Bonjour! Je m'appelle rojo... attendez


They'd made it back just in time, lounging on a large patio just as the rain began to stream down. Protected securely beneath the protruding roof, Zuko distributed from a platter of unspilled tea. He smiled inwardly as he set down the extravagant set. Knowing the siblings would be especially fond of it, he served them first - not wanting to delay the way he knew their eyes would light up.

Katara simply grabbed absentmindedly, too enamored with the rhythmic drumming of her element. Sokka, on the other hand, gasped and pointed an accusatory finger at Zuko.

"Is this… made with bone ash?"

Zuko nodded.

"And its design is all blue and flowy… kinda like a waterfall or a stream! Did you pull this out because of the rain?"

"I also pulled it out because your father gifted it to me."

"Dad did?" Katara inspected it with a wistful smile. "Did he get this up North?"

"The set was made in the Southern Water Tribe. He gave it to me during his most recent trip to the palace. It's been awhile since I've seen Uncle's eyes twinkle like that in plain view of the court. Your father is quite the formidable ambassador..." He cleared his throat amidst his rambling and, suddenly a little embarrassed, averted his gaze. "Anyway, I wanted to surprise you."

"You really are turning into your uncle, Zuko." Katara teased. "We've been taking bets on when you'll start keeping the hair that grows on your face."

Zuko felt the upturned corners of his lips flicker. His time wandering the palace halls had recited more than just the stories of his own reign. He had all portraits of Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai removed, and he was hard at work adjusting the curriculum to no longer be one of nationalist propaganda. He'd extensively loosened their hawkish foreign policy to foster global exchange, and, for all the good it had done, much of his country had fought him every step of the way.

He'd done his best to only take positive steps, but everywhere he went he contended with the desires that burned in the palace walls for over a century - desires spawned from his blood. That particular bonus qualification was one of the quieter reasons behind the removal of the portraits - Ozai's in particular. Iroh had been clear that the reflective time Zuko spent with depictions of his father was patently unhealthy.

He shook his head - all this over a mustache and beard - and fortified his wan smile.

"At least you're not taking bets about my waist size."

Suki's hand raised from her spot lounging against a pillar. "They know I work you too hard for that."

Sokka pinned him for a moment with a critical eye, silently conveying he had noticed his turmoil, but also acknowledged the effort Zuko made to let it pass. Once he was sure he had Zuko's attention, he rolled his eyes - a sure sign that meant he'd filed it away to be unpacked another time. Zuko was grateful.

A single claw of lightning filled the lull in conversation, flashing stark against the deep gray sky. Its accompanying clap followed a few beats later. Quietly, Zuko was pleased they still had most of the storm ahead of them, as sitting under this awning and watching the storm came with bittersweet memories. He found himself thinking about a cup of rice wine rather than the tea in his hands. He disagreed with Ozai on a great many things, but rice wine during a storm was not one of them.

He stood to indulge himself. The Fire Lord was on his first vacation in ages, after all. Are you going to tell him no?

Before he could leave, he noticed Katara's stare - blank before the sky. Lightning blazed again, and her teeth began to worry her lip. Clearly, she was looking at something beyond just the storm. Perhaps it was her own death - Azula had aimed to kill her with lightning - or maybe it was Zuko's brush with it. Neither were comforting thoughts. Zuko's hand drifted to his abdomen, quickly realizing he could no longer stomach rice wine.

Despite the teak deck, Toph seemed to sense the mood teetering closer to something unpalatable. Almost irreverent of the transformative time that had passed since the war, her approach to problem solving had remained steadfast. She gave the mood a big shove.

"We don't get storms like this in the Earth Kingdom - guess the Fire Nation gets to have a monopoly on lightning. Lucky you."

Zuko simply sighed.

"Lightning is revered in the Fire Nation. Only specialized benders can generate it." Zuko glanced at Aang. "They call it the cold fire. The power shown to us by the masters lives within us and alongside us - a beating heart. Lightning is the opposite. It requires the complete separation of Qi that can only be accomplished through detachment. There is no life in lightning… I doubt I'll ever be able to generate it."

This seemed to drag Katara from her daze for all the wrong reasons.

Aang picked up where Zuko left off. "Part of mastering the Avatar State, according to Guru Pathik, is material detachment. As the spirit bridge, the Avatar must simply be an arbiter of balance - the arm of the very world. Supposedly, I can't allow my connections to impact my duties as Avatar. But I don't think it's as simple as closing yourself off. I believe those connections, to the Air Nomads and my friends, don't just cloud my judgment. I believe they give me a stronger sense of right and wrong, and the drive to fight harder than if I had nothing but duty. If total detachment is what it takes to bend lightning, maybe it's for the best that you don't."

"Like the Avatar state, lightning isn't inherently evil. Ozai can bend it, yes, but so can my Uncle." Zuko sighed. "There are plenty of times I wish I could detach like that. I don't care much for actually bending lightning, but there have been countless moments where an objective perspective may have led me to an easier path."

He looked at Aang. "Uncle believes as you do. He says my passion can be a source of great strength, but only if I acknowledge where it may lead me astray. I don't believe passion or detachment is wrong, but only one is who I am; giving up on becoming someone I'm not meant to be is a big part of what led me to helping end the war…"

Aang looked back out into the rain. All decisions weigh on a scale.

"It's a big part of the Air Nomad belief to do everything possible to avoid fighting. 'Seek solutions where you think there are none'. No matter what, it is always wrong to kill someone even if you believe it to be just… Those teachings have conflicted with my duty as the Avatar in the past, but if I - the last airbender - don't adhere to them, then what happens to the Air Nomads?" He looked at Zuko. "If I had killed Ozai during the war or you at Yu Dao, what would have happened to the balance of the world without Air Nomads?"

Zuko eyed Aang back, recalling the Yu Dao incident where Aang almost killed his friend and forsook his culture because of a forced promise. He found himself unsure of what to say. Lightning flashed again - a spindly network of silver spiraling through the towering thunderheads.

Aang spoke again. "I've been able to manage this far by adhering to who I am. But, with each new issue to navigate, I wonder more and more if it's sustainable."

The rain pounded defiantly against the settling silence.

Sokka spoke up, voice cracking alongside his elbows as he stretched his arms above his head. "Listen up. Your uncle volunteered for daily headaches so we don't have to suffer any out here. It's all fun and games to weigh our upbringings against this new world, but Yu Dao exclusively gives me headaches."

"I sincerely doubt Lord Delegation is suffering from anything at all at the moment." Suki replied airily.

Zuko looked at her in mild alarm. "Lord Delegation?"

Suki nodded. "Last of his name, apparently."

Zuko tilted his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if pleading to the heavens for guidance. Unfortunately, only the dark underside of the wooden canopy cared to lend an ear to his suffering. "Whyyy…"

"Iroh figured telling you that he would take care of everything was the only way you'd actually leave. Appears he figured correctly, and now you're stuck here. Sometimes white lies are the kindest."

Toph nodded sagely and pinned Zuko with a knowing look. Zuko simply rolled his eyes. "Especially when someone makes a really passionate decision. Just like when Sparky here…"

Sometimes White Lies are the Kindest

"You've got to be kidding me."

"You're a thousand years too young to pull something like that on me, Sparky. I saw that ploy coming a mile away."

The hexagonal board was littered with myriad opposing formations, yet only one side was beset by a fuming general. A mountain tile had just been successfully forked amidst the opening skirmish. The game had only just begun, but Zuko was becoming used to identifying his dwindling chances of victory.

Iroh simply shook his head in what could only be exasperation. "Once again, Nephew, you are far too aggressive in your early game. Your Chen-Liu opening is certainly a tried and true strategy, but only if you afford the Sage the opportunity to defend the Mountain. Allow its diagonal utility to compensate for the Mountain's linear movement, then develop your other pieces."

"I was trying! I was one turn away from a valuable trade… it would have been worth it."

"And yet your eagerness broke your formation, and you have partaken in no such trade…"

Iroh's tired guidance did not belie the strung out story leading up to yet another iteration of Zuko's failed early game strategy. The young man had been trying ever since Iroh coerced him into christening Toph's new Pai Sho set. The set itself had been gifted to the young lady in response to her impressive work with imperial law enforcement officers. Its flourishing swirls etched into hand-carved stone only served as the barest hint to its true worth.

The Fire Nation royal family had acknowledged the value her unique approach to earthbending provided the palace police force. The final straw had been almost single handedly halting a large-scale prison break staged by the remnants of a radical cell. Bending the plethora of metal in the prison, she manhandled the offenders into captive scarecrows for the authorities to collect. It was considered a service that all but demanded exquisite compensation.

Zuko did not consider the Pai Sho set a gift. He had also come to despise Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This Thursday evening marked six consecutive weeks of their biweekly Pai Sho practice. What had started out as a block in his schedule designed for relaxation had transformed into a space for his consistent humiliation.

Iroh would brew a pot of tea. Zuko would attempt variations of opening strategies at Iroh's behest. Toph, amidst her ongoing conversations with Iroh, would laugh at him when he inevitably bumbled his opening strategy.

Quickly, he'd realized the time block was less for his own enjoyment and more for Toph to socialize her problems with the two of them. Knowing she was too proud to bare her own vulnerabilities in a vacuum, Iroh engineered an environment in which Zuko, bearing the brunt of the humiliation instead, served as a catalyst for Toph to feel more comfortable. As an individual with a plethora of experience in this category, Zuko could proudly say it was among his most honorable acts of martyrdom to date.

He still didn't enjoy losing at Pai Sho.

Tuesdays served the three of them as a sort of 'conceptualization' day. Zuko would debut a new strategy, and, while his own plans flummoxed him well into the evening, Toph would treat Iroh to a stream of consciousness. The topics ranged anywhere from the pounding afternoon rain that fuzzied her seismic senses to her family's inability to understand her decision to remain in the Fire Nation.

Zuko had called it venting. Toph had replied that was dumb jerkbender slang. Iroh had given his nephew a reprimanding eyebrow and called it brainstorming.

As is natural in the life cycle of brainstorming, it serves as the predecessor to a more refined product. In this case, it led to the birth of Toph's journaling habit. With Toph never having journaled before, Iroh suggested it would be evocative for her to imagine a party she could speak to. Rather than the aether presented by the void space of the page, picturing someone to talk to may help summon the words from within her.

She'd conjured her parents to fill such a role, and her sentiments quickly breathed crass life into binders of parchment. Iroh penned impeccable characters so stark in their contrast to the content that Zuko had likened it to the white jade bush.

It had taken two weeks for journaling to evolve into actual letters.

In summary, the cadence is as follows: Tuesdays for brainstorming and Thursdays for composing.

In depth, the logic is as follows: Since they share the same first letter as her name, Tuesdays and Thursdays are Toph's favorite days of the week. However, her opinion of consonant digraphs is slightly less favorable because they are ordered second in her name. Tuesdays then, as the more favorable day, deserved the less stressful act of free-form brainstorming. As a result, Thursdays became the de facto day for formalizing her thoughts into letters. Additionally, since the digraph is second in her name, it only makes sense that Thursdays would come second in the letter birthing process.

Staring at the Pai Sho board on this sixth Thursday, Zuko reminded himself not to argue with her.

Airy horns drifted into the room through the open window - evidence that Zuko and Iroh had staged a party for the night. It was a formal affair at which Zuko and Iroh had made brief public appearances (optics) before absconding to strategize with their advisors and diplomats about the ever ballooning colonial issues.

It was a lie, of course. Currently, their chief "advisor" was toe tapping the beat to the 'Zuko's a loser' song.

In their absence, Iroh had delegated the task of court entertainment to the highest ranking members of Zuko's cabinet. Some of whom found far too much enjoyment in such a thing, and one troublemaker who had fudged a report to travel and see family for his niece's birthday. He's a relatively pleasant individual, but justice had to be meted.

Zuko had taken it personally that he felt the need to pull such a stunt rather than simply ask permission, which would have been granted. Iroh had talked Zuko down from the ledge of misery, reminding him that this individual was an incumbent and used to dealing with Ozai and his… Ozainess. Given time, he would adjust to Zuko's notably milder temperament. Iroh had been confident in his speech's success until he found Zuko portrait-brooding.

The cessation of the 'Zuko's a loser' song pulled Zuko from his thoughts. He looked up to find Toph boring her attention through him.

"Yes?"

"How does Gloomy handle court formalities?"

"Mai? What brought this on?"

"I was thinking about the boring party you two are hiding from. It seems like something she would avoid like the plague, but she's knee deep whenever she's here! Considering her reaction to the fountain I made for her garden, you'd think nothing excites her. She was bred exclusively for expensive boredom."

"Toph, that fountain was a giant nude-ish likeness… in Mai's front yard. Local hooligans decided to further preserve her modesty with toilet paper. I'm not sure even the Boulder would enjoy that gift."

"Hooligans, Nephew?"

"But I gave her a six pack."

"Can you imagine returning from your international relations co-op in the Earth Kingdom to find a 15 foot tall statue of yourself in your front yard that didn't used to be there?"

"Hell yeah I can. That'd be awesome!"

Iroh began stroking his beard, igniting Zuko's life advice senses. "Straightforward and stalwart are two 's' words that can be applied to Earth Kingdom high society and society in general. If I had to assign the Fire Nation court an 's' word, it would be subtle. Even fledgling foreign nationals are tactful of the undertones spoken fluently among the Fire Nation aristocracy. Perhaps, if you wish to pursue a friendship with the young lady Mai, you should consider a slightly more Fire Nation approach?"

"The last thing I heard from my parents was a lecture about how they doubted my intentions in the Fire Nation - that I was heading down the wrong path. It's why I've tried explaining to them how much bending means to me. Staying here in the Fire Nation gives me so many more opportunities for my bending. As I use those to explore my bending further, I feel like I learn more and more about myself and the kind of person I want to be. If I go back to Gaoling, I'm afraid I'd lose that."

Zuko and Iroh shared a somber glance.

"I thought if I could prove I was making friends in the Fire Nation court, I could… I don't know… meet them halfway? At least show them I'm fitting in and not just knocking heads 24/7."

"So that's why you're always chasing Mai around." Zuko mused aloud. He was honestly surprised he hadn't figured that out sooner. "I didn't know 'halfway' was in Toph Beifong's vocabulary."

"Maybe I'm growing as a person. I'm trying! But now Mai's gone off to the Earth Kingdom again and my parents aren't responding to our correspondence."

"For the record, Toph, I think that's a very mature approach. I'm proud of you for trying with Mai and your parents, but being the literal Fire Lord's friend isn't good enough?"

"Well, apparently not… dropping your names hasn't got us a response yet. Maybe they think I'm lying?"

Iroh stared at Zuko in silence, and Zuko picked up the underpinnings of a message. He really thought he got the point this time. As of this Thursday, two letters had been sent to Toph's parents over the last few weeks and neither yielded a response. This lack of reaction was clearly weighing on Toph, as evidenced by Iroh's still-corked ink bottle. He pondered Mai's situation and Iroh's advice about her, considered their fibb to abandon the party, recalled the Chen-Liu opening, and allowed the seed of an idea to begin germinating.

Alone in his chambers later that night, Zuko let ink stain his stationary.

Lord and Lady Beifong,


A/N:

Won't always be Toph & Zuko... it's just workin out that way rn.