we all want love/we all want honor
Part 6: I'm worse at what I do best
"She's over-bored and self-assured."
- Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Well, today has been a bust.
She'd been so close to finally beating Uncle, until he'd used a White Lotus to ruin one of her red harmonies and claimed the pot. She'd never figure out all the ways he managed to use the stupid thing.
And then they'd found out about Zhao's promotion and Sparky had gotten all mopey.
She'd followed him into town, where they'd heard a rumor about the Avatar's capture (that was fast), then back to the ship, where he pretended like he was going in for an early night.
Yeah, right.
She thought for a moment, then ran to her room.
Hey, anything to get out of music night.
"What are you doing here?" Zuko had just set off on his little boat when he noticed her, arms crossed, leaning against the outer wall of the bridge. She was wearing a loose-fitting black (Who helped her pick that out?) outfit not unlike the one he planned on changing into once he reached port. Her feet, as usual, were bare. (What does she have against shoes?)
"What does it look like, Masky?" She laughed. "I'm coming with you."
"You know?" Even Uncle didn't know about his little hobby.
"Of course I do," she said, smirking. "Kind of hard to miss someone sneaking in and out at all hours of the night."
"Oh." He'd forgotten that Lady Toph might be awake at the same times as he did his sneaking.
"Yeah, oh." She held out a hand. "Now, do I get a matching mask?"
"What are you- No, you are not coming." This was his crazy plan, he wasn't dragging her into it again.
"Yeah, because that's worked out so great for you the last couple times," Lady Toph said, doing something with her eyes that he realized was supposed to be rolling. "Either you take me along, or you leave me behind and I find a way to get there myself- or I tell Uncle."
He shuddered.
"Fine," Zuko said, sighing. "And no, I just have the one mask."
She shrugged.
"It's alright, I'll make my own once we reach the shore. Do you at least have something I can tie it with?"
He dug around into the bag where he kept all of his Blue Spirit equipment and pulled out some loose ropes and fabric strips.
"Perfect," she said, grabbing them.
This is going to end badly, Zuko thought. Still, he couldn't help the slight upwards tug he felt at the edge of his lips.
Once they reached the bay, Zuko changed while Toph formed a mask from dirt. She carefully smoothed the sides to make sure no dust would flake off, created tiny holes to make sure she could still breathe, and, as a finishing touch, used one of the bolts of fabric Sparky had given her to tie a blindfold around the eyes.
"Seriously?" Zuko said when he saw her.
"You telling me your mask is any less ridiculous, Spirit-face?" Toph shrugged.
"This mask is a proud and noble part of our culture, and-"
"Call it what it is, Masky," Toph said. "It's a theater mask. You wanna be a spirit, go ahead. You said I should make my own mask, so I did. Deal with it."
"Before we do this, we need to set a few rules," Zuko said, ignoring her interruption. "First off, try to avoid speaking, we don't want anyone to recognize our voices..."
Getting into the stronghold was the easy part. No one had warned her they were going to have to walk around in sewer water, though.
"This is cold," she whispered.
"This is why you should have worn shoes," was his retort.
She didn't bother to dignify that with a response.
Sparky had insisted on no obvious bending unless absolutely necessary. He didn't want to risk anyone finding out their identities.
(Nevermind that finding an earthbender who'd try to break the Avatar out of prison, would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.)
That was fine, she had plenty of knives. Nobody except Zuko (and possibly Uncle) knew about her little talent with metal, and, as long as she was careful, she could make it look like she was just aiming and throwing them.
She was not prepared for what was inside that room. Sure, she'd known that the Avatar was short, but she hadn't realized until quite that moment just how young he was.
He was just a kid, even younger than her.
And he was absolutely petrified.
The door opened, and two scary-looking guys in masks came barreling in. The taller one, who was wearing a blue mask, pulled out a pair of gigantic swords and started waving them around. Aang screamed.
The guy got closer, and Aang closed his eyes.
Clink! All at once, the chains binding him were snapped. He opened his eyes in shock. The blue-masked guy swung the swords around a couple more times, and his cuffs snapped and fell to the ground.
Aang tilted his head in confusion. Those swords-swings had been fast, but he didn't think the blades had actually touched the cuffs. Still, he wouldn't question his savior's (or saviors') strange skills now. There were more important questions.
"Who are you two? What's going on?" Neither of the figures spoke, and the blindfolded one gestured at him, telling him to come on, let's go.
The three of them crept through the stronghold (that blindfolded guy had, like, a sixth sense for where the guards all were and what direction they would be watching), and had almost made it, when a bell rang and everyone seemed to spot them all at once.
Blue-mask was, like, scary-good with those swords, and Blindfold stayed behind him, throwing what appeared to be an infinite supply of sharp little knives to pin the guards out of the way.
Aang catapulted the three of them up onto the wall, and they kept fighting.
Spinning through the air while carrying the weight of three people was really hard. Luckily, all of the spears the guards threw at them seemed to just barely miss them. (Which was weird. At least one of them should have connected, right?) They crash-landed on the next wall, and Aang and his two rescuers managed to fend off their attackers long enough to grab those weird ladder-things.
If he'd thought flying with the weight of three people was hard, it was nothing compared to leaping around on those things with both of his new friends balanced on his back.
And then someone set their last ladder on fire.
They landed on the ground right in front of the final gate when a bunch of firebenders started shooting flames at them. Without thinking, Aang jumped in front of Blue-mask and Blindfold, airbending the flames away.
He heard Zhao say something about capturing him alive.
Instantly, the blue-masked figure came up behind him, swords at Aang's throat. Meanwhile, his friend with the blindfold jumped in front of them, the knives he (Aang was pretty sure it was he) held aimed in Zhao's direction.
Somehow, (spirits above) this display convinced the Admiral (Aang was pretty sure he'd heard someone call Zhao "Admiral") to let them go.
Toph heard Zhao's muttering about precision and stayed in the front, closest to the wall, as they all backed away. She heard the man's orders to the archer, and felt the stringing of the bow. It was no big deal- whether the arrowhead was made of stone or metal, she'd be able to move it away from them.
She could sense the archer's fingers as they let the arrow go and-
Something was wrong. Despite her focus, the stupid thing's course didn't move, and there was no time, and it was getting closer, and she couldn't stop it and-
"Spirit-face, move!"
And Zuko- stupid, self-sacrificing, honorable Zuko- instantly dropped his swords and jumped in front of her.
"NO!"
Aang didn't totally understand what had just happened.
Blindfold (who was actually probably a she) had yelled at Blue-mask (Spirit-Face?), and the taller figure had let him go- and then he'd collapsed, and the shriek the girl released was earsplitting.
Aang stared at the fallen figure in front of him. The mask had slipped and he could see hints of a large burn beneath.
Is that... Zuko?
He leapt forward, raising a cloud of dust to block Zhao's view, then turned back to his mysterious rescuers. The blindfolded girl had picked up the arrow and stuck it wherever she was keeping her knives, and was now carefully lifting her companion's unconscious form. She put one arm under his knees, and the other under his neck, carrying him like he was a child who weighed no more than a few stone.
His mask fell, removing all doubt. It was the prince.
"Twinkletoes, you can gape later, when our lives aren't in danger," the girl said. "For now, could you grab Sparky's mask and swords? My hands are kind of full."
Aang nodded, picking up the requested items. Not that he had the swords in his hands, he noticed that the handles were embedded with some kind of reddish stone. He'd never seen anything like it. He wondered if-
"Twinkletoes!"
He ran after her.
Aang sat next to the girl, Zuko lying unconscious in front of them.
"Alright, you can go," she told him. "He won't be too happy if you're still here when he wakes up."
"You... you're that girl I've seen a couple times on his ship, right?" She still had her mask on, so he couldn't see her face, but he thought he recognized that voice.
"Yeah, why?"
"What's your name?" He knew Zuko's name, and he was pretty sure the old man with Zuko was his Uncle... something, but he didn't have a clue who the strange girl was, or why she traveled with them. She was too young to be a regular soldier, right?
"You can call me the Blind Bandit, kid," she said. He felt mildly annoyed; she couldn't be that much older than him. Then he realized what else she'd said.
"You mean you're really..." Aang trailed off, actually looking at her blindfold.
"Yup," she said bluntly. "But seriously, you need to get out of here, now."
He stood up, about to jump in the nearest tree and head off.
Then he looked back at the absolutely tiny (he hadn't noticed how small she was while running from the firebenders, but she might even be shorter than he was) girl standing guard over the teenager he'd never thought of as much more than yet another person trying to capture him, and he couldn't help but open his mouth.
"Hey," Avatar Aang, last of the Air Nomads, said. "Can I ask you something?"
"He wanted to know what?!" Zuko stared at the blind girl in shock, unable to believe what she had just told him.
"I told you, he started talking about how he was born a hundred years ago and he misses all his friends- including some from the Fire Nation. Then he asked if I thought that, if you had been born back then, before the war, the two of you could have been friends?" Lady Toph seemed annoyed that she had to repeat herself, but not especially concerned about what she was saying.
"And," Zuko gulped. "What did you tell him?"
Why do I care? The Avatar is just a means to an end, what he thinks of me shouldn't matter.
"I said, 'he's friends with me, isn't he?'" She smiled.
He gaped at her.
"We are not friends," he said, when he finally mustered up the ability to speak clearly.
She punched his arm.
"Keep on telling yourself that, Sparky."
"With the lights out, it's less dangerous."
- Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"