Preface

"Good morning, sunshine," came the sing-song voice of Katara, but it was the last thing that Toph wanted to hear. In fact, the only thing that she wanted to hear at all right now was the sound of her bedroom door closing and everyone else in the house leaving her to sleep the day away. Over the past year, Toph had grown accustomed to sleeping late, unlike the days of the war when they woke at sunrise to gallivant about saving the world. The chore of waking Toph, since that time, had fallen mostly upon Katara, who still stood at the foot of the bed.

"Toph, it's time to get up," she urged. There was a pause, then. Katara's voice had started off in quite a friendly manner, but was now losing the sugar-sweet tone. "Toph. Really."

"Spirits, Katara," Toph groaned, managing to pull her head off the pillow. "What do you want from me?"

At the sound of Katara's frustrated sigh, Toph rolled her eyes. "We've got a very big day ahead of us. Don't you remember? We've only been planning this for the past year."

"Oh, right, the city thing," Toph nodded incoherently, swinging her feet over the bed to the floor; suddenly her world became alive and she could see everything. "That's what you're talking about right?"

At a loss of kindness, Katara stepped out the door, adding in two more words before closing it. "Get dressed."

This "city thing", Toph knew, was truthfully of the utmost importance. It was to bring all of the nations back together-a place where peace would reside without struggle or challenge. The idea had originally been proposed shortly after the war ended at a meeting with their group. She, Aang, Zuko, Sokka, Katara, Suki, and even General Iroh (whom Toph was quite fond of) had all attended. The bones for the idea had been thrown around several times by all of them-Aang especially had desired such a thing-but it was Katara who finally formed a solid foundation, proposing that they do just as they always wished to do and create that safe haven of peace. It was quickly decided that Aang and Zuko, being the Avatar and the Firelord, would announce the plan to the world, and action would be taken as soon as possible. Come to find out, such a city takes more than a few frivolous meetings to form; they had to buckle down and get serious about this. The work became near-constant-so constant, in fact, that the gang eventually agreed to rent a home in the finally-restored Ba Sing Se (which was no problem at all for Toph, who had from the very beginning refused to go back to her parents). For the last year, now, they had all been living here (with the exception of Zuko, who had to come and go with his Firelord duties, and Aang who often had Avatar business to take care of).

This lifestyle was one that Toph enjoyed thoroughly; she got to do, for the most part, whatever she pleased. Nobody but Katara would speak up against her doings, and that was how Toph preferred it to be-just enough to keep her grounded. It was a lovely house too, from what Toph could tell-big, for sure, and most likely fancy and high-class. There was an enormous kitchen (where Sokka spent most of his time) and many rooms so that when she got tired of someone, she could simply leave and find another place to entertain herself. Another great thing about that was the fact that she got her own bedroom; she was honestly worried that she would have to share with Katara. No, everyone had their own room. They would all stay up late and one by one venture back to their own quarters for sleep-usually Suki first, Sokka quickly following, then Katara (who usually busied herself with housework until she was too exhausted for anything more), and then Mai if she was accompanying Zuko, and finally Toph would abandon the last two. Some nights Toph would feel very carefully if she couldn't sleep, and often found that Zuko was the last remaining soul awake in the house. It was her theory that he stayed up thinking and worrying himself over his responsibilities (in her opinion, he had no idea how to be a Firelord and would probably destroy the world before he had a chance to bring peace to it). These were the things that, in Toph's mind, truly characterized her friends. She actually adored this about them; their funny habits and traits. It was living in this house that brought out a lot of it.

Among these things, Toph's very favorite thing about this place was the fact that even with all of the rooms, there were few walls in the house itself. She didn't feel contained. Right off of the back room sat a large balcony that seemed to tower over the whole world. She couldn't see it, but even feeling it was beautiful. It reminded her that she was free-free to be whoever she wanted. Of course, Toph had never really wanted to be anyone but herself-that was the whole reason she was so willing to stay here in the first place. She would certainly miss it now that they were leaving.

Almost bitterly, Toph dressed herself. It wasn't that she didn't want this city to finally rise up-in fact, she was extremely enthusiastic about the subject-it was just that change rubbed her the wrong way. Right now, the city was nothing-nothing but a big pile of grass and dirt. Construction wasn't even starting for a couple more weeks, and she wondered why they had to pack up and leave now when they could simply continue their plans here. Aang reasoned, though, that it was more proactive to get a plan for where everything would go-what everything would be. Well, she couldn't argue with the Avatar.

In actuality, Toph had known that this day-this day specifically-had been coming for months; she just hadn't prepared for it at all. All of her drawers were still full, and her bags were unpacked. Feeling in the mood as always to procrastinate, Toph threw her hair up and decided that packing could wait until after breakfast; whatever Katara was cooking smelled to-die-for. It was more than a surprise when she walked down the hall and felt that it was Sokka in the kitchen.

"Snoozles? You're making all of this?" she gaped tiredly, only able to form a smile on her face because she was so hungry and the food smelled so good.

"That I am," Sokka replied smugly. "Don't seem so shocked. A guy who loves food as much as I do has to know a thing or two about cooking. I figured I'd whip us all up a farewell breakfast."

"Fine by me," she smirked, settling herself at the table. "Where is everybody?"

Sokka, hovered over a pan on the heavy iron stove, didn't seem terribly focused on their conversation anymore. "Bedrooms-something-yeah."

"Gee, thanks for the help," Toph said dryly, and plummeted into an annoying silence. The only thing to listen to was the sound of sizzling meat, which was particularly loud to her ears. Her own emotions she couldn't quite decipher-was she feeling particularly cranky this morning? It could have had to do with the fact that Katara woke her up for breakfast but was now nowhere to be found-nobody was here, actually. When the remaining three of the group bothered to show up, Toph was sure to shoot them her meanest glare, especially aimed towards Katara.

"Now come on, Toph," Aang chided. "Today's an exciting day. Don't be in such a bad mood."

"I'm not in a bad mood," she denied pointedly. "I'm just pissed cuz we're leaving this place and I actually liked it here."

The Avatar smiled gently at her, sitting down across the table and touching her hand. His eyes sparkled with kindness and hope like they always had, beckoning her genuine attention although she could not see them. She felt a hand on her shoulder and found that it was Katara standing behind her, offering support. Feeling comforted-and maybe a little claustrophobic-Toph sighed audibly. Aang was right; she shouldn't take out her childish grief on all of them. Had she not carried her pride like a weapon, she might have apologized. Instead, she just waited for the young Avatar to continue speaking.

The corners of Aang's lips turned upwards as he spoke, and his eyes began to twinkle as he lost himself in his own words. "Don't worry, Toph. You may love it here, but we're going to go create a place all our own. Something amazing is going to come of it, something for you-I can just feel it! There's a whole world of possibilities for what we can do now. The war is over, and we're all finally free."

Aang made it all sound very dreamy. Even Toph began to feel the flutter of excitement of what might happen to all of them. She realized that it was up to her to seize this opportunity-this brilliant opportunity-to be something special. Maybe she would finally find that thing to fill her hungry spirit that never seemed to be satisfied. Finally falling into to the web of the Avatar's words, Toph gave into the urge to smile widely. Satisfied, Aang gave her hand a squeeze, uttering one last, spirited vow.

"You're going to love it there, Toph. I promise."

Hello, all! ZuEra here (: Yes, I realize that the shipping of this story says Toph/Teo, so you may have a few thoughts:

1) Why them?

Well, this leads all the way back to my days of writing fanfiction on the Nickelodeon website. I thought Toph deserved a sweet, attractive guy to love her, so who did I choose? Yeah, Teo. I'm not sure if it caught on from my own writing, or if others had the same idea later on, but if you look around you'll see that there is a small community of us Teoph shippers. I'm just in love with it.

2) If it's going to be Teo, then where is he?

Yes, I'm aware that he isn't there in this, or even mentioned thus far, but it is just the preface. He'll come along soon enough, but I want to keep this all realistic to what could happen. I'm not into the whole idea of "rushing into things".

Anyhoo, I love reviews of any kind, and call me crazy, but I love criticism as much as praise. Feel free to review, PM, or add the story to alerts so you can keep up.

Much love,

ZuEra

****Spoiler Alert*****

Teo comes in the third chapter.