Flint and Spark (2/??)

[gaisce]

Title: Flint and Spark

Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Content tags: Azula/Toph Beifong, slowburn (emphasis on burn), bonding through property damage, post-canon

Summary: Five years after Sozin’s Comet, a tenuous balance is on the brink of collapse. A Southern Water Tribe diplomatic envoy disappears in the middle of negotiations with the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Each side blames the other, ready to send the nations back to war. Toph can stop the conspiracy, but with her only help being the manipulative exile, Princess Azula, her enemies may not be the biggest problem.

Or, Toph and Azula go on a Life Changing Field Trip.

Azula had been waiting far longer than Toph’s estimation. 

The disgraced princess lost count of the days a long time ago, but it started before they imprisoned her in that sunless cell and locked her away from the world. Maybe it was when Fire Lord Ozai told her to stay behind. She heard his words, knew how intractable his commands were, how painful the consequences for disobeying could be, yet part of her never stopped expecting him to change his mind. A princess used to getting her way made for a willful conceit that she had earned her place at his side. And there the thought remained, the little girl dressed up in her father’s robes and standing guard at the palace gates, waiting for his return. 

Or it could have started when she came back from the Boiling Rock. The evening she paced alone in her room, clawing and tugging at her clothes as if she could rend the disappointment from her body. All the while she grew more and more frustrated at the sluggish response of her movements, her fingers fumbling with clasps and arms getting tangled up in the robes. It was not until the armor lay in a scattered pile at her feet that she realized she was not used to doing this completely by herself, anticipating an interruption that would never come again.

The last suggestion for when she lost control of her life was somewhere in between, a harried whisper she never allowed herself to consider, to even finish thinking. It started when she fell. She was impatient and unprepared when she charged her brother on the airship, pushed too much, and the explosion of both their attacks sent them both over the edge of the war dirigible. His friends caught him immediately, while she waited for something to reach for as the nothingness tumbled past her, all her fears pressing down on her faster than gravity. It was just like those nightmares, the helpless falling sensation where you’d wake up right before hitting the ground. Only she never reached that far, and Azula wondered if it meant she was still trapped; her stricken mind still waiting to hit rock bottom.

She brought the chains down to break off another bit of stone, banishing the thought away with her hands. The first day out of her cell and it was spent either in the bowels of a ship or buried in the castoff dirt of her escort’s earthbending. Azula had no delusions that this excursion could be anything like real freedom, but with the open horizon in her sights all the cautious surveying seemed so unimportant now. Let the earthbender think she was wasting her energy on useless revolt by chipping away at her restraints. It was better than standing around and doing nothing. Better than waiting.

When Toph returned, Azula managed to strip part of the stone down to the top edge of the cuffs that bound her ankles. The exile stood up and dusted her hands, not bothering to disguise what she had been doing. In fact, she had a certain bravado to her stance, despite still being trapped in place.

“Huh,” was all Toph said. “Good thing those daofei losers were easy or you might’ve gotten a whole ankle out.”

Azula resisted the urge to kick against the stone and demonstrate how soon she could have managed. It didn’t matter anyway as Toph merely waved her hand and suddenly there was nothing except for the ground beneath her feet.

“In that case, you should have let me come with you. Guarding a prisoner is easier to manage when you’re actually around to keep an eye out—” she said, gesturing to her gold irises in mock emphasis, “but I guess that’s too much to ask.”

“I can handle myself without worrying about you of all people covering my back.”

“Next time I’ll just escape and say you left me off on my own,” Azula continued in a flat, clinical tone. “Who could blame me when my prison keeper abandons me without water, food, and no guarantee of return? It’s a matter of personal survival.”

“Pfft, bet you’re real good at that,” Toph snorted as a new wave of pain settled in her collarbone. A tug of raw nerves had gone from novelty to racking soreness quicker than she expected. The sensation stayed with her as she gathered up their supplies, the small collection of copper coins nestled underneath her belt. Thankfully the twinge was not bad enough for Azula to notice. “But even if you prove I can’t leave you alone—and, oh boy, you are proving it—it’d be like carrying a millstone into a fight. You’re in chains. And if you weren’t, you wouldn’t help me anyway.”

“If it helped to get this finished faster,” Azula shrugged, almost sounding offended, “I might.”

“Lucky for both of us, I don’t need it.”

Chain links scratched and grew taut as Azula twisted her wrists against them. She did not say anything, but Toph could feel the glare of her eyes burning resentment on her back. Almost as if anger might make her capable of firebending in spite of the chi-blocking restraints. 

“Hey, if you really wanted to help you’d offer to carry the packs, Princess.” Ignoring the ominous silence and the ache in her arms, Toph crouched into her earthbending stance and with a twist of her heel they were once again moving on a wave of earth. “But you already got your hands full, so why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the ride?”

They continued without exchanging another word, and under any other circumstances Toph would have enjoyed the lack of conversation. It was funny, really. She was practically begging for silence when they first started out, Azula offering nothing except for subtle questions about their destination and less than subtle taunts about everything else. But now she was completely unresponsive, where even the jab about carrying their supplies went unanswered. And that aggravating, dangerous presence became another heavy weight that dragged behind as Toph guided them over the terrain. 

Being the sole guard for the disgraced Fire Nation royal was a difficult task, even for the world’s greatest earthbender. But the real complication was that she was not meant to be their prisoner. Azula was supposed to help them as an ally under Toph’s supervision, or her protection if the need arose. 

And it surprised Toph to recognize what she resented most about her passenger was the one thing that was not actually Azula’s fault. Despite being a master firebender and one of their most zealous pursuers during the war, Azula could contribute nothing to hastening their journey while in chains. Although she was capable of keeping up, letting her have control of a fast mount or even the ability to travel under her own power would be practically inviting escape, or worse. And in spite of Azula’s sworn oath to help, she always lied, so trusting her simply wasn’t an option. 

Someone who could not pull their own weight was everything the self-sufficient earthbender hated dealing with, and yet if she were the one stuck with nothing else to do, nowhere to go on her own, and generally being treated like an ineffectual waste of space, Toph would be furious as well. She recognized that anger in the tension of Azula’s clenched fist and pursed lips. It made her wish this part would be over soon, so she would not be the only one dealing with the prisoner, burdened with carrying her and whatever unseen baggage she brought along. 

---

“We’re here,” Toph announced once she deposited Azula back on solid ground. 

It was an obvious statement, given the fact that they had set down on the only landmark for miles around, but Toph felt the need to say something. She wanted those words to be a signal for others to appear, for anyone to greet them so they could interrupt the lingering tension. But no one came and so she was left with Azula’s wordless disdain as she surveyed their surroundings.

Their final stop turned out to be nothing more than a small farm in the shadow of the foothills. Koala sheep skittered in a panicked greeting, bleating at their arrival and kicking dust from their fence. Their pen served as a boundary for the garden that curved past the ridge with a water silo marking the edge of the farm, while the house itself was carved out of a mound that naturally began at the start of the ground swell. The front door was slanted and carved in an unusual shape to mimic how the rock formations defined its craggy walls, a perfectly inconspicuous dwelling.

Toph could look past the deceptive appearance to see the extensive tunnel network below it. The burrows were an older style of Earth Kingdom architecture, dating back hundreds of years when people sought to emulate the badger moles in as many ways as possible. Practically speaking, it also made a perfect safe house since the house blended in with the mountainside seamlessly to escape notice unless someone was looking for it, which was precisely why Toph had no trouble shoving past the door and ushering her companion inside.

“How quaint,” the exile muttered under her breath.

Toph reached out to the inside of the door frame and ran her fingers against the stone beam. The granite was sanded to a fine, even finish, obviously the work of a master craftsman. She could also feel the faint engraving of a lotus blossom in the southwest corner, so small it was about the size of a pai sho tile. It was something most people would never see in the dim light of the room, and like all symbols that marked the Order of the White Lotus, its unobtrusive nature made it all the more significant.

This was a safe house for travelers in the Earth Kingdom. A white lotus marking near the entryway announced that anyone who could find this place was already considered under their protection. While many of the society’s outposts also served as regular establishments such as taverns, merchant stores, or a variety of other trade shops, places exclusively meant for White Lotus business were rare and heavily guarded secrets within their network. 

The man whose home served as their meeting place was called Roi Se. He was a shepherd by trade, although his importance within the Order of the White Lotus was due to his mapmaking skills rather than his stock of koala sheep. Iroh once mentioned that his adventures to chart the terrain for the Earth Kingdom resistance made for interesting stories, and suggested she ask Roi Se to tell her about his adventures the next time she visited him. It was one of the few details she remembered in the blur of introductions, back when the old general and King Bumi were busy persuading her to meet as many of their comrades as possible, when it seemed a natural thing for the teacher of the first and only metalbending school to be inducted the Order of the White Lotus. 

Before Toph suspended her school, temporarily, and turned down their invitation, more definitively.

Arranged social gatherings usually left a sour impression on her, but last summer she was particularly obstinate when one of their reunions ended abruptly and with a heated argument over how unreachable she became, both physically and otherwise. Katara explained that it was because they worried about her. Worried for her, to be precise. Toph relented enough to let them parade her about to guests and dignitaries so they could sleep better at night knowing she had a list of people whose names and places were open to her. But her pride stung at the idea that she needed to rely on barely remembered acquaintances to remind her of her place in the world.

To Toph, there was no difference between Aang wandering off to chat with a magical talking lion turtle spirit for a few hours and her stomping into the forest for training for a few weeks. While Katara and the others agreed there might not be a difference in the act itself, apparently there was a difference with her. Everyone else had settled into neat little groups. Young couples exploring their relationships, families reunited at last; all of which Toph was a part of and yet not entirely. She wandered between Aang and Katara, Sokka and Suki, Zuko and Mai, as they all carved out their places in this new world. And she could not blame them for their preoccupation since they spent most of their lives salvaging what had been ripped away. A mentor, a mother, a village, friends and loved ones, all of them—except for her—had experienced deep, personal loss because of the war. And, to them, peace meant a comfortable nearness; attachments; settling down. 

But Toph was different. Her life before was sheltered to the point of being suffocating. She wanted attachments and nearness but she also needed to wander and sometimes, no matter how much she loved her friends, that meant she needed to be away from them and on her own path. 

Roi Se was an acquaintance, and reminder that being alone did not mean isolation. He was a solitary type of person, as expected from someone who lived miles away from any village with only koala sheep to keep him company. But he was also one of the old secret keepers in the Order, and his absence in their meetings did not remove his usefulness. When she heard that his place was the rendezvous, she realized how important its secrecy should be kept. It was one of the reasons she accepted escorting Azula between the nations by herself. And it was why the prolonged quiet did nothing except magnify her wariness.

“Something’s wrong,” Toph said, pressing her hand to the door and letting it fall away at her touch.

“More than one thing,” Azula said quietly as she cast a glance into the darkened entryway.

Of course the crazy prisoner would decide to keep quiet until the worst possible moment, she thought. But even if it was a flippant remark Azula said nothing more, lingering near the narrow slit of a window and waiting. If she was contemplating running, Toph figured that keeping her near the exit would still be better than letting her wander inside the dens before she figured out what was amiss. And considering how the tunnels were designed, all twists and narrow pathways, Toph doubted the other girl was going to argue about her taking the lead. 

There were no vibrations except for the koala sheep herd outside and Azula’s faint shifting from foot to foot. Being blind, Toph did not bother with the lamps as she began exploring. With each tread of her feet she could feel the hollowed out tunnels, the dead ends and secret chambers, but no sign of a living soul within. It was only until she held still and poured all her concentration into her earthbending senses that she managed to feel a slight shift of dirt coming from an adjoining room. Briefly she wondered if this was the result of something spilling, especially if it came from something overturned if Roi Se had to leave in a hurry. A knocked over stew pot or bathwater leaking.

Then Toph froze mid-step.

Already suspecting the worst, the Fire Nation exile attempted to see what was causing her companion’s sudden halt. It had to be serious to get under the earthbender’s thick skin, and since Toph was blind it had to be something she felt. Reasoning done, Azula stared down at the ground to confirm her suspicions. 

Even from the distance and in the dim light, she found it all too easily. A pool of red was already seeping into the dirt, slick and full of dire warnings.

She briefly considered mentioning how it was fresh enough to not have yet dried, what little there was anyway. But by the expression on the blind girl’s face meant she already knew. Even as the Toph’s bare feet retreated from its edge, dragging her heels guiltily.

“Are there others?”

“Shut up,” Toph growled, and the firebender did not know if it was simply out of disgust or if she was trying to listen for any other signs of the intruders. Either way, she seemed to find it prudent to stay quiet. Toph slammed one fist against the wall, hard enough for it to shake loose some clods, her face wracked with concentration, as if trying to push her earthbending senses to their limit with the hardest strike she could manage that wouldn’t bring the house down. Then she hit the wall again, and it seemed that one had no strategic value and was simply to vent her personal feelings.

After a long silence Toph swallowed to clear her throat. Because of nausea or grief, it was hard to tell. They both were the kind to twist hard in a stomach with nowhere else to release the feeling. 

“No. There’s nobody.”

Azula did not ask for clarification on what that meant. But she took a step toward the younger girl and could see her silhouette tense up in response. “Earthbender...”

Toph grit her teeth, touching the walls as if they could explain the fight to her. Or perhaps to keep her steady. “He was alone. It was a group against one old man. He wasn’t even a fighter, and they...”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Azula finished. And the way she said it sounded more like a diagnosis than an attempt at consoling her, but Toph shook it off. She knew that, help or hinder, Azula’s words were not responsible for the heaviness settling in her stomach.

“I should have.”

“Maybe if you didn’t stop to play hero,” Azula said evenly, but whatever she meant by it was brushed away as easily as she shrugged. It was an economical movement, not careless at all. “We could’ve arrived early and we would have been just in time for them to ambush us as well. If you listened to me he might still be alive, but that would mean admitting I was right. And those peasants you saved wouldn’t have noticed your absence to blame you. Of course, it could have ended worse for them, depending on how thieves deal with merchants who fight back and make them work for their stolen goods.”

Her tone was cold and without sympathy. At first, all Toph wanted to do was break her jaw, but there was a certain chilling assurance to them. The way they cut to the marrow and shoved back the tumble of could have and should have, hating her for callousness gave Toph a focus for what to do next. She had to get Azula into the custody of the Order of the White Lotus, and she had to warn them about this attack. Whether or not the two were related—and once again Toph wished she could accurately tell when Azula was lying—she could not ignore the fact that things were already put in motion and she was lagging behind.

Shaking her head, Toph sucked in a ragged breath and tried to get her bearings. She would catch up, but there were priorities. “We take care of him first.”

---

“Disgusting,” Azula murmured to the dust lingering in Roi Se’s garden.

“Shut up,” said Toph in a voice as hard as steel. She had not bothered arguing with Azula, instead setting to work by opening up a grave in the adjacent garden and finding a tapestry to wrap the body. “We’re burying him.”

“It’s a disgusting custom to throw dirt over a body and simply leave it to rot...”

“We’re burying him and that’s final.”

Azula’s feet shifted defensively, the overspill disrupting the garden’s soil and putting imperceptible pressure on the roots that only Toph could sense. But then the former princess never seemed to be mindful of what she stepped on to get where she was going. “He’s gone now, what does it matter?”

“Because he deserves this.”

“I’m sure if he were alive he’d appreciate us scattering the ashes of his murderers instead of tidying up his garden.”

Toph shoved past her. “You’re wrong. That’s not what he’d want. Now help me carry him.”

Azula paused for a moment, then half-turned and stopped again. “How well did you know this person?”

“Better than you.”

She snorted. “How unspecific.”

“We weren’t exactly pen pals, alright? But he was a good guy who was going to help you in case you forgot why you’re out of your cage.”

“Did he know I was coming or were you the only one pleasantly surprised by the details of this mission?” Azula asked, her fingers smoothing out the creases in the tapestry but not enough to directly touch what lay beneath it. 

“He knew,” Toph said tersely. For a moment she looked as if she would say more but closed her mouth when she thought better of it. Without waiting for Azula to grab hold, or really expecting her to help, she wrapped her arms around the body’s torso and lifted it from the ground.

It was—he was heavy, Toph thought, trying to keep her balance and grip the cloth in a respectful manner. She could have simply used her earthbending to do the whole job, but felt it would be cheap. If she was unable to reach Roi Se in time to save his life, then the least she could do would be to carry him to a proper resting place with her own two hands. And she was so caught up that she had momentarily forgotten her prisoner, her reason for being here instead of anywhere else in the world, as she carried the body toward the grave. Only when she felt the weight lift and could hear the noise of cloth and chains moving after her, did she remember the other girl. She held her breath as they walked through the garden, as if that would keep Azula from speaking too, and it was the first time in their entire journey they worked together in peaceable silence.

It was only a few steps before Toph was walking on the freshly upturned soil, moving around the opening so she could place his body gently inside the grave. She knelt and flinched at the sensation that followed as Azula’s robes brushed against her wounded shoulder. It did not hurt, but it surprised her. It was strange to feel the other girl leaning over alongside her, their heads bowed in mutual concentration that would have kept them from reading each other’s expressions if Toph could not already sense it. But there was no need to see her face, given the incongruity of their actions. The former princess of the Fire Nation and her hated enemy, kneeling in the dirt with her to bury a man she had never known and Toph had known all too little.

As soon as the body was on the ground she felt Azula pull away, scrubbing at her hands. Her whole body was radiating scorn. Toph remained, her hand resting on his chest as if to protect him from her startled movement. Now that he was in place she closed her eyes and willed the earth to cover the body. When she opened them again, Toph hoped whatever spirit or afterlife that existed would accept him the way the earth did. And she hoped his spirit would forgive her easier than she could forgive herself. 

“We have to put some distance between us and this place,” Azula said right on the heels of a respectful silence, “as soon as possible.”

Toph stood, not bothering to brush off the dirt of the grave. “I know.”

“So remove my chains.”

“Excuse me?” she snorted, the sheer audacity breaking all solemnity of the moment. “For a second there I thought you were telling me the dumbest ideas you could think of.”

“They slow me down, we both know it. And if someone manages to overtake us or word gets out about his murder faster than we can travel don’t you think I’ll look a little conspicuous with these?” She held them up for inspection, not bothering to conceal the loud rattling the manacles made.

“No way.”

Azula took a step forward. “You’re going to end up risking both of our lives because you’re afraid I’ll slip out of your grasp?” 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Toph said evenly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you loose.”

Suddenly, the plaintive gesture became a weapon, the chain looping around the earthbender’s arm and twisting to make the iron pull her hands tightly behind her. Azula’s face was close enough that her breath could move the loose strands of Toph’s hair. But even closer was a three inch piece of slate, sharpened like a blade and pressed along the underside of her jaw by the prisoner’s steady shackled hand.

“What does this tell you?” Azula asked slowly.

Toph didn’t dare swallow but kept her voice steady. “That you’ve got a bigger chip on shoulder than up your sleeve.”

For a tense moment nothing happened. There were a dozen ways to disarm and incapacitate the firebender before she could try to draw blood but—even though she really wanted to—Toph held herself back. If Azula was seriously attempting to kill her she would have gone for the throat already, quick and without preamble. Toph was confident enough to believe she would not have succeeded, but she might have done enough damage to make her wish she wasn’t alone with the mad princess.

“It should tell you that if I really wanted to escape into the wilderness of the Earth Kingdom I wouldn’t let you get in my way. I’d been watching...there were times where you were much more vulnerable than this when I could have struck.”

Toph clenched her teeth, thinking of Azula stooping over, shoulder to shoulder with her as they laid Roi Se’s body into the makeshift grave. And she silently had to admit, she let her guard down. “Here’s a hint. Threats aren’t the way to get people to trust you. Ever. I’m sure Mai gave you the message before.”

The point of the weapon touched Toph’s cheek briefly, hesitating. Then Azula withdrew, releasing her arm and the lingering menace.  “It’s not about trust,” she said, pure loathing infusing the word. “I’m proving to you that you need to rely on me. That you need to believe me, otherwise we’ll both fail.”

“Believe you, got it.” Toph nodded. Then turned around and slugged Azula in the stomach, sending the prisoner reeling. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are seriously messed up?!”

To Azula’s credit she did not collapse, but stumbled backward and came close to doubling over. She coughed through gritted teeth, trying to steady herself. “What else am I supposed to do?” Then coughed again. “Saying ‘please’ doesn’t work when you clearly have no manners.”

“I know how to act polite, but I’m not wasting it on you. Stop acting like you get a say in this. The only reason you’re still not rotting in an asylum is because Twinkletoes and Zuko thought you deserved a chance. And you’re blowing it.”

“The only reason they let me out is because I commanded the Dai Li once. I’m useful and you’re desperate!” Azula snapped venomously. “This is about what’s necessary. I know if it was about what you wanted, or my brother wanted, I would be back there and you’d never let me out. But if we stay here and argue we’ll be caught, and I refuse to trade a Fire Nation cell for an Earth Kingdom prison.”

It was hard to admit that part of that rant made sense in a sick and twisted way. Shaking her head in disbelief, she reached for Azula’s hands, easily crushing the slate shard into dust. Then with a flick of her fingers she wrenched the chain from her shackles, the links clattering into her waiting hand until all that was left was Azula’s iron gauntlets.

“You might have a point, even if you don’t know how to make one without a sharpened edge,” Toph said after a moment, crushing the metal and warping it until she could twine it around her own wrist as a plain-looking accent to her gauntlet. “It’s not about what I want, but it’s not what you want either. So stop standing around and follow me.”

“And the rest?” Azula prompted.

“Don’t push it, Princess,” she grunted, kicking off the chain that bound Azula’s ankles with her bare foot. That one she left in the dirt, as if waiting for the firebender to pick it up if she dared. “You don’t need your firebending to move.”

The girl inhaled as if to say more, or recuperate from Toph’s punch, but held off. “Fine. Let’s get out of here. This place is depressing.”

Despite her insistence to leave as soon as possible, Azula took the opportunity to ransack supplies from Roi Se’s home. He had no need of them now, she explained as Toph waited with crossed arms and a disapproving scowl. The earthbender did not have to scurry about in order to make use of the time left to them. With only a few careful gestures she buried any signs of his association with the secret society, crushing potential evidence into dust. The one she took special care to remove was the white lotus symbol on the door frame, pulling the carving in the size of a pai sho tile from its mooring. 

“Aren’t you taking anything else?” Azula asked, glancing suspiciously at the tile. 

Toph rubbed her thumb over the carving and then tucked it in her belt. “I travel light. And you better remember that, because you’re going to be the one carrying the extra weight.” 

But the question prompted her mind to turn over the scene once again. Whoever did this, it was quick and dirty, overwhelming an old man with brute force and then leaving just as abruptly as they broke in. Opportunistic daofei or other roaming bandits would have taken more time to ransack the place, searching for secret compartments hidden within the stone of the walls or rifled through his supplies. She could sense the shoddy attempts to cover their attacks with packed layers over the marks of blades and earthbending, the way a child would shove a mess under the nearest covering to escape blame. It was almost too simplistic, too slapdash, which she initially attributed to their hurry to escape before she was due to arrive, but now realized it could also be a deceptive way of covering their tracks.

She turned on her heel, walking headlong into another of the tunnels. Roi Sei was obviously the target since they didn’t devote their search for anything else important, overlooking conspicuous evidence like the White Lotus tile. But maybe it’s because they didn’t know what to look for, only that they had to destroy anything she might have found useful. And their concerns of what she may have uncovered be her way of discovering what the perpetrators were worried about.

Without Roi Sei to answer her, there was no guidance as to why he was her first stop, what he was going to do with Azula once she arrived, or what poppy-laced tea the Order of the White Lotus was drinking when they thought it was a good idea to start a save the world operation in the hands of a solitary old mapmaker, a mad exile, and Toph as the one to pull it all together. 

Except, maybe it wasn’t a bad start. Maps. He was a mapmaker for the entire Earth Kingdom, even the corners of the Si Wong desert and Ba Sing Se.

She tilted her head to listen for Azula’s footfalls, the newly unchained firebender not following her deeper into the rooms, but not making a run for it either. Toph wasn’t sure if she wanted Azula to be here or not. She needed the firebender’s eyes but unfortunately those came with the rest of her. Instead, Toph reached out her hand, hoping to find the worktable of Roi Sei’s map room. Her fingertips touched bare stone, same as the cabinets that lined the walls, also empty of any scrolls or stray scraps of paper. The intruders had been here, and much more careful hiding their tracks than they were in the front room.

“I’m sorry,” Toph said to the man’s stolen work, which was both more grief stricken and less painful than apologizing to the body she just buried. 

She returned to Azula’s pacing, the unnecessary movement seemingly out of place for her. “Is there anything here that looks wrong?” she asked.

“Besides the obvious?” Azula replied acerbically. 

“Yeah, because it’s not obvious. They stole all of his maps. Ransacked his workroom. It only looks like this because they...” she trailed off, trying to keep her voice even. 

“They saw him as a resource who had outlived his usefulness,” Azula finished, yet turning to survey the room with renewed interest. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one who can stomp your foot and tell where everything is in this hovel.”

“Because I didn’t sense any secret compartments hidden in the walls, and he wasn’t a bender anyway.”

“It would be foolish to hide anything in the element most likely to be wielded by your enemies,” Azula said, moving to trace her fingers along the wooden tabletops and cabinets of his room.

Toph wanted to point out firebenders still had the hundred year reputation of being the primary oppressor for anyone in the Earth Kingdom, but was distracted by something Azula said. Roi Sei of the White Lotus was clever enough to not leave anything obvious for earthbending thieves to discover, but he also may have been clever enough to leave something just for her: the only metalbender in existence. 

She took a step, pivoting slowly in a quarter turn to send vibrations throughout the earth and waited for a response. Immediately, the echo of what she was looking for reverberated back to her, packed earth, slate, disturbed soil, and the sparse instances of iron hidden amongst his rooms like hinges and an overturned tea kettle. There was nothing obvious, like a locked box or reinforced wall, but paper was thin and there was a metal sheet underneath the drafting table back in his workroom.

In a few easy strides Toph was there, wrenching the metal apart and feeling her breath catch as she felt a soft flutter of parchment fall over her toes. This time she wasn’t alone for long, Azula’s footsteps trailing and voice calling out for her. Toph had a split second to decide if she should share her discovery, because Azula could see what was on it, could read what Roi Sei must have thought important to hide just in case the worst came to his doorstep. It could be the answer for what steps they were supposed to take, what plans they were supposed to prepare, even explain why he was killed.

The firebender stood in the doorway. “What did you find?” 

She rubbed her cheek, the place where Azula nearly pricked her, and shoved the scroll into her tunic. “Not sure. But I know there’s nothing left here to search for, so let’s go.”

---

When they finally left Roi Se’s home, twilight was settling in. The darkness did not bother Toph; it was the same as daylight to her. And the cold did not bother Azula because she could raise her body heat even if the manacles prevented her from proper firebending. Nevertheless, they did not travel for very long and when they made camp both were eager to spend the night unconscious to its splendor.

Toph extended her arms out at adjoining points and two solid rock slabs rose up for her tent. She turned to where Azula was sulking by their supply sacks and called up another tent right beside her. To Toph’s disappointment, Azula was either too accustomed to sudden acts of earthbending or too exhausted to be startled.

“Sleep time, Princess Psycho,” the earthbender called and jutted a thumb toward the tent entrance. “Go get some beauty rest or whatever it is you do.”

“I’m sleeping outside,” Azula responded in a tired voice.

Toph thought it would have been nice if she could at least go to bed without this problem, dumping Azula in a rock cage with enough air holes to breathe until she could worry about her in the morning. But of course even the most minor things would have to cause her companion to start another argument.

“No, I think you’re supposed to say ‘Thank you, Toph. Because all I have is a bedroll I stole, so you giving me shelter even after I’ve been an annoying pain in your butt the whole time you’ve known me is real generous of you.’”

“If you want to tie me to a stake to make you feel more secure about me running away then do it, but I’ve been in an underground prison for five years. I’m not going to willingly crawl back into another just because you’re promising to let me out in the morning.”

Toph thought about repeating her threat. How the slightest movement would alert her to an escape and she would drag her back in reinforced and very uncomfortable ill-fitted chains if the princess tried anything. But something in Azula’s mannerisms kept her from pushing.

“It’s a disgusting custom to throw dirt over a body and simply leave it to rot...”

Toph sighed, undoing the structure with a hand gesture like an exhausted goodnight wave, then headed to the shelter of her tent. No, she would not let her guard down again, but she would not needlessly antagonize the former princess of the Fire Nation either. Instead the blind girl closed her eyes, opting for sleep, because this day was exhausting, and the next one held no promise to be any better. 

“Suit yourself, Princess.”