"You know, this book isn't all about crazy stories about us," Sokka said one day while the Gaang were together in the upstairs lunge of the Jasmine Dragon that had become their unofficial hangout. He was browsing through The Gaang's Companion, as he did most of the time nowadays.
"What, there are crazy stories about people like Ozai and Zhao as well?" Katara asked with a raised eyebrow. "I wouldn't say that's any better than what we've seen already."
"No, I mean that not everything here is some weird tale by some unknown author." Sokka turned the book around and pointed to a spot on the open page. "See, there are things called 'polls' here. They're sort of like questionnaires, where they ask you stuff and you choose your answer from the list they give you. You can also see how many people voted for each answer and stuff like that too."
"Cool," Aang remarked as he leaned in to get a closer look. "Hey, listen to this: What are your thoughts about Legend of Korra?" He straightened up, frowning. "What is 'Legend of Korra'?"
"Dunno, I'll add that to the list of things we don't know about this book." Sokka turned the book back to him and read the poll results. "Look, 25 people, or 55% chose 'Not as great as the original series, but still pretty good.' Huh, so it's a series."
"A series of what?" Toph asked as she picked her nose casually (again).
"That's another thing we don't know. Okay, so 10 people, or 22% chose 'WOW IT WAS AMAZING ALMOST BETTER THAN ATLA I'M ON A FANGIRL RANT NOW SQUEAL~'." Sokka paused and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I'm just going to move on and not ask what that was all about, since I don't get the whole sentence at all.
11% said it was a bit disappointing, 8% said it was decent, and 2% - actually, just one guy chose 'ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! THAT THING WAS A PIECE OF SH*T!'. Wow, that guy must really hate it."
"Meh, haters gotta hate," Toph said as she flicked a booger away. "Isn't there a poll we can actually understand?"
Sokka's eyes suddenly brightened. "Ooh, you guys gotta listen to this one! Led Feynman M.D suggested this (whoever he is), so here goes: Which is your ideal partner for Azula?"
"They're choosing a partner for Azula?!" Zuko cried in surprise, for he had not been listening to the conversation (he'd decided not to have anything to do with the Companion ever since that first story) until this got his attention.
"Yup, and there's a whole list of eligible candidates!" Sokka began reading off the list. "Let's see, there's Ty Lee…"
"TY LEE?!" the others shouted together. "But she's a girl!" Aang cried out.
"Well, since we already know the people who write stuff in here are pretty messed-up, I guess this shouldn't be too surprising. Next we have Jet, Zuko…"
"But I'm her brother!"
"Like I said, this shouldn't be too surprising. They've already put girls together as a couple, why not siblings?"
Katara shook her head in disbelief. "You're so calm about this it's starting to worry me, Sokka."
"Yeah well, I decided to save my breath and take everything in here with a pinch of salt. Okay, there's Aang (sorry buddy, you have my condolences) and… ME?!" Now Sokka had finally lost his cool. "They're putting ME with Azula?! This is so cracked-up!"
"Like you said, Sokka, we'll just save our breath and take everything in here with a pinch of salt," Toph smirked. "In fact, I'm not surprised if Sugar Queen and I are on the list as well."
"As a matter of fact, you are," Sokka confirmed as he looked down at the list, "along with some guy named Chan. Who's that?"
"He once invited us to a beach party on Ember Island," Zuko explained. "He actually invited Mai and Ty Lee, but Azula got him to invite all of us instead. I guess he wasn't too keen on inviting Azula particularly."
"Quite understandable," Sokka said as he nodded his agreement. "I for one wouldn't have even dared to get within ten feet of that crazy deranged princess."
"Aw, are you scared of the big bad crazy lady Snoozles?" Toph mocked.
"No, I just want to prevent myself from being fried alive. I think it's a reasonable precaution." Sokka turned back to the poll. "There's one more selection on here: 'Others (but then again, there are only so many people you can pair with an awesome deranged princess)'. Wow, they call her awesome?"
"Well, they did describe Zuko as 'ravishing' and had me spouting poetry," Toph said. "I wouldn't be surprise if they regard her as their role model or something."
"Okay, so we now know this book was written by a bunch of aspiring lunatics. That's comforting." Sokka started flipping through the pages again. "I'm sure there are good stories that are not too crazy, though."
"Oh, let others pick the story for once, Sokka." Katara snatched the book from her brother, who gave a shout of protest. "Hey, I'm the narrator here!"
"There are other people here who can read, and besides, I think you've done enough reading in the past few days." Katara browsed through the pages until she stopped at a certain page. "Hey, how does this story sound? The title's Earthbending Practice, with Aang and Toph as the main characters."
"Great, a story that has me yelling at Twinkletoes for his pathetic pebblebending. I think I'm going to enjoy this." And Toph settled down on the couch with a satisfied grin as Katara began the story.
"Get those wimpy limbs up in the air and start warming up, sleepyhead!" Toph's voice rang through the early dawn. The blind earthbender was standing on a cliff overlooking a small valley, where her friends were currently sleeping soundly at the bottom of the cliff among some leafy bushes. All except one, who was supposed to be practicing his earthbending with her and was currently rubbing his eyelids which were still heavy with sleep.
"Well, the story's off to a good start, except for one thing," Toph said. "I don't usually practice earthbending with Twinkletoes that early in the morning."
"Yeah, she likes to sleep in about as much as Sokka does," Katara agreed.
"Wonder why the change in schedule," Sokka thought aloud.
"Do we have to get up this early?" Aang moaned as he stretched his arms lazily above his head and struggled to keep his eyes open.
"Sokka wants to leave first thing in the morning when he wakes up, so we've got to fit in some practice before he does, which could be about an hour from now. Besides, this is a great place to earthbend, and we don't know how many good spots like these we'll find on our journey." Toph planted her hands on her hips and stood firmly in front of her sleepy student.
"Oh, so it's your fault. That's understandable," Toph said as she nodded her head.
"Hey, we were on the run from the Fire Nation! If you'd rather sleep in and have fireballs for breakfast, that's your choice, but I'm not going to have myself a human barbeque first thing in the morning!"
"Yeah whatever, Mr Schedule Master."
"So get the sleep out of your eyes, because we're gonna practice whether you like it or not!" she said as she stomped her foot on the ground, causing a mound of earth to jut upwards and send Aang flying into the air. The bald monk prevented himself from crashing onto the ground by using his airbending to slow his fall, and landed gently on the ground only to have Toph's finger pointed straight at his face, just a few inches away from his nose.
"Another thing, Twinkletoes; no airbending! I don't care if you flatten yourself on the ground when falling, I want to be able to feel you get crushed to bits! It's really annoying when I don't know where you've gone because you're hanging around somewhere in the air! This is an earthbending practice, which means you stick to the earth! So plant your feet on the ground, Fancy Dancer, because you won't be flitting around today!"
"Ooh, I like this author," Toph grinned. "This guy's definitely hit the nail on the head."
"Well, I guess Aang can't help it," Katara said. "He was born an airbender after all, it's part of his instincts."
"Instinct or not, if he wants to learn earthbending from me then he's gotta stick to my rules."
"Good thing he doesn't need to anymore then, although I do feel sorry for your metalbending students," Sokka commented.
And so they began. First Aang had to stand in a horse stance and block off the boulders Toph sent flying at him, which was particularly challenging because Toph had an uncannily accurate aim from her days in Earth Rumble Six. It was all he could do to leap out of the way every time a boulder was coming towards him, and then Toph would yell at him for not keeping his stance. He then tried to actually stop the boulders with his earthbending like he was supposed to, but simply ended up playing a game similar to dodgeball, only the ball was a highly dangerous ten-feet boulder. When a giant behemoth of a rock came his way, his instincts reacted and he leaped into the air as the boulder zoomed under him.
"I said NO AIRBENDING!" Toph shouted as he landed gently on the ground again. "You're supposed to stop the rocks, not just get out of the way! If you wanna learn how to dodge stuff go ask Sokka, he's the expert on that what with having to dodge his crazy boomerang every time he throws it!"
"Hey, no one calls my boomerang crazy!" Sokka protested. "And I'm not that lousy!"
"Yeah, you're much worse. You can't even dodge a boomerang," Katara smirked as Toph sniggered appreciatively.
"Oh shut up, Katara, whose side are you on anyway? Just get on with the story." Sokka crossed his arms across his chest and huffed indignantly as Katara continued the story.
Aang smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Toph."
"'Sorry' doesn't cut it! If I catch you doing it one more time, I'm going to send you properly flying with a blow to your nuts, and you don't want that, now do you?!"
The airbender winced at the prospect of having his nuts hit by a jutting piece of rock. "No, Sifu Toph."
"Hmm, I've never tried hitting Twinkletoes on the nuts. I'd love to try though," Toph mused.
"Um, I'd like to keep my nuts to myself, thank you very much," Aang said as he scooted a few inches away from the blind earthbender.
"Don't worry Aang, I'll make sure Toph doesn't mess with your nuts," Katara reassured him as she turned back to the story.
"Good. Alright, this time we'll try something different. I'll stand a distance away from you and you'll try to come to me while avoiding any obstacles I create. You can block the obstacles or simply get out of their way, as long as your feet stick to the ground. When you've reached me and you're still in one piece, then you've succeeded. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Oh, I almost forgot something." Toph snatched Aang's belt and tied it around his eyes. "You have to remain blindfolded the whole time. Use your feet to feel your way."
"Hey, that's not fair! How is anyone going to get through obstacles without being able to see?"
"I can't see, yet I can trump those Earth Rumble Six idiots six-on-one, so there's no reason why you can't get through with a blindfold. Alright, let's begin!"
Toph moved to stand several feet away from Aang, who began concentrating on his feet. Slowly he could sense Toph's location, and he started cautiously moving towards her.
Suddenly a boulder rose from the ground and came flying at him. Without skipping a beat, he raised his arms and the boulder froze in mid-air, then fell to the ground.
"Huh. A minute ago Twinkletoes was playing dodge-the-boulder, yet now he's blocking them off like a pro. He sure improves fast," Toph observed.
"Well, if it's to prevent me from getting pulverized then I don't really mind," Aang said.
He proceeded to make his way through more flying boulders, jutting pieces of rock, sharp spikes of earth, and even a pit that Toph created in the ground. He simply leaped over the pit with one jump, forgetting the rule that he was not supposed to use airbending.
Toph frowned and cracked her knuckles. "That's it. This guy's getting a hit to the nuts!" She stood firmly in position and clenched her hand into a fist before raising it with a swift movement of her arm, causing a piece of rock to jut up right between Aang's legs. Feeling a sudden stab of pain between his thighs, Aang was sent flying skywards by the force of the jutting rock.
Sokka winced. "Ooh, that's definitely gonna hurt."
Toph shrugged. "Well, rules are rules. He'll recover eventually."
As he yelled in pain, he forgot to slow down his fall and immediately plummeted straight towards Toph, who had been wondering whether she had used too much force and sent him flying over the cliff. The blind earthbender didn't know her student was falling towards her until she finally heard his yells, and by then it was too late.
BOOM!
"Love the boom," Sokka grinned. "Guess you didn't see that coming, huh Toph?"
"Sokka, I can't see at all." Toph waved a palm over her sightless eyes to prove her point.
"Well, at least I didn't get thrown off the cliff," Aang said.
A great cloud of dust arose from the impact of the fall, which gradually cleared away to show Aang sprawled out on top of Toph face down. The airbender got up slowly to see Toph's shocked face, her sightless eyes open in horror. "Toph! Are you alright? I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to, I -"
"You – you- you KISSED ME!" Toph yelled.
"WHAT?!" Aang cried out in surprise.
"WHAT?!" Aang and Toph yelled in surprise.
"Wow, this author really got your characters right," Sokka observed. "Even your reactions are the same."
"Well, I guess you would be the same if someone landed on top of you and kissed you by accident," Katara said.
"Wish Suki would fall on me," Sokka said dreamily, causing his sister to raise a worried eyebrow as she continued with the story.
"You heard me! I had no idea where you were and you suddenly landed on me and we fell and – and our lips met! You actually kissed me!" Toph got up hurriedly and dusted the dirt out of her clothes, refusing to turn her head towards Aang. "Okay, practice's over! Now get away from me!" With that, she ran off back towards the camp, leaving her student all alone on the cliff.
Sokka tsked disapprovingly. "Toph, you shouldn't dump the poor guy just like that. You haven't even started dating and you're already breaking up?"
"I DO NOT want to date Twinkletoes," Toph deadpanned. "Sugar Queen can have him. This author's seriously messed up."
"Compared to the people who put Ty Lee with Azula, I'd say this one's pretty decent," Katara said as she turned back to the book. "Oh, there's a line break. Wonder what that means?"
The moon's silver light shone on Aang as he made his way through the woods towards the nearby lake.
Aang looked confused. "It's already night? But I thought it was morning."
"Maybe that's what the line break's for - it signifies a time leap in the story," Katara suggested.
The team had chosen to shelter in the woods that night, pitching their tents at a spot close to the lake so they could get water easily. The airbender came out of the woods to see his earthbending teacher sitting on the bank of the lake, her feet submerged in the water. He moved to sit beside her, and there were a few moments of awkward silence between them.
Finally Aang cleared his throat. "Um, so are we going to practice earthbending tomorrow morning? Because Katara was thinking we could practice waterbending instead, since we're right next to a lake, and we haven't been practicing in some time, so…"
Toph smirked. "That's all Twinkletoes can say after accidentally kissing someone? That's lame."
"Well, he did accidentally kiss you," Sokka reminded her, and she fell silent.
Toph simply remained silent as she stared (well, sort of) at the lake's smooth surface, occasionally disturbed by the ripples her feet made as they swayed in the water.
Aang tried again. "We were wondering where you went, actually. You just disappeared after dinner, and Katara was getting worried about you. She said you haven't said a single thing all day, and was wondering if you were okay. Then Sokka said he didn't mind you being silent all the time, since it was a welcome change -"
"It is a welcome change," Sokka grinned. "If only it were real…"
"If it were real, I wouldn't keep to myself and hang out by a lake, I'd vent my feelings by trying to knock you off Appa when we're flying," Toph said, which in turn shut him up.
"Katara wasn't worried about me," Toph said all of a sudden.
"Oh, that's nice," Katara said as she frowned at Toph.
The blind earthbender raised her hands in defense. "Hey, that's just part of the story. I know you'll worry like crazy if I went missing, and then you'll give me a hard grilling when I come back."
"That's more like it," Katara smiled wryly as she continued with the story.
"Um, she did say she was a bit concerned at you being so silent, and -"
"Maybe she was worried about that, but what I meant was she wasn't worried about where I was." Toph turned to face Aang for the first time since the incident on the cliff that morning. "I already told her I was going to the lake after dinner, and she let me go without asking any questions."
"Weird. Usually Sugar Queen would have about two dozen questions on where I was going, what I would be doing, when I would get back, and so on," Toph said.
"Maybe she was so happy at you finally shutting up for once she forgot to interrogate you," Sokka suggested.
"I think she'd be happier if you shut up," Toph muttered.
"Oh. Okay. It's just, she never told Sokka or me, and so I wondered where you'd gone, so -"
"You were worrying about me?" A hint of Toph's old smirk appeared on her face. "So what happened this morning might not be a total accident after all?"
"No, I really didn't mean to land on you and… well…" Aang's voice trailed off.
"Just answer me something, Twinkletoes." Toph's milky eyes stared straight at Aang's grey ones. "Did you come to find me because you were worried about me?"
"Of course he did, because you'd taken his staff with you to crack nuts and he was worried you'd break it," Sokka interjected.
"I'd like to use Aang's staff to crack your head," Toph muttered, giving Sokka a (sightless) dark look that caused him to also scoot a few inches away from her.
After a pause, Aang nodded. "You seemed so shocked after what happened this morning, and you didn't say a thing all day. Then you disappeared right after dinner. I was scared that… that you'd run off or something."
Toph raised an eyebrow. "And you don't want me to run off?"
Aang's cheeks started to heat up mysteriously. "Well, I still haven't finishing learning earthbending yet, and obviously I can't do that without a teacher -"
"You can always get a new teacher." Toph leaned towards Aang so that their faces were mere inches apart. "What I meant was, you actually want me to stay? Like, as a friend?"
"Maybe more than a friend," Aang mumbled.
"What's that?"
"No, I didn't say anything! Er, the words just slipped out of my mouth…" Aang's flustered explanation was stopped by Toph putting a finger in front of his mouth.
"Just shut up and kiss me, Twinkletoes."
The airbender paused for a second, then a smile slowly spread across his face and he leaned forward to meet the blind girl's lips for the second time. The difference was, this time it definitely wasn't an accident.
Everyone was silent for a second. Then Toph finally turned to Aang and smiled wryly. "Don't get any ideas from this, Twinkletoes."
Aang blinked once before realizing what she meant. "No, of course not! I definitely wouldn't want to kiss you!" he laughed nervously.
The blind earthbender's wry grin turned to a frown. "Oh, well, I didn't realize it was such a horrible option."
"Why do I get a feeling that this conversation has happened before," Katara mused as she shut the book and looked around at the others, only to find that someone was missing. "Hey, where's Zuko?"
Sokka looked around the room. "Maybe he dozed off again during the story and sleepwalked down the stairs."
"Who's sleepwalking?" Zuko asked as he came up the stairs with a tray of teacups full of jasmine tea, which he set on the low table in front of his friends.
Sokka took a cup and sipped the warm tea. "Oh, nobody in particular."
Whew, sorry for the ridiculously long chapter, I got carried away with my first time writing Taang and the result was over 2000 words! Add that to the Gaang's responses and the polls and we're talking more than 3000 words! As for the polls, they were created by me back when the AtLA Awards were still going on; Led Feynman M.D. was a voter with quite some insightful thoughts. The Legend of Korra one's already closed, but the Azula one's still going on and is currently on my profile. I'll be revealing the results in a later chapter, so if you wish to put in your two bits about who Azula's partner should be then be my guest! In the meantime, comments about my first attempt at writing Taang are more than welcome! Till the next chapter, folks!