Damascus
- Thread starter drakensis
- Start date
Well... Katara doesn't strike me as very spiritual in the begining and she could bend despite the fact that no one else in the entire village she's from could bend. Or at least no benders to teach her.
So, it's not just 'culture' or there wouldn't be 'no other benders' in Katara's village. Or the fact that you run into people who can't bend in the Fire Nation, and the Earth Kingdom.
So, it's not just 'culture' or there wouldn't be 'no other benders' in Katara's village. Or the fact that you run into people who can't bend in the Fire Nation, and the Earth Kingdom.
If Katara had that for her source, why no one else? Like Gran Gran (Kanna) who grew up in the OTHER pole before moving to the south because Pakku was a jerkass?
Please do note that Kanna is not a water bender, or the statement that Kya died pretending to be the water bender being searched for to save her daughter would be a lie. And she would have been taught how to use healing techniques.
Please do note that Kanna is not a water bender, or the statement that Kya died pretending to be the water bender being searched for to save her daughter would be a lie. And she would have been taught how to use healing techniques.
"There's earth under here," Toph said in astonishment as she walked with Zuko outside the city. While her lessons in water bending took place inside the city, where spaces had been set aside for training in those arts, there was enough uncertainty about what she would manage to do working with fire and air that Chief Arnook had very diplomatically asked that she practise outside the walls for now.
Thus far it hadn't been a concern. Learning from scrolls had certain obvious difficulties for Toph so progress on her air bending had been very slow. In fact, Zuko suspect that he, Yue and possibly even Mai were further along in mastering the forms even if they couldn't actually air bend, as a consequence of walking through the motions described on the scrolls for Toph to watch. "Really?" the fire bender asked, looking down at the ice. "I thought that the whole pole was just ice over water."
"I guess it must be an island or something," speculated Toph. "It's fairly deep, not the sort of thing anyone would come across unless they were looking for it." She smirked. "Or, of course, the world's greatest earth bender walked over it."
"Of course," Zuko agreed drily. "But we're here to work on your fire bending so let's get to that."
Toph pouted a little but obediently took up the stance that Zuko indicated and started moving through the forms with him. Although she had the bedreock of her previous experience gathered at Omashu, she hadn't made much more progress with her fire bending than she had at air bending. The extreme cold made it difficult to maintain any sort of heat and even without her previous handicap, she was producing only marginally stronger flames than she had back in Omashu.
Then again, Zuko had to admit, his own fires were nothing to be proud of these days. Since he had fought Zhao he had found it harder to produce the powerful flames needed in combat. He still wasn't sure what the problem was: despite the cold, he could still fire bend well enough to light fires, lanterns or to warm himself - which was a useful accomplishment in the frigid city, but the driving anger that he had been taught to draw from, that had pushed him to the levels of mastery he had shown during his campaign through the southern Earth Kingdom, now eluded him.
"This isn't going well," he admitted after working through the full sequence of forms that made up the core of the fire bending art. "You've adapted well to the forms, but the bending itself..."
"Are you sure that you aren't forgetting anything?" Toph asked. "Knowing that you fire benders have to stay angry all the time explains a lot, but that's not working for me."
Zuko frowned. "I don't think it's quite what you're thinking. I've seen you get frustrated or irritated, but what firebending draws from is more like... well, rage I suppose. It's more passionate." He made a face. "Sometimes I wonder if Mai would have been a firebender if she wasn't so controlled all the time."
"So you'd like it if Mai was more passionate?" Toph asked suspiciously and then snickered when Zuko blushed and stammered what was probably intended to be a denial but was actuallycompletely incoherent. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that if there's one woman in all the city who's immune to your charms, it would be Mai."
"Thanks, I think," Zuko grumbled once his breathing was back to something approximating normal. "Well, if you think I'm missing something, why don't you ask another fire bender, if you can find one?"
Toph pulled one arm out of the sleeve of her new, better fitting parka and slipped it across her chest to scratch at an itch. "Sometimes even you have good ideas, Broody," she concluded.
"I was being sarcastic," he pointed out. "There aren't any other firebenders around to ask."
"Of course there is," Toph told him patronizingly. "I'll just ask your great-grandfather."
"My great... you mean Avatar Roku?"
The earthbender grinned broadly. "Well I don't mean Sozin. Having all those old goats hanging around in the spirit world is a bit annoying so they can make themselves useful for once." She took a few steps out across the ice, away from Zuko, then shifted her angle slightly and took a few more. "I'm going to get some earth to meditate on," she explained. "You might want to stand back a little."
Zuko gave her a nervous look and backed up a few paces. Then he reconsidered, turned around and ran about a hundred yards closer to the city before turning around to watch her. He just knew that she was laughing at him, but at the same time, he had a suspicion that watching Toph earthbend was something done best from a safe distance.
At first, to be honest, he wasn't very impressed. Toph was moving almost painfully slowly through an earthbending form he didn't recognise. Not that he was an expert, but he'd fought a few earthbenders since his first arrival in the conquered territories. If she was raising a boulder through all the ice - no one seemed to have any idea how thick it was here - then she might be at it for a while. He turned around and looked at the city that so far as he knew, no one in the Fire Nation even suspected existed.
Zuko's first warning that Toph might be thinking on a slightly larger scale than he had anticipated was when the ice began to crack behind him. The noise drew his attention - it was hard to miss a crevasse longer than a fire navy cruiser forming almost instantly.
It was impossible to miss five such cracks forming in the ice.
"Toph!" he bellowed over the sound of shattering ice. "Whatever you're doing, stop!"
"Can't!" she called back, apparently unconcerned by the fact that boulders of ice larger than she was were being sent tumbling. She added something else but Zuko couldn't make it out as the section of ice he was on began to shake threateningly.
With a shout of frustration he ran - towards her, not the presumed safety of the walls. Mai hadn't said that there would be consequences if he returned from training without Toph. Then again, sometimes it was the things that Mai didn't say that mattered most.
If Toph hadn't been blind, he thought that she would have had her eyes screwed shut in concentration. As it was, her feet scraped on the ice, never breaking contact as she focused on whatever she was doing, far beneath the ice... although presumably not so far below as before. Her hands seemed to be working in opposition to each other, one moving upwards and the other downwards, then swapping roles.
"What are you doing?" he shouted as he closed in.
"Earth bending!" Toph yelled back happily. "Isn't it wild!"
"You're insane!" Zuko told her. Calmly. Rationally. At the top of his voice. "At this rate you'll destroy the city!"
"Don't be a worrywart. The hot rock is all over here, well away from the city."
Zuko's blood chilled. "'Hot rock'? What do you mean 'hot rock'?"
Toph grinned. "I found out working with Yue that it's easier to move water when it's water, not ice. And water's basically hot ice. So I'm heating up the rock to make it easier move it up through the ice. It's kind of odd - I'm losing a lot of heat when it melts the ice, but it's also rising almost all on its own now."
"When you say hot rock," asked Zuko, certain he wouldn't like the answer, "Do you mean hot enough that it flows like water?"
"Well almost."
"Toph, there's a word for rock when it's that hot: lava."
"Lava?" Toph rolled the word around her mouth. "Never heard of it."
"Here's another new word for you: volcano. It's what you're creating right now, right underneath us. You have to stop this right now!"
To Zuko's relief, Toph stopped bending before asking: "What's a volcano?" The ice lurched alarmingly and she started bending a little. "Oh and that rising almost on its own? It's started rising entirely on its own. Lava's really enthusiastic."
"Do I want to know what's happening down there?"
"Ice turning into water. Water turning into steam. Lava rising and turning into... feels sort of like glass." She shrugged. "It is slowing down but it'll break the surface."
"Can you move it further away?" Zuko asked hopefully, envisaging the ice melting away beneath their feet, dropping them through boiling water and scalding steam onto molten lava... He grimaced.
Toph frowned and started making pushing gestures away from the city. "Alright already. It's not like it's going to be that hot when it's done coming through the ice."
"Define hot," Zuko pointed out. "Rock has to be a lot hotter than ice does before it starts to melt."
"I figured that out myself," Toph agreed. "That's why I'm using ice to cool it. What do you think I am, stupid?"
"You were creating a volcano right underneath your own feet."
"And you keep saying that like it's a bad thing."
"Agni help us, no wonder the tradition is not to tell Avatars who they are before they're sixteen. I'm not sure if the world will survive you passing through puberty." The ice cracked again and Zuko realised that the section that they were standing on was now floating freely. "Did you do that?"
"No."
"This is bad."
Toph started waterbending. Zuko was of two minds about the results: on one hand, the ice floe was moving towards the city, through what was rapidly turning into a small lake; on the other, it was tilting alarmingly as she created a wave beneath it. "You probably don't want me to tell you how fast it's melting then."
Behind them, a black shape rose above the water. At first Zuko thought that it was simply a rolling of the dark water but then it rose higher and he saw steam rising from it. Volcanic rock, cooled by the water but still hot enough to boil the water against it. He was relieved not to see rivulets of lava coming from it. "Can we go any faster?"
"Water's not as easy as ice."
Zuko sighed and eyed the water and the distance to the nearest remaining solid ice, which was only a quarter of a mile or so from the edge of the city. "I hope the water's warm enough for us to survive swimming in it. A thought struck him. "Can you even swim?"
Toph dug her boots into the ice. "I can float a bit."
"Just for the record, if Roku has any idea at all about where you might get another fire bending teacher, I'm going to quit. I swear, you'd burn water if it was remotely possible."
.oOo.
"I never thought I'd see open water this far south," Bato observed from where he and Arnook stood on the wall of the city.
The older chief shook his head in disbelief. "I don't remember Kanna being this destructive."
"She was older," pointed out Bato. "And she had her head filled with all that sexist nonsense your waterbenders believe."
"Maybe," the northern chief agreed grudgingly. "I think there were some stories about Roku flooding half of... half a city when he was learning waterbending."
They looked at each other. "She can't stay here," Bato voiced what they were both thinking.
Yue arrived - she had been on the other side of the city, consulting with her own teacher on what to instruct Toph on next - in time to hear that. "Who can't stay?" she asked and then looked out over the wall. "Tui and La! I thought that the guards were exaggerating!"
The city could now add 'lakeside' to its description with water sprawling out in a more or less egg-shape to the south. Near the centre of the wider end, the furthest from them, a loaf-shaped mass of black rock had risen, creating an island. Squinting, Yue could see slight threads of red-gold running through it, steam rising from the water wherever the threads - which must be several yards across to be visible from here - reached the lake.
"We were just thinking that it was time for the Avatar to move on," her father clarified.
"But she has so much to learn," protested Yue. She pointed out onto the water where Toph was propelling the shrinking ice raft towards the shore. "She hasn't mastered waterbending yet, and she's barely begun airbending."
"And if her current lesson had been just a little closer to the city, we might have to rebuild it. I think that our people will consider that possibility unwelcome, daughter." Arnook looked pained. "If she is an example then I do not believe that Earth Kingdom little girls are like those of the Water Tribes. When you were that age, you used your waterbending to make your dolls dance. She..." He gestured helplessly at the lake.
Dozens of the water tribe had gathered on the shores of the new lake, two waterbenders carefully reinforcing the ice to provide some measure of safety. Slightly apart from the crowd, one woman stood alone. Despite the concealing blue furs of the Water Tribe, Yue recognised her immediately as Mai.
"Well, at least with some open water here I can give her a few lessons before she leaves," Yue said, trying to find at least some good in the situation. "You aren't sending her away immediately?"
"A few days won't hurt," Bato assured her. "And she can stay in one of my people's villages for a while, as well, although that has it's risks. The Fire Nation Navy is growing frisky."
"And then?" Yue asked. "Where can she go then? Where will be safe for her to hide and to study her bending?"
The two men looked at each other. There really was no answer and to avoid an awkward silence Bato turned it into a joke. "Safe for her or safe for those around her?"
.oOo.
Almost a week later, Toph lay on the stones she had so dramatically raised out of the ice and meditated. In her usual disregard for convention, she had scorned the traditional lotus position and was instead resting with her back against the ground, knees bent to place her bare feet likewise upon the stones, arms spread wide and her head pillowed only by her parka.
It should have been foolish to the point of suicide for her to lie out on the ground so far to the south. However, while the waters of the new lake had ceased to bubble they had not frozen over. Zuko had speculated that the rocks below were still warm, that the lava continued to flow to some degree. Toph's earthsense told her that he was right, that there was flow of warm lava rising that was balanced by cooling lava sinking and that the two had reached an equilibrium that maintain a temperature on and around the island that was merely uncomfortably cold, not lethal.
And, so, with the earth that she had raised up to meditate upon available and even - bliss! - in skin contact with her, she closed her eyes slept.
Or meditated. It was a blurry line, even for her.
At some point she grew aware of another presence on the island. Her earthsense revealed nothing, but her ears were as good as ever and she had heard that particular breathing before. "Kanna?"
"Are you sure that you can't see when you're here?" the retired Avatar asked mildly.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
She heard Kanna's braid swish from side to side as she shook her head. "You are so sharp that you will cut yourself," she said, almost proudly, and then sat down at Toph's head, somehow replacing the parka with her lap so smoothly that Toph barely noticed the transition. "I admire your island, dear."
"It'll do," Toph replied dismissively. "Not sending one of your minions to fetch me this time?"
Kanna chuckled. "No. That was something of a formal occasion. I'm a little surprised though: I expected you to have questions about air bending, not fire bending."
"And I expected you to have Roku wrapped around your little finger by now," Toph sniped back. "Are you losing your touch, woman?"
"What makes you think I haven't?" Kanna asked archly. "But aren't you changing the subject?"
"Sifu's strength are the basics," explained Toph straightforwardly. "The forms, he can teach me. The heart of firebending, that's something he's not so good at teaching. I want to go back to the roots. Of course, the dragons are dead."
Kanna ran her fingers through her successors raven dark hair. "The first fire benders were an ancient people in the islands that became the Fire Nation," she told the girl. "Ask your Sifu about the Sunwarriors."
Toph filed that thought away. "Any suggestions on airbending? Some of the older water benders seem to think I can't possibly master water bending until I have a good grip on airbending, but it's slow."
"Normally, yes. Traditionally that would be the correct order to learn them," the old woman agreed. "But sometimes a tradition is just a tradtion. Air bending will be the hardest of disciplines for you to learn, for its precepts are counter to your instincts, just as fire bending came hard to me. Air benders, after all, preferred to avoid fights."
"Boring," Toph said dismissively.
"It may take some time for you to learn it," Kanna confirmed.
"Well, learning not to fight isn't exactly a priority, I've got a Fire Lord to deal with," said Toph dismissively. "Maybe I'll just have to get along without it."
"I don't recommend that," advised her predecessor. "I found it very useful fighting the Fire Lord of my day. It kept me alive more than once."
"Running away often does."
"That's the point, child. She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day."
Toph crossed her arms across her chest. "The number of days before Sozin's Comet returns isn't all that large."
.oOo.
"Sunwarriors?" Zuko asked in surprise. "Yes, I've heard of them. They raised an empire that covered almost half of the modern Fire Nation, but it collapsed after the secrets of fire bending became more widely known. They've been dead for centuries."
Toph waited for a beat. Then: "Is that all you know?"
"There was a city - it'll be all jungle by now," Zuko sighed. "Let me guess, we're going there now."
"In that form of we that excludes you," Toph told him. "Can't go taking you back to the Fire Nation, can we?"
"What?" asked Zuko, his voice sounding quite hurt. "I thought that you trusted me!"
Mai rolled her eyes. "You have a recognisable face, your highness. The minute you set foot on the Fire Nation some sappy little girl with a crush on you will see you, tell her friends and the local garrison will know within the hour. Besides, don't you have things to do over here? Persuading Arnook to accept you courting his daughter?"
Yue and Zuko's cheeks pinked, instantly. "Little pitchers have big ears," Yue guessed after looking between the two sisters.
"Just think of me as your chaperone," Toph said airly. "All those long, private, moonlit walks. I can testify, hand on heart, that my Sifu's are being perfectly proper. After all, if you wanted to be secret from me, you'd have found somewhere to go where I couldn't feel the vibrations of you walking. Kuku's back perhaps."
"I'm feeling a whole lot more comfortable with not accompanying you to the Fire Nation, you little voyeur," Zuko said, face red, although Yue seemed rather interested in the suggested discreet place to do more than simply walk together.
"It's not voyeurism unless you were doing something naughty," Toph said piously. "I was kind of hoping you'd get to the good stuff actually. A girl's got to learn somewhere."
Yue scowled uselessly at Toph, unsure if the young girl would even be aware of the expression, and then gave up and laughed. "Why don't I fetch a map for you, Zuko? I presume that it will be rather a long flight for Kuku."
"The island I'm thinking of is tropical," Zuko told her. "And practically on the far side of the Fire Nation. Even on Kuku, it will take weeks - you'll have to stop for food and forage."
"Are you sure that you want to go?" asked Toph seriously. "We're talking about more than a month away from Zuko - more if we need a lift elsewhere. Do you want to leave him alone and unprotected among all these war widows?"
"They are all war widows," Yue pointed out. "And if our relationship, such as it is, can't survive a little competition then it has no future anyway." She gave Zuko a pointed look and he wisely met her gaze evenly and silently.
Mai raised an eyebrow. "Well at least he can be trained," she said disdainfully. "Toph is correct for another reason however: in all honesty, Yue, you're almost as eye-catching as Zuko, if for different reasons. A sky bison being seen in the sky will cause concern: a woman so obviously of the Water Tribes will become the focus of suspicion almost immediately. Toph and I can pass for fire maidens easily enough, but any halfwit who sees your hair or eyes will know you aren't from the Fire Nation."
"You seem to have an endless stream of arguements to have the two of you travelling alone," noted Yui. "I don't recall either of you being gifted in the handling of animals - particularly you, Toph. Do you think you can persuade a sky bison to accompany you. They're not fools you know - even if they can't speak, they're as smart as we are in their way."
"In which case I am sure that they will respond to reason," proposed Mai confidently. "I have spent some time in the stables you know, and I've handled enough stupid riding beasts over the years - mongoose dragons and komodo rhinos to name two - that an intelligent creature such as Kuku provides novelty."
Zuko looked between them. "Why don't you fetch that map, Yue," he requested. "And maybe we should ask Bato if there is a discreet village for Toph to have a few more waterbending lessons while Mai courts herself a sky bison."
.oOo.
"So what will you name him?" Yue asked as Mai and Toph loaded their belongings onto the saddle of Mai's new steed. She had flown the two girls north to one of the islands around the Southern Air Temple, where most of the sky bison herd foraged when possible. While Toph had wrestled with the still difficult concepts of bending liquid water, Mai had assisted the bison herders, an activity that seemed to mostly consist of brushing the huge beast's fur and ensuring that their... waste... was suitably disposed of. Of course, the latter meant dried out somewhere discreet for eventual transport back to the South Pole to use as fuel for fires.
The fire maiden had finally 'befriended' the animal that the herders assured her was the most ornery and unpleasent of all the herd's bulls - given the tenuous survival of the species, risking a cow was simply not done - a comparatively darkly furred beast whose arrow markings almost blurred into the rest of his hair. According to the herders, the sky bison had never mated that they were aware off and had taken what they considered to be regrettable delight in dumping riders off his head from barely survivable heights on at least three occasions.
Mai had her own ideas about how to handle bad tempered creatures, notions quite at odds with the almost reverential methods of the Water Tribe. While the younger herders had seemed shocked at her use of an improvised riding crop to establish dominance over the sky bison, a substantial number of their elders - most probably those with personal experience of the 'swarthy' sky bison - had watched with undisguised glee.
"Bison," she replied pragmatically. "It's what he is."
"You can't just call him Bison," Yue said in a shocked tone. "It'll confuse all the other Bisons. They can understand everything we say to them, you know."
"Mai's Bison," suggested Toph from the saddle, where she was tucking the modest bundles that they would carry with them away where even she could find them easily. "Except for Mai it would be 'My Bison'."
Yue shook her head disapprovingly. "He's not a thing, you know. He's a person."
Mai sighed and walked round to the bison's head, staring it down when it mooed at her. "From now on, your name is M Bison," she told it firmly. Yue slapped her forehead. "Can we go now?" Mai asked her.
"As long as you've got everything important," Yue told her. "I'm sorry we can't provide you with more money, but Fire Nation coins aren't all that common here at the South Pole."
"We'll manage," Mai said confidently. "You've equipped us fairly well otherwise and we still have some Earth Kingdom coin left that we'll be able to exchange - enough to get us started at any rate. We'll make some stops before we reach our destination, so we can obtain money and clothes there if it looks as if we'll need to disguise ourselves to fit in."
"I don't want to know how you'll get them, do I?" Yue asked. Life on the harsh ice cap demanded that a community hold together. Theft, which undermined that trust and might deprive someone of of a vital resource, while not unheard of, was rare and frowned upon. For the two girls intending to covertly cross the Fire Nation, larceny seemed to be the logical option for them to employ.
"It's almost certainly not as bad as you think," Toph laughed. "Casual labour, gambling, maybe luring someone into trying to mug the 'helpless blind girl'. We'll be trying not to draw attention to us, remember?"
"That means no creating volcanos, you understand?"
"No, it means not getting caught getting creating volcanos," disagreed Toph.
Mai nodded agreement, although she didn't specify who with.
Thus far it hadn't been a concern. Learning from scrolls had certain obvious difficulties for Toph so progress on her air bending had been very slow. In fact, Zuko suspect that he, Yue and possibly even Mai were further along in mastering the forms even if they couldn't actually air bend, as a consequence of walking through the motions described on the scrolls for Toph to watch. "Really?" the fire bender asked, looking down at the ice. "I thought that the whole pole was just ice over water."
"I guess it must be an island or something," speculated Toph. "It's fairly deep, not the sort of thing anyone would come across unless they were looking for it." She smirked. "Or, of course, the world's greatest earth bender walked over it."
"Of course," Zuko agreed drily. "But we're here to work on your fire bending so let's get to that."
Toph pouted a little but obediently took up the stance that Zuko indicated and started moving through the forms with him. Although she had the bedreock of her previous experience gathered at Omashu, she hadn't made much more progress with her fire bending than she had at air bending. The extreme cold made it difficult to maintain any sort of heat and even without her previous handicap, she was producing only marginally stronger flames than she had back in Omashu.
Then again, Zuko had to admit, his own fires were nothing to be proud of these days. Since he had fought Zhao he had found it harder to produce the powerful flames needed in combat. He still wasn't sure what the problem was: despite the cold, he could still fire bend well enough to light fires, lanterns or to warm himself - which was a useful accomplishment in the frigid city, but the driving anger that he had been taught to draw from, that had pushed him to the levels of mastery he had shown during his campaign through the southern Earth Kingdom, now eluded him.
"This isn't going well," he admitted after working through the full sequence of forms that made up the core of the fire bending art. "You've adapted well to the forms, but the bending itself..."
"Are you sure that you aren't forgetting anything?" Toph asked. "Knowing that you fire benders have to stay angry all the time explains a lot, but that's not working for me."
Zuko frowned. "I don't think it's quite what you're thinking. I've seen you get frustrated or irritated, but what firebending draws from is more like... well, rage I suppose. It's more passionate." He made a face. "Sometimes I wonder if Mai would have been a firebender if she wasn't so controlled all the time."
"So you'd like it if Mai was more passionate?" Toph asked suspiciously and then snickered when Zuko blushed and stammered what was probably intended to be a denial but was actuallycompletely incoherent. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that if there's one woman in all the city who's immune to your charms, it would be Mai."
"Thanks, I think," Zuko grumbled once his breathing was back to something approximating normal. "Well, if you think I'm missing something, why don't you ask another fire bender, if you can find one?"
Toph pulled one arm out of the sleeve of her new, better fitting parka and slipped it across her chest to scratch at an itch. "Sometimes even you have good ideas, Broody," she concluded.
"I was being sarcastic," he pointed out. "There aren't any other firebenders around to ask."
"Of course there is," Toph told him patronizingly. "I'll just ask your great-grandfather."
"My great... you mean Avatar Roku?"
The earthbender grinned broadly. "Well I don't mean Sozin. Having all those old goats hanging around in the spirit world is a bit annoying so they can make themselves useful for once." She took a few steps out across the ice, away from Zuko, then shifted her angle slightly and took a few more. "I'm going to get some earth to meditate on," she explained. "You might want to stand back a little."
Zuko gave her a nervous look and backed up a few paces. Then he reconsidered, turned around and ran about a hundred yards closer to the city before turning around to watch her. He just knew that she was laughing at him, but at the same time, he had a suspicion that watching Toph earthbend was something done best from a safe distance.
At first, to be honest, he wasn't very impressed. Toph was moving almost painfully slowly through an earthbending form he didn't recognise. Not that he was an expert, but he'd fought a few earthbenders since his first arrival in the conquered territories. If she was raising a boulder through all the ice - no one seemed to have any idea how thick it was here - then she might be at it for a while. He turned around and looked at the city that so far as he knew, no one in the Fire Nation even suspected existed.
Zuko's first warning that Toph might be thinking on a slightly larger scale than he had anticipated was when the ice began to crack behind him. The noise drew his attention - it was hard to miss a crevasse longer than a fire navy cruiser forming almost instantly.
It was impossible to miss five such cracks forming in the ice.
"Toph!" he bellowed over the sound of shattering ice. "Whatever you're doing, stop!"
"Can't!" she called back, apparently unconcerned by the fact that boulders of ice larger than she was were being sent tumbling. She added something else but Zuko couldn't make it out as the section of ice he was on began to shake threateningly.
With a shout of frustration he ran - towards her, not the presumed safety of the walls. Mai hadn't said that there would be consequences if he returned from training without Toph. Then again, sometimes it was the things that Mai didn't say that mattered most.
If Toph hadn't been blind, he thought that she would have had her eyes screwed shut in concentration. As it was, her feet scraped on the ice, never breaking contact as she focused on whatever she was doing, far beneath the ice... although presumably not so far below as before. Her hands seemed to be working in opposition to each other, one moving upwards and the other downwards, then swapping roles.
"What are you doing?" he shouted as he closed in.
"Earth bending!" Toph yelled back happily. "Isn't it wild!"
"You're insane!" Zuko told her. Calmly. Rationally. At the top of his voice. "At this rate you'll destroy the city!"
"Don't be a worrywart. The hot rock is all over here, well away from the city."
Zuko's blood chilled. "'Hot rock'? What do you mean 'hot rock'?"
Toph grinned. "I found out working with Yue that it's easier to move water when it's water, not ice. And water's basically hot ice. So I'm heating up the rock to make it easier move it up through the ice. It's kind of odd - I'm losing a lot of heat when it melts the ice, but it's also rising almost all on its own now."
"When you say hot rock," asked Zuko, certain he wouldn't like the answer, "Do you mean hot enough that it flows like water?"
"Well almost."
"Toph, there's a word for rock when it's that hot: lava."
"Lava?" Toph rolled the word around her mouth. "Never heard of it."
"Here's another new word for you: volcano. It's what you're creating right now, right underneath us. You have to stop this right now!"
To Zuko's relief, Toph stopped bending before asking: "What's a volcano?" The ice lurched alarmingly and she started bending a little. "Oh and that rising almost on its own? It's started rising entirely on its own. Lava's really enthusiastic."
"Do I want to know what's happening down there?"
"Ice turning into water. Water turning into steam. Lava rising and turning into... feels sort of like glass." She shrugged. "It is slowing down but it'll break the surface."
"Can you move it further away?" Zuko asked hopefully, envisaging the ice melting away beneath their feet, dropping them through boiling water and scalding steam onto molten lava... He grimaced.
Toph frowned and started making pushing gestures away from the city. "Alright already. It's not like it's going to be that hot when it's done coming through the ice."
"Define hot," Zuko pointed out. "Rock has to be a lot hotter than ice does before it starts to melt."
"I figured that out myself," Toph agreed. "That's why I'm using ice to cool it. What do you think I am, stupid?"
"You were creating a volcano right underneath your own feet."
"And you keep saying that like it's a bad thing."
"Agni help us, no wonder the tradition is not to tell Avatars who they are before they're sixteen. I'm not sure if the world will survive you passing through puberty." The ice cracked again and Zuko realised that the section that they were standing on was now floating freely. "Did you do that?"
"No."
"This is bad."
Toph started waterbending. Zuko was of two minds about the results: on one hand, the ice floe was moving towards the city, through what was rapidly turning into a small lake; on the other, it was tilting alarmingly as she created a wave beneath it. "You probably don't want me to tell you how fast it's melting then."
Behind them, a black shape rose above the water. At first Zuko thought that it was simply a rolling of the dark water but then it rose higher and he saw steam rising from it. Volcanic rock, cooled by the water but still hot enough to boil the water against it. He was relieved not to see rivulets of lava coming from it. "Can we go any faster?"
"Water's not as easy as ice."
Zuko sighed and eyed the water and the distance to the nearest remaining solid ice, which was only a quarter of a mile or so from the edge of the city. "I hope the water's warm enough for us to survive swimming in it. A thought struck him. "Can you even swim?"
Toph dug her boots into the ice. "I can float a bit."
"Just for the record, if Roku has any idea at all about where you might get another fire bending teacher, I'm going to quit. I swear, you'd burn water if it was remotely possible."
.oOo.
"I never thought I'd see open water this far south," Bato observed from where he and Arnook stood on the wall of the city.
The older chief shook his head in disbelief. "I don't remember Kanna being this destructive."
"She was older," pointed out Bato. "And she had her head filled with all that sexist nonsense your waterbenders believe."
"Maybe," the northern chief agreed grudgingly. "I think there were some stories about Roku flooding half of... half a city when he was learning waterbending."
They looked at each other. "She can't stay here," Bato voiced what they were both thinking.
Yue arrived - she had been on the other side of the city, consulting with her own teacher on what to instruct Toph on next - in time to hear that. "Who can't stay?" she asked and then looked out over the wall. "Tui and La! I thought that the guards were exaggerating!"
The city could now add 'lakeside' to its description with water sprawling out in a more or less egg-shape to the south. Near the centre of the wider end, the furthest from them, a loaf-shaped mass of black rock had risen, creating an island. Squinting, Yue could see slight threads of red-gold running through it, steam rising from the water wherever the threads - which must be several yards across to be visible from here - reached the lake.
"We were just thinking that it was time for the Avatar to move on," her father clarified.
"But she has so much to learn," protested Yue. She pointed out onto the water where Toph was propelling the shrinking ice raft towards the shore. "She hasn't mastered waterbending yet, and she's barely begun airbending."
"And if her current lesson had been just a little closer to the city, we might have to rebuild it. I think that our people will consider that possibility unwelcome, daughter." Arnook looked pained. "If she is an example then I do not believe that Earth Kingdom little girls are like those of the Water Tribes. When you were that age, you used your waterbending to make your dolls dance. She..." He gestured helplessly at the lake.
Dozens of the water tribe had gathered on the shores of the new lake, two waterbenders carefully reinforcing the ice to provide some measure of safety. Slightly apart from the crowd, one woman stood alone. Despite the concealing blue furs of the Water Tribe, Yue recognised her immediately as Mai.
"Well, at least with some open water here I can give her a few lessons before she leaves," Yue said, trying to find at least some good in the situation. "You aren't sending her away immediately?"
"A few days won't hurt," Bato assured her. "And she can stay in one of my people's villages for a while, as well, although that has it's risks. The Fire Nation Navy is growing frisky."
"And then?" Yue asked. "Where can she go then? Where will be safe for her to hide and to study her bending?"
The two men looked at each other. There really was no answer and to avoid an awkward silence Bato turned it into a joke. "Safe for her or safe for those around her?"
.oOo.
Almost a week later, Toph lay on the stones she had so dramatically raised out of the ice and meditated. In her usual disregard for convention, she had scorned the traditional lotus position and was instead resting with her back against the ground, knees bent to place her bare feet likewise upon the stones, arms spread wide and her head pillowed only by her parka.
It should have been foolish to the point of suicide for her to lie out on the ground so far to the south. However, while the waters of the new lake had ceased to bubble they had not frozen over. Zuko had speculated that the rocks below were still warm, that the lava continued to flow to some degree. Toph's earthsense told her that he was right, that there was flow of warm lava rising that was balanced by cooling lava sinking and that the two had reached an equilibrium that maintain a temperature on and around the island that was merely uncomfortably cold, not lethal.
And, so, with the earth that she had raised up to meditate upon available and even - bliss! - in skin contact with her, she closed her eyes slept.
Or meditated. It was a blurry line, even for her.
At some point she grew aware of another presence on the island. Her earthsense revealed nothing, but her ears were as good as ever and she had heard that particular breathing before. "Kanna?"
"Are you sure that you can't see when you're here?" the retired Avatar asked mildly.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
She heard Kanna's braid swish from side to side as she shook her head. "You are so sharp that you will cut yourself," she said, almost proudly, and then sat down at Toph's head, somehow replacing the parka with her lap so smoothly that Toph barely noticed the transition. "I admire your island, dear."
"It'll do," Toph replied dismissively. "Not sending one of your minions to fetch me this time?"
Kanna chuckled. "No. That was something of a formal occasion. I'm a little surprised though: I expected you to have questions about air bending, not fire bending."
"And I expected you to have Roku wrapped around your little finger by now," Toph sniped back. "Are you losing your touch, woman?"
"What makes you think I haven't?" Kanna asked archly. "But aren't you changing the subject?"
"Sifu's strength are the basics," explained Toph straightforwardly. "The forms, he can teach me. The heart of firebending, that's something he's not so good at teaching. I want to go back to the roots. Of course, the dragons are dead."
Kanna ran her fingers through her successors raven dark hair. "The first fire benders were an ancient people in the islands that became the Fire Nation," she told the girl. "Ask your Sifu about the Sunwarriors."
Toph filed that thought away. "Any suggestions on airbending? Some of the older water benders seem to think I can't possibly master water bending until I have a good grip on airbending, but it's slow."
"Normally, yes. Traditionally that would be the correct order to learn them," the old woman agreed. "But sometimes a tradition is just a tradtion. Air bending will be the hardest of disciplines for you to learn, for its precepts are counter to your instincts, just as fire bending came hard to me. Air benders, after all, preferred to avoid fights."
"Boring," Toph said dismissively.
"It may take some time for you to learn it," Kanna confirmed.
"Well, learning not to fight isn't exactly a priority, I've got a Fire Lord to deal with," said Toph dismissively. "Maybe I'll just have to get along without it."
"I don't recommend that," advised her predecessor. "I found it very useful fighting the Fire Lord of my day. It kept me alive more than once."
"Running away often does."
"That's the point, child. She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day."
Toph crossed her arms across her chest. "The number of days before Sozin's Comet returns isn't all that large."
.oOo.
"Sunwarriors?" Zuko asked in surprise. "Yes, I've heard of them. They raised an empire that covered almost half of the modern Fire Nation, but it collapsed after the secrets of fire bending became more widely known. They've been dead for centuries."
Toph waited for a beat. Then: "Is that all you know?"
"There was a city - it'll be all jungle by now," Zuko sighed. "Let me guess, we're going there now."
"In that form of we that excludes you," Toph told him. "Can't go taking you back to the Fire Nation, can we?"
"What?" asked Zuko, his voice sounding quite hurt. "I thought that you trusted me!"
Mai rolled her eyes. "You have a recognisable face, your highness. The minute you set foot on the Fire Nation some sappy little girl with a crush on you will see you, tell her friends and the local garrison will know within the hour. Besides, don't you have things to do over here? Persuading Arnook to accept you courting his daughter?"
Yue and Zuko's cheeks pinked, instantly. "Little pitchers have big ears," Yue guessed after looking between the two sisters.
"Just think of me as your chaperone," Toph said airly. "All those long, private, moonlit walks. I can testify, hand on heart, that my Sifu's are being perfectly proper. After all, if you wanted to be secret from me, you'd have found somewhere to go where I couldn't feel the vibrations of you walking. Kuku's back perhaps."
"I'm feeling a whole lot more comfortable with not accompanying you to the Fire Nation, you little voyeur," Zuko said, face red, although Yue seemed rather interested in the suggested discreet place to do more than simply walk together.
"It's not voyeurism unless you were doing something naughty," Toph said piously. "I was kind of hoping you'd get to the good stuff actually. A girl's got to learn somewhere."
Yue scowled uselessly at Toph, unsure if the young girl would even be aware of the expression, and then gave up and laughed. "Why don't I fetch a map for you, Zuko? I presume that it will be rather a long flight for Kuku."
"The island I'm thinking of is tropical," Zuko told her. "And practically on the far side of the Fire Nation. Even on Kuku, it will take weeks - you'll have to stop for food and forage."
"Are you sure that you want to go?" asked Toph seriously. "We're talking about more than a month away from Zuko - more if we need a lift elsewhere. Do you want to leave him alone and unprotected among all these war widows?"
"They are all war widows," Yue pointed out. "And if our relationship, such as it is, can't survive a little competition then it has no future anyway." She gave Zuko a pointed look and he wisely met her gaze evenly and silently.
Mai raised an eyebrow. "Well at least he can be trained," she said disdainfully. "Toph is correct for another reason however: in all honesty, Yue, you're almost as eye-catching as Zuko, if for different reasons. A sky bison being seen in the sky will cause concern: a woman so obviously of the Water Tribes will become the focus of suspicion almost immediately. Toph and I can pass for fire maidens easily enough, but any halfwit who sees your hair or eyes will know you aren't from the Fire Nation."
"You seem to have an endless stream of arguements to have the two of you travelling alone," noted Yui. "I don't recall either of you being gifted in the handling of animals - particularly you, Toph. Do you think you can persuade a sky bison to accompany you. They're not fools you know - even if they can't speak, they're as smart as we are in their way."
"In which case I am sure that they will respond to reason," proposed Mai confidently. "I have spent some time in the stables you know, and I've handled enough stupid riding beasts over the years - mongoose dragons and komodo rhinos to name two - that an intelligent creature such as Kuku provides novelty."
Zuko looked between them. "Why don't you fetch that map, Yue," he requested. "And maybe we should ask Bato if there is a discreet village for Toph to have a few more waterbending lessons while Mai courts herself a sky bison."
.oOo.
"So what will you name him?" Yue asked as Mai and Toph loaded their belongings onto the saddle of Mai's new steed. She had flown the two girls north to one of the islands around the Southern Air Temple, where most of the sky bison herd foraged when possible. While Toph had wrestled with the still difficult concepts of bending liquid water, Mai had assisted the bison herders, an activity that seemed to mostly consist of brushing the huge beast's fur and ensuring that their... waste... was suitably disposed of. Of course, the latter meant dried out somewhere discreet for eventual transport back to the South Pole to use as fuel for fires.
The fire maiden had finally 'befriended' the animal that the herders assured her was the most ornery and unpleasent of all the herd's bulls - given the tenuous survival of the species, risking a cow was simply not done - a comparatively darkly furred beast whose arrow markings almost blurred into the rest of his hair. According to the herders, the sky bison had never mated that they were aware off and had taken what they considered to be regrettable delight in dumping riders off his head from barely survivable heights on at least three occasions.
Mai had her own ideas about how to handle bad tempered creatures, notions quite at odds with the almost reverential methods of the Water Tribe. While the younger herders had seemed shocked at her use of an improvised riding crop to establish dominance over the sky bison, a substantial number of their elders - most probably those with personal experience of the 'swarthy' sky bison - had watched with undisguised glee.
"Bison," she replied pragmatically. "It's what he is."
"You can't just call him Bison," Yue said in a shocked tone. "It'll confuse all the other Bisons. They can understand everything we say to them, you know."
"Mai's Bison," suggested Toph from the saddle, where she was tucking the modest bundles that they would carry with them away where even she could find them easily. "Except for Mai it would be 'My Bison'."
Yue shook her head disapprovingly. "He's not a thing, you know. He's a person."
Mai sighed and walked round to the bison's head, staring it down when it mooed at her. "From now on, your name is M Bison," she told it firmly. Yue slapped her forehead. "Can we go now?" Mai asked her.
"As long as you've got everything important," Yue told her. "I'm sorry we can't provide you with more money, but Fire Nation coins aren't all that common here at the South Pole."
"We'll manage," Mai said confidently. "You've equipped us fairly well otherwise and we still have some Earth Kingdom coin left that we'll be able to exchange - enough to get us started at any rate. We'll make some stops before we reach our destination, so we can obtain money and clothes there if it looks as if we'll need to disguise ourselves to fit in."
"I don't want to know how you'll get them, do I?" Yue asked. Life on the harsh ice cap demanded that a community hold together. Theft, which undermined that trust and might deprive someone of of a vital resource, while not unheard of, was rare and frowned upon. For the two girls intending to covertly cross the Fire Nation, larceny seemed to be the logical option for them to employ.
"It's almost certainly not as bad as you think," Toph laughed. "Casual labour, gambling, maybe luring someone into trying to mug the 'helpless blind girl'. We'll be trying not to draw attention to us, remember?"
"That means no creating volcanos, you understand?"
"No, it means not getting caught getting creating volcanos," disagreed Toph.
Mai nodded agreement, although she didn't specify who with.
That's not how I wanted Kanna to come across.Aang sometimes needs a strong hand to direct him. Toph on the other hand, even more so than in canon, would rebel against being ordered around. Then again, she doesn't need to be pushed to learn bending.
Toph doesn't need guidance as much as she does warning signs. Well, warning bells.
Airbenders and Avatars may have traditionally used airbending for running away, but Toph's not likely to be satisfied with that.
In Wurts's Cycle of Fire, one elemental mage, commanding air and water, creates a tornado so intense, it melted rock by sheer frictional heating alone, a tornado which must have been seriously supersonic.
Toph has easier ways to melt rock, of course, but I'm sure she could find some good use for supersonic storms. For that matter, even a mere 300 mph wind can wreck everything in its path, especially if thoughtfully laden with razor-sharp gravel.
Any element can be used to for extreme destruction, with enough power behind it, and Toph has that power. Whether she can use it wisely is a different question though.
In Wurts's Cycle of Fire, one elemental mage, commanding air and water, creates a tornado so intense, it melted rock by sheer frictional heating alone, a tornado which must have been seriously supersonic.
Toph has easier ways to melt rock, of course, but I'm sure she could find some good use for supersonic storms. For that matter, even a mere 300 mph wind can wreck everything in its path, especially if thoughtfully laden with razor-sharp gravel.
Any element can be used to for extreme destruction, with enough power behind it, and Toph has that power. Whether she can use it wisely is a different question though.
"My cousin asked you to marry you?" Azula asked mildly. "You really do have him wrapped around your finger, Ty Lee." She smiled but the little gymnast was not so foolish as to mistake it as a sign of happiness. "You accepted, of course?"
"I could hardly refuse Azulon's grandson," the younger girl pointed out. "Not to mention..."
Azula waved her hand dismissively, "Yes yes," she agreed impatiently. "It wouldn't do to create a rift in your relationship with Lu Ten at this point. I suggest you enjoy the courtship because the honeymoon is unlikely to be memorable." She leant on the balcony rail - progress in the negotiations with Long Feng could almost be measured by the incremental improvements in habitation for the Fire Nation embassy - and looked out over Ba Sing Se. "Did he let anything slip?"
"If your brother is really collaberating with the Avatar, I don't think he'll be taken alive," Ty Lee confided. "One part protection of the royal family's reputation, one part sentiment for your lady mother and perhaps some rebellious urges towards the Fire Lord."
"Rebellious?" Azula's eyebrows arched. "Really? Interesting choice of words there. Are you suggesting that he might be inclined to hurry the succession along?" She privately considered the pros and cons of Zuko's survival for a moment and then dismissed them. Delivering him dead wouldn't really hurt Lu Ten's credibility in Ozai's eyes and Azula was honest enough about her father to admit that.
Ty Lee pressed her fingers together. "He's still studying accounts of the Battle of the Three Dragons," she explained. "Not that I give him time when we're together, but he has three new scrolls on the subject since I last saw him. Two of them from the Earth Kingdom." Which was frowned upon, though not illegal, in the FIre Nation's military. Of course, as a Prince, Lu Ten was unlikely to be brought to task for such a trivial matter.
Azula's lips tightened. "Let me guess, he's still chasing that ridiculous theory of treachery at Serpent's Pass? Even if he was right, there would hardly be evidence in some scroll somewhere. There was only one survivor and if father did decide to settle the succession after Kanna was dead, he would hardly have left a written confession of it."
"Did he? Decide the succession, I mean."
"I haven't a clue," Azula responded. "What would it matter? Well, to anyone without a sentimental connection to Uncle Iroh?"
"I guess," Ty Lee agreed. "So, what do you want me to do now?"
"I'm surprised that you have the energy to do anything, from what I hear about your recent activities," smirked Azula. "Were you going for a record? Most exercise ever carried out in bed?"
Lu Ten's fiancee smiled back. "Oh we weren't just in bed, " she clarified.
"So you weren't just doing...?" Azula asked, sounding a bit disappointed.
"Well we were, but we didn't restrict ourselves to bed," explained Ty Lee. "You'd barely left before he threw me up against the wall of the map room and -"
"Stop!" commanded the princess. "I'm sorry I asked," she added under her breath. "I want you to open him up for an assassin, not to kill him yourself through exertion. Granted, he'd die with a smile on his face and no one would ever suspect foul play..."
.oOo.
When she heard the shout of outrage Mai was just leaving the store where she had parted with almost a third of their remaining money in return for what she hoped would be enough food for the next leg of their journey along the chain of islands that extended north-east from the heart of the Fire Nation. Fire Fountain City, with its famous fire-breathing statues of the Fire Lords Azulon, Iroh and Ozai, was their second stop since they had left the Southern Fire Nation.
It wasn't until the second cry, once she was clear of the door entirely that Mai could make out the words: "Stop! Cheat!" It didn't surprise her to find out that Toph was not dutifully waiting outside for her to come back with the food. Looking around didn't betray what might have distracted her little sister, but then, Toph wasn't limited to line of sight for that sort of thing and the cries were coming from a tangle of side streets.
Toph did not run out of the streets but a scrawny man with a headband and an ugly looking mustache ran out, looking around angrily. "You, young lady! Did you see a girl in a green dress run out here? She had milky eyes, like she was blind."
Mai gave him a long look and then jerked her head back towards the store, glad that she was wearing her old red and black pants suit, not the Kyoshi dress. "I just came out, I haven't seen anyone," she said honestly. "Besides, I think you'd hear a blind girl running - every person she collided with would complain."
"I don't think she's really blind," the man said, looking around at the crowded street. "She scammed me in a game, cost me a pretty penny too!"
"You were playing a game, for money, against a little girl that you thought was blind?" Mai asked him. "That doesn't seem very fair."
"I told you, she wasn't blind," he told her. "Besides, it's supposed to be luck. No reason a blind girl couldn't get lucky."
Mai frowned. "I don't see anyone in a green dress," she told him. "And how could she have 'scammed' you in a game of chance?"
"Ah! Now I've figured that out," he said triumphantly. "She made like she was blind, see, so she had to check which shell the stone was under by hand. She musta shuffled another stone in to them without my seeing. Slick."
More likely she was winning even after you thought you'd shuffled the stone out from any of the shells, Mai thought. "I'm not familiar with the game," she lied, knowing that the conversation could only reach one destination at that point unless the man was very shrewd about picking his marks. Wait, he'd gambled with Toph. Couldn't be all that bright.
On no more encouragement than Mai's monosyllablic responses the man set up a little table - not much more than a tray - on top of two convenient barrels and explained in a well-practised patter how the game worked. Given that he was offering a two to one return on a one to two chance, odds were that an honest game would break even in the long run, which made Mai wonder why anyone would believe that someone running the games as a living would be honest.
"I see what you mean about luck," she said, sounding dubiously, "But it doesn't seem to be a very exciting game."
"Oh, it's at least a thousand times more interesting when money's involved, young lady," the gambler assured her. "But I couldn't ask a proper young lady like yourself to..." Mai produced a silver coin. "...well, if you insist."
Having introduced Mai's coin to his own pair of silvers, the man placed a humble fleck of stone under one of the bowl-sized shells and started moving them quickly back and forth through an energetic and confusing pattern. Mai didn't bother to watch his hands - any half-competent grifter would be used to hiding movements of his hands. Instead she watched his eyes, something that seemed to discomfit him somewhat.
"So, young lady, pick yourself a shell," he suggested.
If he was a poor swindler, he'd have removed the pebble and go for the win now. If he was a clever man though, he would ensure her win now to hook her in for a larger wager. Hmm. In either case... "The centre," Mai said, and before the gambler could lift the shell she reached over and flipped the two side shells over revealing that there were pebbles under both of them.
"Wha!" he exclaimed.
"Very deft," Mai told him drily. "I see that you are well versed in deft cheating at this. A pebble in each to let me win at first, and then remove all the pebbles."
The man swallowed nervously as Mai started to delicately pick a tiny speck of dirt out from under one fingernail with a throwing knife that seemed to appear magically in her fingers. "What is it worth to you that I should forget all about this conversation?" she asked blandly.
.oOo.
Toph was repacking M Bison's saddle when Mai returned to their secluded campsite outside of Fire Fountain City. It was a sheltered beach far enough from the city that it was unlikely that they would be stumbled over by chance, not as comfortable as Mai would have preferred, but not so unpleasent that it was unmanageable for a few days. She did not miss the substantial bag of coin that lay on the ground next to their other belongings.
"A productive day?" Mai asked casually.
"Hustled some guy who was scamming the locals," Toph confirmed calmly. "I don't think he'll make trouble, but it's not like we were planning to hang around anyway."
Mai threw her own coinbag down next to Toph's. It was noticably larger and heavier and the look on Toph's face was clear evidence that she was aware of that. "Hustled some fool who got cheated by a blind girl," she explained, pulling the straps of her food basket off her shoulders and setting it down. She stretched to relieve the ache of her muscles. "We should probably pick up some fresh clothes in the next town we visit. Kyoshi Island greens are a touch visible on a Fire Nation street."
Toph waved her hand in front of her face. "I'll take your word for it. What town is it likely to be?"
"Shu Jing," Mai said, eyeing the water. "I'm going to get cleaned up before we go. It's another long leg up there."
Toph kept loading as Mai stripped down to her underwear and only a handful of her most essential weapons. The older girl plunged into the warm waters - this late in the day, even river water wasn't cold enough to shock, particularly after experiencing the bitter cold at the South Pole - and started efficiently scouring at herself with a rag. She had to duck her head to get soak her hair - long hair was a tremendous bother when travelling but if her little sister could manage then Mai would too (she was unaware that Toph refrained from cutting her own long hair in self-concious imitation of her).
"So what's special about Shu Jing?"
Looking up, Mai saw that Toph had efficiently tidied the campsite away, leaving only Mai's green dress and her weapons for her to change into after her bath. "Nothing particular, it's just a convienient town to use as a jumping off point for the flight to where Zuko told us the Sunwarriors came from."
"Just a name on a map?" Toph asked, sounding slightly disappointed.
Mai racked her mind for any other facts about the town. "I believe it's home to the swordmaster Piandao," she said at last.
"Oh?" Toph sat down on the riverbank, water rippling below her in response to a casual movement of her hands. "Does he make swords or use them?"
"Both," explained Mai. "He was a famous swordsman and commander in the army before he retired, but his swords are considered works of art. Wealthy patrons pay huge sums for them. My father commissioned one after my brother was born, so that Tom-Tom will have a Piandao sword when he's old enough to join the army, but there are so many orders for them that we only had word that it was delivered to our family home in the capital after we were in Omashu."
"Sounds like he does well for himself. Is he a great firebender."
"Actually, he isn't a firebender at all," Mai revealed. "It's the only reason he managed to leave the army - the Fire Lord can't look so weak as to merely request a non-bender to rejoin the army, and the last time someone demanded that Piandao return to the banners they took a hundred soldiers with them. He defeated them all."
"Neat! Maybe we'll meet him when we're in Shu Jing," Toph suggested. "I've never met a swordmaster before. I wonder how he moves."
Mai shook her head. "It would be better to avoid him. Even if he did leave the army, that might not mean that he'd turn a blind eye to you. Remember, if Zhao survived to make a report there's probably at least a decent description of you in the hands of anyone important in the Fire Nation." She finished washing herself down and waded up onto the beach. "Would you mind?"
Toph swept one arm up and around, the water on Mai streaming obediently off her body and into a long trail towards the young girl's hand. She shaped it into something resembling a sword and slashed at the air inexpertly, the way that Mai had seen boys too young for war training play with toy swords. Of course, this sword was as sharp as Toph's will so even a poorly delivered cut might be fatal.
M Bison mooed irritably, shrugging at the saddle. Bored, probably, Mai concluded as she fastened her dress and started picking up her weapons. Hard to blame him, with nothing to do here but graze. "Alright, let's go. We can get a good distance before the sunlight fades."
.oOo.
Shopping for clothes was something that Toph had laughably little experience of. The only clothes she had ever bought for herself were for her fighting identity in the Earth Rumble tournaments and she had found that enough of a struggle not to get conned or look like a clown at the end of it. "Whatever you get, get me the same for my size. We're the same colour and what-not, right?"
"You'll still need to be here so that you can be measured for them," Mai told her patiently, reviewing what was on the racks of the tailor's shop now that she knew she was buying for both of them. While there were some differences in their colouring, Toph was right that they weren't all that great. Of course, the 'what-not' covered the considerable difference in shape imposed by the four year age gap - althoug Toph was probably more developed than Mai had been at that age. Still, wearing the same style would make some degree of sense - it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that a younger sister would have clothes that her elder sister had outgrown.
"Why don't you pick out some hairpieces," she suggested, pointing towards the table at the back of the store where the storekeeper's wife could keep an eagle eye on the relatively valuable merchandise.
Toph nodded agreeably and wandered in that direction, holding her arms extended so that she could touch each garment on the racks she was between as she walked. A flash of colour caught Mai's eye as the clothes swayed back into position and she took a few steps to examine the wine-red dress. Plain and shoulderless, reaching only mid-calf, it would be more comfortable than heavier fabrics in the warmth of the Fire Nation.
Still, as it was, it wasn't quite suitable for someone of Toph's age and it would be... eye-catching on a young woman of Mai's age. While the latter might be flattering, it wouldn't be very practical under these circumstances. She started looking through the tops to find something complimentary.
"So who are you buying for?" she heard the middle-aged woman ask indulgently.
"For me and Mai, of course," Toph replied bluntly, running her finger around one of the hairpieces.
The woman gasped, not angrily. "Oh my, you won't want one of those then. Those are for men, dear. Here, let me show you something more feminine."
"Does that mean delicate?" Toph asked diplomatically. "I'm not so good with that. Blind, you see."
"Oh, goodness," the woman said in a shocked voice. "I really couldn;t tell, dear. You manage very well."
Toph picked up one of the head-pieces, a plain but rather nicely worked cuff of bronze two finger-widths across, with two dragon wings jutting upwards. Mai thought that it must be a concious imitation of the traditional headpiece of the crown prince - lost for centuries - but far less fine of course. "This is rather nice, do you have another like it?"
"Well it would certainly be sturdy," the shopkeeper's wife agreed reluctantly, running her eyes across her merchandise. "I don't have another of those, but perhaps you'll like these?" She lifted the hairpiece out of Toph's hand and replaced it with another, this one with silvery trim and more elaborate side pieces wrought in the shape of rearing dragons.
Toph made a disgusted noise as she turned it over in her hand. "This just isn't sturdy enough," she said dismissively. "And there's something about the metal... is that silver? It must cost twice as much."
"You've caught me," the motherly woman admitted shamelessly. "But really, you have such lovely hair. It deserves silver."
The blind girl laughed bluntly. "What would I care about what it looks like? Something more like the first one, please."
Mai shook her head and then picked out tunic like top, open at the sides but hanging long at front and back. It was the wrong colour, but it would cover up their shoulders.
.oOo.
The storekeeper's wife was more than happy for the two girls to change their clothes in a small cubicle set aside for that purpose and in exchange for a small additional payment made some minor alterations to the fit - more for Mai than for Toph, who could be expected to grow into her new garments. And when they walked out of the store, they both had their hair pulled back into loose ponytails secured by simple brass hair-pieces, engraved such that dragons snaked around the circumference. Only their bangs were left unsecured, Mai's neat fringe and Toph's less regular eye-obscuring locks of hair.
"So, where next?" Toph asked curiously.
Mai glanced along the street. "A weapon shop. I want to replace a few lost knives, and the Water Tribe didn't have any metal suitable for them, even if there was a sufficiently skilled weaponsmith there."
"Weapons?" Toph's smile broadened. "Nice. Do you think I should get something?"
"Well, a lady can never have enough knives," counselled the older girl as they walked down the street. "But it's important to find weapons that work for you."
The weapons shop - a veritable temple to the regrettable brevity of life and the tools that could further abbreviate it - was not busy. The proprietor, a grey haired man with shoulders that suggested he might well be the smith responsible for making some the various deadly implements, was conversing quietly with a lean, well-dressed man.
Mai made her way directly over to the trays of knives stored at the back, with Toph lagging behind and stamping her feet - now in fashionable thin soled moccasins that she had been assured were intended for dancing - every few paces to make absolutely certain she wasn't about to walk into something with sharp edges. The earthbender stopped at a rack of swords and ran her hands very carefully over them before selecting a dao and giving it a tentative swing, the rings set along the back edge clinking as she did so.
The awkward move caught the attention of the man speaking to the storekeeper and he half-turned towards Toph, who was partly obscured from his sight by the weapon rack. "Let me guess. you've come hundreds of miles from your little village where you're the best swordsman in town and you think you deserve to learn from Master Piandao?"
Toph returned the weapon to its place on the rack. "That's amazing! You got every single little detail wrong! How did you manage it?"
The man blinked and then smiled ruefully as he took a step sideways to get a clearer line of sight towards her. "It's a knack," he admitted. "My apologies for the remark, young lady. It was rude of me."
"Whatever," Toph lifted another sword, a straight jian and then replaced it immediately. The light weapon was not to her taste. "You hear that story a lot?"
"Oh, quite often," he admitted. "You're looking for a sword?"
"I dunno," Toph replied shortly. "A girl has to defend her honor sometimes, but I've never tried using a sword before." She grinned. "I've never seen a sword after all."
"Never?" the man asked in surprise, walking around the rack to look at her. "Ah, I see." He walked like a fighter: purposeful, controlled. "You manage well - I could tell immediately that you are a fighter, but not that you are blind."
Toph grinned. "Thanks. My sister taught me everything she knows."
"Not even close," Mai observed from where she was examining a throwing knife. The storekeeper moved in her direction, more interested in a propsective paying customer than in the Toph's conversation partner.
"I see," the warrior said, lifting the jian and essaying a few thrusts before returning it neatly to its place. "Well, I don't think that this would be your sort of weapon. A sword is a little more involved than merely being a knife writ large."
"Do you have any suggestions?
He frowned and rubbed at his beard. "Well, you've not really got the reach for a pole arm. Have you ever used a hook sword?"
"What's a hook sword?" Toph asked.
"Jet used two," Mai told her, not looking up from the knife she was weighing in her hand.
"Jet?" asked the man. "A friend of yours?"
Toph made a face. "Not hardly. He was a real creep, but I know what you mean now. Are there any here?"
"I believe so." He reached higher up the rack and brought down a pair of swords.
When Toph took them, she could tell that the points curved back on themselves. Thinking back, she tried to move them the way Jet had, all those months ago when he fought against her and Zuko outside of Omashu. Her impaired earthsense had only shown him to her when he was close thought, and she quickly realised she was degenerating into random fumbling. "I don't think so."
"I think you could be quite good with practise," her advisor observed, "But I agree, you aren't too deft with them at the moment. Still, you seem to have some experience in wielding paired weapons."
"You're pretty good at this," Toph admitted. "Yeah, I learned to fight a bit with metal fans a while back. It was some sort of traditional women's weapon where we were living."
"Well let's see if we can find any here. It might be better to build on what you already know." The man set off into one of the back corners of the shop. "I believe I saw something of the kind here on my last visit."
"How come you're so good at matching people with weapons? Are you a shopkeeper too?"
He laughed. "In a sense, I suppose I am. I suppose I should introduce myself: my name is Piandao."
"Oh." Toph could hear Mai's heart start to beat faster at the revelation that this was the famous swordmaster. "I'm Toph."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Lady Toph. Saddened that so young a lady needs to defend herself, but it is a sad world at times." Piandao pulled a fan out from a crate in the corner, snapped it open and held it in a menacing position where it would be effectively useless and then frowned. "No, that's not right." He offered it to Toph. "Only one of them, unfortunately. Why don't you show me how it's done?"
She accepted the weapon and fell back on her lessons from Kyoshi Island, moving through a kata designed for use with a single fan - although the Kyoshi Warriors were issued them in pairs, it wasn't uncommon for one to be lost. It surprised her for a moment how rusty she was, but then, she hadn't really practised since her injury at Chin Village. "I used to be better at this," Toph grumbled. "I guess I'd really better buy this and get back into practise."
"Practise is usually a good idea," Piandao agreed amiably. "And I'll just undermine my old friend's bargaining power by pointing out that it was in the discards box."
"I could hardly refuse Azulon's grandson," the younger girl pointed out. "Not to mention..."
Azula waved her hand dismissively, "Yes yes," she agreed impatiently. "It wouldn't do to create a rift in your relationship with Lu Ten at this point. I suggest you enjoy the courtship because the honeymoon is unlikely to be memorable." She leant on the balcony rail - progress in the negotiations with Long Feng could almost be measured by the incremental improvements in habitation for the Fire Nation embassy - and looked out over Ba Sing Se. "Did he let anything slip?"
"If your brother is really collaberating with the Avatar, I don't think he'll be taken alive," Ty Lee confided. "One part protection of the royal family's reputation, one part sentiment for your lady mother and perhaps some rebellious urges towards the Fire Lord."
"Rebellious?" Azula's eyebrows arched. "Really? Interesting choice of words there. Are you suggesting that he might be inclined to hurry the succession along?" She privately considered the pros and cons of Zuko's survival for a moment and then dismissed them. Delivering him dead wouldn't really hurt Lu Ten's credibility in Ozai's eyes and Azula was honest enough about her father to admit that.
Ty Lee pressed her fingers together. "He's still studying accounts of the Battle of the Three Dragons," she explained. "Not that I give him time when we're together, but he has three new scrolls on the subject since I last saw him. Two of them from the Earth Kingdom." Which was frowned upon, though not illegal, in the FIre Nation's military. Of course, as a Prince, Lu Ten was unlikely to be brought to task for such a trivial matter.
Azula's lips tightened. "Let me guess, he's still chasing that ridiculous theory of treachery at Serpent's Pass? Even if he was right, there would hardly be evidence in some scroll somewhere. There was only one survivor and if father did decide to settle the succession after Kanna was dead, he would hardly have left a written confession of it."
"Did he? Decide the succession, I mean."
"I haven't a clue," Azula responded. "What would it matter? Well, to anyone without a sentimental connection to Uncle Iroh?"
"I guess," Ty Lee agreed. "So, what do you want me to do now?"
"I'm surprised that you have the energy to do anything, from what I hear about your recent activities," smirked Azula. "Were you going for a record? Most exercise ever carried out in bed?"
Lu Ten's fiancee smiled back. "Oh we weren't just in bed, " she clarified.
"So you weren't just doing...?" Azula asked, sounding a bit disappointed.
"Well we were, but we didn't restrict ourselves to bed," explained Ty Lee. "You'd barely left before he threw me up against the wall of the map room and -"
"Stop!" commanded the princess. "I'm sorry I asked," she added under her breath. "I want you to open him up for an assassin, not to kill him yourself through exertion. Granted, he'd die with a smile on his face and no one would ever suspect foul play..."
.oOo.
When she heard the shout of outrage Mai was just leaving the store where she had parted with almost a third of their remaining money in return for what she hoped would be enough food for the next leg of their journey along the chain of islands that extended north-east from the heart of the Fire Nation. Fire Fountain City, with its famous fire-breathing statues of the Fire Lords Azulon, Iroh and Ozai, was their second stop since they had left the Southern Fire Nation.
It wasn't until the second cry, once she was clear of the door entirely that Mai could make out the words: "Stop! Cheat!" It didn't surprise her to find out that Toph was not dutifully waiting outside for her to come back with the food. Looking around didn't betray what might have distracted her little sister, but then, Toph wasn't limited to line of sight for that sort of thing and the cries were coming from a tangle of side streets.
Toph did not run out of the streets but a scrawny man with a headband and an ugly looking mustache ran out, looking around angrily. "You, young lady! Did you see a girl in a green dress run out here? She had milky eyes, like she was blind."
Mai gave him a long look and then jerked her head back towards the store, glad that she was wearing her old red and black pants suit, not the Kyoshi dress. "I just came out, I haven't seen anyone," she said honestly. "Besides, I think you'd hear a blind girl running - every person she collided with would complain."
"I don't think she's really blind," the man said, looking around at the crowded street. "She scammed me in a game, cost me a pretty penny too!"
"You were playing a game, for money, against a little girl that you thought was blind?" Mai asked him. "That doesn't seem very fair."
"I told you, she wasn't blind," he told her. "Besides, it's supposed to be luck. No reason a blind girl couldn't get lucky."
Mai frowned. "I don't see anyone in a green dress," she told him. "And how could she have 'scammed' you in a game of chance?"
"Ah! Now I've figured that out," he said triumphantly. "She made like she was blind, see, so she had to check which shell the stone was under by hand. She musta shuffled another stone in to them without my seeing. Slick."
More likely she was winning even after you thought you'd shuffled the stone out from any of the shells, Mai thought. "I'm not familiar with the game," she lied, knowing that the conversation could only reach one destination at that point unless the man was very shrewd about picking his marks. Wait, he'd gambled with Toph. Couldn't be all that bright.
On no more encouragement than Mai's monosyllablic responses the man set up a little table - not much more than a tray - on top of two convenient barrels and explained in a well-practised patter how the game worked. Given that he was offering a two to one return on a one to two chance, odds were that an honest game would break even in the long run, which made Mai wonder why anyone would believe that someone running the games as a living would be honest.
"I see what you mean about luck," she said, sounding dubiously, "But it doesn't seem to be a very exciting game."
"Oh, it's at least a thousand times more interesting when money's involved, young lady," the gambler assured her. "But I couldn't ask a proper young lady like yourself to..." Mai produced a silver coin. "...well, if you insist."
Having introduced Mai's coin to his own pair of silvers, the man placed a humble fleck of stone under one of the bowl-sized shells and started moving them quickly back and forth through an energetic and confusing pattern. Mai didn't bother to watch his hands - any half-competent grifter would be used to hiding movements of his hands. Instead she watched his eyes, something that seemed to discomfit him somewhat.
"So, young lady, pick yourself a shell," he suggested.
If he was a poor swindler, he'd have removed the pebble and go for the win now. If he was a clever man though, he would ensure her win now to hook her in for a larger wager. Hmm. In either case... "The centre," Mai said, and before the gambler could lift the shell she reached over and flipped the two side shells over revealing that there were pebbles under both of them.
"Wha!" he exclaimed.
"Very deft," Mai told him drily. "I see that you are well versed in deft cheating at this. A pebble in each to let me win at first, and then remove all the pebbles."
The man swallowed nervously as Mai started to delicately pick a tiny speck of dirt out from under one fingernail with a throwing knife that seemed to appear magically in her fingers. "What is it worth to you that I should forget all about this conversation?" she asked blandly.
.oOo.
Toph was repacking M Bison's saddle when Mai returned to their secluded campsite outside of Fire Fountain City. It was a sheltered beach far enough from the city that it was unlikely that they would be stumbled over by chance, not as comfortable as Mai would have preferred, but not so unpleasent that it was unmanageable for a few days. She did not miss the substantial bag of coin that lay on the ground next to their other belongings.
"A productive day?" Mai asked casually.
"Hustled some guy who was scamming the locals," Toph confirmed calmly. "I don't think he'll make trouble, but it's not like we were planning to hang around anyway."
Mai threw her own coinbag down next to Toph's. It was noticably larger and heavier and the look on Toph's face was clear evidence that she was aware of that. "Hustled some fool who got cheated by a blind girl," she explained, pulling the straps of her food basket off her shoulders and setting it down. She stretched to relieve the ache of her muscles. "We should probably pick up some fresh clothes in the next town we visit. Kyoshi Island greens are a touch visible on a Fire Nation street."
Toph waved her hand in front of her face. "I'll take your word for it. What town is it likely to be?"
"Shu Jing," Mai said, eyeing the water. "I'm going to get cleaned up before we go. It's another long leg up there."
Toph kept loading as Mai stripped down to her underwear and only a handful of her most essential weapons. The older girl plunged into the warm waters - this late in the day, even river water wasn't cold enough to shock, particularly after experiencing the bitter cold at the South Pole - and started efficiently scouring at herself with a rag. She had to duck her head to get soak her hair - long hair was a tremendous bother when travelling but if her little sister could manage then Mai would too (she was unaware that Toph refrained from cutting her own long hair in self-concious imitation of her).
"So what's special about Shu Jing?"
Looking up, Mai saw that Toph had efficiently tidied the campsite away, leaving only Mai's green dress and her weapons for her to change into after her bath. "Nothing particular, it's just a convienient town to use as a jumping off point for the flight to where Zuko told us the Sunwarriors came from."
"Just a name on a map?" Toph asked, sounding slightly disappointed.
Mai racked her mind for any other facts about the town. "I believe it's home to the swordmaster Piandao," she said at last.
"Oh?" Toph sat down on the riverbank, water rippling below her in response to a casual movement of her hands. "Does he make swords or use them?"
"Both," explained Mai. "He was a famous swordsman and commander in the army before he retired, but his swords are considered works of art. Wealthy patrons pay huge sums for them. My father commissioned one after my brother was born, so that Tom-Tom will have a Piandao sword when he's old enough to join the army, but there are so many orders for them that we only had word that it was delivered to our family home in the capital after we were in Omashu."
"Sounds like he does well for himself. Is he a great firebender."
"Actually, he isn't a firebender at all," Mai revealed. "It's the only reason he managed to leave the army - the Fire Lord can't look so weak as to merely request a non-bender to rejoin the army, and the last time someone demanded that Piandao return to the banners they took a hundred soldiers with them. He defeated them all."
"Neat! Maybe we'll meet him when we're in Shu Jing," Toph suggested. "I've never met a swordmaster before. I wonder how he moves."
Mai shook her head. "It would be better to avoid him. Even if he did leave the army, that might not mean that he'd turn a blind eye to you. Remember, if Zhao survived to make a report there's probably at least a decent description of you in the hands of anyone important in the Fire Nation." She finished washing herself down and waded up onto the beach. "Would you mind?"
Toph swept one arm up and around, the water on Mai streaming obediently off her body and into a long trail towards the young girl's hand. She shaped it into something resembling a sword and slashed at the air inexpertly, the way that Mai had seen boys too young for war training play with toy swords. Of course, this sword was as sharp as Toph's will so even a poorly delivered cut might be fatal.
M Bison mooed irritably, shrugging at the saddle. Bored, probably, Mai concluded as she fastened her dress and started picking up her weapons. Hard to blame him, with nothing to do here but graze. "Alright, let's go. We can get a good distance before the sunlight fades."
.oOo.
Shopping for clothes was something that Toph had laughably little experience of. The only clothes she had ever bought for herself were for her fighting identity in the Earth Rumble tournaments and she had found that enough of a struggle not to get conned or look like a clown at the end of it. "Whatever you get, get me the same for my size. We're the same colour and what-not, right?"
"You'll still need to be here so that you can be measured for them," Mai told her patiently, reviewing what was on the racks of the tailor's shop now that she knew she was buying for both of them. While there were some differences in their colouring, Toph was right that they weren't all that great. Of course, the 'what-not' covered the considerable difference in shape imposed by the four year age gap - althoug Toph was probably more developed than Mai had been at that age. Still, wearing the same style would make some degree of sense - it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that a younger sister would have clothes that her elder sister had outgrown.
"Why don't you pick out some hairpieces," she suggested, pointing towards the table at the back of the store where the storekeeper's wife could keep an eagle eye on the relatively valuable merchandise.
Toph nodded agreeably and wandered in that direction, holding her arms extended so that she could touch each garment on the racks she was between as she walked. A flash of colour caught Mai's eye as the clothes swayed back into position and she took a few steps to examine the wine-red dress. Plain and shoulderless, reaching only mid-calf, it would be more comfortable than heavier fabrics in the warmth of the Fire Nation.
Still, as it was, it wasn't quite suitable for someone of Toph's age and it would be... eye-catching on a young woman of Mai's age. While the latter might be flattering, it wouldn't be very practical under these circumstances. She started looking through the tops to find something complimentary.
"So who are you buying for?" she heard the middle-aged woman ask indulgently.
"For me and Mai, of course," Toph replied bluntly, running her finger around one of the hairpieces.
The woman gasped, not angrily. "Oh my, you won't want one of those then. Those are for men, dear. Here, let me show you something more feminine."
"Does that mean delicate?" Toph asked diplomatically. "I'm not so good with that. Blind, you see."
"Oh, goodness," the woman said in a shocked voice. "I really couldn;t tell, dear. You manage very well."
Toph picked up one of the head-pieces, a plain but rather nicely worked cuff of bronze two finger-widths across, with two dragon wings jutting upwards. Mai thought that it must be a concious imitation of the traditional headpiece of the crown prince - lost for centuries - but far less fine of course. "This is rather nice, do you have another like it?"
"Well it would certainly be sturdy," the shopkeeper's wife agreed reluctantly, running her eyes across her merchandise. "I don't have another of those, but perhaps you'll like these?" She lifted the hairpiece out of Toph's hand and replaced it with another, this one with silvery trim and more elaborate side pieces wrought in the shape of rearing dragons.
Toph made a disgusted noise as she turned it over in her hand. "This just isn't sturdy enough," she said dismissively. "And there's something about the metal... is that silver? It must cost twice as much."
"You've caught me," the motherly woman admitted shamelessly. "But really, you have such lovely hair. It deserves silver."
The blind girl laughed bluntly. "What would I care about what it looks like? Something more like the first one, please."
Mai shook her head and then picked out tunic like top, open at the sides but hanging long at front and back. It was the wrong colour, but it would cover up their shoulders.
.oOo.
The storekeeper's wife was more than happy for the two girls to change their clothes in a small cubicle set aside for that purpose and in exchange for a small additional payment made some minor alterations to the fit - more for Mai than for Toph, who could be expected to grow into her new garments. And when they walked out of the store, they both had their hair pulled back into loose ponytails secured by simple brass hair-pieces, engraved such that dragons snaked around the circumference. Only their bangs were left unsecured, Mai's neat fringe and Toph's less regular eye-obscuring locks of hair.
"So, where next?" Toph asked curiously.
Mai glanced along the street. "A weapon shop. I want to replace a few lost knives, and the Water Tribe didn't have any metal suitable for them, even if there was a sufficiently skilled weaponsmith there."
"Weapons?" Toph's smile broadened. "Nice. Do you think I should get something?"
"Well, a lady can never have enough knives," counselled the older girl as they walked down the street. "But it's important to find weapons that work for you."
The weapons shop - a veritable temple to the regrettable brevity of life and the tools that could further abbreviate it - was not busy. The proprietor, a grey haired man with shoulders that suggested he might well be the smith responsible for making some the various deadly implements, was conversing quietly with a lean, well-dressed man.
Mai made her way directly over to the trays of knives stored at the back, with Toph lagging behind and stamping her feet - now in fashionable thin soled moccasins that she had been assured were intended for dancing - every few paces to make absolutely certain she wasn't about to walk into something with sharp edges. The earthbender stopped at a rack of swords and ran her hands very carefully over them before selecting a dao and giving it a tentative swing, the rings set along the back edge clinking as she did so.
The awkward move caught the attention of the man speaking to the storekeeper and he half-turned towards Toph, who was partly obscured from his sight by the weapon rack. "Let me guess. you've come hundreds of miles from your little village where you're the best swordsman in town and you think you deserve to learn from Master Piandao?"
Toph returned the weapon to its place on the rack. "That's amazing! You got every single little detail wrong! How did you manage it?"
The man blinked and then smiled ruefully as he took a step sideways to get a clearer line of sight towards her. "It's a knack," he admitted. "My apologies for the remark, young lady. It was rude of me."
"Whatever," Toph lifted another sword, a straight jian and then replaced it immediately. The light weapon was not to her taste. "You hear that story a lot?"
"Oh, quite often," he admitted. "You're looking for a sword?"
"I dunno," Toph replied shortly. "A girl has to defend her honor sometimes, but I've never tried using a sword before." She grinned. "I've never seen a sword after all."
"Never?" the man asked in surprise, walking around the rack to look at her. "Ah, I see." He walked like a fighter: purposeful, controlled. "You manage well - I could tell immediately that you are a fighter, but not that you are blind."
Toph grinned. "Thanks. My sister taught me everything she knows."
"Not even close," Mai observed from where she was examining a throwing knife. The storekeeper moved in her direction, more interested in a propsective paying customer than in the Toph's conversation partner.
"I see," the warrior said, lifting the jian and essaying a few thrusts before returning it neatly to its place. "Well, I don't think that this would be your sort of weapon. A sword is a little more involved than merely being a knife writ large."
"Do you have any suggestions?
He frowned and rubbed at his beard. "Well, you've not really got the reach for a pole arm. Have you ever used a hook sword?"
"What's a hook sword?" Toph asked.
"Jet used two," Mai told her, not looking up from the knife she was weighing in her hand.
"Jet?" asked the man. "A friend of yours?"
Toph made a face. "Not hardly. He was a real creep, but I know what you mean now. Are there any here?"
"I believe so." He reached higher up the rack and brought down a pair of swords.
When Toph took them, she could tell that the points curved back on themselves. Thinking back, she tried to move them the way Jet had, all those months ago when he fought against her and Zuko outside of Omashu. Her impaired earthsense had only shown him to her when he was close thought, and she quickly realised she was degenerating into random fumbling. "I don't think so."
"I think you could be quite good with practise," her advisor observed, "But I agree, you aren't too deft with them at the moment. Still, you seem to have some experience in wielding paired weapons."
"You're pretty good at this," Toph admitted. "Yeah, I learned to fight a bit with metal fans a while back. It was some sort of traditional women's weapon where we were living."
"Well let's see if we can find any here. It might be better to build on what you already know." The man set off into one of the back corners of the shop. "I believe I saw something of the kind here on my last visit."
"How come you're so good at matching people with weapons? Are you a shopkeeper too?"
He laughed. "In a sense, I suppose I am. I suppose I should introduce myself: my name is Piandao."
"Oh." Toph could hear Mai's heart start to beat faster at the revelation that this was the famous swordmaster. "I'm Toph."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Lady Toph. Saddened that so young a lady needs to defend herself, but it is a sad world at times." Piandao pulled a fan out from a crate in the corner, snapped it open and held it in a menacing position where it would be effectively useless and then frowned. "No, that's not right." He offered it to Toph. "Only one of them, unfortunately. Why don't you show me how it's done?"
She accepted the weapon and fell back on her lessons from Kyoshi Island, moving through a kata designed for use with a single fan - although the Kyoshi Warriors were issued them in pairs, it wasn't uncommon for one to be lost. It surprised her for a moment how rusty she was, but then, she hadn't really practised since her injury at Chin Village. "I used to be better at this," Toph grumbled. "I guess I'd really better buy this and get back into practise."
"Practise is usually a good idea," Piandao agreed amiably. "And I'll just undermine my old friend's bargaining power by pointing out that it was in the discards box."
In all likelihood, Ty Lee is on her own side, and whose ever plans end up being to her benefit will be the victor of her loyalties. This version seems a bit more intelligent and willing to pull some strings of her own to get what she wants.
I will admit I've probably only seen about 1/2 of the Avatar series episodes and don't always have the proper mental image of a character's personality, but Piandao seems to come off well in this fic.
I will admit I've probably only seen about 1/2 of the Avatar series episodes and don't always have the proper mental image of a character's personality, but Piandao seems to come off well in this fic.