I do not own any part of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I just enjoy twisting it suit my immagination.


Toph stretched herself and slowly opened her eyes. The action didn't notably change her perception of the world around her, but judging by the temperature in her room Twinkletoes had managed to keep his mouth shut this morning. She didn't even try to hold back a smile. Yesterday she had dumped her earthbending pupil far enough into the ground that he couldn't bend himself out and left him there until he agreed to let her sleep in the mornings and not go yelling his head off like a hogmonkey. Sugar Queen was probably gonna give her hell for the next few days but judging from the vibrations in the next room Katara was enjoying a sleep in as well. Getting up, Toph decided that breakfast was first and an earthbending lesson for a certain hapless avatar was second. If he was goofing off this much she must be slipping up as his sifu. Besides she wouldn't put it past him to spend the day finding some other noisy activity if she didn't take some time to beat some sense into him.

When she got down to the breakfast table she could feel him sitting there. Actually she was surprised the whole island couldn't feel him. She smiled to herself. He must be very nervous and as far as Toph was concerned that was nothing but good. As she sat down she felt him hurriedly getting up.

"I'll just get going, Toph. See you later." Before he could make to the door she stopped him.

"Not so fast, Twinkletoes. We haven't trained in way to long and you're clearly starting to get rusty if I can trap you that easily." With some satisfaction she felt Aang slump, resigned to a tougher day than he had seen in the past few weeks.

After Toph had finished breakfast the two young benders went outside to loosen up with a sparring match. Toph had a lot of fun finally throwing rocks at someone and Aang wasn't nearly as rusty as Toph had made him out to be. The result was that the rest of their gang had enough time to come out and enjoy a little breakfast entertainment. The sun was a good deal higher than when Toph and Aang had started.

"Allright, Twinkletoes. Let's see you armor up." Obediently Aang covered himself in a rock suit. Almost lazily Toph hurled a rock at him. He dodged it easily and threw one back. Toph didn't bother dodging, preferring to just smack the rock out of the air. Hearing a disgruntled shout she snickered. Snoozles had just learned why you don't stand too close to a pair of earthbenders. She threw another rock at her pupil holding his rock encased feet in place with her bending. A surprised grunt told her he was going to have to think 'rocklike' or be squashed. For once she wished she had regular sight so she could get a better look at his face. Moments later she heard the rock shatter as Aang batted it to the side.

"Better, "Twinkletoes, much better."

"Toph, look out!" Automatically Toph dropped into an alert bending stance, ready to face any incoming attacks. Her ability to feel things through the earth however proved thouroughly useless as something smacked into her head at high speed.

"Ow. Is it too much to ask for a heads up that includes the direction of any flying objects."

"Sorry, Toph. My bad" She could hear the grin in Snoozle's voice. A movement of her foot made sure that a rock spur wiped it off his face.

"So? What hit me?" The group gathered around and Sugar Queen picked the whatever-it-was up off of the ground.

"It's a scroll." She sounded surprised, but Toph was busy with something else entirely.

"Who in Koh's name is stupid enough to throw a scroll at me."

"A hawk dropped it." Katara told her as she unrolled the scroll. A hawk. That put a stop to Toph's quickly forming revenge plans. No way could she see a hawk.

"It's from Zuko! He's inviting us to a celebration to honor the end of the war."

"A party at Sparky's?! What are we waiting for?" Hawks might be out of a blind earthbender's reach but there was no such restriction on young, moody Fire Lords. Revenge would still be her's.


Zuko had finally found a moment that wasn't completely filled with dignitaries, ministers and supplicants. It was a rare treat and he was planning to use it to catch up on some bending practice. None of his trainers were attending. Zuko needed to train himself properly and while the trainers were each masters of firebending as it had been taught under Ozai, Zuko had studied under Iroh. He was getting tired of explaining that certain forms were not mistakes but a deliberate adaptation based on another bending style.

First up was meditation. Zuko did not want thoughts about taxes, crop yields and foreign relations clouding his mind. Sitting down in the middle of the practice arena, the Fire Lord lit a fire in each palm and focused on his breathing. Slowly he felt his pulse and his thoughts calming. He was about to get up and start bending when a servant ran up to him.

"My Lord! The Avatar's flying bison has been spotted over the city. It will land in a few minutes."

Zuko ran straight for the landing area he had commissioned upon assuming the throne so that the avatar could visit whenever he wished. He arrived just in time to see Appa touch down. The first one down was the avatar himself, floating down on a cushion of air.

"Zuko!" Before he knew it Zuko had been wrapped up in a hug from his firebending pupil.

"It's good to see you too, Aang."

"Sparky!" Sokka had jumped down and grabbed Zuko's arm in a warriors greeting. Suki opted for a hug as well. Toph settled for punching the Fire Lord in the arm and getting her hair ruffled in response.

"My, my, nephew. What uncharacteristic displays of affection." Zuko looked up, his surprise evident, to see his uncle being helped down from the sky-bison's saddle by a Kyoshi warrior and a figure in blue. Unable to contain himself he ran over to greet his uncle.

"You should come over more, old man." Iroh smiled. He knew Zuko hated spending all his time closeted up without family and he was getting nowhere in the search for Ursa. Bowing Zuko turned to the girl in traditional Kyoshi uniform.

"Thank you for accompanying my uncle, miss"

"Zuko! You don't have to be so formal with me."

"Ty Lee?" The usually pink clad acrobat jumped him, throwing her arms around him.

"Your aura is looking much clearer than the last time I saw you!"

"Thanks, I think." Finally Zuko turned to Katara.

"You know Uncle, if you can't even get down off of Appa by yourself anymore maybe I should have a palanquin take you to your room." With a grin he ducked under playful slaps from both his uncle and his best friend.

"Typical peasant. Absolutely no manners, attacking your host before he's even said 'hello'." Zuko smiled to show he was teasing her. Katara harrumphed.

"If I had attacked you, you would be on your royal backside right now. Besides how can you lecture me on my manners when you're not even wearing a shirt to greet your guests." Smiling the two embraced.

"It's great you all came by. What are you doing here?"

"Uh-oh. Sparky's starting to loose it. We'd better get him out of that stuffy office before he starts acting like Snoozles on cactus juice."

"Toph, what are you talking about?"

"Zuko, you invited us over here. For the grand ball remember?" Zuko stared at Katara completely nonplussed.

"Grand Ball?" Zuko racked his mind trying to remember why he would have sent invitations for a grand ball. I wouldn't, but Rin might.

"I'm gonna kill Rin. I told him to keep it small." The group started laughing and Sokka couldn't contain himself anymore.

"Ah, there is the Zuko we all know and love." Zuko glared at the young Water Tribe warrior who was wiping a tear away from his eye.

"Don't worry buddy. We're here to back you up now."

"Yeah well. What's done is done. You guys made great time getting here from Kyoshi though. I would have thought that swinging by Ba Sing Se to pick uncle up would have taken you at least two weeks. The invitations can't have been sent off more than a week ago."

"Actually, Nephew, my invitation arrived two weeks ago. Your friends came to get me a week ago so I could be here for the celebrations." Zuko's fists started smoking.

"THAT'S IT!! I'm gonna kill Rin!" Fuming Zuko stalked off into the palace, leaving a laughing group of guests behind him.

"Come on. I will show you to our rooms." Iroh smiled at the rest of the group. Laughing and talking to each other the group got their bags off of Appa and moved into the palace. The long halls provided a pleasant respite from the heat of a summer day in the Fire Nation. The shade provided by the covered walkways made for the perfect temperature and the group was starting to relax. Iroh was regaling them with stories about some of his more colorful customers.

"So the poor fellow runs out of the Jasmine Dragon screaming that there is an actual dragon's heart in his tea." The group couldn't help themselves as they collapsed laughing.

"What's going on here?" The deadpan question effectively killed the merriment for most members of the group. Ty Lee however chose to throw herself at her childhood friend with a squeal.

"Mai!"

"Ty Lee? When did you get here?"

"We arrived a few minutes ago. Don't worry Zuko was surprised too. I think he's going to yell at someone about it."

Mai rolled her eyes but before she could make a caustic remark Iroh smoothly stepped in. "Lady Mai, perhaps you and Miss Ty Lee here could show the ladies to their rooms and I will take the men to their's."

"I'm not a Lady yet, General Iroh. You know that."

Iroh gave a deep chuckle. "Do not give up hope, my dear."

"Very well, General." Turning to the girls in the group Mai seemed to gather herself for something she would rather not do and then abruptly turned around. Without looking back she called out "Well come along then!"

As the girls hurried to catch up to Mai, Iroh led Sokka and Aang down another corridor. The avatar, never being one to suppress his curiosity, was soon pelting Iroh with questions about the Fire Naiton.

"You know young Avatar, these are questions you should be asking Fire Lord Zuko. He will be able to answer your questions far better that an old man living in the Earth Kingdoms."

"Oh. Right, I guess. Why did you call Mai 'Lady Mai'?"

"The Fire Nation is waiting for its lord to marry. Since Lady Mai is his love interest it makes sense that she will become our next Fire Lady?"

Sokka couldn't contain his own surprise at this point. "Sparky's getting married. I really didn't figure him for the marrying type."

Smiling Iroh nodded. "My nephew will agree with you on that point. He is making no moves to propose to the Lady Mai. He wants the nation to be stable before he looks to his own life. What he can't see is that it hurts her that he will not at least commit to her in a more public manner."

"I don't know how he sees anything she feels." Sokka grumbled. Laughter rang down the halls in a way that it had not for a long time.

Eventually the trio stopped in front of a door and Iroh indicated that Sokka shoud enter. As the Water Tribe warrior threw the door open his jaw dropped open. The entire room was done in shades of blue. Along one wall there was an arms stand for Sokka's wolf armour along another there was a slightly slanted table. A bed fit for a prince stood next to the arms stand and in one corner there was a closet. The room was finished with a sitting corner with a low table. After he was done expressing his joy about Zuko's decision to put an appropriate arms stand in his room, Sokka turned to the slanted table.

"Ok, the arms stand in all its manly glory I understand. Sparky knows I'm the greatest warrior alive. But what's with the table."

"Ah, yes. The Fire Lord had that designed for you by an old friend of yours. The Mechanist apparently uses just such a table when working on his new inventions and the Fire Lord felt that you might appreciate a similar grounding for your ideas."

Sokka's shimmered with unshed tears. "I never thought I'd say this but I love Sparky!"

Aang laughed at his friends antics and turned to Iroh who had a contented look in his eyes. "Iroh will you show me to my room next?" The young avatar's voice betrayed his eagerness to see what his friend had given him by way of a room.

"You guys go ahead I'll see you later." Sokka's voice was a little muffled as he seemed to be trying to press his face through the wood of his design table. He didn't even notice when the door closed behind the old general and the Avatar.

Aang's room turned to be just as appropriate as Sokka's. Zuko seemed to have modeled it on his time at the Wester Air Temple and it even came with an Appa sized opening in the wall on the lee side of the palace. The entire room made the young airbender happier than he remembered being for a long time with the possible exception of his and Katara's first kiss. With that happy thought he sat down to meditate before dinner.


And that was the first chapter.

I hope you can appreciate that I let the Gaang settle in a little first. The excitement and adventure need a reason for happening after all. Let me know what I can improve on.