Chapter Text
The first thing that Toph decides about you, in the first week of knowing you, is that you’re annoying.
Not because you talk too much, you barely talk at all. Not because you’re weak, Toph can tell within seconds that you aren’t.
It’s the way you move; too smooth, too careful. You’re always adapting, always shifting and blending seamlessly into the world around you with a softness Toph isn’t familiar with—like water effortlessly flowing through cracks in the stone.
You haven’t been around the Earth Kingdom too long. Katara knows you better than Toph does. But the earthbender can’t deny that you’ve captured her attention too easily for her not to be intrigued.
It had been about three, maybe four weeks ago now;
Appa had landed on the open area of the training grounds late at night, his heavy weight causing the earth to tremble and Toph to come out running, with only her pajamas on and hair down getting on her face because of the wind.
An unexpected visit from Aang and Katara, and… you. An unfamiliar face at the time. Toph had found you peculiar from the moment your feet touched the ground, and she sensed your unique shape.
You’d hung back, all quiet with one hand buried between Appa’s fur as Katara and Aang did the talking. They’d explained, briefly, how you were a dear friend of Katara, and needed a breath of fresh air.
Toph couldn’t quite put her finger on why she, of all people, was considered said fresh air. But Katara had insisted, “As a favor for a friend, she could use one right now, and you won’t even notice she’s around if you don’t want to.” Her choice of words had made Toph frown, but for Katara to ask, you must have been important to her.
Toph had lowered her head, both hands resting on her hips as if she hadn’t already made up her mind. “Alright, whatever. It’s not like there aren’t mountains of free space here anyway.”
Like a whisper, Toph had caught the stumble in your heartbeat that night. She’d raised her head, her long hair tickling against her cheek as she turned to the general direction you were standing. It was the first time she felt the weight of your gaze on her.
Today, you’re almost familiar. There’s wind blowing atop the rocky mountain. Tree leaves move side to side and blend with the green roofs. Orange sunlight peeks over the mountaintop. You and Toph aren’t the only ones out in the training grounds, but you stand in the middle like some sort of spectacle.
Toph plants her heel harder into the ground during your sparring session, dust shifting beneath her feet as she squares up. “You gonna fight,” she says flatly, raising her hands, “or just keep moving around like that?”
Toph doesn’t admit that it nags at her that she can’t sense where you are at all times. It’s like you can adjust your own pressure against the ground, one moment present, and the other just an echo.
You’d adapted fairly quickly to routine living in the Earth Kingdom with her. Toph is taking longer; she’s still trying to figure you out. She’s been living with you for weeks, yet you still feel far away more often than not.
You don’t answer her right away. There’s water nearby—Toph can hear it, faintly, a stream cutting through stone; it starts at the very top of the mountain and cuts down between trees and rocks—and she feels the subtle shift in your stance through the dirt. All light and balanced. There’s a softness to how you move that would be almost poetic if it weren’t infuriating.
“I am fighting,” you say matter-of-factly, voice tinted with the same levity of your presence.
Toph clicks her tongue, flexing her fingers. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
Then she strikes. The earth snaps forward in a sharp, aggressive line; direct, undeniable. The kind of attack that demands a response.
You don’t bother blocking; instead, you adapt, move with it. Water rises, not as a wall but as a curve, catching the stone and bending it around and away from you.
It’s always a dance with you. Slowly, you silently invite Toph to follow your rhythm. And slowly, she sinks more and more into it.
Sparring with you rarely has a clear ending; the fight stops only because you both need to catch your breath, the sun is sinking lower, and supper will be served soon.
Toph is panting, her hair sticks to her forehead, and part of her wonders why, because you hadn’t landed a single hit on her, and neither had she on you.
She doesn’t know when you started moving again, but now Toph can sense your boots bringing you closer to her. You stop for a moment just shy of passing her by, shoulders almost touching. “Always a pleasure, Toph.”
You intrigue her in a way she can’t quite place. During the day, if Toph searches for your presence, she’ll rarely find more than an echo of you if you aren’t right beside her. During the night, she’s been woken up more than once by the goosebumps on her skin that tell her you’re near. You’re there one moment, and then gone. She wonders sometimes how you do it, how you move through the world unlike anyone Toph has ever known.
Where others leave clear marks against the earth, you feel strangely difficult to follow. Your footsteps are light, your presence shifting and fluid, sometimes fading so softly from Toph’s sense that it unsettles her more than she wants to admit.
You keep to yourself in a strange way, like you want to be more present but aren’t sure how. Because when you’re close, Toph can feel her own interest mirrored back at her, on you.
She keeps testing you because of it. It becomes a habit she anticipates.
The ground is dry the next time you find each other on the training grounds. Solid and reliable. Exactly how Toph Beifong likes it.
She rolls her shoulders once, settling into her stance, bare feet pressing into the earth like she’s reminding it who it belongs to. It’s well into the afternoon already, yet Toph can still feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. A drop of sweat rolls down the back of her neck, and for a moment, she wonders if you can sense that.
Because across from her, you are already waiting, calm and steady. You shift your weight from one foot to another as if to deliberately make it easier for her to sense you.
Toph exhales through her nose, trying to chase away the foreign swell of her heart. The times she’s able to sense your presence so clearly tend to give her pause. “Don’t hold back,” she says instead, sharp, like a challenge she expects you to meet.
“I won’t.” Your voice comes soft again, hands held behind your back, and chin angled up with an easiness that feels earned.
Toph doesn’t wait. The ground cracks forward with a swing of her arm, fast and unyielding. Her fist is clenched, and the muscles of her arm tense under the pressure of commanding the earth to move.
Your stance adapts, and water flows and lifts in response. It curls around the force of Toph’s attack, bending it just enough to break its center, letting the rest collapse harmlessly into scattered dust.
Toph steps in immediately, not giving space or time. Her attacks come quicker now; sharp rises of stone, sudden shifts beneath your feet, forcing you to react, to commit.
But you still don’t meet force with force. Where Toph’s hands are clenched, yours remain open and soft, moving with a fluidity that matches your element. Where her feet hit the ground to shake stone out of place, yours slide against it and carry water like it’s part of your body—slipping, curving, reshaping itself to meet whatever Toph throws without ever fully stopping it.
And Toph feels it through the ground every time, the shift, the redirection. Something in her pauses. She frowns, frustration building as she blows strands of her hair away from her face. “You’re doing it again,” she accuses through gritted teeth, already moving in closer.
“Doing what?” There’s the faintest breathless exhale after your words, the only telling of your exertion until now.
She can feel the weight of your gaze on her. It unbalances her, and Toph hesitates for only a beat; “Not fighting back!”
You hold the silence a moment longer. Even if Toph can sense the single step you take towards her. She strikes again, shorter this time, more precise. A test.
Water meets stone. Not head-on, but like a current curling around a familiar shape. The impact dissolves into something softer, stone and water dancing together until they hit the ground and go their separate ways.
Toph’s lips are parted, and her head turned toward where your water spiral carried her piece of stone. She stills just a fraction too long, surprised, and that’s all it takes.
A splash of water hits her straight on the side of her face; it catches her off guard and drenches her hair and part of her shirt. It doesn’t hurt in the slightest. It’s nothing but a response; if you wanted to, you could. Toph huffs audibly at that, a scowl pulling her brows together in mild annoyance.
“Make up your mind,” Toph mumbles, rubbing the water off her eyelashes.
You take another step forward—the noise of the training grounds becomes muffled when the distance between the two of you diminishes further—it’s not aggressive or imposing, not like Toph does. It’s deliberate, inviting even.
Toph exhales shakily. She won’t turn her head to you, but she can already feel the warmth of your body so near hers. It cracks something in her.
“Maybe… don’t think of it as fighting,” You suggest quietly, one hand reaching toward Toph but stopping shy of actually touching her.
Toph scoffs, a smirk tugging at her lips. “What else would it be?”
There’s a pause. Then, you move again. Not an attack, but a smooth shift of your hands and waist. Your foot slides across the ground in a slow, controlled arc, and the water follows, curling low, tracing the path of your movement like a line being drawn on paper.
Toph feels it. The rhythm of it through the earth.
“…What are you doing?” Toph asks, but there’s less bite to it now. Her voice is more like a quiet thing, curious even.
You don’t stop. You’re circling her now, taking the water with you like a second shadow. “Follow me?”
Toph huffs, her feet press more firmly onto the ground, and the stone hums with her. “I don’t follow any-”
But the words cut off as you turn, the water rising with you in a smooth, circling motion that brushes just close enough to Toph’s cheek to be felt without touching. If she imagines hard enough, she can picture your own hand just shy of brushing her skin.
And it’s not threatening. It’s not defensive, either. It’s-
Toph shifts her footing without thinking. She’s adjusting. Matching your energy out of an instinct that feels almost stronger than herself.
Her heel presses into the ground at a slightly different angle, her weight redistributing to stay balanced as you move around her.
The dance continues. Slow and intentional. You shift again, and the water flows, existing in motion, creating a space that Toph has to respond to if she doesn’t want to lose her footing.
So she does. She steps once. And then again, finally turning to face you, finally falling into a rhythm as she follows a similar pattern to the soft movement of your hands and feet. Eventually, pieces of stone rise along with her hands out of their own volition, and they mingle with the water that follows the curls of your fingers.
You circle each other in a choreography of almosts. Never straying too far apart. For the first time, Toph can finally sense your presence completely; there isn’t just an echo of your figure against the ground anymore. From this close, she can even smell your perfume. It clouds her senses, makes her a little dizzy.
She wonders, for a beat, if this is maybe the only way you know how to be present. To show yourself to her. And if you’ve been trying to do just that, all this time.
Toph’s movements aren’t as fluid as yours—they couldn’t ever be—but they’re precise. Controlled. Each shift is grounded and deliberate, meeting your motion in a way that keeps you connected.
On one move of her arm, Toph’s hand accidentally finds yours; it’s nothing but a brush of fingers that lingers for a second too long, but a shiver runs up her skin all the same. She angles her head down on the same heartbeat, allowing her hair to shadow her face.
Toph’s brow furrows. “…This is stupid,” she mutters.
Your voice is softer now. “You can stop.”
Toph’s jaw tightens. She doesn’t. Instead, she steps in closer. If this is a game, she’ll win it. She matches your next movement, turning as you turn, adjusting her stance to stay aligned with the subtle current of motion between you two. The ground hums beneath her feet with each step.
Above and around you, stone follows water in a perfect synergy of movement. There’s a steady rhythm between the elements as they move not against each other, but together. And somehow Toph is part of it. And she’s willing to stay a while longer, because when you walk away, your presence will be just an echo against the ground once again.
Her breath catches when she realizes, and she holds it as she registers how close you’re standing right now.
“…This isn’t a fight anymore,” Toph exhales slowly with the words, something unfamiliar settling into her chest; a feeling she hasn’t figured out how to name yet.
It’s not frustration. Not this time.
Your lips curve with a grin—Toph can’t see it, but she can hear it in your voice; “No, it isn’t.”
Toph swallows, hesitates. “Then what is it?”
You both slow down, softening. Water and stone alike spiral lower around you, mimicking the sudden intimacy that shouldn’t exist under the sunlight.
“Something else,” You breathe only for Toph to hear. “Can you feel it?”
That answer should annoy her. But it doesn’t. Toph shifts closer instead, close enough now that if either of you missteps, you’d collide.
Neither of you does. The rhythm of your dance already holds like second nature. Toph’s energy is attuned to yours in a way she has never been with anyone else. “Maybe.”
For a while, that’s all there is. No more words. No proving of anything. Just the quiet, steady exchange of motion. Of awareness. Of presence.
For the first time since she met you, Toph sees you clearly.