Author's Note: One of the things that bother people about Toph's lack of character resolution is that she never ended up paired with anyone. I personally think that her issues with her parents take precedent over "not having a boyfriend." :P
That said, my favorite Avatar pairing is Toko. So expect to see some of Toph and Zuko in this series. But the interactions will be platonic (given the age difference), unless they are aged. Other pairings with her will probably sneak their way into the Chronicles, too.
I am working on trying to write a satisfactory interaction between Toph and the next Water Avatar, Korra, for the new miniseries Nickelodeon is releasing.
Anyway, I've gone back and collected all the themes for the three Toko weeks that have passed, and I might write a few entries with the prompts if inspiration hits. (Many of the ideas sparked may play out in my other story, What Meets the Eye, instead.)
They are as follows:
2008, sponsored by LengTu on DeviantArt
1. Nobility
2. Burned
3. Tea
4. Affection
5. Field Trip
6. Protection
7. Wanted
2009, sponsored by WithinOurTemptaion on DeviantArt
1. Gambling
2. Beach
3. Hair Piece
4. Boat
5. Darkness
6. Heat
7. Scars
2010, sponsored by ?
1. Understanding
2. Eyes
3. Eruption
4. Family
5. Bath
6. Strength
7. Silence
2011, sponsored by Toko-fans and chimera-99 on DA
1. Firework
2. Sand
3. Foreign
4. Mirror
5. Innocence
6. Waiting
7. Can You Hear Me?
2012, sponsored by the same ^
1. Trouble
2. Duck
3. Teamwork
4. Exile
5. Payback
6. Drink
7. Treasure
2013
1. Storm
2. Fairytale
3. Compromise
4. Shield
5. Tease
6. AU
7. Daybreak
Today, I will use "Protection" . . .
"You might have everyone else here buying your "transformation." But you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang . . . and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends right then and there. Permanently."
Zuko was left speechless as Katara left his "room."
Well, what reaction did he expect, anyway?
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"She is such a drama queen."
He jumped at the new voice.
"But don't think for one second that she doesn't mean that, Sparky." Toph continued nonchalantly as she stood in the doorway. "Every word was only too true." She smiled. "But don't worry. I'll keep an eye on her."
Zuko didn't reply.
"Keep an eye on her?" The blind girl repeated emphatically, smile widening. "What, you don't do jokes?"
"I just ran away from the home I worked for three years to return to, realized my destiny was the opposite of what I always to believed it to be, and just got threatened by a homicidal waterbender. So no, I don't do jokes right now."
"Sheesh." Toph shrugged. "With me, Sparky, you have nothing to worry about." She frowned. "What happened, anyway, to make her so mad?"
"She and I were locked up together at Ba Sing Se. And well . . . she offered to heal my scar with some sort of spirit water-"
"The stuff she used on Aang?" Toph was suddenly very attentive.
"That's how she brought him back, then . . ." Zuko mused. "I thought so."
Toph was silent for a moment. "Well, the important thing is that you're here, and you're going to teach Twinkles firebending. It is unfortunate that the healer of the group is the one who wants to murder you." She commented through a smirk. "But Queeny is no match for me."
Zuko watched her leave, not sure if he felt reassured.
As Zuko demonstrated to Aang the next day, Katara knelt behind a collapsed pillar and watched his every move like a dragon-hawk. Sokka strode up to the boys with an apple and finished it as Zuko made tiny bursts of fire. They looked rather smaller than usual. Was he just playing it safe because of her threat? Or might he be luring the monk into a false sense of security?
Aang was sitting way too close to Zuko for Katara's taste. "He trusts him too much." She hissed to herself.
"You make a habit of spying on boys, Katara?" Toph joked behind her. She leapt to her feet in surprise. The earthbender was impossibly good at sneaking around. Having extremely accurate hearing must have attuned the little girl to move with little noise.
"Toph, I am so not in the mood." Katara bit back.
"Obviously." She replied cooly. "What difference should that make to me?"
Katara growled in annoyance. "You trust him, too! Sokka told me that his sister lied to you without your being able to tell! What makes you think her brother doesn't have the same ability?"
Toph shook her head. "Look, Katara, I'm not sure I could explain that to you if I tried. I haven't encountered anyone like Azula. Her heartrate and blood pressure didn't spike when we entered her chamber, or when we were attacking her. No fear that I could detect at all. I don't think it was specifically to do with lying or not: I think she just-"
"She's a freak." Katara said smugly. "And so is her brother."
"For all I know, there are exercises that you can do to train your body not to have reactions." Toph said. "She might be so fearless that she never doubts herself." Toph chuckled. "That's something I could admire."
Katara shot her a venomous look, which for obvious reasons had no effect. "Admire? Are you serious?"
"No." Toph teased. "Thus the chuckling." She still enjoyed getting under Katara's skin, even when she was trying to ward her off of a pursuit of action.
'Whatever." Katara resumed her surveillance of pupil and master. Sokka had wandered off somewhere.
"If Zuko had been lying about helping us, his heartbeat would have been all over the place." Toph stated flatly. "I know this because he's more of a nervous wreck than all of you combined." she finished seriously.
That night at dinner, Zuko cleared his throat and announced, "Listen everybody; I've got some pretty bad news. I've lost my stuff."
Toph raised her arms. "Don't look at me. I didn't touch your stuff." The Runaway said innocently.
"I'm talking about my firebending. It's gone."
Katara laughed so loud that everyone, including The Duke, Haru, and Teo, stared at her.
"I'm sorry. I'm just laughing at the irony. You know- how it would have been nice for us if you lost your firebending a long time ago."
"Well it's not lost. It's just weaker for some reason." Zuko corrected dejectedly.
"Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are. " Katara retorted.
"Ouch." Toph said. She had to appreciate good comebacks, even if they did come from the opposing party.
One badgermole backstory later, Zuko had taken into consideration Toph's suggestion that they find the "original source" of firebending.
The group cleaned up after dinner, and he sat next to her. "You really did learn from badgermoles?" He asked. "No master at all?"
"Not really. My parents set me up with an excuse for an earthbender but he had orders not to teach me past the basics."
Zuko actually smiled a little to himself as he remembered his duel with Zhao. "The basics can do a lot more for you than you'd think."
Toph shrugged. "I'll take your word for it."
"Not my word. Not technically. My uncle's."
Toph smiled reminiscently at the mention of the old man.
Aang strode up to them purposefully and said, "Well, I'm not going to get by with the basics, Zuko." He was in one of his rare intense moods, where the weight of the world pressed down a little harder than normal. "We need to make plans about going to- what did you call it? The Sun Warriors settlement?"
Zuko nodded. "We'll get everyone to head out tomorrow."
"Appa can't carry everyone." Aang pointed out. "We had to walk part of the way here."
"Well, I don't have to go." Toph stretched and yawned. "The less flying the better for me. And besides, I weigh him down, don't I, Aang?"
Aang laughed awkwardly as he remembered his insult to Toph when she had first joined the Gaang.
"If there's anyone to blame, it's you! You're always talking about how you carry your own weight, but you're not! He is! Appa's carrying your weight! He never had a problem flying when it was just the three of us!"
The airbender was glad that they were on good enough terms again to be able to joke about it. After all, he had also given her a hard time when Appa was stolen, yelling at her for being unable to stop the sandbenders. The triangle between the girl, boy, and bison had been a tumultuous one.
He pulled himself out of his reflection and said to Zuko, "It will be faster if only we go."
"There's no way Katara will let us go alone. She at least has to come." Zuko said darkly.
"You, Aang, and Katara? That's going to be ten kinds of awkward." Toph said incredulously. Then she smiled deviously. "Besides, what's to keep you from sneaking off in the morning? You and Aang are always awake first, way before Snoozles and Sister Snoozles."
"I'm pretty sure than has something to do with being a firebender." Zuko interjected. "Rising with the sun."
"So then you're set." Toph said matter-of-factly.
"I'll handle Ice Princess."
"THEY DID WHAT?!" Katara shouted.
"They took my advice and went to the see if they could find any mystical spirit mumbo-jumbo at an ancient temple." Toph replied indifferently. "Really, Katara, if you didn't sleep so late, you would know this stuff."
"And you just let them leave?!" Katara yelled. She rushed over to her brother, who was still in his sleeping bag and began to shake him. "Sokka! Sokka! Do you still know where that traitor's war balloon is? We have to go after them!"
Suddely the ground moved under her and she was whisked away from the somnolently grumbling heap that was Sokka.
"Leave Captain Boomerang be." Toph said as she finished the earthbending movement. "He's going to be fine, Katara."
"Don't lecture me, Toph! Zuko betrayed my trust, and he'll do the same to Aang!"
"Will you just calm down!" Toph yelled back. "This is way too much, even for you!"
Katara raised her arms and the nearby fountain emptied its contents into the air. "Get out of my way, Toph."
"No." the stubborn earthbender replied, sinking into a stance.
Katara seemed taken aback by the response. "I don't believe this. You're actually going to fight for him?"
"If you make me, yes." Toph snapped.
"Whadderya fienen abothissearrly?" Came Sokka's nearly incomprehensible complaint came from behind Toph.
Katara ignored him. "You encouraged them to do this, didn't you?' She growled, the water behind her wavering. "How could you do that to Aang, Toph?"
The earthbender's words slowed, "Do you really think I would put Aang in any danger on purpose? He's my friend, too, you know, Katara."
Katara blinked. The water sank a fraction.
"If I thought there were any chance that he wouldn't come back," Toph continued, "do you think I would've gone along with it?"
There was a long pause.
The water fell with a loud splash as Katara's fists clenched at her sides. "We don't know where they went." She said acridly. "We'd be riding through the Fire Nation aimlessly. That's the reason we won't go." She couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got through to her.
Toph, however, was happy with any measure of victory. "Will you promise me that when they get back-"
"If they get back-" the waterbender disagreed-
"When they get back," Toph repeated, "that you won't attack Zuko?"
Katara turned her head to the side. "Fine."
Life was good.
The tension between Katara and Zuko had finally been dissipated by her own field trip with him. Toph could read it in their relaxed body language and their now un-strained voices.
At the moment she was enjoying the warm sunlight of Ember Island on her back. She cracked her knuckles as she examined Aang's sand sculpture of Appa. "Not bad, baldy. But I've been working on my sandbending. You're gonna love this."
She pulled up a mental image of Ba Sing Se, one that had been mapped by months and months of residence there, and reached out into the sand around her to mold it to its form.
"Whoooooa." Aang leaned in over her creation. "Wow, you even made a little Earth King and Bosco."
The peace didn't last, however.
She was in the midst of laughing about Sokka's attempt to make Suki out of sand, she felt Zuko pounding towards them on the dunes.
Even she was caught by surprise when he shattered the "sculpture" in question with a burst of flame.
"What are you doing?!" Aang cried.
"Teaching you a lesson!" Zuko yelled in irritation.
Toph hadn't been able to pick up on his agitated state because of the sand. Her "vision" was still limited by it. Aang and Zuko appeared and reappeared in her "sight" as they leapt in the air. When their forms retreated off of the beach, she couldn't sense them at all.
She did, however, "see" Katara as she touched ground from surfing on the water, where she had been invisible. "What happened?"
"Zuko's gone crazy!" Sokka whined. "I made a sand sculpture of Suki and he destroyed it!" He paused. "Oh, and he's attacking Aang." Well, he certainly didn't seem too concerned.
Katara's whole form went rigid and-
Was that the sound of ice hardening?
Katara sprinted down the beach back towards the house where faint explosions could be heard, obviously towing some sort of waterbended spears along with her.
Toph didn't know how to propel herself on sand the way she did with more solid earth, and she didn't have time to figure it out. So she ran. She ran flat out. "Katara! Wait!"
The instant her foot fell on good dirt, she pinpointed the Katara midstride and threw up a wall in front of her. When the waterbender braked in surprise she sank her into the partially sandy substance, to her waist so she wouldn't strain her knees trying to go forward.
She lost control of the water and Toph felt it soak into her element surrounding her. "Toph! Let me out!" She twisted back and forth.
"Katara, I'm not letting you go charging in there-"
"Fine, fine." Katara took a deep breath, becoming still. "I'm sorry. Really. I overreacted."
Toph hesitated.
"I understand that you see something in him, Toph." Katara admitted. "You proved that to me. And I really have forgiven him."
Toph's feet told her that two sets of nonbender footsteps were catching up with them.
"Can I at least yell at him?" The waterbender asked facetiously.
Toph pulled her back out. "Yeah."