This was written for Advocaat's dare at Promptbending, which was to write a short story/draw a picture of the gaang being turned into animals. I should warn that this is meant to be silly and was written during a break, so don't expect anything too grand.

Also, if you're interested in participating in the Truth/Dare games yourself (or other prompts/challenges), you can find a link to the forum on my profile. ^_^

In which Toph Offends a Hag

Rule number one for how to survive while on a quest: don't offend ugly old hags, for they are likely to be spirits in disguise and will have their revenge. Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to teach Toph that rule, and she had just pissed off the mother of all ugly hags. There was spluttering, there were curses, and then Team Avatar were suddenly swallowed up in a cloud of pink glitter that choked and squeezed and made them all feel a bit strange. When the sparkly monstrosity had dispersed, the ugly hag had gone and Aang found that he was alone in the clearing. Well, apart from the baby saber-tooth moose-lion wearing Sokka's blue tunic, the grumpy looking turtle duck with the scar covering its left eye, and a small polar-bear dog with a familiar necklace hanging from its throat.

That was when Momo swooped down from the trees and started chirruping at him in a rather excited manner. Aang groaned and sat up from the ground, still feeling a little dizzy from the sparkly explosion attack. He rubbed his head, only to freeze as his fingers made contact with fur. Lots of fur and … long ears?

Heart pounding, he raced over to the stream and looked down at the mirrored surface of the water, seeing the reflection of a lemur staring back at him. A lemur with a blue arrow on its forehead and grey eyes.

"Oh, no," Aang muttered. "That hag turned me into Momo!"

Suddenly, the saber-tooth moose-lion let out a loud wail. "I have hooves! Why do I have hooves? And—and is that a tail!" Another wail. "What is going on?"

"You think you've got it bad," grumpy turtle duck retorted. "Just look at me." He lifted up one webbed foot and then sighed; the thought 'why me' was written all over his fluffy face.

The polar bear dog just covered its face with its furry paws. "This isn't happening," it—no, she—said in a panicky voice."This can't be happening! I refuse to believe that this is happening!"

Aang scratched his head as he stared at the three animals. "Sokka, Zuko, Katara, is that you?"

"Of course it's us!" they cried in unison.

"Okay, okay!" He held his hands up in an appeasing gesture. "I just didn't expect it, that's all. I mean, Zuko as a turtle duck? Not something you see every day."

A beaky scowl was thrown his way. Aang didn't even know how a person could scowl with a beak, but somehow Zuko managed it.

"Don't even start, lemur-face," the prince snapped. "This is humiliating enough without you rubbing it in."

"I dunno," Katara said, raising her head from her paws and observing the transformed prince with an amused glint in her eyes. "I think you look kind of cute; all fluffy and cuddly."

Zuko made a huffy noise of exasperation. "Not helping!"

Sokka walked towards them, little tail wagging quite on its own. "Look, right now we just need to figure out a way to break this curse." He paused and glanced around the clearing. "Wait a minute, where's Toph?"

Aang clamped his hands to his cheeks in horror. "You don't think the hag took her away into the Spirit World as punishment, do you?"

Something thumped towards them from the trees, making the ground beneath their feet—er, and paws and hooves—shake in a rather alarming manner. Then a large shadow descended over the clearing. "Nope. I'm right here."

All four animals glanced up to see a badgermole staring back at them.

"Toph?" Katara said cautiously.

"Who else?" the badgermole said with a grin, and then she slapped her hand—er, paw?—on the ground, making the earth judder and tremble again. "Wow, I can really feel the vibrations in this body. This is so cool!"

A few rocks tumbled free from the cliff face, nearly hitting Sokka in the head.

"Great," Sokka sighed, moving to the much safer position beside Zuko. "Toph gets to go into ultra Toph Smash mode, while the rest of us are like Team Fluffy Cute Pants. This is just embarrassing."

"It's not so bad," Aang said with a shrug. "At least I can still fly."

"Thank you for that input," Zuko responded dryly. "Despite the fact I'm currently the same size as my human hand right now, it's nice to know that I can comfort myself with the knowledge that you can still fly."

Aang cracked a very lemurish smile. "No problem."

Zuko and Sokka both face-palmed … or, at least, they tried to do so. Mostly they just sighed and raised their respective webbed foot or hoof in a vain attempt to reach their foreheads.

"Guys, we need to focus," Katara said, trying to steer the conversation back to more important matters. "Can anyone remember what that hag said before she turned us into animals?"

"I'm going home to cook roast beef?"

Everyone stared at Sokka.

"What?" he said with a defensive twitch of his ears. "I swear she did say that."

Katara shook her head. "Right. Well, aside from wanting to cook roast beef, I know she said something about the curse; I just can't remember the exact words now."

"I remember," Zuko said softly. "She said:

Tooth and claw, heart and soul,

Become what you are underneath it all.

Sun to moon, day to night,

So you shall suffer until this wrong is made right."

There was a long silence once the prince had finished his recital. Then Sokka gasped as realisation dawned in his mind.

"Wait a minute!" he exclaimed. "Are you saying that this curse won't be reversed until Toph apologises to that ugly old hag?"

Katara frowned. "It does sound like that might be the case."

Sokka slumped to the ground, fluffy tail drooping. "We're going to be stuck like this forever, aren't we?"

They all looked at Toph, who was happily smashing the cliff to a pulp with her new bending powers. Then they just sighed. Yep, they were all doomed.