(A/N): Written simply because there aren't enough Tsungi horn related fanfictions out there.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of it's characters, etc.
Musical Discoveries
"I'm bored," Sokka groaned.
Toph replied, "Well, I'm not bored."
"That's because you've been bending pebbles into Zuko's lunch while he's training Aang," Sokka said, watching Toph throw another small rock into Zuko's bowl of soup. There was a small splash as the pebble sank to the bottom of the bowl.
Toph said, "You could join me."
"And face Zuko's wrath when he finds out I've been chucking rocks in his soup? No thanks," Sokka said. Toph shrugged.
"Suit yourself, Snoozles." Five pebbles later, Sokka was still incredibly bored. He sighed loudly.
"I bet you can't guess how many rocks that you've bent in there, " Sokka said, pointing to the bowl.
"You're right," Toph said, seriously. "There's no way for an earthbender to tell how many rocks there are in a bowl."
"Oh, right." They settled into an awkward silence after that. Sokka pulled out his sword. He chopped some of the nearby grass into dozens of little pieces.
"Why don't you go make kissy faces at your girlfriend instead of brutally murdering plants?" Toph asked, as Sokka pulled another blade of grass from the ground.
"She and Katara went shopping a while back. They're getting more food."
"Why didn't you go? You love food."
"Exactly!" Sokka agreed. "But, Katara and Suki claimed that I end up wasting all our money on meat. Can you believe that?"
"Yes," Toph answered immediately.
"Buying meat is never a waste," Sokka said wisely. Toph flicked a pebble at his arm. He winced and rubbed the sore spot.
"What was that for?" Sokka complained. She shrugged.
"No reason. You know, I'm starting to see why they left you behind." Sokka scowled at her and sliced the next bit of grass rather viciously.
A few minutes passed with only the sounds of Sokka's sword killing grass and Toph's pebbles plopping into the soup bowl to interrupt the silence. Suddenly , Toph bent the soup bowl a few feet away from her and turned towards Sokka. He was about to ask about her sudden actions, when he heard footsteps. He looked up and saw Zuko walking towards them.
"Do you know where Katara put my lunch? I told her I'd eat it after finishing Aang's firebending lesson."
"Over here, Sparky," Toph said, lazily pointing to the bowl.
"Stop calling me that," he grumbled, grabbing the soup and walking back towards the house. Sokka somehow managed to keep a straight face until he saw that Zuko was gone. He burst out laughing.
"Think he'll notice?" Sokka asked Toph. She smirked.
"Maybe, but he won't complain about Sugar Queen's cooking." Once their laughs had died down, Toph seemed to realize that Zuko was eating her main source of entertainment. Sokka noticed, too and decided to find something to do. After all, a bored Toph could be very disastrous to your health.
"Want to go snoop around the house?" Sokka asked. The royal family's summer home had to be full of useless things from over the years. Maybe they'd find something interesting.
"Is that an excuse to get me to help clean up?" Toph demanded.
"No," Sokka assured her, "but think of all the embarrassing stuff in the attic that we could find."
"Like what?" Toph asked dully.
"Like, what if we found a stuffed hippo cow from when Fire Lord Ozai was a kid?" Sokka asked excitedly. Toph let Sokka grin like an idiot for a full moment before flicking another rock at his arm.
"Fine, let's go," Toph said, getting up.
Sokka's mouth dropped open when he opened the door of the attic. The sheer amount of random items was overwhelming. Piles and piles of all sorts of trinkets covered the floor. You'd think that people who had dozens of servants would at least have someone to organize some of this junk Sokka thought. He managed to navigate through the clutter and make it to the center of the room. Toph stayed where she was.
"So, just start digging through stuff," he said, starting to look through the pile closest to him.
"Want to make this a competition?" Toph asked, slyly. Sokka threw a sack of old tea leaves behind him before looking up at her.
"First person to find something embarrassing wins. The loser has to do the other's chores for a week."
"You're on," Sokka said, digging through the pile again. He had an advantage over Toph, because he could read. She wouldn't know if any of the scrolls she went through were useful or not. Sokka smiled, no cleaning Momo for a week. His fantasies were interrupted by a yell from Toph. The sudden noise caused him to He turned to see her sprawled on the ground.
"I tripped over some twisted up metal thing on the ground!" Toph yelled angrily, rubbing her sore foot. Sokka awkwardly walked over to her. The way he was stepping made it look like he was doing some odd dance. Sokka found the 'twisted up metal thing' that she had tripped over.
In his famous Wang Fire voice, Sokka declared, " I believe the culprit was that tsungi horn!" Sokka pointed at the horn, dramatically. He noticed a small piece of paper in the horn. He pulled it out, took one look and burst into laughter.
"What is it? What does it say?" Toph asked impatiently.
"Nothing," Sokka managed to get out. Toph raised her eyebrows.
"I didn't realize that blank sheets of paper were so entertaining. Is that what the fire nation finds funny? No wonder they've got no sense of humor."
"It's not that," Sokka said in between laughs, "this is a picture of Zuko playing the tsungi horn in front of Azula."
"That's great!" Toph exclaimed.
"I know!" Sokka agreed.
"That means I won!"
"Exactly! You- wait, what?" Sokka spluttered, realizing what he had agreed to.
"I won," said Toph smugly, "I found the most embarrassing thing first. You better get up early tommorow, Snoozles. You're feeding Appa in the morning."
Sokka grumbled, "Fine." He grabbed the horn and the picture and walked outside with Toph. She paused for a moment.
"Suki and Katara are back. They're walking towards Zuko and Aang," she reported.
"Perfect, let's go share our discovery," said Sokka, running to catch up with Suki and Katara.
"Thanks for helping me put everything away, Aang," Sokka heard his sister say.
"You're welcome," Aang replied. Sokka tried his best to hide the giant tsungi horn behind his back, as he and Toph neared the courtyard where everyone else had gathered.
"Guys, look what Toph and I found!" Sokka squealed (in the most manly way), pulling the horn from behind him.
"I didn't know that you were a tsungi hornist, Sokka," Suki said.
"Don't tell me you're going to start music night," Zuko complained.
"What's music night?" Aang asked, eagerly. "That sounds like a pretty good idea."
Zuko muttered, "I don't want to talk about it."
"What? No, I'm not-"
"Did you want to learn to play? I can teach you the basics if you want," Aang offered. Sokka would have facepalmed if his arms were empty. Lucily, Toph came to the rescue.
"You Noodle-Brains, it's not his horn, it's Sparky's," she snapped, pointing at Zuko. Everyone turned to look at the person in question. Zuko glared at the horn like its mere presence had deeply insulted him.
"Where did you find that?" he demanded.
"We found it in the attic. Did you know how much stuff is in there? We found everything from pots and pans to calendars," Sokka replied.
"Pots and pans?" Katara asked. "Maybe I should go and look up there later. It would be nice to have bigger ones to cook with."
"Oh yeah, there are plenty of kitchen supplies up there. You might want to be careful though, that stuff hasn't been cleaned in years. There's piles of stuff everywhere. You can barely see the flo-" Sokka's speech on the attic's disorganization was cut off as Zuko grabbed the tsungi horn out of his hands and took off towards the beach.
"Should we go after him?" asked Suki.
"No need," Toph said. "He's coming back, now. He just threw the horn into the ocean." As if on cue, Zuko ran back towards them.
"Sorry, I just had to go throw that into ocean," he explained, panting slightly.
In unison, the rest of the gaang responded, "We know." Sokka gave a tragic sigh. He pulled out the picture and showed the others.
"Now we only have this picture to remind us of Zuko's musical talents," he said, wistfully. In less than a minute, the picture was a pile of ashes. Zuko stomped out of the room. Suki and Katara got up and announced that they were going to make dinner. Once they left, Toph grinned.
"Well, that was fun," she said.
Katara and Suki were washing the dishes from dinner. It was usually them that did the cleaning. They were technically supposed to take turns, but somehow it was always left up to those two. As Zuko walked up to them, he could hear them chatting abut something. He stood awkwardly for a few moments. He wondered if he should fake cough or something to get their attention. Luckily, he didn't have to since Suki seemed to notice him standing behind them. She looked up at him.
"Um, I think we should go to the market again, soon," Zuko started.
"Why?" asked Suki. "We went just this morning and got everything we need until the comet. Are we missing something?"
"It's just that I think some of our vegetables have gone stale." Katara looked up from the pot she was currently scrubbing.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "They seemed fine. Suki and I made sure to get the best ones."
"Well, some of the ones from lunch tasted like rocks."
(A/N): So, did I get the characters right? It's my first fanfic, so I'm not sure.