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"Are you sure you have to leave?" She asks snuggling in closer to his side, seeking more of the glorious heat his body emits. The perks of being a fire bender she thinks. He chuckles at her whining tone and she can feel the vibrations rumble through his chest with her cheek pressed against his firm pectoral.
"It'll only be for a few days," he promises running soothing fingers through the long dark strands of her hair.
She grumbles something unintelligible into his chest, still clearly unhappy with him going away.
"I'll make it up to you when I get back," he whispers in her ear, tracing swirling patterns across the bare skin of her back exposed by the blanket.
He can practically feel her smirking at his words despite the fact that her face is buried in his chest.
"Are you offering what I think you're offering?" She asks, still firmly refusing to budge from her position, her lips brushing against his skin as she speaks.
He traces a finger lightly along the slender curve of her neck and then along the delicate line of her collar bone.
"I guess that depe-" he is suddenly interrupted when she wraps a leg tightly around his own, thrusting her hips and chest up and against his body, rolling them so she can pin his body beneath her own. "Toph!" He cries out and she can't help the laugh that bubbles up and out of her lips at the surprise in his voice.
"What's the matter Twinkletoes?" She teases, her face hovering just centimetres above his own, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders to frame her face, the ends of her hair tickling him where it brushes against his skin.
"I can't believe I'm in love with you," he mutters whilst she lets out an evil little cackle of laughter.
"Don't lie, you love it!"
A smile pulls unbidden at his lips as he thinks about the fact that he does love her, he loves everything about her. The sunlight streaming through the half open curtains lights up her misty eyes and he can't help himself from thinking how perfect she is to him.
"You've got that mushy expression on your face again," she says breaking the silence.
He's stunned for a moment, unsure of how she is able to tell what his face looks like.
"I can feel it in your heartbeat," she whispers softly, her lips brushing the shell of his ear.
Her words echo in his mind long after he has left and begun his journey. When he lands Appa and begins the short walk into town, he repeats her words to himself, almost like a mantra to bolster his strength as he considers just turning around and hightailing it back to Toph in Republic City. It feels as if he has swallowed a badgerfrog and his heart is pounding in his throat as he is escorted through ornately decorated hallways. He is ashamed to admit that a part of him almost wishes to face the Fire Lord again rather than face the fiercely stern looking man before him.
"What is your business here Avatar?" The man asks, running a hand over his bearded chin.
"I have come to speak with you, about a private matter," the Avatar states.
"And what makes you think you have any right to just waltz into my home after what you did?" The man asks, raising a questioning brow.
"I uh-" the young Avatar swallows, repeating the mantra in his head. "I apologise for how I acted in the past, but my past discrepancies are not my reason for visiting. As we both know, those conflicts have long been resolved."
The older man squints as the Avatar flushes pink before his next words.
"I come to seek your blessing Lord Beifong, as I ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."
His words seem to hang in the air as a heavy silence falls over them. It is almost a full two minutes before Lao Beifong speaks, breaking the suffocating silence.
"So after stealing my daughter away, you come to me now , seeking my permission so that you might have my daughter's hand in marriage?"
"Uh…" Aang scratches the back of his head nervously as he searches for a response. "It's not like I really stole Toph away or anything, I offered her to come with us and she chose to come along but I guess I needed her too but it was always her choice and I would never want to steal her but I…" the words rush out of him and he flushes red at his nervousness making the words spill out if him without filter.
The other man frowns at him and Aang wonders why on earth he thought it would be a good idea to visit Toph's father.
"Why should I let you marry my daughter?" Lao asks in a carefully neutral tone.
"Well, because I love her," Aang answers as if it is the most obvious reason in the world. "She makes me so happy and I think I make her happy too, and I want to spend the rest of my life together with her, making each other happy." He pauses for a moment to look seriously at his beloved's father. "I love Toph more than anything in this world and there isn't anything that I wouldn't do for her. She has my heart and I her's, and I ask only for your blessing because I know she would be loath to admit it aloud, but you are her father and she loves you, so it would mean a lot if you were to bless our marriage."
It was an old tradition followed in the Earth Kingdom and he knows that despite Toph's previous penchant for breaking rules, she was raised on the traditions of her culture. Regardless of how she might claim to not care about such traditions, he knows that having her father's blessing would mean a lot to her, and perhaps even go some ways toward mending the bridges between the two of them. Aang looks nervously at Toph's father, wondering how the other man will respond.
"You say you love her Avatar," he starts as Aang nods his head, "but if I said that it was in my daughter's best interests never to see you again. Would you walk away?"
Aang pauses for a moment, taken aback by the question.
"How could you ask such a thing?" He looks at the man with hurt clear in his eyes. "I love Toph but I-I couldn't never just leave her, walk out on her like that! It would break my heart and I think it would break hers too! I would never do that or anything that would hurt her!"
The room is quiet for several moments as the older man sits there thinking over the Avatar's words whilst his intense brown eyes scrutinise the young man looking for any impure intentions. Seemingly assured by what he finds, the older man nods to himself before returning his heavy gaze to the young Avatar.
"Listen to me carefully young Avatar, my daughter means the world to me and to allow any man to marry her would be the highest privilege I could bestow upon him. With the Beifong name and a reputation that precedes her, my daughter is hardly short of suitors,” he pauses for a moment, taking in the Avatar’s attire in his bright orange robes.
“However, it seems that somehow you, a monk with no real means of income or wealth, nothing other than your status as the Avatar, have managed to win my daughter's affections where others have failed. I cannot say that I understand it, nor that I am completely overjoyed by it, but if it is true that my daughter does love you; then I grant you my blessing."
Aang stands there for a moment, caught in an expression of surprise as he takes several moments to process all that's been said and chooses to ignore the slight against his person. A slow grin breaks upon his features when he realises he has been granted the blessing of his potential future father in-law.
Removing the face splitting grin from his features, proves an almost impossible task as he tries to school his features into a more subdued smile. He can hear the familiar sounds of his earthbender puttering about their home as he crosses the threshold.
"Toph?" He calls out, alerting her to his presence.
"Twinkle toes!" He hears from one of the rooms further into the house, followed by the sound of footsteps running towards him.
He is suddenly hit with the full force of a Toph sized cannonball as she launches herself at him and into his arms. Stumbling back a step from her momentum, he uses his air bending to keep them upright as he wraps his arms around her, holding her against his chest with her arms and legs wrapped firmly about his torso. He can feel the steady thumping of her heart from where her chest is pressed tightly against his, and when he closes his eyes he can almost feel the way his own heart beats in tandem with hers.
“How was your trip?” she asks as he returns her to her feet.
“It went well,” he smiles nervously feeling butterflies in his stomach, “really well.”
She cocks her head to the side with just the slightest narrowing of her eyes.
“What are you not telling me?” she asks with a hint of suspicion in her voice.
Unconscious of the habit, Aang lifts a hand to rub nervously at his bald head as he lets out a deep breath trying to calm his heart beat.
“Well..” he starts, hoping to the spirits that she will let him finish what he has to say before bending him into the ground. “The diplomatic mission was really more of a personal one. I went to see your father.”
Her brow furrows deeply upon mention of her father and he is grateful that she hasn’t said anything yet.
“It’s not what you think,” he continues, “I went to see him about a personal matter. Something, or rather someone, who’s very important to me.”
He can almost see the way the pieces are falling into place for her as her lips form an ‘O’ shape with the dawning of her realisation. Her heartbeat stutters for a moment when she senses him shifting, moving from his position standing in front of her to a bended knee, hand grasping hers.
“Toph Beifong,” he says softly, feeling the almost imperceptible shaking of her usually steady hands, “I ask with the blessing of your father, will you marry me?”
Her strong fingers squeeze tightly around his own as she tugs him back to his feet.
“Yes,” she tells him as a grin begins to spread across her lips. “Yes Aang, I think I will.”
She smiles as he presses a kiss to her lips, his hands clinging to her small frame as he holds her tightly against him. Just as quickly however, he reels back from her as if stung.
“I forgot!” he exclaims slapping a hand over his forehead as the other rummages through his robes to pull out a small box.
Snapping the box open, he takes the small, delicately carved jade band and slips it on her finger, pressing a kiss to it as she laughs at her adorably lovesick fool.
“I can’t believe you asked my dad for permission,” she tells him as she pulls him back towards her for a kiss.
“I can’t believe she said yes,” he admits as they part for breath before he takes her lips with his once again.
“I can’t believe he said yes either,” she whispers back against his lips, acutely aware of the way Aang’s hands are pressing her tighter against him.
“Can we please not talk about your dad right now?” He asks with a soft groan, pulling back from her just enough so their lips barely brush.
She huffs out a laugh before pressing a sweet little kiss to the tip of his nose.
“Whatever you want, future husband.”
He grins wide at the endearment before wrapping his large hands around her waist and slinging her over his shoulder.
“I like the sound of that,” he tells her as he walks towards their bedroom, her hands slapping lightly at his lower back in protest of being manhandled despite the laughter spilling from her lips, “husband has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it my future wife?”