Yangchen Fanboy

“What was that for?!” Aang whined, rubbing his aching shoulder.

Toph scowled. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Do what!” Her shriek then came to mind, and Aang scrunched his nose. “Do you mean help you?”

“Yes! I’d rather get face full of fire than suddenly find myself who knows how high off the ground!”

“You were only high enough to clear the fireball,” Katara said placatingly. 

Toph groaned and dragged her hands down her face, pulling her lower eyelids down with her fingers. “And how am I supposed to know that?!”

“Ah…” Katara blushed and muttered an apology.

Sokka shook his head. “Okay, but regardless, I’d rather none of us end up with a face full of fire. So, Toph, let’s say thank you to Aang for saving your butt. And Aang, next time, just blow Toph over instead of up.”

Aang scratched his head sheepishly. “Yeah… suppose that makes more sense. Sorry Toph, I wasn’t thinking.”

Toph dramatically rolled her head around with her eyes, then punched Aang again, much, much softer. “Yeah, yeah, I know Twinkle-Toes. Thanks for the save.”

Some time later, after many adventures and new additions to their group, a similar situation happened again. Only this time, it was Zuko on the other side of Toph and the fireball heading for her. Now, one would expect a firebender wouldn’t be deterred by someone standing between him and incoming fire. However, Zuko was not the average firebender, and since traveling with them, he’d picked up a lot more airbending moves.

So Aang didn’t expect it, but ultimately wasn’t surprised when Zuko called out to Toph in warning and then sent her up over the fire with his heatbending. 

Toph yelped and cursed, but the skirmish continued without incident. 

Once they were back at their camp, Toph approached Zuko before Aang could step in.

“Hey, Pretty Boy,” she said, lightly punching his arm (since his shoulder was just out of reach for her). “Nice save.”

Zuko bumped her back with a huff. “Hardly, I really should have just bent the fire away, but I wasn’t thinking.”

Aang’s jaw dropped. He looked to Katara and Sokka to make sure they were seeing the same thing, but they weren’t actually paying attention. Fine, Aang would just have to stand up for himself!

“Hey! Why does he get thanks, but I got punch punched and yelled at when I did that?!”

They turned to him in surprise, not realizing they had an audience. Toph raised an eyebrow in confusion, then snorted as she remembered. 

“Oh, yeah, guess from your perspective it’s not any different.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?”

Toph shrugged. “Exactly what I said, Twinkle-Toes, that it probably looks the same to you, at least I’m guessing so from your reaction. But they feel totally different. Your airbending felt like getting yanked off the ground and there was no way to gauge how high I went. But Pretty Boy’s airbending kinda feels like being picked up real quick or something like that.”

“It’s not airbending, Toph,” Zuko grumbled, for the hundredth time. 

She waved a hand in the air. “Same diff… Anyways.”

Toph reeled her arm back and punched Zuko’s arm hard enough to send him stumbling a few steps away.

“What was that for?” 

Toph grinned. “Equality for team morale.”