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Toph is the last to arrive.
She knows that’s the case as soon as she steps into the Jasmine Dragon and is met by a wall of sound from one of the corner tables. The Water Tribe siblings have already gotten into a passionate debate with Aang trying to mediate, though he was struggling to be heard over Katara and Sokka’s escalating and zealous voices. She could feel the way Katara was trying to push past Aang to get in her brother’s face, and she clicked her tongue in place of a laugh.
She felt a cane hit the ground, too, from a table between the door and the gang, and turned to smile vaguely in Iroh’s direction.
“Master Beifong,” Iroh says, tone devoid of the teasing that the others would say that phrase with. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“You too, Iroh,” she says, and put out her arms to accept the side hug she sensed him going in for.
Iroh shuffles alongside her to the table in the back, stepping to the side to let the others at Toph when they finally notice her. She accepts a hug from Katara and then Aang, and tries and fails to dodge Sokka when he ruffled her hair. She punches him hard on the forearm for that.
“Yeah, worth it,” he told her, rubbing his arm.
“So where’s his royal highness ?” Toph asks, taking a head count. The shop is relatively full for the early evening-- but that made sense as many people were finding a warm place to meet with friends before heading to the night festival.
“Oh he’s just,” Sokka says, probably waving his hand in the air, “fussing as usual.”
He says it with a fondness that makes Toph want to retch, but she restrains herself. Katara’s laugh hints that maybe Toph didn’t hide the feeling from her face, though.
Sokka and Zuko’s thing is relatively new, and they hadn’t had the time to let it settle like Aang and Katara had, so it was still oogifying in Toph’s opinion. Though the way Katara grabs Aang’s arm now gave her the oogies too-- but they were engaged and it would probably be rude if Toph kept pointing out how gross they are.
“What’s he fussing over now?” she asks, grabbing a seat at the table and putting out a cupped hand in a silent request for tea. A teapot rattles and someone puts a warm cup in her hand.
“He wants to look as inconspicuous as possible,” Sokka says with an audible eye roll.
“So he’s fixing his hair, or what?” Toph says with a toothy grin.
“Pretty much,” Iroh says. “He is upset that he still fits the clothes he had in the closet. He called me cheap for buying robes that he could grow into!”
Toph gave a full throated laugh at that.
“Well, cheap or not, he’s already making us run behind the schedule,” Sokka grouses.
“You seriously have a schedule? I thought we were just having fun ,” Toph says.
“ Schedules are fun ,” Sokka rebukes.
“If it were anyone else ruining Sokka’s schedule, he’d be plowing down the door and dragging them out,” Katara comments.
“Well, where are we going to eat? Maybe we can walk really quickly and earn back the time,” Aang suggests. “Or we can decide what to order and save time that way.”
Aang was not being serious, Toph could tell. He was just trying to quell Sokka, being the Avatar and keeping world peace and all.
Toph senses Zuko before he says, “How do I look?”
Sokka’s pulse quickens, and Toph keeps herself from rolling her eyes. “Handsome,” she says cheekily. “Now can we get a move on before Captain Schedule implodes?”
--
They are eating at ‘Northern Fried Picken,’ according to Sokka’s schedule. That choice is fine by Toph-- she hasn’t had northern food in ages, and it is time that changed.
As often happens when dining with the gang, Aang could not decide what to eat. Everyone else had already mumbled to each other what they wanted to order, but Aang still hemming and hawing between fried rice and mixed rice. Toph grits her teeth when he makes up his mind just to recant again.
It’s the third time the server comes to check and Toph takes the situation into her own hands.
Before Sokka can ask her to give the group two more minutes ( again ), Toph interrupts. “Actually, we are ready. The big guy will have marinated moo-sow,” she said, punching her thumb toward Sokka. “He’ll have the blood broth with picken and glass noodle,” she continues, pointing at Zuko, “And those two will have stone bowl mixed rice. Egg is alright, but hold the meat.”
The server nods along, unfazed by Toph’s onslaught. “I’ll have fermented kimchi--spicy, not sour-- the fish pancakes, and an order of glazed sweet potato. And a half order of cheesy balls.”
There is a moment of blissful silence at the table, the others dumbstruck at Toph’s lightning fast order.
“I did think the mixed rice sounded good…” Katara says.
“Is that all?” the waitress asks the table at large.
“A jug of water,” Sokka adds.
“And…” Zuko says, leaning back in his seat and craning his neck. “A jug of your Omashu White.”
“No!” Sokka exclaims. “You can’t handle your wine, we’re not getting any.”
“ Sokka , this is a special occasion ,” Zuko replies, offended by his boyfriend’s objection.
Sokka clicked his tongue in annoyance. “A half jug. Aang and Katara don’t drink much.”
“Full jug, we can send the leftover back to the shop.”
“I’m not dealing with you and your uncle getting drunk tonight,” Sokka grumbles.
“Zuko’s right, this is a special occasion! Just let him get it,” Katara chimes in.
There’s a moment of silence where the waitress stood expectantly, waiting for deliberation from Sokka. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m pouring the glasses.”
The waitress was off then, probably relieved to be done with orders from the group.
After a beat of silence, Aang says “Did she say blood broth?” and blanches. Toph and Zuko scoffed, and Sokka laughed out loud.
“It’s been a while since we could all just kick back,” Katara says, moving past discussion of food. “How is everyone? Toph?”
Toph sat at the head of their little table, slouching and crossing her arms. She shrugs. “Eh, the academy is going alright. Couple of them might make something of themselves.” She hears the soft exhale of a Zuko-laugh, and bares her teeth in a grin in his direction. “Something funny?”
He laughs again, and she might feel him shaking his head. “No,” he says, “Just forgot about…” She senses another subtle movement from him. “This.”
“Well how have you been doing, Mr. Fire Lord?” Katara presses.
“Your Fieriness,” Aang adds, his voice distorted by an apparent bow of faux respect.
“Keep that down,” Zuko says, “Trying to keep a low profile is easier when you don’t shout things like that.”
“It’s also easier when you don’t have a scar on your face,” Toph supplies. Someone-- Sokka-- punches her arm. “Hey!”
The jug of water and jug of wine is set down on the table end opposite Toph, along with an array of glasses. Sokka distributes them, and says sternly, “Hand that jug here. Zuko .” It was said as a warning to a stubborn boyfriend, and Toph smiles vaguely downward.
Sokka asks each of them if they’d like some wine, and pours it carefully. Toph doesn’t care for the feeling wine leaves in her mouth, but she agrees to try a little bit. Sokka pours Zuko’s cup last, and the man whines at how little Sokka gave him.
“It’s been quieter lately,” Zuko answers Katara's earlier question as if there had been no break in conversation. “Some… issues from last year have been… resolved, recently,” he says cryptically, carefully avoiding language that would be too specific, that would possibly implicate his true identity. As if anyone would be able to overhear: the waitresses were giving the odd group a wide berth, and the tables on either side of them were occupied by plain clothes Kyoshi warriors and royal guards. As if the Avatar and the Greatest (and Most Humble) Earthbender in the World needed protection.
“More time to spend with Izumi,” Sokka says, and Toph need not imagine the tender look in the man’s eyes when she senses him grab Zuko's hand under the table.
“She’s getting bigger, then,” Katara says.
“Yes, we had her two year portrait done recently,” Zuko says.
“I wish we could make it to the palace to see her,” Aang says, and he sounds tired to Toph’s ear. Perhaps they were all a little tired with their postwar work the last dozen years.
“Perhaps she will accompany us to the wedding.” There was a beat of silence that indicated some sort of meaningful eye contact. Toph tried to hone in on what kind of expression Katara was making, but only got as far as sensing the higher vibration of her betrothal necklace compared to her other jewelry before the waitress came and set food down.
That quiets everyone down-- even Toph must have been hungrier than she had thought when she ordered, because everything tastes even better than she expected and she is shoveling it down her throat.
She pauses to drink some water.
“Are those new bracelets?” Katara says suddenly.
“Zuko got them for me,” Sokka answers immediately, all too eager to show off the jewelry. He even leans over and grabs Toph’s hand to put them on the thick steel bracelets. They had smooth-ridged inlays of shells, probably mother of pearl.
“Flashy,” Toph comments.
“Yeah, he knows my style,” Sokka says, and Toph can track the metal bracelet through the air now as Sokka ran his fingers through Zuko’s hair near the nape of his neck. Blood rushes through Zuko’s face-- though Toph can’t determine if that is due to Sokka’s touch or the half glass of wine he had already drank. Zuko, as everyone knows, owns the title of lightweight of the gang.
“So what’s the plan for tonight?”
Zuko groans before Sokka could even begin, pulling out what sounds like a scroll.
“Well,” he says, and Toph could hear and feel him slide a finger over the parchment as a guide for his reading. “We have twelve more minutes to eat-- and take bathroom breaks if necessary-- and then we’re heading down toward the wall for the festival. There’s a cultural performance in an hour and forty two minutes that I’d like to see-- and that goes for a half hour-- and then I left some time for rides and shopping. Then I thought we could end the night with the play being shown in the Mid Upper Theater.”
Katara groans. “What’s the play?”
“Eh something hokey,” he says, rustling around in his ‘satchel’ (purse). “‘Midnight Mask,’ it says it’s about a masked vigilante donning a blue spirit mask. Supposedly based on true events,” he reads with a laugh.
“Haha, oh…” Aang trails off awkwardly. They all remember the last ‘based on true events’ play Sokka dragged them off to, but somehow this one promised to be immensely less entertaining.
“Yeah, I’m vetoing that,” Zuko sniffs.
“What! Come on--”
“I want to go on as many rides as I can,” Aang says plaintively.
“Yeah, I wanna eat festival food and ride rides until I throw up,” Toph agrees.
She could feel Sokka tense at their rejection, but then he releases it and sighs. “Fine. We have a few days here, and luckily they’re doing evening shows every night .”
“Why do we have to get to the festival so early?” Katara asks, accusatory. “It’s the Winter Solstice Festival, and most of the activities are later on. Can’t we just relax?”
Toph could feel Sokka’s frown. “You don’t want to maximize our time together?”
“The best way to maximize time is to enjoy every second, not chomp at the bit to get to the next thing,” Aang says wisely.
“Fine. There’s a papermaker near the northern entryway to the festival that I wanted to stop at and it closes in an hour.”
“A papermaker? Sokka, how are you the most boring person I know?” Toph laughs.
Sokka sputters at her, “You don’t have any use for paper! I use a ton of it and I want to take advantage of being able to buy some without import taxes, so sue me!” He crosses his arms. “And keep eating, we have ten minutes before we go.”
--
The walk to the festival is nice, if a bit chilly. The terraces of the city always left the Upper Wall exposed, but Toph had known to plan ahead and brought a scarf.
Toph could feel the sprawling vibration of dancers and festival goers, food vendor stands and performance stages and beasts of burden serving as entertainment from a few blocks away. She had not been to a proper Earth Kingdom Winter Solstice since running away from her parents over a decade ago-- she’d been too busy, too far from a city, too apathetic, or varying degrees of all three. Sometimes the thought of going made her homesick, and she holed up in her office at the academy while her students got the week off to return home.
Surprisingly, when Katara had suggested the group of them get together in Ba Sing Se for the solstice, Toph found herself really looking forward to it. She did miss the sounds of the crowds, the traditional performances of drums and dancing. And there is nothing she wouldn’t do right now to get her hands on the solstice eclairs that she loved as a kid.
She had resolved to be patient and let Sokka go into his dumb papermaker store, but now she isn’t sure she can wait.
She is going to speak her mind as the group comes to a stop, following Sokka’s lead, until Katara speaks up instead.
“I’m not really interested in looking at paper,” she says apologetically. “Can we meet you in the festival?”
“Yeah,” Toph agrees, “I wanna get my hand on some eclairs stat.”
Sokka makes an annoyed sound but says, “Fine, go on. Buy me an eclair, too. Are you going with them, honey?” Toph would prefer if Sokka would just say Zuko’s name, but the excuse to use pet names was too great for Sokka to resist. “This shop has rare books, too. Just saying.”
There is a pause. “What kind of rare books?”
“ All kinds.”
“I’ll come,” Zuko agrees immediately. “Hey, if you do find those eclairs, buy me a box of them. Uncle likes them too. Here, to pay for them,” he says, taking his shoulder bag off and handing it to Aang.
“And stay near this entrance so we can find you!” Sokka says as a last thought before the couple turns toward the storefronts nearby.
“Alright, just the three of us,” Aang says, swinging Zuko’s bag over his shoulder and wrapping one arm around each of the girls. “Next stop, pastry town.”
--
Twenty minutes later and Toph is sure she’s eaten a sufficient amount of eclairs for the next ten solstices. It makes her happy to know it was on Zuko’s dime, at least. They sat on the steps of some important building, a spot that conveniently had a nice vantage over the square so as to easily spot Zuko and Sokka, and sat still in the wake of eating so many sweets.
“Does anyone know the time?” Aang asks. “That shop should be closing soon, right?”
“Eh, probably,” Katara answers apathetically. “We can just relax here. They’ll find us.” She sighs, laying back on the cool stone. “I can just imagine my brother getting into some tedious discussion of paper weights with the shop owner, or something.”
Aang snorts and says, “I’ll just put away the rest of the treats for them. Toph, hold this will you?” He hefts Zuko’s bag over to her before Toph can protest, and she has a mind to drop the bag at her feet before she feels something interesting inside the bag. As her seismic sense ran passively through the bag, she sensed something small; it was heavier than the parchment but lighter than the bag of coins-- giving a feedback of vibration somewhere between glass and limestone.
She digs her arm into the bag-- which is larger than she’d expect Zuko to carry-- navigating her way through the mess of papers and smaller bags and pouches until her hand closes on a strip of leather, which she pulls out and holds above her head.
“What’s this?” she demands.
She feels Katara sit up from where she is laying back, then her heart rate spikes and she tries to roll over and grab the thing from Toph. Toph leans away from her easily, straining to hold the thing high above and out of reach.
“Put that back!” Katara hisses, and Aang is craning his head to see what Toph’s got now, too. “You shouldn’t have seen that!”
“I didn’t ,” Toph returns with a grin. “Just tell me what it is!”
Katara scrambles to her feet and snatches the thing away from Toph and stuffs it back into Zuko’s bag.
“Was that a…?” Aang asks, and that pisses Toph off.
“A what ! Why should I be the only one who doesn’t get to know? What was it, Aang?”
Aang’s heart rate was higher now, too, and Toph knows he’s embarrassed. Was it something inappropriate?
“Don’t tell her,” Katara warns him sternly. Toph crosses her arms. Like that’ll stop her. She taps her foot on the stone and senses the same vibrations again, and they are familiar . It wasn’t the leather that vibrated like that-- no, there was a pendant. Thin and sedimentary, she had felt that frequency before. She feels Aang and Katara through her senses.
Zing .
That frequency vibrates back at her, not only from the bag but from Katara . Her necklace . Toph gasps.
“It’s a--”
“Hey guys!” It’s Sokka. “Zuko got pulled into a magic show, come watch!”
Toph, without much recourse available, grabs Zuko’s bag and follows the others.
It is a rather standard magic show, and one that Toph, without ever seeking one out, had witnessed a million times before. The audience member is restrained, or put into an ‘earth box’ that the magician stabs or crushes or otherwise makes it appear as if the audience member couldn’t survive. Toph was never amused by them-- she could sense the way they instructed the member to move, or how the ‘crushed walls’ of the earth trap were really just condensed, the walls becoming thinner rather than the space within becoming smaller.
Still, she gets a kick from the way Zuko’s heart beats hard when the walls around him crumble.
“Hey,” Sokka says to the gang, pulling Toph’s attention from the show. “Check out what I got for Zuko.”
Katara coos over whatever it is he’s showing, and Toph is about to complain when he nudges her arm with a hard edge. She puts her hand out and feels the smooth leather of… a book. She runs her finger over it and has to whistle to herself when she feels the intricate embossing job on the cover. It’s a dragon.
When a gift has a cheesy concept but excellent execution, even Toph has to be impressed. She can feel the heft of the paper-- high quality stuff, she supposes. There’s a cutaway near the back of the book, and zing .
Toph drops her mouth open, and Sokka must notice because he snatches the book away from her hands, and his heart rate is just a tick higher than it should be.
“Haha, yeah, just a normal solstice gift,” Sokka says pointedly, laughing nervously. She senses his discomfort.
“How’d you buy it without him seeing?” Katara asks, alleviating the awkward moment.
“He was looking at the rare scrolls.”
“I think it’s very thoughtful,” Katara comments.
“He’ll love it!” Aang agrees.
They don’t know what’s in the book, but Toph knows and now she cannot stop sensing the hidden gift within the gift. Zing sings the book. Zing sings the bag under Toph’s arm. Zing sings the necklace sitting on Katara’s collarbone.
“Yeah, he’s gonna love it,” Toph agrees. She doesn’t need to see the look he shoots her to grin like the demon she is.
Zuko is returned to them by the street magician, and Sokka smacks him on the back. “That was fun, right?”
“No,” he says, training his voice to be low and serious. Toph didn’t need to say that he was lying, at least a little bit.
--
They made their way to the performance stage. Despite Sokka being keeper of the schedule, Katara ended up having to drag him away from the vendors that lined the streets along the way. The night was maturing, and what had been the nip of cold as the sun set sunk into the ground and became background noise for the heat of the packed crowd.
She could sense when Sokka slid his cold hands into Zuko’s, and how Katara moved in close to Aang who was no doubt using his airbending to keep their warm breath close to their bodies. Toph shivers. “Why don’t you direct some of that hot air this way, Twinkle Toes?”
Aang laughs and puts his arm over Toph’s shoulders, his cape thing draping over her back, and Toph is instantly warmer. Though she resents the way he can lean over and rest his cheek on her head now. He does just that and she harumphs. She’s not going to shove away her personal heater, though.
So Toph never did surpass any of the others in height-- that was fine by her, because why would she want to be so far from the ground?
She wonders if Sokka or Zuko know what the other is planning. It’s got to mean something as far as compatibility that they are both planning to pop that question tonight, right? Toph can admit that it is sort of sweet that they are so well synced, even if it makes her nauseous.
There is a crowd up ahead, and there are still two blocks between them and the performance stage. While Toph would be able to feel the dance and the drums from this distance, the others wouldn’t.
There is an empty balcony a half block up, probably close enough to watch from. “If only we could get up there,” Toph says, pointing her best approximation of the balcony’s direction.
“Yeah, how could we ever make it?” Aang says, and Toph recognizes his sarcasm too late: he boosts the three of them through the air. Sokka yells at them, his voice quickly fleeting as the cold wind whips Toph’s bangs. Katara is shouting, and she sounds happy as Aang lets the three of them touch the balcony floor. Toph’s stomach is still down near Zuko and Sokka-- who is still yelling in the distance-- and she keels over the railing as soon as she can feel it out. She’s dry retching, but Katara and Aang just laugh at her.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Toph warns Aang, but it comes out faint.
“Hey, I thought that’s what you wanted me to do,” Aang says innocently, rubbing her shoulder, but Toph knows perfectly well that he knew she would never suggest flying, period.
“You’re the worst,” Toph mutters. She doesn’t think he hears her, though, because Sokka is screaming, getting louder as Aang’s gust of wind delivers him and Zuko to the balcony as well, and then the man is flailing beside Toph on the railing while Zuko slumps to the floor laughing.
“I’m glad someone appreciates me,” Aang says, putting out a hand to pull Zuko back up.
“This will be a good view,” Katara says. “Can you see, Toph?”
Like many buildings in Ba Sing Se, this one is carved from stone so Toph has an exceptional ‘view’ of the surrounding area.
She also has a view of Sokka and Zuko huddled to one corner of the balcony railing, and she has the ringing of the three necklaces vibrating in her bones, and she recalls the rather heavy bag she still held under her arm. She drops it with a thump .
The balcony is a residential one, but Toph senses the apartment and finds no one home-- probably down at the festival. They won’t mind the Avatar and friends borrowing their balcony for the evening.
The first sound of the performance-- a deep, resounding drum beat that echoes through the streets-- sends a thrill down Toph’s spine. There were nearly fifty drummers on the stage, their drums suspended on wooden racks and left it to surprise when the drummers beat the center of the drum or the metal that secured the skin around the rim. She could feel the drummers movements as they moved the beat as one, could feel the sound vibrating off the streets below. It lit the world up for Toph, let her feel the way the crowd reacts to the bone shaking rhythm.
Art isn’t Toph’s thing, but this is something more than art to her. Everyone in the crowd had a taste of Toph’s world view, feeling more than seeing the slam of drums.
As the first song comes to an end and the drummers adjust their placement on stage to accomodate a dancing troupe, Toph leaned back from the railing to call to Sokka, “Good choice!”
“Mmm,” Sokka responded, unwilling to detach from where he and Zuko were pressed together. It is colder up here than on the street, insulated by the crowd. Stil, Toph grimaces at them.
Zuko’s heart rate is still elevated from dinner, still drunk enough to shamelessly nuzzle into Sokka. Aang and Katara seem to be willfully ignoring it, so Toph resigns herself to do the same.
The next drum performance is less punchy than the first, more a background for the dancers who now step in time with the drumming, and Toph’s attention patters off elsewhere.
She uses her seismic sense to watch the people down below in the crowd. Certainly, to her sighted friends, those people are just a dark throng of people, indistinguishable from one another. But to her, she can feel the way each individual sways to the music, how they turn to friends and chatter, can feel the gradient of density between bodies leading up to the cramped space surrounding the stage.
The first pop of fireworks makes Toph jump, and Aang laughs. She’s about to give him a piece of her mind when he put her hand in front of her face just as another firework popped off, somehow muffling the sound. She scowls, but gives him a small smile. His other hand is in Katara’s.
The pops become more clustered, and Toph occupies herself with sensing the thrum of the drum beats where they vibrated through the ground, since she could no longer hear any of it.
The last resounding beat aligns with the largest of the firework explosions, and Aang releases whatever shield he’d created for Toph so she could hear the gasps and cheers from the crowd. The drummers bowed and began wheeling their drums backstage.
“Well, was there anything else on the schedule?” Katara asks with a yawn, grabbing the railing and leaning back to stretch her arms. “Because I’m ready for some hot tea.”
“There was one more thing,” Sokka says, and it’s got a thin quality that Toph does not think she’s ever heard from him before. “It’s pretty rare that we’re altogether, and I wanted to take the chance to… Give this to you,” he says, and it’s clear he’s talking to Zuko now. This was really going to happen right before Toph’s face. She tries to hide her grin.
Sokka pulls the book out of his satchel and hands it to Zuko. Toph senses Zuko’s hesitation, and Sokka’s whispered, “Take a look in it.”
The pages fwip open under Zuko’s manicured nails (and okay, she can’t tell if his nails are really that manicured, but she knows they are) until they come to the cut away section holding the secret. All at once Toph feels Katara and Aang and Zuko’s hearts patter faster-- Sokka’s already was, the sappy bastard.
No one is moving. Zuko manages to choke out a scoff, which sets Sokka’s nerves into a fritz.
“Aang, where’s my bag?” Zuko demands.
Aang can barely manage a huh? before Toph kicks the bag over to him with the help of a stone she earthbent up from the balcony. Zuko kneels and digs through it before popping back up with his own necklace in his clutches.
“ I was going to propose to you !” he says, offended at the way Sokka clearly undermined him.
“Wh- what?” Sokka exclaims. “So do it!”
“No! I had it all planned out! Take it back,” Zuko demands, shoving the book back to Sokka like it burned him.
“What the hell, just accept it and you can propose later!”
Toph has to hold in her laughter that threatened to bust her gut-- she had never truly understood that phrase until this moment, actually.
“Boys…” Katara starts, trying to mediate, but Aang puts his hand on her arm and shakes his head.
Toph doesn’t know who will compromise, but however long this will last will at least let the crowd below disperse before they figure out how to get back down. Toph was ready to refuse letting Aang boost her back down. Her head spun at the idea.
“You’re such a brat,” Sokka says, but he’s taking the book back and putting it in his satchel, throwing an arm around Zuko’s waist. “But I’ll take that as a yes anyway.”
“Aw, congratulations!” Katara exclaims, throwing her arms out and embracing both of them. Zuko mutters to himself (something about we’re not engaged yet) and then Aang joins in on it, and someone yanks Toph into the group hug by a sleeve. She and Zuko sulk through it.
Toph rolls her eyes.
“Right, so how are we getting down to the street?” she says, arms crossed.
Katara hums. “It’s clear enough down below that I could make us a slide.”
“Absolutely not,” Toph says.
--
Toph’s refusal fell on deaf ears. Katara made an ice slide up to the balcony, and Toph ended up bending an impromptu set of stairs down the side of the building facade for herself.
The walk back to the Jasmine Dragon is crisp, the air smelling of fireworks and street food, filled with the buzz of the night festival. Light floods the streets from the various homes and storefronts open late and crackling with activity. The darkest day of winter is past, and that is an exciting time for everyone.
It is a night for new beginnings, for looking to a brighter future. Which Toph supposes is why it’s such a popular proposal opportunity within their group and without.
“So, what’s the husband of the Fire Lord called, anyway?” Sokka says at some point. Toph and Aang both groan, knowing the direction this was going to take. “Seriously!” Sokka continues. “I mean, the wife of a Fire Lord is called the Fire Lady, right? So what’s the term?”
Zuko starts to say something but Sokka talks over him.
“Fire Husband? Fire Man? Zuko, am I gonna be the Fire Man? Call me Fire Man Sokka, Master of the Boomerang.”
“No,” Zuko protests, but Aang joins in before he can set the record straight on the proper title.
“Fire Mister!” Aang cries. “ Mister Fire Lord.”
“Fire Lord Two!” Sokka adds.
“No--”
Toph can’t help herself-- “Royal Bedfellow!”
“Ooh that’s a good one,” Sokka preens over top of Zuko’s increasing volume of protest. “Royal Bedfellow: it really rolls off the tongue.”
“Stop!” Zuko begs. “The title would be Prince Consort, okay?”
There is silence as Sokka thinks it over. “ Consort , eh?” He nudges Zuko with his elbow. “Sounds kinda dirty.”
Zuko sputters. “More than bedfellow ?”
Sokka snorts. “You’re so cute when you take a joke too seriously.”
Toph can feel the blood rush to Zuko’s cheeks again. “You know, I have time to change my mind about proposing to you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sokka says, and he leans in to kiss Zuko on the cheek.
It still gives Toph the oogies to have to bear witness to all this-- not to mention the background noise of Aang and Katara cuddling and talking softly, giggling at the boys-- but she can admit she is happy for them.
When they arrive at the Jasmine Dragon, it sounds like there is a live band inside-- the lights are all on and the sounds of lively horns and drums flood the street.
She feels it when Zuko face palms (and is that something he picked up from Sokka? Toph can’t remember him making that gesture before). “My Uncle really likes music nights.”
“Care to warm up with a dance?” Aang says to the gang, though Toph knows it’s directed to Katara.
“We’ll see you guys inside,” Zuko says.
“Oh,” Aang says, then “ Oh . Sure,” after a meaningful silence from the group. “Right.”
Toph clicks her tongue and grabs the door, opening it for the three of them to be greeted by a wall of sound and Iroh pulling them in and saying something about starting a pot of tea, though Toph couldn’t hear over the dozen mismatched musicians playing their heart out.
The four of them sat near the door, where some vibrations of music can be alleviated by the windows. The ease with which Iroh took Sokka and Zuko’s absence meant one thing to Toph-- Zuko had already shared his plan with his Uncle.
Her suspicion is confirmed when the boisterous song the band had been playing came to an end and he snaps his fingers to get his friends’ attention. “Boys, how about we play something romantic. ”
Toph is relieved when the wall of sound subsides into soft string instrumentals and underlying woodwind melodies.
“Now, how was the festival?” Iroh asks, finally able to speak with them.
“I think I’ve eaten enough sweets for a month,” Aang says and Iroh laughs heartily.
“The drumming troupe is brilliant,” Katara says, and Toph has to nod in agreement.
“Yes, we are lucky in Ba Sing Se to have so many talented musicians.” Iroh says it loud enough for his friends in the shop to hear him.
“Well, we always knew culture was important here,” Aang says with a wry laugh, “But we didn’t always get to see the, uh, good side of that.”
“Well, that is true.”
Iroh is interrupted before he can say something by the door swinging open. Sokka enters, followed closely by Zuko like a little turtleduckling.
Sokka marches straight to their table and points to something on his body. “Look what my fiance gave me,” he says with an audible grin.
Toph needs not try to figure out where he’s pointing as she reaches out with her senses-- the necklace on his collar jumps out to her immediately.
“Congratulations, my nephew!” Iroh says, already on his feet to pull the two into a hug.
As soon as he’s released, Sokka is stooping to lean an elbow on the table. “And he even allowed me to propose to him, too,” he says cheekily. Sure enough, when Zuko extricates himself from his uncle, Toph senses the necklace under his high collared robes as well.
“I’m not even going to be mad you’re overshadowing my engagement,” Katara says as she stands to hug the two, too.
“You’re so going to be a little mad,” Sokka rebukes her. “Come on, Toph, get in on this.”
Toph grumbles as she gets to her feet, letting Katara and Sokka pull her in-- Aang fills the space between her and Katara, and Zuko gets roped in too.
“You know, I’m not wearing a dress to either of your weddings.”
Sokka snorts a laugh before letting them go. “My lord,” he says, turning to Zuko with what sounds like a deep bow. “May I have this dance?”
“Of course, my dear Bedfellow,” Zuko retorts with a similar sarcastic bow. Toph hears Iroh choke on his tea.