— You know what they say about love and war?
— Yeah. One's full of physical and emotional pain. The other is war.
***
The flight to the Earth Kingdom's Last Stronghold took fourteen days. And they were the most awkward fourteen days of my life, even counting the similar teenage dance Suki and I had gone through when we were just starting our relationship.
With Azula, everything was... much more complicated. In the sense that... we were both trying to pretend that nothing had happened—neither back then, in my cabin, nor now, on the observation deck. The girl had "taken some time to think," and it would've been inappropriate for me to push her, but... ignoring what had happened was difficult.
And then there were our traveling companions to consider. And Toph, who saw everything and, while she was a smart girl, was still, first and foremost, a girl. Meaning a woman. Yep, perfectly capable of keeping secrets—but only collectively. And even before this, there had been... things between the Fire Princess and me.
All in all, it was obvious that everyone aboard the airship already knew about the "change in our relationship." Maybe Zuko alone was still completely oblivious, despite being the most talented ninja and tracker among everyone present, but he had an ironclad excuse—his own romance with Mai.
So, in the end... I could simply feel that thick, almost tangible Awkwardness hanging in the air, practically crawling over my skin.
Naturally, no one said anything to us or brought up the subject in any way: it wasn't the soldiers' place; the Kyoshi Warriors, given that our relationship was more friendly than hierarchical, could certainly have gotten away with it, but they unanimously displayed the sort of female solidarity you see among die-hard TV drama fans when the plot reaches a complicated romantic moment and everyone holds their breath and just watches, watches, watches... Ahem. Anyway, they diligently pretended they weren't there while keeping a close eye on everything; Iroh showed tact; Suki had already said everything she wanted to say earlier; and if the princess's friends discussed anything with her, they did it behind closed doors without drawing attention.
In short, everyone kept quiet and pretended everything was normal. Except the tension kept building anyway. And a nervous firebender is basically a powder keg, while the princess wasn't exactly known for her meek disposition to begin with. Add to that the fact that there was nowhere to "blow off steam" during the flight—unless we stopped somewhere, descended to the ground, and held a sparring match in the middle of an open field... But considering that we were traveling through the Earth Kingdom, making that kind of stop anywhere outside a fortified camp wasn't exactly appealing—who knew what might happen?
So, even though I tried to keep myself busy and distract everyone around me, my maneuvers could only last so long.
For example, I showed Suki some exercises for controlling her life energy, the same way Wan Shi Tong had once taught me—using my own chi to help her feel what she needed to feel and take those first few steps. And everything seemed great: time well spent, both the girls and I were distracted, she threw herself into training, a-a-and... promptly dropped out of everyday life altogether, leaving me practically alone with Azula and not even providing moral support during our get-togethers, because she was busy meditating and had stopped coming to them entirely, while I couldn't exactly announce that I was training too and stop showing up in the mess hall!
And everyone already knew that Suki and I had spent a couple of days very busy doing something behind closed doors, and even though nobody said anything, they just kept watching, watching, watching!
Well, or teasing me, while knowing perfectly well that nothing had happened and acting all the more shamelessly because of it! Yes, I'm talking about Toph, the little menace, who deliberately timed her jokes so Azula would hear them and start giving me sidelong looks while I frantically fended off the teasing and tried to prove that nothing had happened—without actually saying so outright, instead twisting myself into knots with joking euphemisms and roundabout explanations.
No, I'm not an idiot—I figured out how to neutralize the little bandit, and even turn it to everyone's advantage, both morally (by making her suffer a little) and in a very tangible sense. After all, I remembered that in canon the girl had invented metalbending, which would repeatedly bail out Team Avatar and save Toph's own life.
I would've nudged her toward exploring that field earlier, but I simply hadn't felt that the time was right. At first, when she'd just snuck aboard the ship carrying us to the metropole, we were still getting used to each other, only beginning to build mutual trust and friendship. Then, in Yu Dao, she'd been busy terrorizing her parents and escaping from the Kyoshi Warriors—not exactly conducive to studying. And after that came the journey with Azula—everything on the move, everyone on edge, plus trying to build a relationship with the princess on top of it all.
Now, though, the timing was perfect—Toph already acknowledged my authority, her trust in me was, if not absolute, then close to it, and she had absolutely nothing to do while we were in the air. In short, it wasn't hard to bait her into taking the challenge. Something along the lines of: metal comes out of the earth, just like coal, and earthbenders can bend coal; besides, particles of that coal, just like particles of earth, have to be present in any steel anyway, which probably means everyone else is simply too weak to "out-stubborn" the metal—but if she's claiming the title of the Strongest Earthbender in History, then there you go: prove it by example and conquer the part of the earth no one has ever managed to bend before.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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