Chapter 25- Confess
confess (intransitive verb): to disclose something damaging or inconvenient to oneself; admit; acknowledge.
When Tao woke the following morning, the inside of the stone tent was rather hot. He had slept in fits, tossing and turning, waking frequently, his dreams filled with fire, lightning, and the glowing eyes of a koi fish. The sky was gray at the horizon as the sun slowly rose, Agni's influence stoking his chi as he sat up, rubbing at his forehead, which was damp with sweat. Glancing over, he sees that Toph was still asleep, and winces guiltily when he sees that she was also sweating. Breathing in and out deeply a few times, he settles himself down and then crawls out of the tent, standing up straight and stretching. When he extends his left arm fully, he grimaces as a sharp pang of pain shoots from his wrist up to his shoulder, curling it to his chest and gripping at it. Massaging it, he looks down at the scarred appendage with a frown, flexing his fingers, which tingled and ached.
Pressing his lips together, feeling bitter and frustrated, for so many reasons, he makes his way over to the burned out campfire, piling some of the gathered driftwood and lighting it with a flick of his fingers, going and grabbing his bag from the earth tent while the embers took and the fire really started flickering, pulling out a small sachet of tea leaves and a single cup, both given to him by Iroh during on of his many visits to the apartment in the lower ring. He takes some of the purified water from a large stone vase nearby, filling a small pot with it and sets it over the fire, waiting for it to boil and turning the cup over in his hands, feeling bittersweet about looking at it. He wished he could have some of Iroh's advice right now, about how to confess everything to Katara and eventually Aang, how to explain himself to Sokka. How to do it coherently without getting into another brawl. He already missed the man's sage wisdom and warm smile, and wondered what had happened to him. Had Azula killed him? Surely Zuko wouldn't allow that.
Then again... he also hadn't thought Zuko would ever betray Iroh. His beloved uncle. Sure they clashed and disagreed, but he had never once doubted that Zuko loved and respected the man, and though he knew Zuko would be hard pressed to admit it, he looked to Iroh like he would a father. It was a hard thing to quantify, this betrayal. On many levels. There was the personal betrayal that Tao felt, the ache, the pain in his chest. He starkly remembered the glimmer of regret in Zuko's eyes, the half a second of hesitation before he made his final choice. He could only guess that Azula had promised him glory and a way to return home if he helped her kill or capture the Avatar. He hoped it hadn't been an easy choice. He prayed it hadn't been.
There was Aang's death, and the miracle of the Spirit Oasis water. Without that, his best friend and little brother would be gone, forever. The world's last best hope for peace and harmony, snuffed out in a single flash of light. That pain lingered like the taste of bile in the back of his throat, festering and burning, bitter and sickening. They had been so close to losing everything in an instant.
And then there was betraying Iroh, and his uncertain fate. Tao wished the old man had fled with them, he would have been an incredible asset to them. Both as a teacher for Aang and as a strategist for getting safely into the Fire Nation and into the palace to deal with the Fire Lord, one way or another. Tao personally wouldn't blink if he had to be killed. What was one life weighed against uncountable multitudes over a century? On both sides. So many lives so senselessly lost forever. All for power. Control.
Tao was so caught up in his thoughts and emotions he doesn't hear the soft crunch of feet on the sand moving towards him until he's nearly startled out of his skin when Sokka clears his throat mere feet from him, dropping his tea cup in the sand. Whipping his head up, he feels the muscles in his back tense as he looks at the other teen, who's expression was hard to read. His voice was as well when he speaks. "Your water is boiling." he states, looking at the pot of water. Blinking a couple times, Tao takes the pot off the fire carefully, letting it settle in the cool sand to cool before adding the tea leaves to let it steep. "Where'd you get the cup and tea? I don't remember you having that before." Sokka asks, a bit of an edge creeping into his voice.
Tao hesitates, picking the cup up and knocking the sand off of it, lightly rubbing his thumb along the simple green wave that circled it. "Iroh gave it to me." he eventually murmurs.
"So you really were sneaking out to go see them." Sokka states more than asks, to which Tao simply nods, not able to put a voice to the answer. "Why? Why meet with our enemy?"
"Its complicated, Sokka..." Tao says, keeping his voice subdued, trying not to get defensive. But he still felt raw, so it was hard.
"So explain it to me. Help me understand why you would do something like this. If you can't explain it to me, then you'll never be able to make Katara understand."
Silence and the sound of ocean waves stretches between them as Tao gathers his thoughts, watching the water in the pot slowly take on a green tint as the leaves steep, one thumb anxiously tapping against the cup. "You never got to know them like I did... you never got to see who they really are..." he starts, speaking slowly to make sure he made sense to both himself and Sokka. "Iroh is kind and gentle, and only wants the best for those around him. And Zuko..." trailing off in a sigh, he grips his left wrist as it aches, trying to massage the deep needles of pain away. "You can believe me or not, you only ever saw his ugly side. But... as a person he's... beautiful. He has compassion for others, he cares and loves deeply, probably too deeply." Sokka lets out a skeptical scoff at this, and Tao gives him a sour look. "Like I said, believe me or don't. I know what I experienced with him, and that it was real. But... I also see a lot of myself in him. He's a lost, broken person, put into an unfair situation, striving for something he'll probably never get, forced to make bad decisions that feel good and right in the moment."
"What, are you defending what he did in the catacombs?" Sokka asks, more confused sounding than accusatory.
"Not at all. What he did, the choice he made, nearly cost us everything. And... it hurts. It hurts me deeply. I gave... so much to him. I was so vulnerable with him. Told him things that even Aang doesn't know. I never would have dreamed he would do something like... this. Not against me, not against my friends. Not knowing how much I care about all of you, and how much I also care about him, even now." sighing heavily, surprised at his own calm and blaming emotional exhaustion, Tao dips his cup into the pot, scooping out some tea and lightly blowing on it as it warmed his palm, holding it against his inner left wrist to try and soothe his aches. "But I'm also furious with him... if I ever see him again, I can't promise I won't use the knife he stuck in my back to kill him."
Again, silence falls as Sokka digests all of this, still standing a few feet away. Eventually, he lets out a ragged sigh, plopping himself down on the driftwood log right next to him. "I'm sorry about what I said last night. I don't think you're an ashmaker and I never should have said that. It was wrong of me, and hurtful. I think though that I was so angry that I wanted to hurt you and... that's also wrong." he says, catching Tao by surprise, tea cup half way to his lips. He lowers it again, looking over at Sokka, who can't quite meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry for attacking you. Honestly I think I was more attacking Zuko and my own emotions than you. I had been stewing in anger for hours at that point and... that was the last straw. The last reason I needed to take my emotions out on... something." he murmurs, focused on the crackling fire rather than Sokka, feeling small in the moment. "You don't... hate me for this... do you?" he eventually whispers.
"What?" Sokka barks, audibly shocked and whipping himself around to fully face Tao, who winces and leans away. "Hate you? Of course not! I'm not going to lie and say I'm not hurt and upset that you kept such a huge secret from us but... I also get it. Toph told us that she knew, and that you were afraid of us hating you if we knew. But I don't, Dad doesn't, and Katara won't. She might freeze you in a block of ice for a couple days but.. she won't hate you."
Tao just nods, not fully believing him as he sips on his tea, feeling the warmth spread through him, relaxing his churning insides a little. Glancing off towards the tent that she and Aang were in across the camp, he sighs. "I need to tell her. Today. I can't put it off forever but... I don't want her distracted from Aang either."
"You need to have her look at your arm too. It keeps twitching."
"Yeah... I can't bend anymore with it. Good thing Hakoda gave me that sword when he did." sighing heavily, feeling deflated and wanting to go back to bed and pretend this was all just a nightmare, Tao glances down at his tea cup. "Do you think tea would be a good peace offering?"
"You really were spending a lot of time around Iroh weren't you?" Sokka drawls, an edge of sarcasm coming back into his voice that was oddly relaxing to Tao, feeling some of the tension between them lift. "I'm sure right now she'll be grateful for anything to eat or drink. I'll catch and cook a fish and you can take it to her. It might help if she's told all of this on a full stomach."
"I appreciate that..." Tao says flatly, not sure if that logic would work as well with Katara as it would with Sokka. He was the food guy, not his sister. But at this point, he would take what he could get.
oOo
About half an hour later, Tao was standing outside the flaps of the tent with a steaming cup of tea in one hand, and a plate of lightly salted and seasoned fire roasted fish in the other, feeling like he was about to throw up. He had been forced into his confession the night before to Sokka, Jet, and Hakoda. Emotions had been high and everything had just happened so fast. But now, he had settled down significantly, and while he was still somewhat bubbling inside, it was more just residual anger and hurt rather than sharp and fresh. He was also afraid to see the state Aang was in.
But he couldn't stand there all day, and he was sure his shadow was visible from the inside. So, he pushes the flap aside and steps in. It was dim inside, lit by a single oil lamp hanging in the center of the tent, and along one side, on a hide and fur cot, looking tiny, was Aang's limp body. The boy was still unconscious, and Tao wasn't sure if he was breathing or if he was just hearing the waves in the distance. Beside the cot was Katara, kneeling with her head bowed, hands limp in her lap, asleep. Stepping over, Tao kneels beside her, setting the cup and plate down and gently resting a hand on her back, shushing her when she jolts awake, looking around in a half panic. "Its ok. You should eat, and I brought you tea." he says quietly, passing her the cup first. She takes it, looking exhausted and clearly stiff from being in one position, probably all night. Once she had eaten some of the fish, Tao dares a look at Aang again and winces some. "How... how is he doing?"
Katara lets out a breath, taking another sip of tea to wet her throat before answering. "More stable than yesterday but... its going to take a lot to get him truly stable." she murmurs, voice a little scratchy. Looking at her more closely, he could see her eyes were bloodshot. He imagined she had been doing a lot of crying in the last eighteen hours. He didn't blame her. He had wanted to do his fair share of crying, sobbing, screaming, but more than that he had just been letting anger take over him. A pang of pain and a following twitch in his left arm makes him hiss, gripping at it, which also draws Katara's attention. "Let me see your arm." she says, holding one hand out.
"No Katara, you need to save your strength for Aang. I can handle a little pain." he protests, shaking his head. When she just stares at him and makes a 'give me' motion with her fingers, he sighs heavily, deciding not to annoy her preemptively and just give her his arm. "There's nothing you can do without more Spirit Water. I can't bend with this arm anymore. Whatever I did to create that freak lightning completely shot my chi paths." he murmurs as her cool, soothing healing water envelops his skin, which always felt a little too hot right now. Like he had a persistent sunburn.
She examines him for a moment before her eyes widen and she exhales shakily. "You're right. I don't feel any chi flow below your elbow. There's also extensive muscle and nerve damage, which is why you're having pains and tremors. I don't know how much I can do about that right now." she says, sounding exhausted and apologetic.
"That's ok. It can wait until Aang is more stable and you've had time to rest." Tao sighs, taking his arm back as Katara withdraws her water back into its skin at her side. "You um... you should finish your fish and tea. There's something I need to tell you and... you won't like it. Sokka certainly didn't. He can throw a pretty mean punch." looking away, he rubs absently at the now healed spot that Sokka had slugged him on his jaw, feeling Katara's confused eyes on him.
Once she had finished her breakfast and tea, Tao fidgets a little, not sure if he should move away from her a little or not before deciding to just get it over with. He tells her everything he could with as much clarity as he could, never able to look up from his knees, feeling about two inches tall as her posture goes from confused, to disbelieving, to angry in his periphery the more he says. Once he's done spilling his guts to her about Zuko, his rescue from the desert, their meetings, knowing where Iroh and the prince were living within the lower ring, the inexplicable relationship that had formed between himself and Zuko over the month they had been in Ba Sing Se, the inside of the tent was ice cold. He fully expects the hard whip of water that she slams into his chest, taking it with little more than a grunt as he's sent sprawling onto his back. He doesn't fight it as she slams him with it again, and then jumps on top of him herself, tears in her eyes as she shakes his shirt, full of anger and hurt.
"How could you!" she snarls, accusing and furious, ice crystals forming on his skin as she weakly pounds at his chest, a sob escaping her, emotions overwhelming her. "How could you-" she repeats, sobbing again, curling over on herself, fist little more than tapping his chest again as her forehead lands on his shoulder.
Laying there for a moment, freezing cold and wet, Tao was as confused as he was guilty as Katara sobs, straddling him. But, after a moment, he reaches up and tentatively lays a hand on her shoulder, letting out a shaky breath. "I'm so sorry Katara... I never though... I never dreamed things would turn out like this..." he whispers, getting another ragged sob from the overwhelmed waterbender above him. Feeling emboldened that she hadn't fully frozen him, yet, he reaches up and fully wraps his arms around her, pulling her down against his chest and just letting her sob her heart out, letting out all of her feelings about Aang, the situation, and his confession into his shoulder. "I'm sorry..." he just whispers every so often, repeating himself over and over, trying to repent, wanting to repent, to take it all back. For none of this to have ever happened.
But it had, and there was no changing it.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he did know he was at least half dry when Katara finally sits up and slides ungracefully off of him and back onto the sand. After a moment of hesitation, Tao sits up as well, finding a cloth off to one side and offering it to her. She stares at him for a long moment before taking it, wiping her tear stained face in silence, not quite looking at him. "I..." she starts, faltering for a moment before soldiering on. "I almost used the Spirit Water on Zuko..." she confesses, blue eyes traveling to Aang, who through all of that, hadn't so much as twitched. "We were down there together for a while and... he told me some stuff about his mother and how she had been taken from him by the Fire Nation itself and... I said something about his face and how its what I see when I think of the enemy..." trailing off, she sniffles, wiping her nose with the cloth and fidgeting with her ragged clothes with her other hand. "It was probably all lies considering what he did... but... the things he said made me pity him enough to want to help him. How stupid of me. If I had used that water on him... Aang would be..." huffing, she shakes her head, voice bitter.
"It... wasn't lies." Tao murmurs, swallowing when sharp eyes cut back up to him. "A lot gets said in the dark and... much of it was about our childhoods. Honestly, he and I are similar in many ways, including our mothers just... vanishing one night. Though his circumstances are decidedly a lot more complicated than mine."
"And you believe him? After everything, he still betrayed you." Katara asks sharply, frowning at him hard.
"I do believe him. I still believe him. Zuko isn't the type to lie about something like that." he replies, sighing when she looked skeptical. "You can believe me or not... I don't blame you if you don't. Not one bit. But... I do know this... as angry and hurt as I am... I don't hate the guy. I know how he feels, on a lot of levels. Making the choice he did... must have been hard for him, and I hope one day he comes to regret it if he doesn't already. Not to say I won't try to fry him if I'm ever face to face with him again but..." trailing off, he looks back over at Aang, swallowing thickly. "Right now I just want to focus on Aang and doing everything I can to make up for my screw up. If I had been more vigilant, Azula would have never snuck up on him like that. But I was so focused on Zuko that him and doing everything I could to beat him, he was all I could see and think about until it was too late. I should have seen her, and used the training Iroh gave me to at least try to stop her lightning."
"That could have killed you. Especially with your arm in the state it was. At best, it could have blown your arm off trying to direct that much power through it." Katara replies, deep frown still in place, but it was a small comfort that she at least seemed concerned. A little. "Its a wonder you didn't with however you did that red lightning. You're lucky all that happened was destroying your chi paths below the elbow."
"I do tend to have dumb luck. At the cost of those I care about anyway." Tao snorts bitterly, shaking his head. "There's... something else. Something you really probably won't believe, and something I haven't told anyone else yet." he starts slowly, remembering gleaming koi eyes and the cool touch of a single whisker to his forehead. Swallowing hard, he shivers at the memory, looking over at Katara. "I had an encounter with La yesterday."
"What! What do you mean 'encounter?'"
"I mean I was trying to drown myself in the ocean and I got pulled under and had a conversation with a giant black koi fish. In my mind." Tao replies with an edge of sarcasm to his voice. Huffing, his brow furrows tightly, and he absently rubs at his arm as he continues. "I don't fully understand it... I don't know why he chose to appear to me of all people. I can think of at least a thousand people much more worthy than me. Like you, for instance. But... What he said comforted me a little about the future. About my purpose."
Katara stares at him hard, trying to figure out if he was going crazy or not most likely. "Go on..." she eventually says, and he was relieved she at least appeared interested.
"It wasn't a long conversation but... in short he told me that... my being here, in this time, with Aang isn't an accident. That my place isn't that of a leader or a spear in this fight, but as a shield instead. I've got the nature of a waterbender and a firebender inside me, but I've always favored waterbending forms and always fought defensively. When I try to fight offensively is when bad things happen and I either get hurt or something terrible happens." he says, rubbing at his arm absently, wincing at the phantom pain of molten glass pressing into his skin. "He... he said that the Avatar... and the Fire Prince need me still. So... I don't think Zuko's part in this story is over quiet yet either."
"That doesn't give me comfort." Katara huffs. Then she goes quiet, looking pensive for a moment and then fixing him with hard blue eyes. "You were trying to drown yourself?" she says sharply, as worried as she was angry now and Tao winces, averting his eyes.
"I wasn't thinking clearly... My dirty little secret had just been spilled in front of Hakoda, Bato, Sokka and Jet and Sokka and I got into a bit of a... fist fight. Everything inside me was just... overwhelmed and I wanted it to stop. I was convincing myself that you all would be better off with me out of the way..." he says, feeling selfish now that he was thinking back over it. His friends, his family, cared about him. If La hadn't decided to manifest to him in that moment, and he really had managed to kill himself in that moment of despair, it would have only caused them all more pain. "I'm sorry... I promise, I don't still want to do anything like that to myself."
"Good. Because I'd have to find a way to preserve your body long enough to get you to the North Pole to bring you back just to kill you again myself for doing that to us." Katara huffs, reaching over and swatting the top of his head, but there was very little force to it. What would have sent him into a blind panic a few months ago, Tao just takes now with little more than a grunt, bowing his head.
"I don't doubt you'd be capable of doing that. You were able to bring the Avatar back to life after all. That's pretty amazing." he says, hoping that complimenting her would take some of the remaining edge off her anger towards him. It works, and she cracks a small smile. Though it looked like it hurt her to do it as she fought with herself, wanting to stay angry apparently. "By the way... your dad kind of adopted me while Sokka and I were here the first time."
"And I missed it?" the girl asks, eyes going wide, anger being over taken by indignance mixed with a reluctant joy. "Oh Sokka is going to get it later. I can't believe he'd let something like that happen without me here."
Tao can't help but laugh, relaxing quite a bit as the subject is changed, relieved to talk about something else. "He thought you'd react like that. I was pretty shocked. I still am, and I think its going to take me a while yet to fully accept it. It wasn't half an hour after meeting me that Hakoda extended the offer. He heard a little of me, mostly from Sokka, and watched me bend for a while and that was apparently all it took. He welcomed me into the Tribe too."
"Did you get a mark?" Katara asks, a more true smile in place now as she shuffled a little closer.
"I did. Of the strong."
"Sokka is really going to get it now. I missed so much! I bet he knew that Dad was going to do something like this when he invited you too. That jerk."
"If its any consolation, I had very little say in the matter. The whole experience was overwhelming and confusing to me, especially compared to my past experiences with families and fathers." Tao chuckles. "But... I also don't regret accepting. I already saw you and Sokka as family, as siblings I need to look after and protect. Making it official changed very little for me. It will be nice to get to officially experience my mother's culture though. After we win the war."
The reminder of the war brings back some of the somber atmosphere to the tent and Katara deflates a little, sighing, eyes traveling back towards Aang's prone body. "Do you think we still can? I mean... Aang is in really bad shape. I don't know how long it'll take me to heal him, if I even fully can. When he wakes up, he'll be weak for a long time. We don't have time like that just... at our disposal for him to recover."
Pressing his lips together tightly, Tao scoots over to Katara, putting an arm around her shoulders and letting her lean against his side for support. "He'll have us here to help and support him. We can still win this. The end of the world isn't here quite yet."
A comfortable silence stretches on between them, the temperature of the tent slowly returning to normal as Katara calmed down, leaning against his warm side. Tao does his best to just not think and let his mind relax a little. It was hard, considering everything, but he did find some relief in the quiet, broken only by the faint sound of the ocean. It must have been about half an hour before Katara moves away, taking up her spot next to Aang's cot again. "I'm still mad at you but... thank you for telling me. I would have been more mad if you had kept this from me, especially with the others knowing."
"If... its any consolation... Toph knew everything from the start. Well- not everything. She knew I was sneaking out to go see Zuko and that it was more than just a friendly thing. Its hard to keep secrets from her." Tao says, wincing as Katara cuts a look to him, but he's grateful he doesn't get another water whip to the chest.
"Of course she knew. I thought the two of you had gotten especially close lately. I just didn't think it was because you were keeping a secret from the rest of us."
"Sorry... I'll be honest... I was afraid that if all of you knew right away you'd hate me or be disgusted by me. Which I know now is irrational and not true but tell that to my mind. I also didn't want to add extra stress on everyone by telling you that Iroh and Zuko were both in the city."
Katara grumbles something under her breath, picking up her cup of tea that was now cold, going to sip it before realizing and holding it out to him. He takes it, setting it in his palm to slowly warm up again for her. "The only thing I'm grateful for with... them... is that they saved your life and got you to the city. Did they know that we were in Ba Sing Se?"
"Yes. I stayed in their apartment with them, and the arrangement was that I would until I found all of you. Well, I did. So they knew, just not where. Honestly if more time had been given, I think I could have convinced Zuko to give up on chasing Aang entirely. But... obviously that luxury wasn't granted to us. I didn't tell him that Appa was also missing, but he found out anyway when Aang was dropping fliers."
"He have anything to say about it after that?" Katara asks, and Tao was surprised at the question. Was she curious, or trying to find another reason to hate Zuko if he answered that the prince had been angry or turned violent or something.
"He was upset that I had kept it from him but... not overly so." he says, deciding to not say, for now, that Zuko had been the one to free Appa. It didn't really matter at this point, and he doubted she would believe him anyway. "In all my experiences with Zuko, even before Ba Sing Se, I've found that he's mostly all huff and puff. He's not... overtly violent."
"To you maybe. He's not shy about it when it comes to capturing Aang." the waterbender snorts bitterly, pulling her water out of her flask and focusing it over Aang, a gentle glow casting sharp shadows on his and her face. Tao keeps quiet about that as well, and the complicated circumstances surrounding Zuko's banishment. He was still angry and hurt by the prince after all, he didn't need to leap to his defense at every turn. As much as he felt compelled to, a habit he intended to break. He was trying to convince himself that he would be quite happy to never see the other teen again, but then he'd go to twist the turtleduck ring on his right ring finger only to find that it wasn't there anymore. It was still on the ground in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se right where he had thrown it. Its empty spot felt cold. Or maybe all of him was cold because he was still half wet from Katara. He couldn't tell.
When her cup of tea was steaming again, Tao sets it beside her and stands, brushing some sand off his clothes. "I'll leave you to Aang for a while... don't forget to rest yourself Katara. It won't do Aang any favors if you collapse. I'll make sure you're not forgotten when lunch rolls around." he says, deciding that... since he had said what he needed to and she hadn't killed him that things were at least ok between them. He was sure there would be tension for a while, with Sokka as well, but he was relieved they didn't just straight hate him now. Excusing himself from the tent, he sees that much of the rest of the camp was up and moving now, spotting Toph also awake and sitting near the campfire Tao had lit. Making his way over, he sits down next to her and sees her smirk when he sighs heavily.
"So how'd your talk with Sweetness go?" she asks, a cup of tea in her hand. Actually, it was his cup and obviously his tea. Taking it from her, he takes a sip and puts it back in her hand.
"Honestly? Better than I expected. She didn't freeze me into a block of ice, but she did nail me with a water whip. She's still mad, and so is Sokka but... I think- I hope... I explained myself and groveled enough that it took some of the edge off."
"Good." Toph says, nodding a couple times and sipping on the returned cup. "How... How's Aang?" she asks, voice becoming a little smaller, worry pulling at her brows as she tilts her head towards him a little, eyes fixed straight ahead as usual.
"Not great but... he's in good hands. I don't think he's stable enough to move right now, but luckily it'll take a couple days to find a suitable Fire Nation ship to steal. Hopefully by then Katara's been able to get him in a better spot." letting out a heavy breath, he rubs at his arm, looking down at the irritated red skin around the deep scar, his nerves tingling. "She checked my arm too... not only are my chi paths wrecked, but my muscles and nerves are in bad shape too. If she can't find some energy and time to focus on mending it for me soon, either my recovery is going to take a very, very long time, or I'll start losing the use of it entirely."
"But she's focused on Aang entirely right now." Toph says more than asks, carrying on when she hears Tao nod. "You should at least ask her to do a little something. Maybe at dinner time. Don't try and be a hero, Sparky. Its one thing to not be able to bend with the arm. But you still need to be able to fight, at least until we've dealt with the Fire Lord. We all want Twinkle Toes to recover as quick as possible, but you're important too."
Tao huffs a little, grumbling indistinctly under his breath, irritated at Toph's needling at his bad habits. "Fine. I'll ask her at dinner." he eventually grumbles, rolling his eyes at her triumphant grin.
"Good. And if you don't, I'll do it for you."
"You're annoying."
"Also good." Toph laughs, finishing her tea and tossing the cup back at him, which he fumbles to catch. "Mister Iroh taught you pretty well when it comes to making tea. Careful, or the others will be asking you to make it all the time."
Snorting, Tao scoops the remains of the tea out of the pot, which was now lukewarm, settling it in his hand to warm like he had done for Katara's. "We'll need to buy some tea if that's going to be the case. That was all I had."
"There should be a village nearby. The warriors have to be getting their supplies that they can't forage themselves from somewhere. While they're scouting for a ship to steal, we can ask them about it and go get some supplies. We'll need medical supplies for your arm and for Aang anyway, and other miscellaneous things."
"Sounds like a plan to me. I still have a lot of the money from our Ba Sing Se allowance in my bag."
"So do I. We'll pool our money together and you can divide it out so we can all get the supplies we need."
"So I'm the money guy and the tea guy now? Sounds like a lot of responsibility." Tao sighs, making it a little more dramatic than he actually felt, prompting a laugh out of Toph, who slugs him on the shoulder hard enough to make him grimace.
"I'm sure you can handle it Sparky. You're a tough guy."