Chapter 2:

An air of silence washed over them.

The knowledge of loss silenced them, swelled their eyes, closed their voice-boxes.

The solidarity that came with the knowledge of all they had lost had instilled a certain sense of independence within him. Zuko refused his servants to touch his body.

He got up, every single day, before dawn, without the help of his servants. He dressed himself, he bathed, and then he walked out of the room to the one next door.

Walking in, the plush soft carpet gently crushing beneath his feet, he entered Toph's room. She woke up the moment he entered, hearing his footsteps reverberate, but lay still with her eyes closed.

She, like him, remained silent.

He took his time walking across the vast room and stopped in front of her bed. He kneeled down, slowly, in front of it, and gazed at her awake-but-sleeping form beside it. Her skin was pale, like milky porcelain, her hair and lashes as dark as ink. Her form, small.

He was her protector. She was the only one he could protect right now. He had failed all the others, but he couldn't fail her.

Gently, he brought his hand up and brushed away the hair that had fallen over her forehead.

Without speaking—he knew she had been up since he'd walked in—she sat up on the bed. Her sightless, pale eyes blinked and pretended to look around.

It seemed as if the boisterous laughter that had perpetually echoed around the campfire, a distant memory, still resonated within each of their minds—perpetually, indelibly, everlastingly, a deep and horrifying ghost of a reminder. The thought stilled them both into silence, always. The memories which resonated within them and the emptiness which now took their places; they were the empty spots of the companions which they once had.

The two remained like that for a moment longer, in silence. Zuko, kneeled down by the side of her bed—he had given her the royal chamber right beside his, the Fire Lady's—and she, sitting up silently with covers pooled up about her.

"Time to get up, champ," he quietly commanded, looking away briefly. Somehow, shame washed over him. He had failed her—failed them. And although his loss was the greatest (a child, a sister, a father, a lover, a mother as well), he felt as if he had failed her. Because Toph had not had anyone left in the world anyhow.

Her family had been a contrived one. A mismatched patchwork of clothes which she'd grown inexplicably attached to.

And suddenly, hyper-acutely, they had all been torn away from her.

He had done her wrong, he believed. He hadn't been able to protect them. Protect her.

But now he would. He would right his wrongs and never make the same mistakes again.

He dressed her silently, buttoning up the yellow and crème green clothes his servants had unspokenly brought to this room after he had commanded that the entire suite be refurbished in yellow carpet (for her feet) and rid of red completely, instead in greens and yellows.

She would live here, with him, indefinitely. Because she had no where else to go, her patchwork family torn, and because he, too, had no where else to be but with the silent remnants of the past—her.

So each morning, he dressed himself alone, and then came over and dressed her himself. He refused servants for the both of him.

She was small, only up to his chest, and quiet, and blind, but completely his own responsibility.

He knew it was wrong—Toph wasn't quiet. But he couldn't bring himself to ameliorate this issue. He, too, was quiet.

They were both reveling in their loss; not enough strength to speak.

He commanded his officers that she follow him everywhere; that wherever the Fire Lord went, there be a smaller seat beside his, fit for her.

He didn't trust her to be alone; himself to be alone, but he knew too it was his own guilt: he needed to not make the mistake he had made before; he was compelled to not fail this time. He needed to make sure she would always stay safe.

She would always be by his side, he commanded his shocked ministraries, ignoring all their protests and walking out of the throne room.

She was, afterall, the only lingering reminder of the common past they had shared once before. The only survivor of their journey. The only person who could affirm that the tan blue-eyed girl in the blue dress had once existed, that there had once truly been a happy young boy with arrows all over his forehead and hands.

She was his only reminder. He would keep her beside him, even if it would tear him from his authority. He had to protect her, since he had failed to protect their cherished ones the last time.

Whispers fluttered around them.

Zuko was the prodigal son. No one at the palace had seen him since he was 14 years at all. At 17, he had returned, like a sudden burst of flame, to reclaim his throne.

He had returned as a man, as an enigma. He had returned and along with him, a small doll-like figure of a girl with blind, sightless blue eyes. She trailed after him everywhere she went and when she didn't, he snapped with sudden awareness, his brows furrowed and he commanded his guards to go find her again.

Whispers fluttered around them.

They had not seen him since he was 14. Perhaps she was his daughter?

They shared the same pale skin... but while his was tanned with work and time, her's remained beautifully effervescent. A tryst with a royal Earth Kingdom princess, the servants wagered, could only produce a girl such as Toph.

But he was too young. As an enigma as he was, he had still only bee 14. And as young as she looked, she was still too much old to be his daughter.

But to the commoners, who did not know exactly the true age of their Fire Lord, many believed her to be his illegitimate daughter.

Perhaps his lover, the servants briefly considered. But no—she was much too young.

Fire Lord Zuko was a man. Toph—Princess Toph, as Zuko had pronounced she be called, was much too immature. She could not please him in such a way that a man would desire; he was seventeen years old. She was still but a child.

Then who is she? They wondered poignantly.

Lord Zuko was still but a mystery. His silence forbade them from questioning. His direct speech, sure orders, decisive and wise decisions kept them from doubting him. His furrowed brows showed them years of experience, of longing, of loss.

They had not known how the past three years had subsided and washed away, but they knew that Fire Lord Zuko had poignantly returned with the tides of change and that was what he meant to implement and instill into the country after his father's tragic death. Fire Lord Zuko was a hero; they all knew that. But who was the young girl beside him?

His daughter, the product of an illicit affair during his time away? His lover? Sexual relationships with child servants were not necessarily unheard of in the history of Fire Lords. But he dressed her too well for her to be his child servant.

And he had never touched her in any demeaning or inappropriate way, in public or in front of others.

He instituted her as princess; as head of war brigades. Was she, perhaps, a dignatary brought over from the Earth Kingdom?

Perhaps their trading alliances with the Earth people were going on so well because he was offered a child bride from their royal family? But of course, he would have his choice of wives from the many different royal lines in the Earth Kingdom, so why would they offer the Fire Prince a blind girl if they wanted to show signs of amiability?

Six months passed and the silence slowly receded.

The blind girl, they learned, had quite a mouth.

The grieving between the two, at first silent and unspoken and taciturn, soon turned into unspoken companionship.

She broke it first. He tugged on her hair too hard one morning as he combed through her hair and then she had snapped.

Finally. Finally. After three months without a word, she had spoken. He hadn't even realized that he had been waiting for it. But her lack of speech was grating within his very core; he had not realized it until finally, she spoke.

"Watch it, hog-breath! What do you think you're doing?" her irritated, critical, child-like voice let out.

Shocked, he lifted his hands two feet away from her head and his mouth slowly dropped. She had spoken to him.

And above all, she had sounded... normal. Why had he expected her voice to change, he didn't know. He suspect that the affectionate, critical, teasing lilt to her voice was only reserved for those worthy of her criticisms and her keen, acute insight.

But no; here it was back again.

And, as if magically the dam had broken, she started again and wouldn't shut up. The entire day, Zuko had been quiet. As Toph sat beside him at the long breakfast hall, his mouth fell open as it seemed that everything she had wanted to say before had come spilling out:

"What is this thing anyway? What do you candlesticks eat here anyway—it tastes like rotten tomato-oranges."

"Why would you put spice on top of green key-lime-waterhedge pie?"

"This dress is the most stupidest thing in creation. Remind me why it trails behind me like a hog-monkey? I like my fair-share of dirt, but its just heavy weight catching onto me. Have your stupid minister dogs change it now"

Still blinking in shock—Toph hadn't stopped talking the entire day, ever since he had pulled too hard on a knot in her hair this morning, Zuko hesitated and spoke back.

"My ministers aren't the ones in charge of your clothes..."

"Yeah well they're stupid as pig-cow-spit anyhow, so they might as well be good for something."

Zuko faltered. They were walking along a corridor, and the servant maids in the hallway were wide-eyed at Toph's crude language as they passed.

"Speaking of which—that treaty you guys were trying to get passed last Tuesday. Sparky, you should know better than that—to expect King Lukao to actually send over 8 ships of orange-pear trees in exchange for 8 cargos of coal? Send him three and you're good."

Toph continued blabbering on, pointing out all the small mistakes he had made in his two months of negotations as a Fire Lord, and he trailed behind her, dumbfounded and relieved.

A.N: Hope you're liking it so far