Chapter Text
For the third time within an hour, Zuko found himself knocked flat on his back.
"What was that?" asked the very unimpressed voice of his earthbending master.
Zuko could not reply. The air had been knocked out of his lungs. Chest heaving, he stared up at the perfectly clear blue sky. He'd landed so hard his blindfold had slipped off his eyes and hung around his neck.
"I think," he finally gasped, "I was hit with a rock." He had meant to speak to Vaatu, but was so dazed it came out aloud.
Toph stomped into his field of view, hands at her hips. "Congratulations. You were so busy attacking me, you weren't watching out for anything else."
"What does that mean?" he grumbled, sitting up. Toph did not offer a hand to help, and he didn't expect it.
"Listen up, Turtleduck: Sparring doesn't mean attacking like a rampaging sabertoothed moose lion."
He frowned. "But we were fighting."
"I was the only one doing the real fighting around here." Then, to his surprise, Toph folded her legs under her and joined him on the ground. “You need to work on your mindset."
Frustration flamed up within him. "How can you say that? I've done everything you asked of me. I run three miles a day blindfolded and carrying you like a backpack while avoiding your rocks, I cook our food and set up our campsite. I do every challenge you set before me—“
"Exactly. You attack every obstacle head on." She held up her hand. "That's not a bad thing. You gotta be stubborn as a rock to earthbend, and you've got that down pat. But what you don't have—“ she pointed a finger at him “—is the real mindset it takes to get from good to great."
Zuko breathed, forcing his resentment out along with it. He had been working on his temper, too. It helped that Toph would grind him into the dirt any time he gave her lip.
"Okay," he forced himself to say, "What is that?"
She nodded as if she recognized his struggle to master his anger, and approved. She saw a lot, for being a blind girl.
"Two things: You have to wait, and you have to listen."
He frowned. "You can't stop to wait and listen in a real fight."
"Oh really? Because I've been in a lot of real fights, and I've won them all."
"But if you don't attack..." He shook his head. "Are you, what, fighting through defense? Like a waterbender?"
"No," Toph said. "When you attack, you attack. The point is, you gotta wait for the right moment." She stood. "On your feet, student."
His head throbbed from the last blow, but he didn't offer any excuses. He stood and took his position, blindfold off for once.
"Come at me," Toph said.
Zuko did not need to be told twice. At first, he had been reluctant to strike at a tiny little girl. That hesitation had been beaten out of him on the first day of training. Now, he just wanted to get a hit—any hit—on her.
So, stomping his foot, he bent up a melon-sized rock and flung it at her. No finesse, all frustration.
Toph half pivoted aside—not bothering with a full step to get out of the way. In return, she nudged one foot forward.
A spear of earth erupted at Zuko's feet. He'd felt the rumble through his toes and automatically leapt high out of the way.
But in earthbending, getting airborne meant breaking his root. Bad idea. He knew he had lost a second before his feet touched ground.
The rock under him lurched, and he lost his balance, falling back on his butt.
He growled and punched the earth. It made a sizable dent.
Toph strode over. "What did I do?"
He knew the answer, but still had to force it through gritted teeth. "You let me defeat myself."
"Exactly. Neutral jing. You gotta love it."
He blinked. That's right. He hadn't heard about jing since the earliest days of firebending instruction in the palace.
Firebending used positive jing: Attack and keep attacking. Waterbending was negative. Earth and air were neutral, though on exact opposite spectrums. Airbending was avoidance, and earth... earth was about confronting head-on.
Toph did not budge. Nor did she back down. She let Zuko attack first, every single time. Then, the second he screwed up—because he always screwed up—she struck.
Zuko narrowed his eyes and stood. Reaching for the blindfold which had slipped down to his neck, he retied it over his eyes. Through the earth, he felt Toph nod in approval.
"Again," she said.
This time, when Zuko took his stance, he did not attack. He waited and he watched.
Toph's spear of earth came at him right between his legs, which was a dirty trick. Instead of leaping and attacking from height which he'd been taught as a firebender, he scuffed one foot to the side to break off the raising column at the base. It gave him an extra moment to rise a wall of stone before him, using a technique Toph had shown him just that morning.
A projectile of rock cracked against his wall.
With a chop, he cut a wedge off the wall and flung it at her.
Toph stepped quickly out of the way in a low shuffling movement that allowed her to easily pivot but did not break her root.
They traded blows like this for a few minutes.
Zuko still lost, of course. But he lasted longer than he had every other spar combined.
This time, when he lay on his back, winded and aching from a hit to the ribs, Toph stood over him, pleased.
"Excellent work, earthbending student."
Zuko grinned weakly in reply.
Back when he was sailing the world in exile, Uncle Iroh would allow him to train one, perhaps two hours a day.
Some of that was meditation or pai sho.
"You are a young man, nephew," Iroh had said, "You should learn to spend more time learning to enjoy life."
He never understood that to Zuko, firebending training was enjoying himself. Even after the Agni Kai. It was the only thing that took his mind off his quest, and what he saw as his disgrace.
Before that, of course, he had trained with official firebending instructors hired by his father. But those men and women were much more interested in training Azula than the less talented prince.
With Toph as his earthbending master, for the first time Zuko's endurance was pushed to the absolute limit.
With her, everything was a lesson. When she wasn't busy hurling rocks at his head in sparring, he traveled with her barefoot and blindfolded. That meant avoiding thorn-bushes, debris, and random obsticles Toph would throw in his path.
"To shake the dust out of your ears," she said cheerfully while opening a six-foot wide gulf in front of him. He surely would have broken something had he fallen in.
So, it was important Zuko didn't fall in.
He also wasn’t allowed to go around. He had to create his own earthbending path across. It took him three times to bend a ramp that would hold his weight.
Not to say that Zuko was the perfect student. He was as stubborn as a rock, but his anger often got the best of him.
Toph, too, was stubborn and unyielding. She was also, he learned, from the Earth Kingdom noble merchant class. And she had grown up even more lonely than him, without even the benefit of an unhinged sibling for company.
Zuko shared as little of himself as possible. Just the basics: He couldn’t go home. (He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go home.) Toph had an uncanny way of sensing the truth through earth. He suspected it had something to do with his heartbeat—but his earthsense was not as finely attuned as hers, yet.
Every day, his earthbending improved. And eventually, through the sheer grinding will earthbending had given him, he wrestled the worst of his anger under control. Or at least, he learned to seethe more discreetly.
Then they hit their first real town.
He couldn't say what the town looked like, exactly—he still wore his blindfold—but it was much larger than the tiny outposts they'd bought their supplies from so far. He sensed at least three streets, all filled with the rumbling, conflicting vibrations of people and animal-driven carts.
"Finally," Toph said in satisfaction. "I've found a good testing ground for you.”
He turned to her. "What do you mean?"
He heard the grin in her voice. "Watch and learn. And don't you dare take off that blindfold."
Then she started walking forward, brazenly into the town.
'I look like an idiot with this blindfold on,' Zuko grumbled to Vaatu.
You look no more stupid than any other human, Vaatu replied.
They entered the town. It wasn't an earthsense—at least, he was pretty sure it wasn't earthsense—but he could feel the stares of eyes on him. He knew his burn scar was wider than the blindfold. Anyone watching would assume he was as blind as Toph.
Toph suddenly turned down another street—straight to two brick buildings that created a narrow ally.
"Where are we going?" Zuko asked. "The general store is in the other direction." He could not see the signs, but it was a good guess considering it was the largest building and the ground underneath was warped by the weight of a lot of supplies.
"You're too focused," Toph said easily. "Try looking at the big picture."
Zuko gritted his teeth. Of course he was focused. Firebending required precision and absolute focus.
But you are not learning to be a firebender, Vessel. Listen to your master.
Closing his eyes under his blindfold, Zuko let his doubt settle into the swirling fire that was his chi, and cast out.
There were three men following them.
They were probably being subtle to people with eyes, keeping well back. But they also matched himself and Toph step-for-step. When he and Toph drifted to the right side of the street, they did too.
"Those men. You're... leading them somewhere?" he guessed.
"Yup. It's time for your first earthbending combat test," Toph said, all cheer.
Zuko felt himself smile. "It's been a while since my last brawl. Thank you, Sifu Toph."
She punched his shoulder. "Hey, don't ever tell me I don't get you nice things."
The alleyway between the two buildings led up to a stone dead-end. But the buildings themselves were made of brick and packed mud. Plenty of material for Zuko to work with.
Reaching the end, Toph turned to Zuko. "Remember: Wait and listen. And don't embarrass me." Then, in a higher, girlish voice meant to carry she called, "Brother, I don't think this is the way at all. Are we lost?"
Zuko thought she was laying it on a little thick, though he did appreciate the theatrics.
There was an answering dark chuckle from the open mouth of the alleyway. "Don't worry, little girl. We'll help you find your way home."
Zuko whipped around as if startled, putting himself deliberately in front of Toph. "Who's there?"
“I want that little girl,” the man said, to his two goons. "Dispose of the boy."
The men hadn’t planned to rob them. They wanted… Zuko felt very cold and then very hot. Fire crackled in his chi, begging to be let out. It took every hard-won scrap of control over the last few weeks to wall out the flames. It would be easy, so easy, to cleanse these disgusting men with fire.
But no. He would beat them up with rocks, instead.
The two goons broke off. One outpaced the other, running at Zuko with a stone-topped cudgel in his hands.
Zuko shoved down the instinct to run at him, to meet him before he could swing it.
Instead, he stood and waited as if unaware he was coming.
The man swung down, aiming for his head in a wide overhand swing. Zuko held up one barred arm, fist clenched.
The stone struck his forearm and crumpled into dust.
As the man yelled out in surprise. Zuko caught the bare handle and yanked it from his grasp. His earthsense showed him exactly where the man stood, slightly rocked back in shock.
Swinging the handle like a club, Zuko struck the goon upside the head.
The second man roared and charged. Zuko saw/sensed/felt his lengthening gait. He knew exactly where the next foot-fall would be.
And he simply used one of Toph's favorite tricks to shift the earth as the man's boot landed.
One foot went one way, the other in a completely different direction with a soft pop of sinew. The man fell over howling and clutching his ankle.
At Zuko's gesture, a brick shot out from the side of a building and slammed into his head with force enough to knock him out cold.
Now only the leader was left.
The man snarled, "Earthbending scum!" He leapt forward, arms whipping in a sharp gesture Zuko knew so well. That was a firebending move.
"Watch out!" Toph yelled.
Zuko didn't think. His own flame shattered the man's bolt of fire.
Then Toph was at his side, striking the air in hard rapid movements too quick for him to track. Brick rained down through the alleyway, and within seconds, the firebender was half-buried in rubble.
"Come on!" Toph gripped his elbow and pulled Zuko back, pausing only to kick a hole in the stone dead-end that had been at their backs.
Then they were out of the alleyway and running.
Zuko's mind was aflame with indignation and horror. At least one of those men—possibly all three—had been Fire Nation. And they'd wanted Toph for despicable purposes.
What was wrong with them? Where they deserters? Did they have no honor?
But there was only one deserter—the infamous General Jeong-Jeong.
What was a firebender doing in the middle of the Earth Kingdom, anyway? The war was nowhere near here.
He shook with fury at his people. At himself.
‘I don’t understand’, he told Vaatu.
Yes you do, Vessel. You simply wish to continue to lie to yourself.
They only stopped when they were well away from the town. Zuko tore the blindfold off his head. Vaatu’s words and the knowledge he did not want to admit to himself… it was too much. He struck out.
"I could have handled that man!" he yelled. “You didn’t need to step in!”
Even he knew it was easier to be angry at Toph than at his own people.
"How?" Toph snapped. "By firebending at him?"
It was like a bucket of cold water over his head. Monkey-Feathers. He didn't think she had noticed. “I—What? No!" he stammered.
Toph’s lips compressed into a thin line. Marching forward, she shoved a finger into his chest. "I'm blind, not stupid!"
"Sifu Toph—“
"Don't 'Sifu Toph' me! Can you firebend or not?"
Careful, Vessel, Vaatu warned.
He didn't need Vaatu to tell him twice. There was no question in his mind: Toph could easily bury him alive if she wanted.
"Yes, I can firebend," he said.
Vaatu groaned in his head.
Toph’s face blanked of all expression, and for a second Zuko got the impression he had completely shocked her.
He tensed, bracing himself to be crushed.
Then her mouth twisted into a scowl. "One hundred rock-squats!" she barked. "Now!"
"I... What?"
"Do you want to make it two-hundred?" she brayed with all the force of a military commander.
"No!"
He hurriedly kicked a large boulder out of the ground. Holding it over his shoulders, he bent his knees and started to count. "One rock-squat, two rock-squats..."
The maximum she'd made him do before was twenty-five, and that had been horrible.
At ten rock-squats, Toph launched herself up on a column of earth and landed on top of the rock, adding to its weight.
"Keep going!" she yelled as Zuko staggered. "You'd better not drop this, Turtleduck, or you're starting from one again!"
Sweat dripping into his eyes, he found his balance and continued, "Eleven rock-squats. Twelve rock-squats..."
At thirty, he was gasping for breath. At fifty, his legs were absolutely on fire. He did not stop. Seventy-five and he was in agony, his world pinpointed down to the weight across his shoulders and the two bars of pain that were his calves and thighs.
At one-hundred he stood from the final squat and collapsed onto his back, barely avoiding being crushed by the boulder over him. Retching, hyperventilating, his legs in such a cramp that the muscles twitched wildly. He lay flat out and just tried not to die.
Toph stood over him, pitiless.
"If you ever keep something big like that from me again, it'll be two-hundred rock squats."
Then she tossed him a skin of water.
He wasn’t even able to drink for a few minutes. Finally, his breath back under some control, he took slow sips.
She sat next to him and watched him recover.
"So," she said at length. "Spill. How can you bend two elements? You're not the Avatar."
Rubbing his eyes, he let out a breathless laugh. "I'm an Avatar. There are two."
"How is that possible?"
“…I don't know where to begin." His banishment? Finding the other Avatar at the South Pole? Being left to die at the North Pole?
“Ugh!” Suddenly Toph slapped her own forehead. “You weren’t carrying spark rocks. Just two hunks of granite in your pocket. I should have known something was up when you started the campfire every single time.”
Every muscle ached, but he still smirked.
She must have sensed it because she flicked a pea-sized piece of gravel at him. “Okay, time’s up: Begin at the beginning.”
His smirk slipped. "What do you know about the story of Avatar Wan? The first Avatar?"
"Which version?" she asked immediately.
Surprised, he sat up to look at her. "There are different versions?"
"Sure. I had a lot of nurses and they all had their take on the story. They basically fell into two categories: In the first, Wan was the first earthbender who escaped the Lion Turtles to live with the spirits. Only he accidentally released the spirit of evil into the world. It went into the heart of humans, blah, blah, blah. And as penance Wan had to merge with the pure spirit of the world and learn all the elements. He's the only good one, and all the rest of us mortals are born with the evil spirit inside our hearts. That's why we have to listen to the Avatar." Toph made a face.
Zuko didn't blame her. "What's the second version?”
"Pretty much the same as the first, except at the end Wan sealed the darkness in a Tree of Time. He carries the light of the world in him and has to provide balance to all the evil warring humans.”
These are disgustingly one-sided, Vaatu said.
"Yeah, well the victors are the ones who write history," Zuko replied under his breath.
"What was that?" Toph asked.
"The second one is closest to the truth. But they weren't spirits of good and evil, or light and dark... it's more complicated. Raava is order. Vaatu is chaos."
"Right," Toph said. "Good and evil."
"No." He shook his head vehemently. "I used to think the same, but I saw a vision of Raava’s perfect world. It was the most horrible thing I've seen in my life. Order was absolute. There were no nations, no differences. Everyone was the same. They thought the same thoughts, went through the same motions. No free will, no change, no creativity... it was like they weren't alive. They breathed, but not too much or too little. It was..." He breathed hard as a suffocating feeling of entrapment seemed to crush his lungs.
Toph seemed both stunned and a little confused. "But the Avatar is good."
"The Avatar disappeared one-hundred years ago when he was needed most," Zuko snapped. "And within one day an entire race of people—the most freethinking people on the planet, were slaughtered. I'm not saying Raava's vessel meant for that to happen. He's an airbender, he's just a kid, and maybe—just maybe—it was a terrible coincidence. But I am saying the world took one giant step closer to order dominating chaos that day."
He was not aware he had come to these conclusions before he even said it. What he had seen—both as an educated prince and from Vaatu’s visions… it made too much terrible sense to ignore.
Raava spent thousands of years separating the world’s people into four nations. Socially and culturally isolated. Distrusting of one another. Warring. Now they were in danger of being eliminated, one-by-one.
He and Vaatu were the only ones who could stop it.
She blinked. "Okay, Turtleduck. Let's say all this is true. What does this have to do with you?"
"Because I found the Tree of Time. The tree Vaatu was encased in for ten-thousand years. It was in the North Pole. I was—I’d followed the Avatar there. My orders were to bring him back to the Fire Nation in chains, but I was out of my element." He snorted in self-recrimination. "Literally. It's all ice and snow. I got a beaten by a girl who had formally trained for weeks."
And he went on, briefly, to explain the moon's disappearance, how he'd stumbled into a spirit plane no mortal was meant to see. How he been encased within the tree as well, and what he did to get out.
Toph sat still during all of this. There was no expression on her face, save for occasional raised or furrowed eyebrows. One hand and both feet were flat on the ground. He had no doubt she was watching him very carefully with her earthsense.
"I have a question,” she said.
He huffed a laugh. "Just one?"
"You told me Raava’s plan for the world. What's Vaatu’s plan? Instant darkness forever? The Fire Nation winning? What?"
Vaatu scoffed.
Zuko rolled his eyes. "Nations are too orderly for him."
No, Vaatu said primly. But the artificial boundaries imposed by Raava are not sustainable. She has been working for nearly ten-thousand years and only now, near harmonic convergence, is she close to success.
"Vaatu, can you show her the meadow?" Zuko asked aloud.
Toph flinched.
No. You are my vessel. You and I are merged at the spiritual level, and yet your human mind is still processing the vast, complex amount of information from only two short visions. Without me physically there to shield her mind, it would expand too rapidly and destroy itself.
‘Are you saying you could have melted my mind in the tree?’
Your death was a risk I was willing to take.
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. "He says no."
You are going to have to use your words to convince her, Vessel. Choose them wisely.
"His world is like...a meadow of wildflowers?" Zuko tried.
"Wildflowers,” she echoed flatly.
Zuko sighed. "I'm not doing it right. It's like... eternal growth and change instead of stagnation. Imagine a huge city with a thousand different people, and maybe they don't all get along and maybe they bump into each other a lot… and there are rich and poor and merchants and all sorts in between, and they all live together in kind of a soup. But it's one with a thousand different ingredients and it works even when it doesn't and all... tastes good?"
Toph stared at him as much as a blind girl could. Then she tipped back her head and brayed laughter to the sky. "That was terrible.”
He sighed. Why was it easier to describe something he disliked rather than liked?
"The point is, Vaatu’s not evil. It’s not about good and evil—they’re spirits, they don’t think in the same terms we do. But I think order and chaos both have light and dark aspects to them.”
Toph quieted, focusing again. He thought for a moment, then went on.
“The stories got one thing right: Humans have both Raava and Vaatu in their hearts. I don't agree with everything Vaatu says or wants, and I don't think Avatar Aang does with Raava.”
Toph cocked her head. "So what does Vaatu think about the Fire Nation?"
"He doesn't think they should win the war,” he said. "And I guess..." he hesitated, firmed his resolve, and charged ahead. "I love the Fire Nation, but I don't think it's right that we take over the world, either. We were taught that the war was a way to bring peace to the world. But I’m seeing now that it’s wrong. We shouldn’t try to make all the nations like us. It’s not good for anyone. All we’ve brought is suffering.”
Toph nodded. Stood. "Okay."
"Okay?" he repeated blankly. It was a spiritual epiphany he didn't realize had been growing within himself. A fundamental shift in who he was on every level. And all she could say was "Okay?"
"Okay, and," Toph said, “tomorrow, you and I are gonna spar properly. You bring the fire and I'll bring the earth."
"Why?"
"Because a true master never stops learning. Plus, I’ve never beaten up a firebender before." She cocked her head, thinking. "Although, I guess, technically I have."
He looked up at her —this sturdy girl with the inner strength of a mountain—and sort of felt like crying. "So you still want to teach me? You don't... you don't hate me?"
"No," she said simply. "I'm still a little fuzzy on the spirit of order versus spirit of chaos stuff, but you're a good egg, Turtleduck. I think if there's evil in there, you'll keep it in check."
"Um, thank you?” He winced. “But you should probably know my real name."
"Don't bother," she said. "I'll never use it."
Then she reached down and helped him to his feet—for all she weighed half as much him. Then she punched his shoulder, hard.
"Walk four laps around the camp. Take all the time you want to do it, but don't you dare let those leg muscles get stiff. Tomorrow, you’re going to show me how to kick a firebender’s ass, then the real earthbending work begins."