Avatar the Last Airbender

ðHgeocities.com/crystalangel0105//palacekeeping.htmgeocities.com/crystalangel0105_/palacekeeping.htm.delayedx±WÕJÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÈð1Õ,OKtext/htmlïºLÜÕ,ÿÿÿÿb‰.HTue, 14 Aug 2007 01:57:24 GMTµMozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)en, *±WÕJÕ, Avatar the Last Airbender - Palacekeeping Title: Palacekeeping (or How to Piss Azula Off)
Characters: Toph, Azula, Zuko, Avatar gang; Mentions of Kataang and… TyLee/Sokka
Genre: Humor
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything.
Summary: The Avatar gang is visiting Zuko. Toph and Sokka are drunk. Azula… is not having a good day.
Notes: I had way too much fun with this fic. Poor Azula, really. I Toph shouldn’t be so mean to her. =P Set after the war – sort of sequel to "Captured", I suppose.

Crash.

“Ah, shit.” A female voice says, and judging from how young it sounds and the language used, the former Fire Nation princess guesses that it’s the blind earth bender girl.

Azula’s eyebrow twitches in annoyance as she tries not to imagine what fragile, probably very expensive something has been broken. She just knows that Zuko will find some way to blame her. She feels sickened at the way she is easily controlled by her brother, who was once the little boy who couldn’t even stand up to her.

Now she’s the one who caters to his royal highness, the Fire Lord’s every whim as the “royal household advisor.” A glorified name for the official “housekeeper.” Azula feels sickened as she remembers begging for mercy at Zuko’s feet for protection –after the war, everyone knew who she was and what she’d done and Azula had more than her fair share of people who wanted to kill her. He’d promised to protect his “dear sister” as long as she complied with his wishes. Which is how Azula ended up here, taking care of a home that doesn’t even welcome her anymore and doing a job she’d always thought was disgusting.

Azula is pretty sure that he invites his friends (she sneers at the thought; what a weakling, to have friends like them) just to piss her off. She looks out of the study where she is dusting to see the earth bender girl (what was her name again?) looking bemused, standing in a pool of water and crushed flowers, as another girl carefully tries to lead her around the dangerous pieces of broken porcelain (oh Agni, that had been one of the most beautiful and priceless of their vases) and the Avatar hovering nervously around both of them.

“Toph,” the other girl hisses angrily. Ah, yes, Azula thinks to herself, that’s her name. Now what was the other one’s name? She’s pretty sure it starts with a K or a T sound…. Hell, whatever. KT works for now.

“It’s not my fault!” Toph protests, “That crazy bitch makes me wear these damn shoes in here!” Azula twitches again, at the reference to herself.

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much at that party,” the Avatar says worriedly.

“Eh, shut up Twinkle-Toes.” Sokka (the only name she remembers because Ty Lee had a crush on him and just wouldn't shut up about him; why him, Azula will never understand) slurs, stumbling into the hallway as well.

“Yeah!” Toph chimes in, as KT finally gets her to a safe area. She pauses. “Hey, wait, that’s my nickname for Aang! You can’t steal it!”

“Why not?” Sokka demands, before stumbling a bit on the thick carpet. Aang catches him easily but Sokka waves him away, still focused on Toph. “We can’t share?”

Toph sticks her tongue out at him, a gesture unbefitting a sixteen year old lady, in Azula’s opinion. “No. Think of your own nickname.”

Sokka actually stops to think about it. His brow furrows in concentration. “…What about I call him brother-in-law?” Both Aang and Katara turn interesting shades of red and Azula imagines that she can feel the heat from their faces from where she is. Well, that’s an interesting development, she muses.

“That doesn’t work either!” Toph argues, ignoring their reactions, “That’s a title, not a nickname!”

“It’s the same thing!”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Azula grits her teeth impatiently at the childish argument and is about to step forward when her brother walks into the hallway and stops to stare, effectively shutting Sokka up. Toph's face morphs into a confused expression when there is no answer, which begins to clear and turn into a triumphant look when she seems to decide that she has won. Sokka twitches and opens his mouth again, regardless of the company, when Zuko interrupts him.

“What is going on here?” Zuko asks tentatively, as if he’s not sure he really wants to know and he probably doesn’t.

Toph whirls around towards his voice and nearly topples over another vase, which KT quickly rights. Azula thinks that maybe she’s warming up to the water tribe girl.

“Princess?” Toph demands. “Where the hell are you?” She swears in frustration. “Damn these shoes!” She leans over and pulls the offending items off and throws them angrily at the ground. KT makes a sound of indignant surprise when one of the shoes bounces off the carpet and smack her in the leg.

“Sorry Katara,” Toph says, without actually sounding all that apologetic. Right, Katara, Azula thinks, then decides that it’s too troublesome to remember the whole thing and KT is easier to remember anyway.

Sokka, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to greet Zuko since everyone else seems to be occupied. He stumbles over to Zuko and slaps him on the back in a brotherly fashion. Zuko gives him a disgruntled look and Sokka just laughs it off. “Guess what, oh-prickly-one?” the water tribe warrior asks, and plows on without waiting for an answer, “My sister’s getting married! To the Avatar! Who’d a thunk?” He receives a deadpan look, and Azula agrees with her brother – even she knew that throughout the war, the Avatar and KT had some serious UST or something going on.

“He asked her today!” Toph exclaims excitedly, “So we went out to celebrate!” Her expression abruptly darkens a bit as she watches the couple try to sneak away and she says, “But Twinkle-Toes and the Sugar Queen wouldn’t drink anything, so it was kind of pointless.” Azula wonders why they expected them to; the Avatar was raised by monks and the other girl seems too prudish to drink.

Zuko, however, doesn’t seem all that surprised. If anything, his expression is wry. “So you went and got drunk yourselves anyway.”

“Damn straight!” Toph nods, swaying a bit, “Can’t let them ruin all of our fun, right, meathead?”

“Right!” Sokka cheers. “…wait, what did you say?”

“And then,” Toph says, pointedly ignoring his question, “we realized, ‘Oh, what about Zuko? He should be celebrating with us!’ So we came here to get you. And the vase broke. Not our fault by the way. You should have been more prepared for situations like this.” She nods, convinced of her own faultlessness. Sokka’s mutter of “Our fault?” is ignored as well.

Zuko's tone, if possible, becomes drier. “Thank you for remembering me,” he says blandly, “I’ll be sure to relay that to my household advisor.”

“While you’re doing that you should talk to her about the shoes rule,” Toph informs him, “The crazy bitch doesn’t realize how that rule impacts other people.” Actually, Azula does, but she created that rule just to piss Toph off. She likes the feeling of vindictive satisfaction in seeing the other girl run into walls once in a while.

“Don’t call her that,” Zuko says mildly, probably more out of obligation than out of brotherly concern.

“Are you defending her?” Toph demands and walks towards him menacingly – or at least Azula guesses that was what she was aiming for, but instead the earth bender takes a step and manages to slip and fall on her face in a spectacular display of grace.

“Toph!” the waterbender gasps. Sokka, leaning most of his weight on Zuko, nearly falls over as well when the Fire Lord starts forward to help her, but Aang beats him to her side.

“Get the hell off,” Toph mutters at him when he tries to give her a hand and pushes herself up. Standing upright again, Toph grins at Zuko and asks, “So, you coming?”

The Avatar and his sweetheart give Zuko please, help us! looks and Azula smirks as she imagines the stories that Toph and Sokka are telling about them to basically anyone who bothers to listen. Which is probably quite a few people, considering that it’s the Avatar and his new fiancée they’re talking about and the fact that it’s the Toph Bei Fong and the fiancée’s brother that are telling the stories.

The group has made quite a name for themselves for what they did in the war. Azula convinces herself that it is not a sour tone she is using as she thinks that and that such an emotion is below her.

All four of them are looking at Zuko expectantly. The Avatar and whatshername (crap, Azula’s forgotten her name again) are wearing matching pleading looks and that is just so adorable that Azula feels sick to her stomach. Toph is smirking and giving Zuko a look that basically says no matter what you say, you’re coming with us and possibly because of that, the water tribe warrior wears a bored expression of someone waiting for the inevitable.

“…Fine,” Zuko says, and Toph lets out a whoop.

“Lets go!” she cries, and everyone acquiesces and begins heading out of the hallway, Sokka marching an unwilling Zuko in front. Toph brings up the rear and before she turns the corner, she pauses and turns around with a grin on her face.

“Hey Azula,” Toph calls, far too cheerfully. Azula’s eyes widen and her mouth opens to say something – and she promptly forgets what it was when the other girl calmly pushes another vase off a table. “Have a nice day!” Toph finishes, and Azula wants to smack the smug look off the other girl’s face.

Someone laughs (sounds like the water tribe boy, but if it’s her brother, Azula hopes he goes straight to hell, the bastard) and Toph almost bounces away and disappears around the corner, leaving Azula shaking in anger.

Agni, she really hates it when they come to visit.

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