Disclaimer: I don't own atla or lok
There were three reasons why Toph and Aang were not enjoying dinner tonight.
One: the kids were all fighting at the table. Lin vs. Su. Tenzin vs. Bumi and Kya.
Two: Both watertribe siblings were arguing as well. Sokka and Katara were disagreeing on an addition to the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center. Aang and Toph had already checked out of the conversation before they had heard specifically what they were in a brawl for.
Lastly, three: there was no alcohol in the house to drink after all this was over.
Aang, without changing his expression, tapped the ground with his foot in a thought out pattern. Toph's eyes perked up at receiving the vibrations. Seeing that they were the only two with developed seismic sense in the room (Lin and Suyin still being trained to use the ability as a sixth sense), the two friends had figured out a silent language through tapping. It came in handy when planning surprises, keeping private conversations, and also warnings. The master earthbender read her former students vibrations.
Should we do something?
She sighed quietly. Not in the mood. Long day.
I know.
A spoon suddenly began floating in the air and the older of the Bei Fong sisters was threatening to send it flying. Toph bent it into her hands at once while scowling. Lin shrunk back. The chief of police didn't respond, knowing that her children understood the fierceness in her expression.
Aang smiled slightly. Like you, huh?
Maybe too much. The vibrations were messy due to irritated tapping on her part. Her face changed into something pleading. No wine?
No.
Sake?
No.
Cactus juice?
Not allowed to have any.
With that, Toph crossed hers arms and leaned back in her chair. As much as the loud mouthed earthbender wanted to scream at everybody to shut up, exhaustion had beaten her words. Not only had she just come from work, but she was defeated by one of the best triads in the city. She was too distracted by her other officers and allowed them to escape. Aang was even at the scene and the avatar was only unsuccessful due to tripping over his air scooter. He had skid several times across the road until he came to full stop at a busy intersection. It was lucky that Toph was paying attention and was able to shift the ground Aang was lying on just in time to get the master airbender out of the way of the bustling cars. The two trudged to the island at the end of the day.
"May I be excused?"
All yelling, scratching, screeching, and fighting halted as everyone at the table looked at both Toph and Aang. The two had said it as one voice and the weary expression on their faces didn't help assure anything.
Katara grabbed Aang's hand from the top of the table. "Are you alright, Sweetie?"
He looked at his wife with his tired gray eyes. "I'm fine. I just want to walk around."
"You good, Toph?" Sokka made his concern for his best friend obvious. Suki looked together with her husband at the chief of police.
She only scoffed. "I'm alright. Not hungry anymore."
"Are we going home, Mom?" Su asked worried.
Lin hid her whining better than her sister. "Do we have to?"
Toph had already gotten up and was heading towards the door. "Nah. We'll stay another hour or two. I'm just going to go take a nap or something."
The Bei Fong sisters rejoiced. All the children in the room scampered out of their seats and ran down the hallway. Katara, Sokka, and Suki just watched as the avatar and chief of police walked outside. They gave each other confused looks.
"What's up with them?" Suki asked carefully.
Sokka and Katara just shrugged with a sigh.
The avatar had to laugh at the sight of his earthbending sifu. True to her word, Toph had taken a nap. After his walk, he had stumbled upon the chief of police sprawled out on a large boulder near the beach. Her large snores and limbs twitching every now and then caused Aang to put a hand to his mouth to subdue his laughter.
The naïve avatar underestimated the master earthbender and was shot up several feet into the air. When he gently floated back down to the ground, he found Toph sitting up leaning back on her hands.
"Idiot. I could feel you ten minutes before you got here."
Aang rolled his eyes. "Silly me."
"Yes. Silly you."
They stayed silent for a couple seconds. Aang looked around as Toph just sat still. They both wanted to talk about today, but it seemed that the absence of a medium between them stopped them. Toph was the one who acted first.
"Let's spar."
He looked into her blind eyes. "Why?"
Toph slid off the rock carefully and began removing her police force armor. "It's just as satisfying as taking a drink. It'll have to do for now."
Aang just smiled lightly and began the similar action of removing his many layered robes. When both of them were done, Toph was left with nothing but a white tank top and her pants rolled up. Aang sported the same pants style but with no shirt.
"So are we just earthbending or-"
"Don't care!" She instantly kicked a rock towards his head. The avatar ducked and scowled at her. She smirked. "Don't think I don't know you're scowling!"
Aang quickly bent up a small whirlwind and sent it upwards beneath Toph. The seasoned earthbender began to lift off the ground and her panicking only made him laugh loudly.
"Okay! Okay! Earthbending only, Twinkle Toes!"
She hit the ground with a plop. This time, he anticipated the large rocks that come at him and just dodged them skillfully. The avatar bent up a wall and flung it horizontally at his sifu. He made sure to accompany it back with a retort. "Losing your touch, Bei Fong? You could usually take any bender."
Toph disintegrated the wall into pieces and flung a piece at Aang's legs. As she expected, he jumped over. Toph pulled her fist back and the earth chunk flew fast into Aang's back. He fell face first to the floor. "I call that one Snoozles boomerang."
"Very funny." Aang slowly got up and dusted the earth off of his upper torso. "I got one. I call this one Suki's fans."
The avatar carved two large fans from the earth below them. With as much power as he could, he flapped them to send Toph flying ten feet. The chief of police tumbled, her hair coming out of its neat bun. She spat on the ground as she got up, picking up her police badge that had come undone.
"Twinkle Toes, if I lost this-"
"Then you could easily just make a new one."
Toph just sneered. She bent her badge back to the boulder with all her belongings and bent her metal cable spool into her hands. "I call this little thingamajig, Katara's water whip."
The cable shot out with great speed and Aang's rear was stinging before he could even see the cable smack him. He jumped up, but the cable continued to follow. Toph just bent the metal to her will, smiling devilishly. Every time the avatar yelped, her mood lightened.
"I get it, Toph! You win!"
"You gotta say it, Twinkles."
"Toph, stop!"
"I'm not hearing anything!"
"You're the greatest earthbender in the world! You're better than the avatar!"
Aang hit the ground hard on his bottom which only caused him more pain. Toph bent the cable back to her and tossed it to the side. Game set and match. "You bet your ass I am."
"I'd rather not. Thanks." He continued to rub his most likely red bottom. "That wasn't exactly sparring, Sifu."
She waved her hand. "More or less. I'm tired from today. Nonetheless, seeing you squirm was just as satisfying as a bottle of sake."
The avatar crossed his legs and stayed on the ground. "I second that."
Toph dropped the ground and she mimicked Aang's position. Her hands stayed in her lap. "I could have done better though."
"Is Toph Bei Fong doubting herself?" He laughed.
The chief of police's laughter did not follow. "Come on. Let's not be stupider than we already are. You saw me today. I don't know what that was."
Aang's face became in different as he figured out what she was referring to. "We all have bad days. I mean I didn't do too well either today."
"Yeah, what happened there? Air scooter is you thing, how could you trip over a measly little dent in the road?" Toph asked him with genuine interest. He felt just slightly less embarrassed.
"I don't know. I just wasn't looking where I was going. Next thing I knew, I was flying across the road. That hurt." He rubbed his face as he reminisced.
Toph remembered with him. She remembered the hard vibrations every time Aang had hit the road. She began to touch her face as well, the pain somehow mentally transferring to her. "I bet."
"As for you?" Aang looked at his earthbending master. "I have never seen you so flustered. You were saving some of your officers here. Blocking citizens over there. Trying to capture the members of the triad. You were having so much trouble balancing everything."
"I don't know what's wrong!" She fell onto her back, a small cloud of dust erupting around her. "I just barely pulled you out of the intersection. They all got away. We didn't make one arrest."
The two sat there. Aang noticed how dark it had gotten now. The stars were becoming visible one by one while the moon was only half full tonight. The avatar yawned as he stared at the half circle in the sky. The past few days, he was seeing more of the moon. As sure as he was that Yue appreciated the gesture, getting no sleep the last couple of nights wasn't so great. Aang laid back, his hands behind his head. "When was the last time you slept?"
"Not counting my nap earlier?" Toph had curled up onto her side.
"Yeah."
"The night before yesterday. On my desk. Lin and Suyin stayed with you guys that night."
"Me too." The avatar closed his eyes halfway. "I haven't even been sleeping enough the past three days. Coming home late, getting up early in the morning. I only sleep-"
"Three hours tops?" Toph asked with both of her eyes closed already. Aang trusted she wasn't going to sleep yet. "Same, same."
"Hey, Toph?"
"Yeah, Twinkle Toes?"
"You don't think we are losing our touch, right?"
Toph held back her reply, not only because she was thinking about the same thing, but because her mind delayed her response. Overall, the facts were clear. Toph, Aang, Katara, and Zuko were very talented benders. They had all been able to reach the mastery of their element in their teens. Being the youngest out of the group, Aang and Toph were praised as being two of the most talented. Aang had earned his mastery tattoos at only twelve, the youngest airbending master in history and had learned the other three elements in a little over a year. Toph had developed both her unique style of earthbending through her seismic sense and had discovered the ability to bend metal. Because of these high reputations, there was little room for error, especially being two of the prime founders of Republic City. They had to gain respects from the other older leaders around them, who at first thought of them as children. Both had proven them wrong in quick time.
After years of fighting and praise, there was suddenly room for concern after their defeat today.
The chief of police let one of her eyes open, showing Aang that she was still awake. "It could have just been a bad day. Although I haven't had one of those in a long time."
The avatar sounded slightly more frantic this time. "We aren't getting too old are we?"
"Forty two isn't old, Fancy Feet."
"What if the next time we fight, our bones start aching? Or we get an asthma attack? Or we bust a hip?"
Toph scowled. "We're middle aged, Stupid. Not a hundred years old."
"Well-"
"Do not even start with me."
The avatar's mood shifted like the wind. He chuckled. Toph just smirked. "Let's just agree that it was a bad day, alright?"
She closed her eyes once more. "Agreed."
"And another thing. We should probably remember to sleep every night."
"Well maybe if I ask nicely, the triads in the city will take a day off." The sarcasm was saturated in her response.
Aang joined in. "And maybe the world can just calm itself for a day. That would be nice."
Toph sighed. "Like I said before, we are too young to be feeling this tired with our lives."
"I think that's the sleep deprivation talking." He yawned louder this time.
Of course, his gesture was contagious and Toph followed suit. "Definitely. Twinkle Toes, I'm sleeping over."
"Ok…" Aang's consciousness lost the battle against his heavy eyelids. "We'll…get the rooms set up…for you…Su and…Li…."
"Give…me a few…I'll get up…..ghhhhhhhh"
The two snored loudly under Yue's moonlight.
"Hey Katara, do you know where Toph and Aang are? We have a council meeting and we need the chief and the avatar present."
The waterbender smiled gently as she spoke. "They are both taking a day off today. By the way, can you stop by the island later? I have something for you."
"What is it, Sis?"
Katara just smirked at the picture in her hand. She had decided to test the new gadget that Aang had bought for her the other day. Figuring out how to use the "camera" was easy enough. The sight of Toph and her husband drooling with their mouths wide open captured onto a single piece of film was worth all the effort she had gone through to not be detected by the two.
"I think I have something the newspaper would appreciate."
Katara knows how to have fun too! haha Aang and Toph thinking they are starting to lose it. I'm sure if that ever happened, they just tried harder. I mean look at all their kids. Even at 50 or 60 years old those people are kicking ass. Please review! I hope you enjoyed reading.