#current au

Taang Kids!

(( In my head, Bumi and Asha take a lot after the Bei Fongs; Bumi looks more like Lao with each passing year -- though he obviously has his dad’s hair and eye colour --, and Asha takes mostly after Toph, who in turn takes after Poppy. The twins, Norbu and Tenzin, are basically carbon copies of Aang (with Toph’s hair). Kavi is a good mix between both parents.. ))

OC: Avatar Tulok

About two years ago (three? my last four/five years are one grey clump of time), when I really got back into ATLA and subsequently started actually interacting with the fandom for the first time, I had the ambition to write something of a follow-up to ATLA myself. Y’know, like LOK, but I’d never watched LOK and still have no intentions to. 

Tulok was the Avatar after Aang in that Alternate Universe of Mine. I mean, he still is; the idea is still technically on live support. He used to be a Southern Water Tribesman but, a while ago, decided it was much more fun to make the Avatar a member of the Foggy Swamp Tribe. 

I also realized that Canon!Old!Toph lived in the Foggy Swamp, the place Aang first saw her in, and that the Taang potential with that is endless, so she does in this AU, too. Just, like, ... not permanently. Just in autumn or something, so she still ... visists the kids, sees the grandkids grow up. Stuff like that. 

And she’s the first to know Tulok’s the Avatar, when he’s still a toddler and stumbles into her camp/cave/whatever (this AU is really not thought through at all), but she doesn’t tell anyone where/who he is for a while. ‘cause a normal childhood is important, and her husband didn’t get one. Neither did she. 

And she knows it's not him.

She knows.

But for just a moment – a short, irrational, hopeful moment –, she thinks it is, feels a tug deep inside her, on a string of her heart that hasn't been tugged in years (that have felt endless and went by in the blink of an eye just the same), so she says, because she cannot help herself, low and yearning: "Twinkle Toes?"

The boy stumbles.

Maybe over a rock, maybe his own feet.

His every step is unsure.

His hand presses against the wall.

"... what?"

And his voice is soft, scared almost, so very clearly that of a child.

She shakes her head, and steps closer to him.

She must've been in the shadows before, because he sucks in air and stiffens a little, and she almost chuckles.

"I'm sorry", she says. "I mistook you for someone."

"Oh."

His chubby finger ghosts over the cave wall in slow, shaky circles.

"I didn't know somebody lived here. Sorry."

Still so very quietly.

She waves her hand to dismiss his concerns. 

"Don't be sorry. I just moved in yesterday."

Well, for this year.

The boy snuffles.

Something about him – and she can't say what, she hates that she doesn't understand – is very undeniably Aang, and it's not the way he carries himself, so very unsure, like a child should be when it stumbled upon a stranger, it's not the way his naked feet feel against the cold stone ground, his toes curled, his weight shifting, and he must be a child of the Foggy Swamp Tribe, and she wonders how he found his way here.

She makes it a point to stay somewhere far away from their settlements.

This is a time for introspection. To think and quietly remember.

(Her husband, their life, how very much she misses both, to return to her family in the early winter and smile at their children, be proud of their grandchildren, without regret in her heart that he would never be able to again.)

The child reminds her very loudly.

Of Aang and something she cannot remember.

"What's your name?", she wants to know. Has to know.

"Tulok", he answers. "Who are you?"

"It's nice to meet you, Tulok. I'm Toph."

-----

Tulok’s born in 167 AG, which would make Aang about 79 (or 179) when he dies. That’s not incredibly old for Avatar world standards (considering Guru Pathik, Bumi and Kyoshi), but it’s not so terribly young, either. Plus, he gets to meet all of his (OC) grandchilden, because the fact that Canon!Aang doesn’t get to meet even one grandkid honestly goes against everything I stand for. 

But, this post isn’t about him. 

Tulok is born and raised in the Foggy Swamp; he’s half Southern Water Tribe through his father, but he has never seen snow, much less the South Pole. Neither have his sisters, of whom he has three. None of the Avatars I know of seem to have actual siblings, so that’s why Tulok gets three of them. Their names are (until I start actually writing them, at which point I may decide those names don’t fit them anymore) Puja, Akna and Rupa. He is the youngest. 

He meets Toph for the first time when he’s about four or five when he stumbles into her cave. CurrentAU!Toph does still live in the Swamp after Aang’s death (mostly because Taang), but only ... part time. During autumn. Anyway, she is the first (and for a long time only) person to know he is the Avatar. 

He becomes a master waterbender at age seventeen, and finds out around that time who he is, as well. That’s obviously later than the Avatar is usually revealed, but in this story, there is just ... nobody who thought to check the Foggy Swamp for him, apparently (or if they did, they were quickly dismissed). I think the Foggy Swamp people are easily over-looked; they like to stay among themselves and they live in the Earth Kingdom, which is usually not the first place you start to search for a waterbender. And when Toph turns up with him, the people who’d actually been searching for him get quite annoyed. 

After water, he has the easiest time with airbending. Maybe because he’s older when he starts learning, maybe because he has been raised in a very spiritual place. Either way, airbending is his favourite after his native bending discipline. Then comes earth (the basics of which Toph has ingrained in him since he was a child, quite unbeknownst to him), then comes fire, as his opposite. 

From left to right: Bumi (18), Tenzin and Norbu (both 14), Asha (12) and Kavi (6).

Yay! I’m done, and I think I did pretty well. Their heights probably don’t match up entirely (I think if you’d unfold Norbu’s legs and put him next to Tenzin, he’d be a bit taller, or maybe I’m just imagining things), but ... yeah. This came out way better than expected. I even think I got some of their personality to show, but maybe that's just because I know ... well, their personalities. 

Sesi (23) and Kesuk (15)

They begin travelling together again around 104 AG. After the war is over, the Gaang scatters in this AU (I’m assuming they do so in canon, too, but I really don’t know). Zuko stays in the Fire Nation as Crown Prince, Sokka and Katara go home, as do Toph and Suki. Aang goes to live with Guru Pathik at the Eastern Air Temple, who is one of the few people, I reckon, who can help him properly work through his loss, and the fact that I have him kill Ozai. But, Aang needs to travel, as the Avatar and an Air Nomad, and after some time with her parents, I think Toph would enjoy travelling with him again. 

They discover Air Nomads living hidden in the Earth Kingdom. This is a few years later, and around the time Zuko becomes a father (and widower). They’d probably have been killed on sight by them, had Aang not demonstrated to be an airbender himself. (The bison, lemur and tattoos were not enough, Fire Nation could’ve had those hidden away somewhere and tattooed one of their soldiers.) This is insofar important that it takes away some of the urgency of … reproduction for Aang and any given partner he may choose, because I don’t want to deal with that too. Not in this AU. I also just love the thought of how happy Aang would be meeting them. 

They start dating in their early twenties. Each other, that is. Around twenty-one, twenty-two or so, after Toph breaks up with Teo (because that’s also a thing), and Aang confesses a crush he’s harboured for a little while longer than he’d like to admit. They keep this from their friends for a while (because it’s important news and those are better delivered in person), but rumours travel fast, so they have to write some letters sooner rather than later.

They love very differently. And they express that love very differently, too. Aang – in my eyes, anyway – is somebody who falls in love fast and hard, and he loves very deeply and very loudly. He’s not afraid to shout his love from the mountain tops, climb a volcano (this word looks stupid, there’s supposed to be a ‘u’) to pick a flower, and tell his loved ones that he does, in fact, love them, every second of every day. Toph loves much quieter. Sure, she’ll punch her friends’ arms, and they know that’s a sign of affection, she’ll hold hands with them during a vulnerable moment, but over all, she’s not somebody for grand gestures and bold declarations of love. I don’t really see her “growing out of” that, because … well, there’s not really a need to grow out of it. This causes some tension in their relationship, especially early on, because they both expect the other to just … understand, and they’re both stubborn in different ways, so they don’t talk about it until they fight about it. They work through this, obviously, otherwise there would be no Taang in this AU, but it takes a moment or two, and quite a bit of sage advice. They were friends for so long; being a couple is different from being just friends, and it takes them some time to adjust to that new reality.

Their first child is an accident. A mostly happy one, but an accident nonetheless. They name him Bumi, after Aang’s oldest living friend of course, partly because Aang lost a bet to Bumi when they were still boys. He is the only one of their children named after someone. Aang’s learned to roll with the punches at this point (and I also think he’d really, really want to be a dad, though maybe not quite so soon), so he’s excited about the pregnancy almost from the start while Toph (who hasn’t ruled out children, either, but is much less sure about having them at this point in time) needs a while to get used to the idea of actually becoming a mom. They’re both ultimately happy with their hoppala child, and they love him very much, but … yeah. No immediate joy. 

They are nomadic. For a very long time. The places they visit most are the various Air Temples, the capitols of the wolrd and Kyoshi Island, as well as the biggest settlement of Air Nomads (in the Earth Kingdom mountains) and Gaoling. I haven’t decided where they ultimately settle (somewhere around Omashu, maybe, because Aang’s got a connection to the place and badgermoles live in the Cave of Two Lovers), but I do know that they will, at which point Toph will open a bending school. Probably. (I also haven’t decided yet how they support themselves before that, but … the Beifongs are rich, so at least I have an easy out.)