Flint and Spark [5/??]

[gaisce]

Title: Flint and Spark
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Content tags: Azula/Toph Beifong, post-series, slowburn (emphasis on burn), bonding through property damage
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.

“We’ve gotta talk,” Toph announced by way of greeting, nudging the bathroom door open with her toe.

There was a clunk as Azula, who had been lounging in the tub, startled into the water in a spectacularly ungraceful manner if the multiple splashes were anything to go by.

Toph tilted her head to the noise, brow furrowing as she closed the door with the heel of her foot. “Are you really taking a bath with your cuffs on?”

“What are you doing?!” Azula hissed angrily.

“I had to wait for the right time to talk without anybody interrupting us,” Toph said as she ignored whatever venomous glare Azula was giving her and strolled into the room. She tipped an empty bathing bucket over so she could sit on it then scooted forward. “This seemed like a good opportunity.”

“Because you’re supposed to let someone bathe in private!”

“What? It’s not like I can see what’s going on,” Toph shrugged. Actually, Azula being in a wooden tub filled with water was probably the most concealed she could be from Toph’s seismic sense unless she learned to airbend herself twenty feet into the sky. But she didn’t feel like sharing that information. Let the prissy princess feel uncomfortable.

Azula submerged herself against the far side of the bath, so only the faint lapping of the water could be heard in the room. “I don’t care if you can’t see. Paying attention to me while I bathe is perverse.”

Toph swung her feet up on the bathtub’s planks, wiggling her dirty toes at her and displaying her bandaged feet as a ‘you started this’ warning. “Maybe I’m making sure you don’t try and carve a weapon out of that soap. You got a thing for sharp objects.”

“Soap would be the one weapon you’re afraid of.”

“Yeah, I hear it stings when it gets in your eyes,” she muttered, pulling at her eyelids to show the milky irises. “But, really, I’m here because I don’t want Song or her mom to overhear this.”

The exile seemed to pause, and Toph could tell she was staring at her, appraising her in a way that made her feel exposed, probably as much as Azula might have felt without her clothes. Toph never felt self-conscious about bathing, especially since she so rarely bothered with the ceremony after leaving the Beifong estate. She knew there was a certain amount of modesty that other people had about being naked, but it was never as extreme as the one Azula just displayed. Toph still didn’t get why it flustered her so much, she didn’t seem prudish or reserved in anything before, why start over a blind girl interrupting your bath time?

There was a slight sloshing as Azula lifted her arm out of the tub and Toph felt the cuff knock against her ankle, leaving a soggy impression on her bandages, and letting her know that Azula had, indeed, chosen a bath over dry restraints. And she also noticed that Azula avoided hitting the soles of her feet, despite them being prominently and filthily displayed.

“Then tell me whatever it is and leave.”

Toph set her feet on the floor again, placing her hands on her thighs. “Those mercenaries I dealt with? They’re here, waiting out in the forest.”

“So?” Azula interrupted, annoyed. “You thwarted their robbery and probably broke most of their bones. Considering how fast they retreated, it makes sense they would double back to the nearest village to rest up and prey on defenseless peasants for a while.”

“How could you know they were riding away from us? You weren’t at the fight.”

“I can see dust clouds, rocks for brains.”

Toph rubbed her chin. She recalled the churning trail of dirt and dust made it easy to follow the path of the merchants and the daofei chasing them, assuming it was both groups choosing speed over anything else. But if they were in concert with each other, it could also have been their way of making sure she would follow, a dust up so big that even non-earthbenders might notice. Something that might have lured her into chasing after their trail if she didn’t have to get back to fetch Azula.

“It was a setup,” Toph said at last, choosing to let Azula into her confidence at least this far. “The bandits were working with one of the merchants to delay me.”

Azula sighed, as if expecting such an inconvenience. “And you played right into their trap.”

“I went to help people who needed it,” Toph scowled, thinking of the young boy who was too awestruck to be deceptive, or Goong, who didn’t ask for her help fixing their wagon, but radiated relief once she got their wheels upright. “The problem is somebody must’ve known we were coming far enough in advance to set that trap.”

Part of the reason she was confiding in Azula was to gauge if she could have possibly been expecting some kind of ambush. The bandits were earthbenders, but Ozai loyalists were still a possibility if they managed to discover their chosen successor was out of prison. Azula gave no indication she anticipated or cared if the attack was for her benefit, which meant nothing since Toph had to begrudgingly admit she hadn’t gotten better at sensing her lies. The only evidence truly exonerating the Fire Nation exile was that she couldn’t have known their destination in advance and had no way of communicating with anyone while in Toph’s custody.

“It wasn’t me,” said Azula.

“What wasn’t?”

As if hearing Toph’s suspicions spoken out loud, she continued, “Whatever you think I might be responsible for: the bandits, the conniving merchant, it has nothing to do with me. And if it was...I told you before, I’m interested in seeing things through.” She reclined back in the water, her head tilted upwards and addressing the ceiling. “Maybe you should ask yourself who knew about this plan of yours and who might be willing to betray that plan to our enemies.”

“It was just Zuko, me, and you.”

“Zuko is an idiot who lacks subterfuge, so we’re already in trouble. And you’re neglecting Mai, but I wouldn’t worry about her. You’re also neglecting the ship’s captain who took us to port, who at least knew about you, and any other crew that were passably observant. This is just on our side, of course. Assuming the ones you were turning me over to weren’t responsible,” she finished, her tone implying she very much thought they were responsible.

It was everything she had already considered, and Toph felt a certain weight in the pit of her stomach grow heavier because the clearest result, the most plausible danger, was that the people she was supposed to entrust Azula to were infiltrated by the people she had to protect her against.

They were truly alone.

She nodded. “Then we need to ambush the daofei tomorrow morning, and figure out who sent them after us.”

“We?” Azula echoed, sounding incredulous.

“Didn’t you just say you wanted to see things through?”

Azula rapped the bathtub frame with her manacles. “You seem to forget you have a conflict of interest between allowing me to help you ambush some bandits and keeping me prisoner.”

Biting back the urge to point out she would love to take care of the bandits on her own without having to act as a babysitter for a war criminal, Toph tried a more diplomatic path. “My conflict comes from you telling me you wanna help but also luring me through fire ivy. Kind of mixed signals you’re giving out.”

With a fierceness that contradicted her earlier modesty, Azula rose and leaned forward into Toph’s personal space, whispering, “Because I don’t care if you consider me your ally or your enemy, but I am necessary. If you trifle with me and insist on keeping me in the dark, I’ll show you how dangerous I can be.” Threat finished, Azula withdrew back into the confines of the bath. She released her grip on the edge of the tub and let gravity drag her hand back into the water, the weight of her manacles sending droplets splattering on Toph’s face. Azula continued, “I am here, a willing weapon in your little secret war, released solely because I may have insight into whoever kidnapped your friends. Keep me in chains if that helps you sleep at night, but do not drag me about like some useless idiot as you stumble from one sabotage to the next.”

Toph wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and tried to think of Aang’s meditation techniques. She exhaled, her next breath inhaling the steam still permeating the room, obvious evidence that Azula had used her firebending to keep the bath water hot. Not used to threaten Song or her mother, not used to escape, or even to demand her restraints be removed, not used except to annoy her with that petulant splash of water. Surely a retaliation for the dirt she smeared on Azula earlier in the day.

“I don’t know why I bothered…” Toph muttered to herself, but she suspected the reason why she tried was more than willful Twinkletoes mindfulness. It was because of that moment earlier in the day when they were discussing their mutual deception that Azula seemed closest to being, if not an ally exactly, the kind of useful that might warrant the risk of letting her out of prison. The kind of interesting that attracted Toph’s attention.

“Fine,” she announced, loudly this time. “I’m telling you now.”

“What?”

“All the things you were whining about. Plans, ideas, whatever. That’s why I came here, that’s why I’m talking to you, okay? I’m laying the tiles out on the board. And, for the record, I could whup you anytime, chains or not, Bubbles.”

“Where’s our next stop then?” Azula asked, ignoring the bragging and the new nickname.

“That depends on what the bandits tell us,” Toph said with the renewed confidence of someone who had left themselves unbalanced but still managed to land on their feet. Azula would have to see the merit in her response, and the allure of helping her ambush them to get at those answers. “We can ask them together.”

With only minor hesitation, it seemed as if the firebender agreed. “Very well.”

“Great!” said Toph. “By the way, you’re going to be the bait.”

---

Once the terms of their alliance were agreed upon, the plan to capture and route the daofei became an easy matter. Azula made good on her promise to behave, listening when Toph explained what to expect in the melee and offering surprisingly detailed suggestions on coordinating their attack. For Toph to suddenly have her biggest headache become a willing collaborator was a fortunate reversal of her luck, so something obviously had to go wrong somewhere else. But it was still unexpected when the first complication in their scheme came the next morning in the form of Song asking to come with them.

Since Toph had visited Goong’s shop yesterday, a follow up visit gave them a plausible excuse for returning with the medicine order. However, Song kept asking how Hok was doing, even after Toph insisted he wasn’t injured. The earthbender noticed a raised alertness in the healer at the mention of his name. It could have either been a doctor’s lingering concern or some mild infatuation, hard to tell solely from her muddled seismic sense, but simple enough to guess based on context. Song wanted to see him and this was the perfect excuse to do so. She was so insistent that Toph had to resort to wondering aloud how much work could be done replenishing the clinic instead, then followed it up with a blunt offer to invite Hok back with them so she could see him for herself.

It wasn’t exactly a lie. Toph intended to bring Hok back to the village in one piece, but injuries could happen, and, even if they didn’t, he might appreciate a doctor’s visit just for tea to calm his nerves. A few hours with Azula would unnerve even battle-hardened soldiers, and the anxious merchant was not that resilient.

Although if Azula remained as oddly quiet as she was this morning, Hok might escape their plan totally unscathed. Toph knew this passivity wasn’t from some newfound sense of teamwork to let her take the lead. Whatever the cause, Song seemed completely oblivious to any change, so at least she didn’t have to do damage control as if Azula suddenly revealed she was a fugitive out on vacation. It wasn’t as if Azula’s behavior toward Song had become noticeably different either. But since Toph had the unfortunate privilege to know Azula’s true nature, and was aware of what was an act and what was merely hidden by omission, she was curious as to why the princess, with her effortless flattery of yesterday, seemed to remove herself from their hosts’ presence today.

Heading out to the meeting place, Toph tried to nudge some clue from the other girl. “Do you think Song has a thing for Hok?”

“Do you mean a grudge?” Azula asked distractedly, “She’s incapable of such a thing. Even if she weren’t aware of his arrangement with the daofei.”

Toph sighed, the breath blowing her bangs away from her face. “Nevermind, forgot who I was talking to for a second.”

“Whatever she has, he thinks nothing of her,” Azula continued, undeterred by the snark. “After all, he’s willing to send her into a bandit’s den.”

If Toph were talking to Katara, a statement like that would lead to an impassioned speech about making Hok regret his selfish choices. Something she would have half-listened to as the waterbender got herself more and more worked up, building to a righteous fury that carried her in its wake to providing muscled support of whatever method of justice Katara decided upon. Azula’s dismissal was the opposite; clinical and without moral grandstanding. There was an underlying disgust in her voice, but it was impossible to tell if it was for Hok’s callousness, Song’s forgiving nature, or her usual supercilious attitude. Whereas Katara invited, Azula examined from afar, and that distance made it impossible to place her true feelings.

It left Toph all the more conscious of where she stood in regards to her opinions about Hok, an ambivalence that prevailed even as she found him lurking by the bridge just as she specified, pacing nervously with a pile of metal—pots, tools, and other scraps—behind him.

“Hey Hok, nice of you to show up,” Toph said in greeting.

“You didn’t give me any other choice,” the merchant replied sullenly, having learned yesterday that Toph’s tactics involved trapping him up to his knees in an earth pit until he realized she was giving him terms of surrender and not negotiation.

“I did so,” she said in mock offense. “The choice was to lead me to the daofei hideout to get rid of them. Or I tell your dad his reputation as Honest Goong is going to take a beating once he realizes his son’s working with bandits. Then go get rid of them.”

“That’s why you surrendered? Because you were afraid of being tattled on?” Azula asked. She had already known the general details of Toph’s shakedown, but it seemed that hearing it outloud brought out new withering judgement.

It worked, as Hok scowled at her with a prickling defensiveness, his glance darting from one to the other like Azula was an intruder in an already unpleasant conversation. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“The replacement for the doctor you were going to endanger,” Azula said, not bothering to feign consideration for him. If she was pretending to be Mei Li, it was in name only.

Hok turned his head aside as if he’d been struck and Toph clicked her tongue against her teeth, impressed in spite of herself at how quickly that seemed to maul Hok’s heart and force him to concede. But it probably hurt more because he couldn’t deny the truth.

Toph swung the sack of poultices off her shoulder and threw it to the ground, then gestured at the pile of debris behind Hok. “Alright, I brought the medicine and you brought the scraps. Any weapons?”

“No. You told me ‘anything metal’ so…” Hok trailed off, his sullenness stripped away into vulnerable uncertainty. “We’re not fighters, it’s not like we have swords lying around or anything.”

Ignoring the brief stab of pity his response unearthed, she reached out and beckoned the metal toward her, unspooling rusted iron pots and straightening crooked axles into a patchwork of armor over her body. Hok openly gaped at her display of metalbending, while Azula seemed to pay attention only for where the gaps in her armor might reveal themselves. Shaking her head to keep her hair loose from the makeshift helmet, Toph reminded herself they were all allies at this moment, and whatever awe or judgement they showed her was irrelevant. The armor wasn’t for defense but for easy transportation, because she was going to need a lot of metal chains to effectively subdue an entire gang.

“Don’t worry about it,” Toph said, flexing a gauntlet laden arm. “This’ll work just fine.”

“So...you don’t expect me to fight?” Hok asked, sounding both relieved and ashamed of that relief. He glanced at Azula, as if questioning her need for a weapon. Or bracing himself for another scathing remark.

The firebender scoffed. “No more than you’d expect a lizard slug to fly.”

“That’d be a nice offer,” Toph said over Azula, a slight warning in her voice to ease up. “But since you were so concerned about being seen with me, and you’ve got a reputation for being a conniving double crosser, asking you to fight might complicate things if we aren’t sure which side you’re on.”

Toph sensed Azula giving her a look, one she could never see but somehow its familiarity meant already knew what it conveyed. It was the same look Suki gave her when she convinced Sokka to do something reckless, or the look Zuko gave her after she accidentally ruffled some Fire Nation general’s feathers. It was the accusation asking why they had to rein in their behavior while she was allowed to continue being her unapologetically brash self. Normally, she would tell them it was because she felt like it. However, this time there was a practical answer too. Toph was being provocative because she intended to test him.

So she pushed, tapping on his nerves the same way she used Aang’s glider as a nutcracker. “I mean, if we gave you a weapon, who's to say you wouldn’t use it on us?”

“I wouldn’t! I told you before, I only did what Yan told me: distract you so they could get away. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if it was an assassination attempt.” Semi-truth, Toph reasoned. True in that it was what he wanted to believe, but she could sense his heart and his resolve, and she had no confidence he would have resisted when faced with the threat of his survival weighed against a stranger’s. “I only worked with them out of self-preservation. A business partnership. It’s not like I’m on their side. If you want to round them up, go ahead. But I wish you’d leave me out of it.”

“We need you there to confirm we got all of them,” Toph replied.

“And to carry the medicine you asked for,” Azula added, picking up the sack and tossing it one handed into his chest.

Hok grunted as the sack hit him, and Toph knew the wheeze was all of his arguments leaving his body because there was no way he could cajole Azula into carrying it instead. He cradled it to him almost protectively, like it could shield him from further mocking.

As they made their way in the direction of the daofei hideout, Toph mulled over how to determine the limits of Hok’s loyalty. After dealing with Azula’s inscrutable reactions, he was refreshingly simple to read. Unfortunately, he also had weak convictions, which meant he was honest up until the threat of danger changed his mind. The same fearfulness that made him pitiable also made him unreliable, and she intended to pressure him until she could corner him into an unavoidable decision. She had to find some bedrock, either moral or instinctive, before she allowed him into the daofei lair.

Although her attempt at conversation with Azula failed, she thought it was worth trying again with Hok. Unlike the princess, he seemed to have a guilty conscience and an urge to explain himself. As casually as she could manage, she asked, “So how’d you end up working with Yan anyway? It’s not like he’s your black koala sheep cousin, is he?”

“He’s no family of mine,” Hok said, and the same defensiveness he showed over his father’s integrity flared in his heartbeat and voice.

“Okay,” Toph said amicably, “But if he’s not family, and he doesn’t look like one of your regular customers, I’m wondering how you, the son of upstanding ‘Honest Goong,’ fell in with thieves and mercenaries.”

Hok gripped the bag of poultices tightly. “Because ‘falling in with thieves’ is the only way to keep other thieves from taking advantage of him.”

Azula’s shoulders tensed but she remained silent.

Hok, after the encouragement of speaking without being mocked, continued, “That’s why I started working with them in the first place. Around this stretch of Earth Kingdom, nobody is around to stop bandit attacks. It’s so bad that some of the merchants work with them to steal our shipments. Then have the stones to try and sell it back to us, like they’re doing us a favor! If you’re not working with daofei you’re a target.”

“And if everybody is out to cheat you, might as well do it first,” Azula said, too casual to not be immediately suspicious.

“Exactly,” said Hok.

Toph read it as the truth from his body language, a very deeply held belief that radiated from his core. She wondered how many times he had to have been deceived for the idea to bury itself into his being, especially since it seemed to deflect off his father. Or maybe he hastened to take on that burden so his father wouldn’t notice.

“What makes you think Yan isn’t going to cheat you too?” Toph asked, and recalled how Yan had already shortchanged him on the promised cut of their money. If there was any resentment there, it could be used to convince him that helping them was the better choice. If Azula knew about the previous dealings, she was sure the princess would set out driving a wedge between the two, but the other girl remained aloof, following in step and examining her reaction more than the merchant’s babbling.

“I’m useful,” Hok shrugged, not directly answering. “As long as I fence their goods and make them a profit, they mostly leave our village and our routes alone. They even push out other gangs from getting into their territory. So they may not be some big hero like you are, but they’ve kept me safe for the past couple of years.”

Toph huffed in annoyance. “Yeah, smart move. So they only cheat you a little. In exchange you help them attack the person who could actually do something about stopping the daofei.”

“But you didn’t. In all your travelling, you’ve been nowhere near our village!” he said, full of bitterness. And she didn’t need her seismic senses to tell that his accusation was weary and raw with honesty. Because Toph knew it was the truth. Whenever she wandered this stretch of the Earth Kingdom she usually stopped at Omashu and nowhere further south. The only major city beyond this territory was Gaoling and...she hadn’t been there in years.

Filling up the silence in Toph’s stead, Azula replied, “For someone who admits to mistrusting everyone, you seem eager to blame her absence for your cowardice and betrayal. As if it was her duty to stop you from falling in with criminals.”

She was saying it to undermine him, taking another strike at his confidence for some unknown slight or intrinsic dislike. Toph knew she wasn’t coming to her defense, honestly, she probably wasn’t even thinking about her. But it still sounded like Azula was interceding on her behalf.

“What do you know?” Hok snapped.

“I know trust is for fools, and waiting around for someone to save you is a fool’s excuse. But if you’re too weak to stand on your own, at least learn to better distinguish the people to use,” Azula gestured at Toph. “She’s stronger than all those brutes put together, so if she’s offering to stop them, accept her help and be grateful she’s not including you in their little gang.”

“You know, I’m blind, not deaf,” Toph said, letting the armor clank and scrape against itself as she turned to face both of them. “Don’t need to talk like I’m not here.”

Hok flushed with embarrassment, ducking his head even though he wasn’t the one talking as if she were absent. More likely the shame was from what he did say to her. “I wasn’t trying to blame you,” he said quietly to Toph. “But once you get rid of them, what’s to stop the next gang—maybe a worse one—from coming in and doing the same thing?”

“Have you thought about asking me? Like, ‘Hey Toph, we’re being robbed all the time by some scary earthbenders, please help’ or something. Maybe I don’t make regular appearances around here, but I’d probably show up based on a request like that instead of another boring festival day invitation.”

Hok stared at her uncomprehendingly. “You can’t just do that. I heard that even the Earth King and the Fire Lord have to wait to petition the Avatar for his help!”

Toph reached under her makeshift helm to scratch behind her ear. “Yeah, well, I’m not the Avatar. My world saving schedule is a lot looser than his.”

What she didn’t say was that she didn’t really keep a schedule. Where Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko all had formal requests, and responsibilities that were always prioritized over others, she purposefully kept herself from getting too entangled in those methods. Sure, she would attend a banquet or lend a hand when they asked her for help, but Toph found she was best at dealing with the smaller, immediate crises. Sometimes it meant she stumbled on a problem before her White Lotus or Team Avatar friends did, and sometimes it meant she missed out boring, routine issues that turned out to be important. Like the diplomatic mission that was ambushed by mysterious forces and left Sokka and Suki missing…

Azula shrugged. “Something to be said for having no standards.”

Toph reached out to rap Azula’s shoulder, a little harder than necessary. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, buddy. Standards or not, I’m helping you too. We’re in this together, right?”

The princess glanced over, whatever retaliation she expected from Toph it wasn’t one of weaponized friendliness. It seemed to keep her off balance just enough to delay the smile she gave, perfectly timed with her thought process of remembering the long term benefits of keeping their alliance over the short term satisfaction of her words.

“We are,” Azula said, her heartbeat steady and her gaze no longer on Toph’s face.

Hok’s brow furrowed in confusion. His mind was aware something momentarily sparked between them, but had no idea what it meant. “How would I reach you anyway?”

“Messenger hawk to my usual stomping grounds. Once this is over—if you don’t betray me, that is—I’ll give you a list.” And Toph resolved that, if Hok actually did reach out, she wouldn’t let any further daofei activity escape her notice.

“If you want to keep her attention, ditch the formalities and start with a dramatically violent example,” Azula offered. “She likes that.”

Toph pursed her lips. It annoyed her that Azula gave plausible insight into what would pique her interest, just as much as infuriated her not knowing why the princess decided to defend her one moment and bait her the next.

But it seemed to work, as Hok’s previously erratic tics, the signals of someone on guard and ill at ease, subsided somewhat. At least towards Toph. For someone who saw his troubles as part of life’s banal cruelty, he probably thought Toph’s offer of help as some idealistic and empty promise, and it was only until Azula gave a voice to his most selfish motives and saw that Toph didn’t rebuke her, that something changed his mind. Even though he didn’t say it, and he may still not yet fully believe her, there was a tentative hope that she would keep her word.

“That or just remind me about this whole mess,” Toph said. “It’s unfortunately turning out to be pretty memorable.”

---

As the Blind Bandit, Toph always found the designation of “lookout” to be ironic because they so rarely saw her coming. Yan’s stationed lookouts fell much the same way, with Toph absorbing them into their stone perches before they had a chance to react, then clamping a metal band over their mouths so they couldn’t shout for help. Once the real fight began she wouldn’t have time to be so careful, so it was good practice to get the aim right while waiting for her companions to bring the rest of them out of hiding.

If the two of them could cooperate long enough for it to work.

Shedding her contempt for Hok, Azula once again altered her mannerisms into a more unobtrusive persona. She trailed behind him with her head bowed, looking the part of a girl easily persuaded by Hok’s promises of reward. Toph was too far away to hear any specifics between them, but from her time spent with ‘Mei Li,’ she was confident Azula could fend off any suspicions long enough to lure the bandits to their trap. And it seemed to be working, as Hok was greeted by mercenaries abandoning their meals and naps to see what goods their merchant conspirator had brought them. A few seemed more interested in his female companion than any medicine, and Toph idly hoped if they would be smart enough not to harass her before she was given the signal to intervene.

Within the crevice of a rock ledge, the earthbender waited for them to summon her. It was a simple signal. If all the robbers were assembled, Hok would lift both arms up and Toph would instantly descend upon them. If there were any missing, he would wait to lure as many as possible and lift one arm up instead. Then it would be a matter of speed and coordination, where Toph would have to rely on Azula’s help in subduing those present before chasing after stragglers.

A few minutes passed while Hok chatted up the men. He seemed to be keeping them at ease and unsuspecting of an ambush, while Azula feigned modesty from any unwanted attention. But time stretched on and, once they could no longer put off the purpose of their visit, they started handing out salves and poultices. Soon their supplies emptied and some of the bandits started to wander away, all while Hok’s arms remained fixedly at his sides.

At the edge of their gathering Toph could feel the shifting weight of Yan as he lounged on a makeshift throne of furs and loot, listening to Hok’s spiel and watching the distribution with the same lax attention that made his lookouts fall so easily. Any longer and he might leave too, forcing Toph to make a decision on whether to risk a messy fight in order to guarantee his capture, or wait for her companions to make their move.

It was only when Azula straightened her posture and began purposefully striding towards Yan that Toph’s concern turned into true alarm—a quick decision on whether to wait for Hok’s signal or trust Azula’s judgement of the situation. And which one should she rely on: the self-serving merchant who betrayed her for his own survival or the overconfident prisoner who deceived her simply for the thrill of the challenge?

Unfortunately, Azula didn’t give her much choice. A warning shout rang out from one of the bandits as he rushed to block her way. The muffled chatter was still out of Toph’s range of hearing, and nothing else gave her an indication as to what was happening. It seemed those nearby were just as confused. Hok had frozen in place, surrounded by the dozen mercenaries who seemed just as confused as to what was going on. And confused mercenaries were often defensive ones, with the men who had been at ease when Hok first appeared suddenly began turning to their weapons and bending stances.

Toph’s toes curled, the bandages itching as she shifted from foot to foot in indecision. Azula hadn’t spoken, or if she did it was in a quiet tone that was too faint for Toph to pick up, as the rest of her body language seemed unperturbed. Toph grimaced, if she waited much longer, a fight might break out. Hok might be in danger. And Azula…

Finally, after an agonizing moment, the goal of Azula’s brazen actions revealed themselves. From a resting spot up in the trees, a figure descended in response to the commotion, a sentry who was probably the reason why Fixed Glare Yan let himself be so careless. Once the heavy boots struck the earth, Toph appraised him, she couldn’t recognize the gait, but he had a chained weapon wrapped around his torso so he was likely one of the ostrich horse riders like Yan. At his entrance, the bandit who was blocking Azula suddenly fell back as if intruding on someone else’s territory. And suddenly Hok’s arm shot up to wave at Yan and beckon him over.

One arm. Waving frantically.

Emerging from her hiding place, Toph launched herself into the fray. First, she aimed for the nearest mercenaries whose body language radiated earthbenders preparing for an attack. As she propelled herself into their ranks, she kicked off pieces of her armor to seize their limbs in mid-bending form, pinning them against trees and stone. Her shins now bare, she landed with a crater sized impact, unbalancing the remaining bandits and Hok. Only Yan, his hidden attendant, and Azula were far enough away to be unaffected by her dramatic entrance.

“Found you!” Toph crowed triumphantly, pretending as if she had suddenly shown up. “The way you guys ran off, it’s almost like you wanted to ditch me.”

It wasn’t the most convincing feint, but for a bunch of daofei scrambling to defend themselves from a surprise rematch with the Blind Bandit, she hoped they would be too panicked to second guess her. And for the dozen mercenaries already staggered and trying to reorient themselves, she seemed persuasive enough. One of the bandits that lingered near Hok stepped away from him to draw a one-handed hammer in his thick fist. Others followed his example to reach for their weapons, ignoring the hapless merchant to focus on the threat that had crashed into the middle of their camp.

Toph, not for the first time, silently cursed Azula and the trickery that left her feet injured and her earthbending senses handicapped. Striking with the outside of her heel, one of the few places left unscathed by the fire ivy, she routed the hammer wielder that was stupid enough to try facing her head on. The other foot she used as an anchor, the link a warning thrum her to the others converging on her, but their precise movements were uncertain through gauzy haze.

Although she took down two earthbenders, there were more in the daofei ranks. A wave of coordinated earthbending attacks made Toph fall to her knees, not because she was overwhelmed, but because she had to adjust to her fighting style by using one of her hands to compensate for her bandaged feet. Once her palm touched the earth it was as if suddenly everything snapped into focus, and she could differentiate the movements of her enemies with greater clarity. It also lured the daofei into thinking they had managed to hurt her, making them overconfident as they came within her striking distance.

She dug her hand into the ground, the earth giving her no resistance as she dragged her palm through the stone. A trench appeared under the bandits just as they were charging her. She closed her fingers into a fist, summoning a wave of dirt, sending them tumbling into the trench and then sealing it. It was a temporary delay for the earthbenders, but she wanted the moment to collect herself.

In the span of seconds, she had already incapacitated half of the daofei. Yet it seemed she hadn’t been as convincing in selling her fortuitously timed appearance to Yan. The bandit leader strode forward, pulling out a shepherd’s sling as he summoned a rock into his palm. “Hok, didn’t think you had it in you to sell us out.” He nodded in Toph’s direction. “Is this what you call pitting the competition against each other?”

Toph shrugged. It was pointless to deny their connection now, but she stepped forward to draw any attention on her. “This isn’t a competition. This is payback.”

Meanwhile, Azula was facing her own opponent. The bandit lurking behind Yan unwound the chain from around his waist, revealing the ornate weights of a meteor hammer. He pivoted so it began to spin outward, an ominous whistling growing faster as he prepared to attack.

Fixed Glare Yan examined the unexpected challenger to his plans. Toph knew from his stance he was not stupid enough to neglect her, but he was assessing how much of a threat Azula was in addition to an already overwhelming opponent like the world’s greatest earthbender. From how his shoulders tensed, he was probably calculating the odds and finding them very unfavorable.

“It was nothing personal, Bandit,” Yan stated. “You were just a means to a rich reward. But you, Hok…” he trailed off. “After all I did for you.”

“You let your thugs into the village,” Hok spat back, recklessly daring Yan to focus his attention back on him. “Don’t lecture me about selling people out!”

With a flick of his wrist, Yan began to twirl the sling so fast it began to hum threateningly. “That was an honest oversight. I can’t always control where my men come and go, but you…” There was a sound of disappointment in his voice. “...you had this planned.”

“You mean I had this planned,” Toph interrupted, flinging one of her gauntlets into a mercenary who had managed to claw his way out of the hole only to find his wrists bound in metal. “You apparently can’t keep track of your own men.”

While she was projecting an easy confidence—at least in how she was handling the fight—she was scrambling to find a way to deal with the new problem that had just revealed itself. It was the worst case scenario. They would have to hunt down the missing bandits and, even more dangerous, search for them in a village possibly filled with bystanders. It suddenly occurred to her why Hok had hesitated. He might have been debating the consequences of selling her out again if it meant guaranteeing Yan’s cooperation.

Yan began to twirl his swing in more complicated patterns, the sling blurring in arcs all over his body. “I don’t mind as long as they’re around when it matters. The life of a bandit is one of freedom.”

“Not once I stick you behind bars,” Toph said as she cracked her knuckles.

Suddenly, the mercenary took a shot at Toph with his sling. It was so paltry she only used two of her fingers to flick it away with a rock pillar. He sighed in annoyance and called forth another stone, as if the first one was just an error or practice run.

“You know I’m going to come for you, Hok,” Yan threatened in a jovial tone, as if he were undeterred by Toph’s effortless protection. “You, your family, and everyone in your village…”

Hok knelt to pick up one of the discarded weapons left over from Toph’s earlier scuffle. It was the hammer from the bruiser who charged first, only it was so heavy it took him two hands to wield it. His entire body was beating like an anvil being struck, as if the hammer he was holding was the object pounding against his heart. Fumbling for a better grip, he took a few rage-fueled steps forward.

“Hok, hold on,” Toph warned. Just as Fixed Glare Yan released his second stone right at Hok’s face.

Toph flicked up a wall in front of Hok, separating him from his self-destructive path towards Yan. Oddly, she didn’t feel the impact of Yan’s stone hitting her wall. Her head twisted in confusion, wondering where it had gone and if her feet were misleading her—just as something struck the back of her head, clanging against the makeshift helmet and making her ears ring.

“Toph!” Hok cried in alarm.

She reached under the metal and felt a dent brushing against the base of her neck. The stone Yan had slung at Hok had glanced off her helmet just as she was turning her head. But that was impossible, because it would have come from the opposite direction of Yan’s attack.

From her adjacent position on the battlefield, Azula glanced over from her fight. The chain of her opponent’s meteor hammer was trapped in her two manacled forearms and she had just managed to wrest the handle from his grip. An easier feat now that one of his knees had been shattered and he had trouble standing upright.

Abandoning her injured opponent for Hok’s cry of alarm, she made her way to Toph, explaining: “The style—”

“I know,” Toph finished. Azula’s bout against the mercenary who used a chain and flail made Yan’s technique more obvious in comparison.

The reason why he called himself Fixed Glare Yan began to make sense. All bending was about manipulating the element to your whims, but the locus of control faded the further away the element was from you. And, unlike waterbending or airbending, earth’s stolid nature made it harder to change form, so it was easier to just call forth more earth to block an attack than reappropriate it. Strength was in an unyielding defense, a centered grounding, and why fundamental earthbending was rooted in neutral jing.

Yan had decided to take the harder method, which involved accurately predicting the trajectory of his earthbending attack so he had a firmer grip on it to bring it back to him. He could sling a stone in any direction, then watch to calculate where it would be so he could “catch” it with his earthbending and bring it back under his control. The limitations of his technique must have been outweighed by the benefits of its versatility and the element of surprise.

Unfortunately for him, Toph had spent plenty of time around an expert boomerang thrower, so his fancy earthbending rebound wasn’t going to be much of a novelty for her now that she knew he was capable of it.

“Great timing,” Toph said, reaching for Azula to pull the weighted cudgel and chain of the meteor hammer to her and refashioning its metal into new armor. She had gone through almost all of it when binding the mercenaries “I needed reinforcements.”

Azula, annoyed at being dismissed for scrap metal but not undeterred, said, “And not a healer?”

“No,” Toph said simply. She struck the ground with her heel again, kicking back Yan and Azula’s opponent with another shockwave of her earthbending. She welcomed the brief flash of pain as a reminder not to let her guard down even for some mid-level bandit group, when a sudden flash of insight came to her. “I know where they are.”

“Who?” Azula asked, “How hard did you hit your head?”

“The missing daofei!” Toph said, her mind racing with the realization that Fixed Glare Yan had already told her where his missing men would be when he ignored Hok’s warnings. The injured mercenaries would be looking for something more potent than salves and poultices. “They’re headed for the clinic. You gotta go back and make sure Song’s okay.”

Azula seemed to balk at that, perhaps wondering if Toph had forgotten that she was not exactly the type to rescue those in need. She glanced around the camp and the scattered mercenaries still able to fight, including their leader. “We need to put them all down before—”

In response, Toph threw a boulder at a retreating bandit who was running towards where the ostrich horses were tied up, blocking his path. With the other hand she threw up another wall, this one curved like a half-dome, over Hok to protect him from any earthbending attacks, and possibly his own reckless anger.

“I’m the one who fought them before, I can handle it by myself,” Toph snapped. She grabbed the exile by the sleeve and dragged her close, whispering just for the two of them to hear. “You want me to trust you? I’m letting you go so you can prove it. Help Song.”

Toph didn’t bother with an ‘or else’ because everything in her voice already conveyed what the consequences would be. This was her desperate ultimatum, and Azula, always opportunistic, seized on the moment regardless of her personal feelings about it. Whatever those were.

“If I’m not too late,” Azula said, an ominous farewell as she sped off. And Toph felt the pull of the firebender’s cuffs fade, then leave her senses entirely.