Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Nickelodeon, not me.
Drabble #1: "Ice Cream"
Setting: Season three, in a Fire Nation town.
The unreasonably hot weather was beginning to take its toll. Toph scowled. She missed the peaceful, balmy weather of Gaoling, where the sun shone without burning and there were plenty of trees and grass and flowers. The heat seemed to be wearing down on Sokka and Katara too; it was such a far cry from the ice and snow they'd lived in all their lives. Only Aang, as usual, seemed unflappable. Then again, he could make his own air conditioning.
"Hey, Katara," Sokka whined.
"What?" she sighed.
"Let's take a little break."
"Sokka, we're only in the marketplace. It's not like we're hiking through the desert or anything," Katara retorted.
"But it's hot!" he insisted. "Look, there's an ice cream stand over there. Let's get some."
"I don't know." Toph heard the jingle of the coins in the purse.
"It does sound good," Aang said cheerfully.
"C'mon, Katara," Sokka urged. "Nice, cool ice cream."
Toph's thoughts drifted. "Sounds like a good idea to me," she said.
"Vote of three to one, ice cream wins!" Sokka said.
"Fine," Katara sighed. "And I guess I have to go get it myself?"
"I'll help you," Aang offered.
"Toph and I'll sit over there," Sokka announced. "C'mon." He grabbed her by the arm and dragged into the shade, where he plunked her down on a bench.
"You do know I can walk on my own," Toph snapped.
"Sorry, I guess I'm excited." Toph sat down. Sokka perched on the back of the bench. "It's just so hot. All I can think about is snow and cold stuff."
"I know what you mean," Toph said. "Well, about cold stuff, at least. I'm sick of all this heat. It makes the ground all dry and crumbly." And almost too hot to walk on, she almost added.
"Does it snow in Goaling?" Sokka asked.
"Not really," Toph shrugged. "Well, it kind of flurries in winter, but it's only really snowed a couple of times, and I was never allowed out of the house to see it."
"Really?" Toph figured Sokka would sound surprised. "How come?"
"Blind kid, remember?" she reminded him. "My parents thought I would freeze to death or something if I went outside. It felt funny, though. Snow is so light it barely makes any kind of vibration at all. It was like getting tickled with a feather."
"All right, here you go," Katara said. "There's four flavors. Who wants what? And before anyone says anything, I claim the green tea one."
"Chocolate," Sokka said, his arm brushing the top of Toph's head as he reached for the cup.
"Toph, what do you want?" Katara asked. "There's mint and strawberry."
"Mint sounds good," she said, holding her hands out. Katara handed her the cup.
"Strawberry? That's such a girly flavor," Aang said. "I wanted green tea." Toph fumbled around the edge of the cup for the spoon.
"Stuff it in your face and smile, Avatar, 'cause that's all you're getting."
Toph scooped up a bite of ice cream and set it in her mouth. The cool, light ice cream melted on her tongue. Her shoulders sagged in happiness. She took another big bite, enjoying the texture and the flavor.
"Oh, this is so much better," Sokka moaned happily. "Remember when we were little, Katara, and Mom made snow cream for us? This is almost as good as that."
"Mm-hm," Katara said, licking a drip off the back of her hand.
"What's snow cream?" Aang asked.
"It's like ice cream, but you make it with snow," Sokka explained.
Aang's eyes widened. "Did you bend the snow into ice cream?" he asked.
"Well, sometimes when Mom let me practice, yeah," Katara said.
Aang's eyes were now as big as dinner plates. "You can bend ice cream?"
"It's got ice in it," Toph said. "You'd think this would be obvious."
"I want to try!" Aang said.
"Not here, you won't," Toph said. "I have no intention of having my ice cream ruined by you two."
"Fine," Katara said. "We'll be right back. And then we're going to finish our ice cream in peace, Aang. I'm not wasting perfectly good green tea ice cream on bending practice."
"Mine's just strawberry. It doesn't matter," Aang said.
"If you don't like strawberry, why did you make me get some?"
Their voices blended with the crowd as they walked away. Toph took another, smaller bite of ice cream. She wanted to make it last.
Gradually she became aware of eyes locked onto her. "Are you staring at me?" she demanded.
"No," Sokka stammered. "Yes. Well…"
"Spit it out, what do you want?" Toph asked.
"Well…how can you eat?"
Toph turned her head in the direction of his voice and lowered her thin eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"You can't see your mouth," he said.
"Neither can you," she retorted.
"That's not what I meant," he said. "You can't see your cup either. But somehow you can always tell where everything is. What do you do? Do you sense the vibrations of your food or something?"
Toph lowered her head and mumbled her answer into her cup of ice cream before taking an enormous bite.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I have a system," she blurted out, spitting ice cream somewhere in front of her; she half-hoped it wasn't on Sokka. "I worked out a system a long time ago, okay?"
"What kind of system?" he asked.
She didn't want to answer. She'd kept it a secret for this long already, and no one seemed even remotely close to catching on. But he sounded sincerely interested. "I touch everything on my plate," she finally said.
"What?" Confusion. Ah, this she had expected.
"I tap around the edges of my plate to figure out where everything is," she said. She gestured with her spoon, touching around an imaginary plate. "Then I just have to remember where everything is, and I can usually function just fine."
"That's pretty cool, Toph." He understood now. She took a normal-sized bite. "But how do you find your mouth?"
Or maybe not. Toph rolled her eyes. "Everyone can find their own mouth, stupid," she said. She stabbed her spoon into her melting ice cream and set the cup down on the bench. "Here. I'll cover your eyes and you try to get the spoon to your mouth, okay? Pretend to be me."
"I'm Toph, I'm the greatest earthbender ever, I'm going to kick you in the shins," Sokka promptly said in a horribly high falsetto.
Toph cuffed him on the shoulder. "Stop it," she ordered. "I do not sound like that!" She stood on her knees and cupped her hands over his eyes. His spoon clinked against his teeth.
"Hey, that's easier than I thought," he said. He took another bite.
"See, there you go," she said. She dropped her hands and picked up her ice cream.
"Yeah, but can you find my mouth?"
Toph dropped her spoon. "What?" she sputtered.
"Betcha you can't find my mouth," he taunted.
"What do you want me to find it with, my fist?" she demanded.
"No, no, nothing like that," Sokka said. "I'll hold out my spoon, and you hold out yours, okay?"
"That sounds dumb," she said. "I'm not wasting my ice cream on you."
"Aw, you just can't do it," he said.
Toph dug out a spoonful of ice cream. "All right, all right," she caved. She held out the spoon. Carefully she slid her knee so it was touching his; it was nearly impossible to read any kind of vibrations through the wooden bench. His skin was dry and warm. He raised his arm and held out his spoon. Toph leaned forward. Judging from the angle of his arm, the spoon should be…
The spoon poked against her cheek. "Hey!" she snapped. "You did that on purpose!"
Sokka's mouth tugged on the bowl of her spoon. "You were close," he mumbled through the mouthful of mint ice cream. He readjusted the spoon.
The creamy chocolate ice cream filled her mouth, blending smoothly with the taste of mint. Toph swallowed. "You did that on purpose," she repeated.
"No, I didn't," he said. Toph sighed. She could tell he wasn't lying.
"All right, so I couldn't see where your spoon was," she grumbled.
"I probably…" Toph swiped at the drip of chocolate on her cheek and stuck her finger in her mouth. Through their touching knees she felt his heart rate spike, although she couldn't see a reason why. "…uh…it was probably just a fluke. I know you can do it." He cleared his throat. "Wanna try again?"
"No," she said.
"Don't you like chocolate ice cream?" he asked.
She scooped a bit of his ice cream with her finger and licked it off. Again, the heart rate spike. "I never said that," she said.
"Hey!" he said. Her cup shifted in her hand as he scooped up a large fingerful of ice cream. "Now we're even. Ha!"
Toph pulled a face and reached for his again. Before she could lick off the ice cream, though, Sokka put her finger in his mouth. She jumped, startled. "What did you-"
Sokka jerked back and tumbled of the bench. "Nothing," he stammered.
"Hey, guys, guess what?" Aang said. "You can bend ice cream! But…it kind of makes your hands all sticky."
"What are you two up to?" Katara asked.
Sokka's spoon scraped around the edges of the bowl; Toph heard him shove the entire remainder of his ice cream into his mouth. "Nothing," he mumbled.
"Really," Katara said in her know-it-all-little-sister voice.
"Really," Toph said. She sipped her melted ice cream, hiding her pink cheeks behind the rim.
"Well, break's over. Let's get going," Katara said.
"First thing…let's find a fountain or something," Aang said. "Seriously, my hands have never been this sticky before."
Toph trailed behind the others, the soft thumpings of their feet echoing through her soles. Slyly she tapped her toes, sending a pebble into Sokka's calf. He turned around. Toph quickly dipped her finger into her ice cream and licked it off.
Again with the heart rate spike. She still didn't get it, but hey, any method of teasing Sokka was good with her.
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Author's Note:
Ah, the first of my Tokka drabbles. I love Tokka. Really, I do. Toph is my favorite character in the Avatar universe. She's so tough and irascible, yet she's an adorable little girl to write…and a DIFFICULT little girl to write. First of all, trying to get the right blend of that kind of personality and keeping in canon is hard, although I've been writing Anna Kyoyama from Shaman King for so long that isn't quite so hard. But then writing her without mentioning visual details is hard to remember. For instance, I wrote "Aang shrugged" before I realized…Toph's sitting on a wooden bench, which cuts down her vibration-sense. So how does she know he's shrugging? Many a good Toph fic is besmirched by too many visual descriptions. Hopefully I don't have too many.
By the way, Aang probably won't show up as much as the Water Tribe siblings, for the simple reason that as much as I adore him, he's not very fun for me to write. I have no idea why, but this happens often. Please notice, Manta Oyamada shows up in about two of the thirty or so Shaman King fics I have for the same reason. Although, to Aang's credit, he's a much snazzier character than boring ol' Manta.
I have no idea if you can really bend ice cream. Also, strawberry is my favorite. I don't know why Aang doesn't like it. Because…it's pink? Make up your own reasons, okay?
This is dedicated to my fiancé Patrick. Why? Because I gave Sokka one of his quirks, that's why. He knows which one.
COMING UP NEXT: "Tactile"