Yaaaay, Tokka week! So, while this is about two and a half hours late to actually being posted on the first actual day (unless you're on the west coast and it's only like 11:30 PM rather than 2:30 AM), this is for the first theme: Betrothal.

Except, there's a twist; there's no Sokka in this fic, other than his name being mentioned once at the end... but it is Tokka, so I implore you to read it... please? :D

That being said, enjoy Tokka week and I'll see you either sometime later today with another installment or sometime tomorrow in the wee hours of the morning with said installment.

Happy reading! Reviews are loved.

(I need to stop writing at 2AM in the morning. I ramble.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters... sorry?

Tokka Week: Day One

Betrothal

There was an odd stillness to the air as Toph sat in the open grounds of her home, absentmindedly fingering the lapels of her robes, and for the first time in what seemed like years Toph just thought.

She thought of the war that had been going on for a one hundred years until just a few years back - and all the pain and destruction it had caused. She thought back to her friends - her true friends whom she had fought beside and learned to love, not those stuck-up classy people who saw themselves as gods or spirits or whatever they thought themselves as. And then she thought of him.

It had all been so sudden that Toph almost thought she had been imagining it. Almost. And she really, truly wished she had.

It wasn't like she hated the poor guy. Rui was a good man, if not a bit clumsy in his awkward transformation into an adult. He was kind and gentle, sincere and down-to-earth, and most importantly (at least to her parents) wealthy with the Ran Bao name tagged on the end. To everyone who saw him, Rui was pretty much perfect - for anybody but her.

A single tear started to roll down Toph's cheek before she hastily brushed it away, shaking her head defiantly. It wasn't fair.

"Hey."

She had known he was coming before he sat on the ground next to her, and she muttered a quiet, "Hey," in response.

Rui smiled gently at her as he folded his hands in his lap, appraising his fiancé curiously. "I decided to stop by and your parents told me I could find you out here. I thought maybe we could do something... like, ah, listen to the birds or... something?"

Toph shifted slightly in response, shrugging nonchalantly. "Whatever."

Rui frowned slightly, reaching to scratch the back of his head, "I mean, we don't have to if you don't want. It was just an... idea." He watched her as she stared at what she didn't see before sighing, "I'm sorry, you know."

"For what?" Her voice was distant and emotionless she knew it, but Toph found she really couldn't care.

"I didn't ask for the arranged marriage, Toph, and I'm really, really sorry you got roped into something you don't want, but..." Rui trailed off for a second before continuing, "is it... am I... really that bad?"

Toph was silent for a moment, biting on her lip in apprehension before she responded, her tone slow and careful. "Rui... I'm seventeen. Almost eighteen. I came back to my family because I thought they could be proud that I was my own person, that I'd... helped save the world. And for a while... for a while I actually thought they were. They didn't treat me like a kid anymore." Toph barked out a bitter laugh. "Four years they fooled me into believing they actually saw me - and then they told me about you."

She shifted again, this time towards him. "Rui, that's the difference. You've had your entire life to get used to the idea of me. I've had a year."

Rui nodded slowly as he settled down onto the ground, flopping on his back to look at the slowly darkening sky. "You already love someone."

If he saw her flinch he didn't let on. "Yeah. I do."

There was a moment of silence between them, and for once Toph found it to be not so much as awkward but peaceful. She could hear Rui's slow, almost calculated breaths as he soaked the information in, and Toph vaguely noticed the soft breeze that had begun to blow through the grounds.

"You should go to him."

Toph blinked out of habit at Rui's voice, shaking her head slowly. "What?"

"This guy," Rui sat up suddenly, placing his hand on her shoulder and clutching it urgently, "You need to go to him. Does he know? You need to tell him! Run away tonight and find him, and tell him and-"

Toph gawked as he rambled on, only half-listening to the words he was spewing. She stuttered slightly as she stood to her feet, mustering up a look she figured would be one of shock, "What- what the heck are you talking about!?"

"You ran away when you helped the Avatar, right?" Toph nodded slowly, frowning. "Well, then, just run again. Go find him, and tell him."

"But-" an indignant expression crossed over Toph's face, "but our engagement-"

"You don't want it," Rui stood up then, and though he knew she couldn't see him he looked right into her eyes, "You don't want it, and I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to do, family ties be damned. People deserve to be happy, Toph, and if this guy makes you happy you shouldn't let a stupid arranged marriage get in your way."

For a second Toph hesitated, but it was only a second and the next thing she knew she was grinning her grin (her "maniacal grin" as Sokka had once put it), punching Rui affectionately on the arm as she bounded back towards her estate. For the first time since her seventeenth birthday Toph finally started to feel like herself again, and she realized that maybe those stuck-up (or not so stuck-up), classy (he was still classy) people in the world weren't always so black-and-white, and maybe - just maybe - they sometimes deserved to be called a true friend as well.

Toph turned as she stood in the doorway, the grin still etched on her face as she shouted out to him in departure:

"I'll send you a messenger hawk once I get to the South Pole!"

END