Author's note: I think this story just updates slowly now. This isn't supposed to be an excuse or anything, because I just kinda write when I feel like it (and sometimes when I don't), this is just what you guys should expect. For everyone who's reading, that's awesome. This story has gone in a direction I wasn't expecting, as I expected nothing, and I hope it all goes well.

That night, Aang spent all his time glued to Toph's side. He wasn't enjoying it as much as he told himself he was going to, but it was nicer than being alone. To her credit, she was being nicer than usual. She didn't kick at his heels at all, and when she smiled, she showed all of her teeth. It was terrifying. Regardless, Aang tried to make good on his promise not to leave, and tried his best to show her around, despite his lack of knowledge of the area.

"So yeah, Toph, this place right here looks like an airball court. You've ever played airball?" Aang pointed to the raised poles, which had been weathered by time. Some of the stakes were broken in half, bust most of them looked playable.

Toph cracked her neck and squinted, before taking a couple breaths and smiling. "I have not. No one has played any airbender games in a hundred years. I am not an airbender." She took a pause to wave her hand in front of her face. "Plus, blind, remember? Don't really get to play games."

"Oh. Yeah. Um . . . we could play right now? If you wanted?" Aang kicked himself in his head, remembering the time he played airball with Sokka. Plus Toph couldn't see the ball at all. She probably couldn't even get on the poles. Aang went to take it back before Toph herself had to, but her expression was unchangingly cordial as she responded.

"Alright. You're going to have to tell me what the court really looks like though. I'm sensing wood? But different sizes." Confused, Aang gave her specifications on the court and the rules, and then he sat back and watched as she molded a perfect replica out of stone and flipped onto her side of the field. With a haphazard stomp on her pole, she launched a ball made out of dirt into her hand. "Hey, Twinkletoes? This good enough for you?" He followed her up there.

Aang hadn't played airball for seven years, or over a hundred, but he was sure that no one played airball quite like Toph. For one thing, he was pretty sure that he had told her that the point of the game was to get the ball around the opponent, not straight through them. Or into them. After the first bruise, he had thought that Toph was just getting used to the game. After the twenty-first, he had decided that it was just her style. Luckily for him, he actually knew how to play the game. Plus, the ball was made out of earth, and not wood. In normal airball, Aang couldn't sense the ball the way he could now. And while he knew that Toph could sense it much better that way, it gave Aang an edge. Plus, Toph couldn't jump well.

"Damn! Hell! Goddamn hell damn damn!" Toph lost her balance for the dozenth time that match. Her toe slightly missing the pole that she was trying to jump to ended up shifting her balance enough that she had tipped forwards, and she had to roll into a ball and bend the ground into a cushion. Aang debated turning the floor of the arena into mud, but decided that that would have been more insulting than just letting her plow into the dirt. At least the game was almost over. He floated the ball from the ground to his hand, then threw it up and caught it behind his back.

"You ready for the next round? It's a match point."

"Ready as always." Toph climbed to the top of the pole, running too ragged to get up more gracefully, and plastered her smile back on her face. "It's been a great game." She bent her knees slightly and thrust her hands down to around hip level in a classic earthbending stance. Aang just threw the ball up again and hit it with his head to bounce around on the poles, headed straight towards her. At the last second, it hit a pole and zig-zagged around her. Or it would have except for Toph's abrupt jump backwards to kick the ball in a spinney move that was very unlike her. The ball ricocheted across the field before making an abrupt stop at Aang's forehead as Toph fell again to the ground. She let loose a string of curses before putting on her smile again.

"Ready again, buddy." Aang threw her the ball for her to serve, and she caught it just to launch it at him in a full-body throw. The ball went straight to him at a speed he didn't think he could achieve, but he managed to deflect it to a pole next to him and have it bounce off so he could hit it again. When it reached her, she managed to put even more speed on it when sending it back. Aang saw the spin on it, and plotted out a course where he could hit it back to her by barely tapping it.

Then he just let it through.

That's when the yelling started.

They were both on the floor, the arena poles shattered from Toph's rage. Luckily, it hadn't affected the remains of the wooden arena. Unluckily, it meant that it would probably be harder for Aang to escape from the situation unfolding in front of him.

"You let me get that point!" Toph was mad, and Aang couldn't tell why. He also couldn't figure out how she knew that. "You just sat there and didn't move and I shouldn't have gotten that point!"

"It was going too fast! I couldn't do anything!" Aang knew what to do. Deny, deny, deny. There was nothing anyone could do to that.

"That's a giant sack of lies! There were probably twenty ways you could have gotten a point from that. Like all the other ways you managed to beat back my ball!" She was practically shaking, but her smile was somehow still drawn on her face. Aang would have been impressed if he wasn't so terrified.

"Well, I'm tired now! It was a long match!" It had been a long match, to be fair.

"A long match for me! I can hear your heartbeat, idiot! You're still as fresh as a daisy!" Aang found this ironic, as he could feel his own heartbeat speed up. Then he realized that she knew this and it beat even faster. Then he remembered she could tell if he were lying. Denial didn't work against something like this.

"I just wanted to let you win one! I thought-"

"I didn't win one." Toph shut him off with a glance and a sentence. He started again.

"I'm actually pretty good! If you were playing someone-"

"I wasn't. I was playing against you." Aang missed the yelling. Yelling against her was almost fun, but this was just cruel.

"I didn't think you were having any fun! I thought if you-"

"I wasn't. I am not good at this game. But you letting me win a point is worse." Toph's smile changed. Before, it was static, like a painting. It wasn't happy before, and it still wasn't, but before, it at least was neutral. Now she looked like she was trying to bite something. "I thought this game would make you happy, making you win would make you happy. I didn't care if I lost at all. I tried to win, of course, but that wasn't important to me at all, so why did you have to act like it was!?" She shook her head slightly and her cheeks took on a pink tinge that faded almost immediately.

"I was having fun." Toph's smile dropped almost entirely. Aang, relieved she was back to normal, pressed on. "I haven't played in a while and you're actually really good at it so far, especially considering you've never played before. Plus, you made it accessible to you really quickly and for that time, it was almost like being back with the Air Nomads. I just didn't want you to feel defeated or anything. You would have made it against anyone else."

Toph grit her teeth, her head turned up to him from dozens of feet away. "I don't need to be coddled like that." She pursed her lips, rolling over a thought in her head. Aang took this time to interject.

"I know - I should have known. I just-"

"I know I would have beaten anyone else. And I'm going to beat you. Not now, of course. But later, I'm going to beat you so hard you won't be able to wake up without remembering how I destroyed your hundred year win-streak!" Aang had trouble figuring out if she was making a joke or not. So he just nodded silently. Toph opened her mouth, then closed it, before finally letting out half of a smirk. "I'm hungry now. You got any porcupine steaks, or do I have to hunt my own?"

Aang managed to find some wild turnips and yams, and roasted the greens while boiling the roots. Toph sat by his side, teasing him for still being a vegetarian and knowing how to cook.

"The only people who know food before it's eaten are people who don't have servants, and servants. And you, Twinkletoes, are somehow both of those people." Lying on her back and wrapped up in her green and brown clothing, Toph was nearly undetectable to Aang. Aang took his best guess and threw some warm food onto the ground.

"Missed my mouth, loser." A shuffle on the ground indicated that he hadn't even gotten close.

"Sit up and I'll get it next time," Aang laughed at her. He broke off a piece and held it up. Like a bowl of jelly, Toph made to sit up, ending up in what could only be described as a slump. After launching a piece of food in her general mouth direction, he broke down in a fit of giggles. "You gotta open your mouth, Toph," he managed to get out.

She rolled her eyes as she laughed with him. "Boy, I can't tell when it's getting close to my mouth, what am I supposed to do?"

"Wait no, I got this." Aang walked over to her, then broke off another piece with his hand. Toph turned her head to face him, looking straight up, as Aang took that hand and lightly brushed her lips. Subconsciously, Toph opened them to let the food in, accidentally getting some on her cheek. Aang, without thinking, went to brush it off.

"Thanks." Toph's voice broke the haze Aang had been in, and then her cheeks flashed pink. In a moment, Aang was feet away, as if he had never walked over there. When he looked back, Toph had sunk back into the ground.

A minute passed.

"So . . . uh . . . want to go back to the wedding tomorrow morning?"

"Sure."