This is all Zuko's fault.
Okay, maybe she should've said her name instead of just "It's me"-she forgets that seeing people don't recognize voices like she can. But still, who lights random people on fire for no reason? Does she go around throwing rocks at people all over the place?
"Well, actually..." Katara would say, even though she hadn't asked. Katara does that, sometimes: pops into her head and argues, because Katara has so many opinions that real life can't hold them all. And, okay, Toph is like that, too. Sometimes.
It had been Katara's opinion (in real life) that Aang was doing so well in his training that he should have a reward. For once, Toph had to agree; he didn't hesitate to stop boulders with his body now, and his stances were getting so earthbendery that she could find him better when they fought. She might even have to stop calling him "Twinkletoes" soon. The plan had been to let Aang watch his earthbending and waterbending teachers fight-as a form of study and all.
"But I see you guys fight all the time!" he'd told them.
"Not argue, Toph had said. "Fight. Like this." She'd punched Katara in the arm.
"Oh, thank you, Toph. But I love you more." Katara had punched her back, harder.
Now Katara was asking if she really wanted to do this, because, well, you know.
Toph puffs her bangs out of her face; she'd rather get her feet burned again than not do this. "I can wipe the floor with you any day of the week," she says.
"Just try it." Toph is relieved that the tiptoeing, the carefulness, is out of her voice now. She's already her parents' dress-up doll; she doesn't need to be Katara's, too. Toph cracks her knuckles.
Perhaps she'll start with an earth-crack; those are quick and catch even experienced Earthbenders off-guard. Katara's weight pulls her northwest. But that weight doesn't have the satisfying thump she expects. Soon she is blasted with cold and wet, because, like fire (stupid Zuko), water doesn't always come from the ground. Spitting and gasping for breath, Toph doesn't know what to do. Katara's water-waves have never come so totally out of nowhere before.
Actually, Toph does know what to do. She can be fragile and helpless and confused, like she was before the Badgermoles showed her how to interact with the world. But she won't do that, because she is the Avatar's teacher and Katara's friend, most of all. Friends don't let friends kick their butts without a fight.
She puts her weight on the left side of her left foot, where there's fewest bits of knitted scar tissue. She feels the half-circle Katara's standing at the end of, the shape she imagines is the arc of a flying boulder. She pulls one to her hands and lets it go.
It doesn't thump where it should have.
Katara makes a noise then, and Toph steps sideways, twists her body slightly. But such small movements don't dodge water-waves, and Katara's attack hits her in the ear.
This sucks. Toph bets Aang is asleep by now, or asking Momo what the point of this fight was, or wondering why he'd asked her to be his earthbending teacher at all. She listens to herself breathe...and then wonders if that's part of the problem. Pushing all that water around must take something out of you, right? For a moment, Toph wills herself to stop breathing, and listens.
There it is, like the jerking of an injured bird's wings in her palm.
Follow the bird, she tells the earth as she stomps. There's a thump, a squeak of surprise.
Toph smiles, and she hears Katara laugh.