Commentary: Really quick addition here. =)


DELIVERY

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Pending Correspondence

or

Away They Go


They walked back to the party hand in hand, mostly for show and maybe a tiny bit because they wanted to, and went they got there they found Aang waiting at the gate. Without missing a step, Toph punched him in the stomach.

"Hey!" Sokka whined as the Avatar slumped to his knees and tried desperately to suck in a little of the air he was so adept at Bending. "Why didn't you get him in the nuts?"

Upon hearing that query, Aang covered the anatomy in question and wheezed, "I beg you to spare them, Sifu Toph!"

"Like you have any," growled the Earthbender. Hauling up Aang by the front of his robes with her free hand, she snarled into his face, "But speaking of your mystic manhood, Twinkletoes… the next time you abandon any plan of mine, I'll make sure there's never a chance of another Airbender around here. Got it?" She gave the youth a shake for good measure. "Say those words I long to hear."

"Yes ma'am," meekly replied the world's savior.

Toph nodded. Releasing Aang, she worried her fingers a moment in Sokka's, cocked her head toward the wedding assembly—listened. A moment later she decided, "Right. Let's drink some tea, eat some cake, and blow this joint. Sound good?"

"I like cake," Sokka affirmed.

Aang—somewhat breathlessly—agreed, "There's a giant chocolate one."

Toph smirked. "Excellent."

Three hours and nearly an entire buffet table of sweets later, Toph hugged her parents goodbye and climbed aboard Appa at the fore of the Bei Fong estate. Sokka too embraced his in-laws, enduring Poppy's exuberant tears and the bony prickle of Lao's chin in his shoulder. "Take care of my daughter," the merchant whispered into the narrow hollow of the tribesman's neck, "or I'll take care of you, young man. No matter your company." He shot Aang a meaningful look.

Sokka promised, "I will." He meant it and perhaps Lao believed him, but even so the man refused to smile.

Appa climbed heavenward and Toph leaned into Sokka as the stars loomed overhead like lanterns, the absence of a saddle encouraging her arms tight about his elbow. The breezes pulled at them. Toph's sleeves puffed and fluttered, and Aang glided nearby in the speckled darkness, his hum faint but firm in the wind's soft bower.

"Hey," said Toph as the moon soared up the sky's rungs. In its light her face was a pale circle, her eyes emblazoned pewter and her smile a rill of shadow beneath them. "Snoozles?"

"Mmhm?" asked Sokka.

"What if this doesn't work?"

"This?"

"Yeah. This—us."

Appa exhaled beneath them—they sloped sideways a little, and Sokka took the opportunity to sidle closer to Toph. Noting too the tightening of her arms against his, he observed, "Oh, I dunno." He nudged an elbow into her ribs. "But I'm the plan guy, right? If anything happens, I'll think of something."

Aang's silhouette knifed over them. Shrugging down under Sokka's shoulder, Toph acknowledged, "Okay."