Toph could only handle formality for so long. The banquet was celebrating joint ventures between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, which she could really get behind, but fuck, it was the most boring thing she'd witnessed in a long time.

Even subtly pranking the guests wasn't fun after a while. You rotate the earth under a guy to make him crash into his secret crush, you trip some asshole who's harassing a girl, you throw pebbles into some lady's elaborate hair until they all fall out while she's dancing, and then what? Anything more destructive would be rude, and she actually gave a shit about her hosts.

Seated at the Firelord's right hand as a guest of honor, she'd stayed as long as she had to out of politeness to Iroh and Zuko. Then she booked it. She didn't even know this part of the palace that well, but it didn't matter. Anywhere was better than the banquet hall. She ended up in the gardens, which were more extensive than she expected. There was a nice corner between a few hedges, conveniently out of anyone line of sight, with some grass and a boulder. She bent a niche for her head and reclined on the rock, taking a long, deep breath.

Familiar footsteps resonated in the distance, but it took at least a half an hour for them to pitter-patter all over the garden maze and stumble upon her resting spot. The idiot kept opening gates and walking around obstacles instead of hopping over them or burrowing under them.

When he finally got there, he was quiet for a long time. Maybe he'd just leave and assume she didn't know he was there-but no, he wasn't that clueless.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," the Firelord said.

"If you say so." There was a chill in the air and the scent of burning wood, a combination that promised winter soon, even here near the equator. She made herself focus on that, and not his presence. Maybe he'd still go away. "Everyone says that, but it doesn't mean much to someone who's never seen them."

"Some nights you can't see as many, or they look weak and far away." He sat down on the grass beside her. "They're spread out across the sky when you look up at night like...metal embedded in rock, I guess. Tonight there aren't any clouds blocking the view, and it's a new moon. The stars stand out. Some of them even look like they're pulsing with life in many different colors, like dragon fire. Actually, you came to the darkest part of the gardens, and the stars are bright enough that I can see you by their light."

Toph closed her eyes, trying to imagine what he described, but her mind defied her, as it usually did. Color meant nothing to her. It was something that let seeing people differentiate between identical objects, and there were a thousand names for these different colors, and none of it meant anything.

"Have you always been blind?" Zuko asked quietly.

"Yeah." She opened her eyes and turned towards his voice. "I was born with my eyes like this. Cloudy and green, right? I don't know exactly what, but some part of them is missing, so they've never worked." She shrugged. "Other than physical details and color, I don't miss much."

"I know. I couldn't believe my eyes when you beat someone at Pai Sho tonight."

"All the expensive sets are carved, not just painted. Are you smiling, Sparky?" She grinned. "I've never heard you smile before." On an impulse, she raised her hand to his face and touched his lips. That was a mistake, she told herself. A mistake. Stop. He was smiling, broadly at first, though he closed his lips when she started to touch them. Her fingertips trailed down to his chin and along his jaw. He was clean-shaven, with only a hint of stubble in a few places. Her fingers reached higher, along his cheeks, and then he had her wrists in his hands.

"I don't think you want to see that," he murmured.

"What, your scar? Everyone else gets to." With her fingers still on his face, she knew he didn't find that humorous, but he still let go of her hands.

The skin on that side of his face transitioned abruptly from smoothness to damage; it had been a tightly controlled burst of fire, Toph realized. She swallowed against the horror of that thought. A father had intentionally delivered this injury, knowing full well that his son would be scarred for life at the very least. The remaining skin had formed into ridges that sometimes ran parallel and sometimes crossed each other, leaving the entire area like a hilly island on his face. Nearer the eye, the damage was more severe, the ridges deeper and drier. With one hand tracing the outline of each eye, she compared them. The burned one was permanently half-closed, even when his eyes were open. He closed them, and she felt the deep scarring on the lid. Ozai had been aiming for his son's eyes. The horror had never reached her when it was a story about a prince; feeling the damage on a friend's face was a different experience.

"I had no idea it was like this." Her hands traced his skin back to his neck and upward, comparing what each hand felt, pushing his hair out of the way as she moved. His ear was burned badly enough that most of the outer structure was missing.

"It feels wrong to complain when you're blind," Zuko said quietly.

"Being born without something just happens. It's nature. This isn't."

"I know. It's ugly."

"That's not what I meant." Somehow, she'd ended up with his face cradled between her hands. A mistake. "I mean that what happened to you was so wrong, but you've won. You're here, and you're whole. That doesn't just happen, you earned it."

His breathing changed in a way she hadn't heard before.

"What?" she asked, going cold. She started to pull her hands away.

"Don't." He caught her wrists again. "Toph, may I kiss you?"

She hadn't expected that. No, go away. "Yes."

His breath against her skin was hot, and she could feel his heart racing through the earth beneath them. His lips brushed hers once, then a lingering second time, warm and tender. By the time they drew away from each other, Toph could feel that her face was flushed.

"You probably don't care," he murmured, "but you're very beautiful."

His words shocked her into reality again. She straightened, took a deep breath. "We shouldn't be doing this."

"Why not?" He touched her chin, and it took all her self control not to kiss him again, harder, in defiance of her own common sense.

"You're the Firelord." She was speaking far too fast, but she couldn't slow herself down. "You need to be in there, looking for a wife who can give you stability in the Fire Nation. In the streets they're still protesting your willing release of the colonies and these people probably agr-"

"Do you think I can forget that? I inherited a kingdom in ruins. Is that what you want to talk about right now?" Eight years ago, he would have lost his temper, and it would have been easy to make him go away. But no, he'd had to grow into this reasonable man that she actually fucking respected. "For a few minutes, I just want to be Zuko."

"I'm not infringing on your identity. Personally, I think the Firelord and Zuko are the same person, and trying to separate them is your problem. If you pulled your head out of your ass for a second, you might recall that I'm Toph Beifong, and I was no less Toph in that banquet hall than I am out here, telling you to pull your head out of your ass." She sighed. "Look, I care about you. Any idiot can see that; I don't usually stick around anywhere but my school, I hate formality, and I've been at the palace a week."

"The kiss was a pretty big hint, too."

She ignored him. "But where is this going? You're doing important work here. I'm not exactly helping with that. If I'm a distraction, I should leave before we hurt each other."

"That's the problem." She could feel him running his fingers through his hair, mostly because he knocked his metal headpiece awry. It was supposed to be pure gold, but there was a lot of earth in it, she realized idly. "When you're here, you make me think more clearly. I get bogged down in all this guilt and anger and you cut right through it and show me what I have to do. I think I need you to be here, Toph."

"I'm blind and rude," she reminded him, "and Earth Kingdom nobility. If I stick around, you're going to have problems."

"I'll have more if you don't," he said quietly. "I've already decided not to marry for political advantage. My family has been doing that for generations and it ended in insanity."

"That's stupid. You're stupid. If they hadn't been doing that for generations, they would have lost control of the entire country."

"I don't care. Toph, stay another month. Train your students here with my soldiers. Come with me to visit Yu Dao in two weeks." He reached for her hand, and she slapped him away.

With that, she'd finally riled his temper; he exhaled a firey-hot breath, his heart beating hard.

"You don't understand, you unbelievable moron," she growled. "If I stay here, we're going to fall in love."

"That's why I'm asking you to stay!" he snapped back. "I'm already in love with you!"

For a long moment, the only sound was the lazy chirp of crickets.

"This is a mess, Sparky," she murmured. She reached for his hand, feeling his anger melt away, pulling him closer and closer until she could feel his body heat and smell whatever scent he'd been sprayed with for the stupid event. It didn't suit him. He put his arms around her, and she leaned against him, listening to his voice echo in his chest. They must have looked like morons, sitting in the darkest corner of the garden, hugging next to a huge-ass boulder.

"Yeah," he murmured. "But we'll make it work."