A/N: thanks for the reviews have an early update


Aang says he's fine. That his head is all healed. That the world is in danger and as the Avatar he can't take a day off to rest. To relax, sure, but to avoid anything strenuous, including bending? He was the master of all four elements for Yangchen's sake. But it doesn't matter what he says when Katara and Azula are miraculously on the same side.

So he's taking a day off to rest. Kind of.

Turns out it's dangerous to fall asleep with a head injury because your soul could drop out of your body and be trapped forever. Aang's not sure if that makes sense, he has to sleep eventually, but for his friends peace of mind he lies down comfortably on Appa while Toph sits nearby and makes sure he doesn't accidentally fall asleep and lose his soul. He's not allowed to bend or do basically anything, not even read, so for the past hour Aang's been amusing himself by describing the clouds to Toph.

So he's bored.

Very bored.

And he's running out of conversation topics.

Aang sighs. "Toph, was I moping?"

Toph doesn't reply, but Aang doesn't make the mistake of thinking she's asleep. Last time he did that and thought he could take a nap as well, Toph threw mud at him.

"Azula said I was moping. Did you guys tell her to make me stop?"

Toph scoffs. "We didn't say anything, Princess stormed on over and demanded to know where you were."

Aang doesn't know how to feel about that.

"I wish I could've seen the looks on their faces," continues Toph, "the others were frozen in fear."

"Azula iceberged them?"

"Ice— what?"

"Iceberged. Azula has this look that makes you feel like you're frozen in an iceberg. I would know."

Then, because Toph can't see, Aang went on to describe said look.

And then, because he didn't have anything better to do, Aang went on to describe Azula's other looks.

Aang is halfway into describing a gooey iceberg, one where the outside is frozen but the inside is one fire, when he realizes that Toph had gone silent a while ago. A long while ago.

He pauses, but Toph doesn't say anything and even if she was asleep for real this time, Aang doesn't really feel like napping anymore.

He's trying to describe the feeling of looking for lightning on a sunny day, while keeping in mind that Toph has never seen lightning nor the sun, when Toph asks, "Why do you care so much?"

Aang tries to think about it, but his head kinda hurts when he focuses too much and it feels like he's trying to unravel the thin silken strings of a spiderfly's web. He ends up shutting his eyes and massaging his face for a bit, and is glad when Toph doesn't interject, that she stays silent and steady. But the words don't get any clearer so he ends up going with the first thing that comes to mind.

"I don't know her. I don't know my own soulmate," croaks out Aang, and then, because while those words are true they're far too heavy and Aang doesn't think it's something he can talk about with his head injury, or at all. " Everyone likes the Avatar now except for Azula and those trying to rule the world."

Toph snorts."I'm pretty sure Princess wants to rule the world," she says, bluntly.

Aang looks back up at the sky. "I don't know," he says, softly, "I think if Azula really wanted to, she would have done so by now."

"…"

"I know I'm probably wrong, but I want to get know her better, just in case."

"…"

"I want her to like the Avatar," adds Aang.

"…"

"Toph?"

"Yeah. I heard you Twinkletoes."