. She didn't like the snobby ranking navymen they occasionally had to deal with, but Zhao was the worst. She hadn't witnessed the duel herself, but from what she'd heard, Zuko had pounded the old man. If his skills back then had been anywhere near what they were now, his bravery had not been unfounded.
"But Zuko misunderstood. When he turned to face his opponent, he was surprised to see it was not the general." Oh no. The sinking feeling was back. "Zuko had spoken out against the general's plan, but by doing so in the Fire Lord's war room, it was the Fire Lord whom he had disrespected. Zuko would have to duel his own father."
What?!
Ozai was a jerk, sure. But to duel his own son? She couldn't imagine her own father, however obnoxious, ever doing such a thing.
A fire duel? She recalled the large burn she'd felt on Zuko's face. She hadn't met with Zuko for over two years before his exile, so she wasn't sure when he'd gotten it. It can't be... right?
"When Prince Zuko saw that it was his father who had come to duel him, he begged for mercy," Uncle continued the tale. "He got down on his hands and knees and apologized, but the Fire Lord told him he must fight for his honor. Zuko refused."
No...
"I looked away." The former general didn't need to say what had happened next.
"I always thought that Prince Zuko was in a training accident," Jee, the idiot, said. A training accident? Even Toph knew that firebenders didn't burn that easily. A burn as large and clearly defined as Zuko's? Obviously someone had done it on purpose.
The nightmares. Oma and Shu, the nightmares. Zuko's whispered pleas for mercy, his desperate apologies... those were for his father. The man who had burnt off half his face.
"It was no accident," Uncle was saying. "After the duel, the Fire Lord said that by refusing to fight, Zuko had shown shameful weakness. As punishment, he was banished and sent to capture the Avatar. Only then could he return with his honor."
Spirits, it got worse. After publicly humiliating his only son, the man had banished him and denied him his honor. His honor. Toph may not understand why, but she knew how important honor was in the Fire Nation. To do that to a thirteen year old...
It would've been kinder to just put him out of his misery.
No, it was worse than that. The Avatar had been gone for nearly a hundred years- the Fire Lord never expected him to fulfil his quest.
Shameful weakness? No, Zuko had been strong. Strong enough to hold onto his ideals, strong enough to refuse to risk hurting someone he cared about, strong enough to apologize.
You're the weak one, Ozai.
"So that's why he's so obsessed," the stupid lieutenant said. "Capturing the Avatar is the only chance he has of things returning to normal." Normal? What was wrong with the man? What kind of person could listen to a story like that and only think oh, but here's how to get this back to the way it used to be? Was corporal punishment for children normal in the Fire Nation?
"Things will never return to normal." You tell him, Uncle. "But the important thing is, the Avatar gives Zuko hope." Hope? What good is that?
Right then and there, Toph made her decision. She'd mostly been traveling with Zuko because she liked the idea of traveling, and because Uncle was one of the few humans she actually got along with. She'd never paid much attention to, or cared much about, his whole hunting down the Avatar quest.
That changed now.
I swear, Zuko, I will do everything in my power to help you capture the Avatar. And then you're going back to that palace and taking back your title, because spirits know you'll be a better Fire Lord than that man ever could be.
Luckily, the bolt of lightning that struck the ship a few minutes later distracted anyone running by from the strange dents in the wall (and floor) that almost looked as though someone had punched (and stomped) into it.
After that, Toph had gone to the storage room, hoping to pound some coal into rubble. Then she heard another, closer rumble, followed by people yelling.
What's going on?
She stepped onto the deck just in time to hear Zuko ask the captain where they were hit.
There! She could feel the warped metal, sense the helmsman clinging to the rail by the tips of his fingers. She grounded her feet and moved her arms, about to bend the helm in a way that would get him to safety, when Uncle put a hand on her shoulder.
"Wait," he whispered. Toph blinked in surprise. He knows?
Zuko and Jee were climbing the ladder, trying to reach the man.
For a split second, she could feel a buzz along her skin, as some kind intense source of heat came towards her and then moved away. Uncle? Had he just... redirected lightning? She'd heard him mention the concept in passing, when they'd been having a conversation about different bending styles over a game of pai sho, but she hadn't really understood.
Another wave struck the ship, and the dangling man fell. Before she could do anything, the weight on the ladder suddenly got heavier, and she realized Zuko had caught the man and handed him off to the lieutenant.
A minute or two later, when Zuko, Jee, and the helmsman were back on deck, she heard Zuko yell "the Avatar!"
What? Is he seriously flying in the middle of a thunderstorm? She figured they didn't have a leg to stand on, considering that they were on a metal ship.
"What do you want to do, sir?"
What do you think? Follow him!
"Let him go," Zuko said instead. "We need to get this ship to safety."
And that, Ozai, is what makes Zuko a million times better of a leader than you ever will be. Because, much as he tries not to, he cares.
A few minutes after that, when they'd safely reached the eye of the storm, she heard Zuko apologize. She was about to crack a joke ("Sparky, did you just apologize? Never thought I'd see the day") before she heard something splashing in the water, and felt something large, warm, and alive fly past them. Zuko froze.
Shu below, did the Avatar just fly right past us out of the ocean? That was weird, right?
It wasn't until she lay in bed hours later, eyes closed, when she realized something.
Zuko's scar... was given to him by his parent.
Toph knew parents. Parents were warm, and irritating, and above all, they were protective. (She'd understood Ursa's decision, at least. Zuko's mom had left him behind because it was the best way to protect them both. Her parents had done the same thing.)
Parents were not ever supposed to hurt their children. They were meant to keep them safe, keep them home, not injure them and send them out into the world on dangerous, hopeless missions.
Oma's rage and Kyoshi's feet. Parents. Home.
("Lady Toph, why don't you go home?"
"You know, your parents? Don't you want to go back to them?")
All those arguments with Zuko... all those times he'd tried to get her to leave... he wasn't talking about her, he was talking about himself.
She was going to be sick.
You'll pay for this, Ozai.
"There's so much more, you can reclaim your crown."
- Lauren Aquilina, "King"