Toko Week: Exile

"Hey, Hotpants. Drooly. Samurai Joe." Toph shook the shoulder of her sleeping companion. He grunted in response. "Our stop was Kyoshi Boulevard, right?"
"Final call, Kyoshi Boulevard." A woman's cheery voice came through a brass horn in the corner of the car.
"Oh, by the spirits," Zuko swung forward, starting his blind partner. He rearranged his pack on his back to conceal his duel sabers, looped his thumb under a strap with one hand, and grabbed Toph's wrist with another. "Come on," he urged and the two jumped out of the train and onto the abandoned platform just as the doors closed behind them.
Toph wrenched her hand from his grasp, and Zuko rolled his eyes, then realized,
"Why does my left shoulder have a wet spot on it?" he frowned at Toph, who was walking briskly off in a random direction. "Toph. we're not--"
"I fell asleep too, OK?" she interrupted, and as she turned her face toward her shoulder, Zuko noticed she was blushing. "I can't help what happens while I sleep, and I must have fallen ag-against you or something, you got a problem?"
"No," he replied, wide-eyed at her defensiveness. "But we're going the other direction."
Toph inhaled sharply and turned around, kicking at the dirt with bare feet. "Oh."
Zuko grinned as she shuffled over to him. "And you called me Drooly," he laughed, and she punched him.
As they walked, Toph was unusually quiet, except when she complained about being hungry, giving Zuko time to meditate on the mess they were in. Thanks to Toph, Pyro-Nation thought he was a victim so there was no price on his head yet, but his father would definitely come after her. Their miraculous escape saved her from immediate death, but what did they do now? Life on the run? Toph had attitude, but that didn't mean she was prepared for life as a fugitive, and even if she was, she was in much more danger with him there than without.
That's why we're going to the Flying Bison, Zuko consoled himself. If anyone can keep her safe, it's them.
"So-- what's this place we're going to again?" Toph asked, digging something out of her ear with her pinky.
"It's an inn called the Flying Bison. The staff there are-- acquaintances of mine."
"Acquaintances? Sounds to me like they hate your guts."
Zuko smirked at her alertness. "Perhaps, but they won't spill them, and that's good enough for now."
Toph matched his grin, then groaned theatrically. "And they have food?"
"Yes," he sighed, tilting his head back to the noonday sun. "They have food."

Located on the less developed end of Republic City, the Flying Bison was little more than a few sturdy tents attached to an stone hut made by an earthbender. Toph felt tiny tremors as a tumbleweed bounced by. Zuko knocked on the front door to this shack, and moments later a large, blue eye peered at them through the door's peephole.
"Welcome to the Flying Bison, how-- oh, it's you."
Zuko laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. "Hey, Sokka."
"Hey yourself," the eye squinted with suspicion. "I knew you'd come back to claim that bounty on us someday, but I--"
"It's not like that," Zuko objected.
"Hey, Ponytail!" Toph barked, and the eye took notice of the girl behind the firebender for the first time.
"How did you know--"
"I'm an earthbender, and your stupid hovel is in pretty sad condition," she continued unapologetically. "Let us in right now and give us some grub, and I'll fix it up for you. Refuse, and I'll turn this dump into rubble."
The eye blinked back to Zuko, and the bounty hunter shrugged. Then the peephole slammed shut, and there was a short jostling of keys before the door opened to reveal a young man in his late teens in sleeveless water tribe travel clothes, his long hair indeed in a ponytail high on his head. He held a bladed boomerang in one hand.
"You sure pick the strangest friends," he commented as the two travelers came inside.
Zuko sighed as Toph found the nearest chair and collapsed in it. "Tell me about it."

"What's down there?" Toph asked after Sokka had brought them a loaf of bread and a handful of venison jerky. She gestured with her head to a chest of drawers in the corner.
"What do you mean, 'what's down there?'" Sokka asked with a high pitched giggle. "We've nothing to hide, just a simple inn, that's all we--"
Toph frowned, and Zuko shook his head. "She's blind, but she sense vibrations," he warned the sweaty youth. "She can see underground."
Sokka sighed. "Well, at least Zuko apparently didn't tell you, and that's something, I guess.
"My friends and I are a part of a city-wide effort to rid Republic City of the gangs' tyrannical rule and constant territory wars. We're still working on a cool code name. C'mon, it'll be easier if I-- er-- show you."
Pushing the chest of drawers out of his way, the trio descended down the hidden tunnel Toph noticed into a cool, dark, natural cave, where a vast array of weapons were stored. Two young people poured over blueprints at a work desk in one corner, and Sokka hailed them.
"Aang! Katara! We've got visitors!" He called, then turned back to his inquisitive guests. "Most of these weapons we stole from the gangs. We won't use them, but spirits help us if we let the triads get their mitts on them, either." He stretched out an arm to his two approaching comrades.
"Who'd you let in this time, Sokka?" A girl, about sixteen, asked. She had long brown hair she let fall down her back in waves, and wore blue work pants, heavy leather boots, and a grey tank top. Both were splattered with oil marks.
"It's not my fault this time!" he protested. "The short one threatened to bend the place apart!"
"An earth bender!" Katara exclaimed, wiping a hand on her pant leg before extending it to Toph. "Nice to meet you, I'm Katara." Toph looked blankly up at the source of the voice, and the waterbender withdrew it awkwardly. "Oh, you're um-- sorry." She turned to the other newcomer, her liquid blue eyes lidded with distrust. "Zuko."
He tried to smile cheerfully, but there was regret in his eyes. "Nice to see you again, Katara."
"A-and this is the youngest son of Kya, Avatar Aang's grandson, um, Aang!" Sokka said hurriedly to break the tension.
"Seriously. Do you have to introduce me like that every time?" Aang wore an ensemble almost identical to Katara's, only he was barefoot and curled up his pants to the knees. He had air nomad tattoos, but the ones on his head were covered by several inches of white hair. He took Toph's hand and shook it heartily. "Nice to make your acquaintance."
He stood up straight to look Zuko in the eye, though he was an inch taller than the firebender. "What are you doing here, Zuko?" he asked, and there was an edge in his voice, rare for an airbender.
"Come to collect a favor," Zuko replied in an identical tone. "I let you go even though there was a hefty price on your heads--"
"Yeah, only after chasing us for weeks and kidnapping Katara," Aang pointed out, but Zuko would not be swayed,
"--and staged your deaths so no others would come after you. You owe me."
"We've harbored you enough times already to nearly put us on the grid," Katara interjected, folding her arms.
"Well this time you won't be harboring me," he returned. He jerked a thumb at Toph. "Just her."
The trio of rebels relaxed a little at this, but Toph growled. "Whaddo you mean?" she asked, stomping so that the ground shook. "You're leaving me here with these weirdos? I thought we were in this together!"
"You heard them, I'm not welcome!" he said. "And it's safer this way. If I stayed, you'd have not only the Fire Lord after you--"
"--wait, the Fire Lord?--" Sokka tried to interrupt.
"-- but everyone who's out to get me, as well. And believe me, that's quite a long list."
"Well it's ultimately up to me who I go with, right? So I choose you!" Toph yelled, her fists shaking. "It's not like you can stop me!" The onlookers took a deliberate step back as the couple continued their spat.
"I'll string you up from the ceiling with straw rope and instruct them not to let you down until I'm long gone!" he countered.
"I'll track you!" she screamed, leaning forward, ready to tackle him if he tried to retreat. "I'll use the trains' vibrations to widen my range!" she felt tears coming, but she blinked them away. "I've memorized your heartbeat, Zuko, so I'll definitely find you!"
Zuko calmed down abruptly at the use of his name. "Toph," he said softly, and she bared her teeth at him, daring him to refuse her. "Why do you want to come with me so badly?"
She pursed her lips and looked swiftly at the ground to conceal her blush. "Be-because," she scrambled for an answer. "No one leaves me until I let them leave!"
Zuko sighed and shook his head. "That's a lie. You've been alone all your life, Toph," he said. "You've never had anyone to let leave. Aang."
The airbender nodded, and with a swift gesture, the small earthbender was swept off her feet and caught in a cyclone of wind ten feet from solid ground.
"Zuko, no!" she yelled after him as he fled swiftly up the cavern's stairs into the sunlight. "Don't leave! Don't abandon me! ZUKO!"

Zuko gritted his teeth, trying to ignore her desperate pleas, trying not to think about how this was probably the most she'd had to fight for anything in her entire life, or that she thought he was worth fighting for.
With a final, heavy sigh he opened the door to the cover story inn and into the blistering heat of midday-- to find a band of armed assassins stationed in the front yard.
"We've been waiting for you, Fire Prince," the leader said, his eyes wide and crazed as he grinned around the sprig of wheatgrass between his teeth. "Everyone else thought that little duchess had you down for the count, but hey, who knew being childhood friends with a lying traitor would be useful for once?" The newcomer slowly raised his arms to pull his hook swords from behind his back, and Zuko ditched his backpack and overcoat to do the same.
Zuko's brows furrows as the other teen grinned back at him like a jack-o-lantern. He should have left sooner. Now everyone in the Flying Bison was in danger, Toph was in danger, because of him. He extended his swords to position, his face a grim foil to his opponent's.
"Hello, Jet."