Birthdays- Part 2
-In which we blow lots of bubbles! And find out The Duke's 2 nicknames!
I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Last Airbender: The Legend Of Korra, but I do own a Teddy bear shaped candle burner thing…
….
Appa landed on the soft grass with a muffled 'thump' and Aang was not surprised to see who was occupying his saddle.
Toph was sitting in the saddle holding onto The Dukes arm, Aang thought nothing of it, he figured Toph just needed to get use to riding the bison, but Katara looked curiously at the pair.
The Duke climbed off Appa first- he had grown quite considerably since the war had ended, and then he proceeded to help Toph down.
"Hey Toph, Duke, how are you?" Aang asked
"It's THE Duke" said The Duke, but not as aggressively as he would have said it several years ago.
Aang laughed and apologized before Toph answered his question
"We're fine Twinkletoes, How's everything here?"
"Yeah same here, the kids are really excited to see you!" said Aang enthusiastically
"Well of course, who wouldn't want to see their Aunty Toph!" She exclaimed.
Toph was now nearing her 23rd birthday, but she still had all the energy and enthusiasm from when she first met with Aang, Sokka and Katara. She was really happy when her parents allowed her to travel the world with her best friend The Duke, but recently their friendship had been turning into something more…
"Aunty Toph!" yelled Kya and Rei, snapping Toph out of her thoughts
"Hey kids!" she exclaimed whilst being drawn into a hug by the two best friends
"We wanna hear stories about all your adventures!" said Kya whilst Rei nodded, forgetting that Toph wouldn't see the motion
"Maybe later kids, give your Aunt some space to breathe!" said Katara
Kya and Rei made their way inside while Toph and The Duke greeted everyone else, everyone had found it amusing at Azayla's attempts to say The Duke's name.
"This is The Duke honey" Mai spoke softly to her daughter, introducing her to this stranger. Azayla's face lit up with pure delight.
"Dukey!" she squealed which earned a laugh from everyone.
"Looks like you just earned yourself a new nickname…Dukey" Said Toph with a smirk but The Duke just laughed it off.
"It's not as bad as 'Helmet-Head'" He thought.
….
Greetings were finally all done and everyone was chatting and catching up with each other; Katara and Suki were in the kitchen preparing food for the guests, and a birthday cake.
They decided that because it was such a beautiful day they would have the party outside. They had already set up tables and chairs and the children were running round on the soft grass playing with each other and generally having fun. Toph was teasing Sokka- something she never missed an opportunity to do, and Mai sat in a chair with a now sleeping Azayla sitting on her lap.
Katara was humming tunelessly as she placed the batter for the birthday cake onto an oven lit with a fire, Azayla and Kasami had both insisted the icing be pink so Aang had gone out and picked some Moon Peaches to colour and flavour the icing.
Whilst the cake was cooking, Katara and Suki bought all the other food they had prepared outside and sat the many plates upon the tables.
Sokka of course started stuffing his face with meat at the first opportunity he had, a trait which unfortunately for Suki, Rei had developed.
Suki watched her two boys stuff their faces with a smile on her lips, she spied Rei and Kya making their way from under a large tree where they had been sitting over too them.
Azayla woke up soon after this and Mai placed her on the grass with Kasami where everyone could keep an eye on them. The two birthday girls spoke to each other in a tongue that no-one else could understand because it was a mixture of broken up words and sounds.
Aang had set up some bubble blowers in the garden for the children to entertain themselves; after they had eaten they made their way over toward them and started to make bubbles.
Tenzin and Gyatso began to make soft winds to blow the bubbles in whichever direction they wanted. It was a magnificent sight to see hundreds of bubbles spinning around as if caught in a tornado- the light being captured as a different colour in all of them. Everyone watched in awe, stunned for a few seconds at the simple beauty.
Rei was blowing a lot of the bubbles- and Sen was popping them. He had his wooden sword brandished and was refining his aim by trying to pop them.
Kya was trying un-successfully to use her bending powers to aid this game. Every time she tried to control the thin film of water she lost control and it burst. She tried blowing larger bubbles in the hope that she would be able to manipulate them then, but to no avail.
"Hey Ten, Gyats?" Kya spoke
"Yes?" Asked Tenzin in reply
"Do you wanna help me with something?"
"Sure, what?" Gyatso asked enthusiastically.
"I want to create the biggest bubble ever! You can make a sphere of air and I can morph the water around it!"
The twins energetically agreed they loved trying new things, seeing how far they could push the boundaries of their bending.
They stood opposite one another and began creating a giant sphere of air; Kya then proceeded to bend some water out of the close by pond and began to morph it around the air.
The bubble slowly took shape, but Kya knew it wouldn't hold unless all three of them were concentrating on their respective elements.
Kasami looked up at the giant bubble. Light was reflecting through it making colours no-one had ever dreamed about. Kasami laughed and Azayla was quick to join in, squealing in delight the two girls drew attention to the bubble.
Aang looked up at the spectrum of colours that hung in mid-air before him and was reminded of the time he had seen similar colours in the dragon's fire. He looked over at Zuko and caught his eye- he knew they were both thinking the same thing.
Pakku looked at the children thinking he had never seen such raw talent- well except for the Avatar. He held Kanas hand as they watched the light dance and sparkle inside the bubble.
Katara looked at her children working together, combining two elements- water and air, to create something so beautiful.
"Why did I never try that with Aang"? She thought to herself. Sure she had controlled great spheres of water but never were they hollow. She enjoyed that her children were branching out, finding new ways in which their bending could be used. She made a mental note to take them up to the sky on Appa and let them shape the clouds; see what new powers they would discover they had.
Kya was enjoying creating this huge bubble when suddenly, Sen came at it.
"Argh!" He yelled a warrior's cry and pointed his sword toward the dome.
Pop
He burst the bubble and Kya was not ready to stop the water falling on all of them, Tenzin, Gyatso, Kya, Sen and Rei all stood there no knowing what to do. They were drenched! Katara used her waterbending to dry everyone before announcing it was time for the birthday cake.
….
Suki carried a large plate with the Moon Peach cake upon it. Azayla and Kasami's eyes lit up when they saw it and immediately yelled the same thing
"Pink!"
Mai laughed along with everyone else while wondering if her daughter had been influenced by Ty-lee when she was being babysat. When Iroh wasn't available to babysit, Ty-lee would be the next to volunteer. She had trained and become a fully trained Kyoshi Warrior and was travelling the world- seeing new things and meeting new people.
They sang Happy Birthday to the two girls before digging into the Moon Peach cake.
When the food had all been demolished and the leftover food had been eaten by the lemurs, the children started to blow bubbles again.
"Come blow bubbles aunty Toph!" yelled Kya as she tried to create another sphere.
"Ok, be prepared for the best bubbles of your life!" she replied confidently before dragging The Duke over to help her.
Katara couldn't help but smile as her suspicions were confirmed. She watched as Toph sat on the grass with The Duke beside her. He was guiding her hand in front of her mouth as she softly blew bubbles from the metal bubble blower she was holding.
"If anyone else tried to help her she'd Earthbend them into the ground" she thought
"She must really like that kid" spoke Aang, finishing Kataras train of thought. She nodded in agreement before being pulled over to the pond by Aang.
"Let's make a bubble!" he said with a childish look in his eye
"Sure!" she agreed before they started to form the sphere
….
The rest of the day passed with no incident. After the spectacular show of bubbles people began making their way back home. Aang and Katara had asked Sokka and his family to stay the night- mostly influenced by Kya's begging.
Azayla was a little sad to be leaving Kasami; the two had really become great friends. Mai and Zuko had been worrying about her social skills with little to no interaction with people her age but she seemed to be just fine. The promised Azayla they would visit again after Mai had her baby.
When Appa had returned, Toph and The Duke bid farewell to everyone before The Duke held Tophs hand to help her get up upon the bison. Everyone looked in disbelief as Toph didn't even refuse or object to getting helped.
Katara was especially sad to say goodbye to Gran-Gran, Pakku and Hakoda. They left after making Katara promise she would come and visit them again. She agreed before drawing them into one last teary hug.
Soon after that Iroh had to leave to return to The Jasmine Dragon. He reminded them they were welcome there any time for free tea. They thanked him and watched Appa become just a small white speck upon the horizon.
A/N Thank you so much for reading this! The poll results are in and almost 100% of people want Toph and The Duke to end up together. Yay TheDoph! ^_^ If you have any suggestions on future chapters, comments or criticisms about this please leave a review! Oh and you can follow me on Twitter if you want, Candle_22, if I get any followers I'll probably just tweet about new stories and chapters ^_^
SheWolfQueen (ch16) Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I really love writing those big happy family moments, it's fun to draw them too!
AceyJacey (ch16) Thankyou, I tried to make it a realistic thing for them to argue about. I did get some votes in my poll thank you Do you have any ideas on how I should end the story? Should it end on one big happy family moment or an epilogue? Maybe that will be another poll….
SheWolfQueen (ch17) Here it is! Thank you so much for reviewing, I hope you like all my future chapters as well!
AceyJacey(ch17) Best. Review. Ever. To be even considered to be a writer for the show makes me feel so happy. I actually live in Australia so no, im not a writer for the show so if any of my spelling or dialogue feels strange it's probably Australia (But I've notised most of my readers are from America) Thank you so much for the Iroh comment, he's such a deep character that sometimes its hard to write for him, ill keep trying my best!