Commentary: I am having so much fun with these! I wish challenges like this happened more often… I think I'd write more. As always, thanks so much for the favs and the reviews. If I haven't replied to you yet in a storm of gratitude, please know that I do deeply appreciate it.

Words: 2,271

Word FORTY-SIX: Cozy

"You know something? Huh? You know something, Snoozles? I might just kill you for this."

So said Toph as she struggled to stay upright. Her left foot gave a traitorous wobble, screeched on the ice, shot out—her arms pinwheeled desperately. One of her groping hands seized about Sokka's ear and he yelped, stapling his own fingers over her hips. By the grace of some benevolent spirit they managed to avoid crashing down to the rink in a heap.

"Easy! Easy!" Sokka coaxed his best friend. "C'mon, you're panicking—don't do that, you'll just fall—"

"Look at my leg. Look at my leg, asshole, and tell me I haven't already pretty much completed falling!"

Sokka looked down at Toph's leg. Cocked out at an angle threatening on perpendicular, it quivered from thigh to ankle. With a soft sigh, Sokka leaned down and gently took hold of that ankle. He eased it and the leg to which it was attached back beneath Toph, ignoring the clench of her fingers on his ear, the jab of her elbow in his ribs. When she was, for better or worse, standing up straight again in her skates, he said, "There we go. Better?"

"In what sense?" she snapped. "Better as in oh hi, I still can't see shit but it's okay because, you know, at least I'm not sprawled flat on my back while people with blades strapped to their feet zoom around me like crazy morons? Because if that's what you mean, then yeah, Sokka, it's totally better. It's prime. It's fantastic. It's—"

"You know, you sound almost scared, Toph," Sokka interrupted. He gave her elbow a conciliatory pat. "You should've said so earlier. We can stop—really. It's okay."

The comment had the desired effect. Puffing up in her parka like a little green marshmallow, the Earthbender snarled, "I am not scared." Leaving off his ear, she thrust out both hands and ordered, "Teach me."

Her fingertips were chapped, her nails gnawed down to the quick. She had refused to wear mittens because, as she'd pointed out, she was already putting on skates and that was e-freaking-nough. Her palms were frigid even through the fur of his own gloves when he took them, and he murmured as he drew her, step by skittering step, out farther across the rink, "You have got to be cold."

She shrugged, wobbled, stiffened, and scowled. "Eh. It's fine—I'm fine. Where"—her right skate chuffed the ice and she grunted—"uh. Where are we going?"

"Away from everyone else. Out onto the bay. The ice there is smooth"—not like her hands, he thought; those were catching on his gloves, her skin all sandpaper and grit—"because most of the others are staying near shore—"

"Smart people."

"—where they're running into each other left and right. So," he finished, "yeah. We're venturing out into the great frozen wilds—"

She stumbled again. Bracing her before she could topple over, Sokka found himself with an armful of surly Earthbender and a knee wedged perilously close to his more vulnerable bits. "Let's just," she huffed, "get this started, shall we? The sooner I can passably skate, the sooner I can say I did what no one else thought I would and brag about it for eternity because I'm just that awesome, and—"

The words cut themselves quiet the instant he let go of one of her hands. It flailed helplessly in midair a moment, so white it made the snowfall look beige, before Toph curled it into a fist and tucked it against her hip. Swiveling to his best friend's side such that they stood shoulder to shoulder, Sokka assured her, "It's okay. I've got you, really." He jiggled the hand of hers he still held to demonstrate this. "I won't let go. I promise."

"Fine," she bit out. Her thumb dug into the divot between his first and second knuckles. "So… what do I do? I'm just kinda, uh, standing here. Right now."

Gliding back a little, Sokka surveyed Toph. First off, it was weird seeing her in shoes. She hadn't worn a pair since their days going undercover in the Fire Nation, and those had been flats besides. These were boots, the thick Mamba Jamba rubbery sort that went up to mid-calf, and the blades affixed to their soles only added oomph to their general badass appearance. Speaking of addition: the blades didn't just give Toph more mojo. They gave her more inches. Sokka was used to looking down at his best friend and could still do so now, given that he was wearing skates too, but nothing could change the fact that Toph seemed tall, nigh towering, in her new footwear.

"Hello? Snoozles?" Blowing out her breath in a white puff, Toph tugged his hand and snapped him from his reverie. "Are you just gonna stand there silently and expect me to learn this by meditating or something? Because if that's the way you operate, hey, my ass is going back to land—"

"No, no," Sokka cut in, "this won't be anything like meditation. I was just trying to think of the best way to approach the situation, that's all." And how exactly was he going to do that anyway? He rubbed his cheek, frowning. He'd never expected Toph to actually get out on the ice, much less accept his mostly-jest offer of teaching her to skate. It had been a while since he'd indulged in the sport himself. He'd outgrown his childhood pair of skates years before meeting Aang and had never been given the opportunity to strap on a new set until now: his skills on the ice were adequate but admittedly rusty. Was he even really qualified to school someone else? Someone like Toph? Someone who couldn't see where she was going or what he, the teacher, was doing?

Shit.

Picking up on his hesitation, Toph heaved a great sigh and observed, "You don't have any idea what to do, do you?"

"Yeeeeah, no." He squeezed her frigid little claw of a hand. "But don't worry too much about that. I'm good at improvising, right?"

Toph glared at him, then tipped her face skyward and groaned, "I am going to die out here." Snowflakes lighted on her dark lashes, feathery and soft. "Why don't we start with basics?" she suggested. "Like, I don't know, how to maybe move with these damn things on my feet?" She gave one foot a ginger twitch.

"That's a good idea," Sokka admitted, "but there's no way for you to see what I'm doing, is there?"

"Not unless you have a miracle stuffed up your butt."

"…right. Negative." The tribesman considered and hedged next, "But I might have the next best thing. Toph, do you remember when you first learned how to Metalbend?"

Turning her face from the press of the wind, the young woman nodded. Her lips quirked. "Uh-huh. That was a good day. Up until, you know, Aang got fried and everything." On her forehead her brows rose, swipes of ink on a snowscape. "Why? What's that got to do with skating?"

"Everything! Everything," exulted Sokka. This could work! "When Aang and I found you after you'd gotten away from those goons who kidnapped you—do you remember what you were doing to the earth then? Do you remember how you were moving?"

For the first time since she'd stepped onto the ice, Toph's face broke out in a resplendent grin. "Only hell yes. I was Earthsurfing!"

Her hand tightened at the memory. Squeezing back as hard as he dared, Sokka confessed, "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, Toph. Your Earthsurfing? Looked exactly like ice skating."

Hffff. A billow of Toph's breath gusted out in disbelief. "Monkeyfeathers!" she denied.

"No, I'm serious! Totally serious here. In fact"—and he pulled at her insistently—"you need to feel how serious I am. Grab a handful of this." Before she could yank away from him, Sokka mashed her fingers up against his face.

Over the slant of her thumb he watched her eyes widen and her cheeks flare red. She pawed at his chin and muttered, "Okay, fine, I get it—let go, Snoozles."

"Do you really want me to do that?" teased the tribesman.

The crimson glow on Toph's cheeks spread, blotching along the bridge of her nose. "No," she admitted, and threatened next, "if you want serious, I can seriously injure you and leave your carcass out here to rot."

"You're so sweet, Toph."

Hunkering down into the shell of her parka, the Earthbender shivered. "Yeah, I'm a regular darling. Okay—right. Ice skating and Earthsurfing look the same." She squared her shoulders. "So I should… act like I'm Earthsurfing?"

Sokka affirmed sagely, "That is exactly what you should do."

There was a pause. Snow sifted down between them, drifting slow and serene; the distant shouts of their friends echoed across the ice, and if Sokka squinted he could see their shadows off in the bay's blue haze. The heel of Toph's hand brushed the seam of his glove. "Okay," she agreed, and began.

He'd seen her Earthbend, what—a hundred times? A thousand? This time was at once exactly the same as and completely different from all those other occasions: her movements were familiar, her stance customary. But the coil of muscle in her arm snapped and Sokka felt the power in it, the command, and they shot forward over the ice together as though ejected from a cannon. The momentum surprised Sokka. He staggered and Toph did too, both unbalanced, both flailing.

"LESS HIP!" screeched the tribesman. "MORE LEG!"

Toph adjusted and instantly their pace slowed. Sokka was able to match the scissory sway of his best friend's knees now that they weren't careening across the ice at the speed of death. They moved as one, spraying snow and salt-frost; their elbows jostled first, jabbed next, and finally settled to a slow, easy rub.

"Am I doing it?" asked Toph. She licked her lips and winced—they were already chapped. "Am I? Is this it? Is this skating?"

"No," Sokka disagreed. Toph's face swiveled toward his, expression all disappointment, until the tribesman admitted, "This is better than skating. You're a pro, Toph."

For the briefest moment Toph's mouth was soft and puckered, windworn lips drawn just enough that the crescent of her teeth sparked and shone beneath them. Her eyes lidded. Her cheeks burned. "Of course I am," she declared hoarsely, and the moment was gone and it was the wind, Sokka thought—it had to be the wind making her face all red like that.

They ghosted across the bay for a while in relative quiet, serenaded only by the shushing whisper of their skates and the snicker of the breeze over the ice. The snowfall thickened. The day's light fell. "We should probably go inside," Sokka said at last, reluctantly. He couldn't feel any part of his face and his limbs were starting to chill despite his coat's padding—he thought Toph was probably numb all over.

She nodded. There were snowflakes in her hair and they absconded in a shower down her shoulders. "Yeah." She didn't much sound like she wanted to stop either. "Probably," she echoed. And after, quiet, "Sokka?"

"Mmhm?"

He was expecting a philosophical observation from Toph—at the very least a grudging admission about how cool it was to zoom around on blades. He was instead asked simply, "How do we stop?"

He blinked into the bay's low glare. "Uh… come again?"

"How do we stop?" Toph repeated.

"That," Sokka opined at length, "is an excellent question."

Across the rink echoed the sound of Toph's face falling into an open palm.

Eventually they determined to fall into the snowbanks along the bay's edge. The idea was successful if not freezing, and Sokka hopped and danced as he worked slush out of his pants. Toph, who had long ago lost much of the feeling in her limbs, stood by with a bemused smirk and sopping hair.

As they walked back to their lodgings, the tribesman said happily, "That was epically sweet, Toph. Skating with you is like skating with a firework. Pshew!"

He glanced at her sidelong. She looked a mix of completely exhausted and utterly smug. Rolling her shoulders, she yawned and agreed, muffled, "Yeah. I'm glad you got the opportunity to experience my astounding talent firsthand."

"For sure."

"Uh-huh."

The snow crunched underfoot. Their skates jangled. "So," Sokka ventured gingerly, "did you, uhm. Did you have fun?"

There was a clenching pressure between them. Startled, Sokka checked it and found that their hands—his and Toph's—were still hooked together, fur on flesh, thumb on thumb. Where she was touching him was the only part of him still warm.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I had fun." Her knuckles bumped up along his lifeline. "Thanks," she provided, and added last, "especially for keeping your promise."

"My promise?"

She held up the knot of their fingers. "You didn't let go."

"Right." One step. Two. Three. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Toph's mouth twitched. "If you want, you can now," she allowed. It sounded like she had to force out the words.

"Do you really want me to do that?" Sokka wondered for the second time in so many hours.

Toph was tellingly silent this time—her fingers tellingly still too, and her face a red circle against the snowfall's slow slant. Maybe it wasn't the wind after all.

Four steps. Five. Six. Seven. Eight: and on.

Sokka kept his hold throughout.