disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. just like everything else.
notes: this is an out-take oneshot from Days Without Rain. there are like ten-ish of them, if I've got my facts right. so. yeah.

title: a mad man with a mad plan
summary: Or, that time Bumi decided to make Toph a princess, and everyone involved was suitably whelmed. — Toph, Aang, Bumi.

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"Wait, what."

"That's what it says, Sifu."

"So. Wait. No. I don't get it, Twinkles."

Aang blinked. "What's not to get? Bumi—"

Toph waved a hand, scrunched her face up. "No, I mean. He's not serious, right? He can't be serious."

"I dunno, this looks… pretty real, Toph. And, uh, this is Bumi."

Bumi had been known to come up with mad schemes like this in the hopes that no one would take him seriously. Usually it worked, but also not usually on Toph—earthbender to earthbender, she could totally take him.

"You are shitting me," she said.

"Language, Sifu.

"Twinkletoes, you can tell me what to do the day you actually beat me in a proper match. Which will be never, so shut up."

Toph grabbed the roll of parchment from him hands and ran her fingers over the raised letters again. The old geezer had clearly had this written with her in mind; who else would think of raised ink? Spirits-be-damned-Bumi, of course. He would find a way to send her a message that she couldn't misunderstand.

She touched the letters again, just to make sure they said exactly what she thought they said. And damn it, he'd even put in clauses on things that she could have otherwise twisted to her advantage! What even was this?!

Toph took a deep breath of air in through her nose.

"Sifu? You okay?"

"I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him," Toph breathed heavily through her nose, rage trembling along every nerve. She was going to crush that old bastard to gravel.

"Sifu? Toph?"

Aang sounded very concerned. Toph didn't much care. She had bigger fish to fry than Twinkles, right then. She waved a hand in his direction. "Get that dam saddle on Appa's back, Twinkles. We have an old guy to turn to rubble. You get me?"

"Yes, Sifu," Aang sighed resignedly, and went to get the reins.

Good.

"I trust you, big guy," Toph said to Appa conversationally, and patted his side as he bellowed something friendly as she launched herself into the air and tumbled inelegantly onto the skybison's back on the comedown. Aang settled in at her side a moment later, checking that she was all attached out of long habit.

"Don't hurt Bumi too bad, okay? He's…"

"Dead meat is what he is. The Spirits are testing me," Toph replied, voice ominous and her eyes scrunched shut as she tried to envision earth, blessed earth and not the free-fall that she knew was just below Appa. The eye-scrunching was clearly an involuntary reaction (clear as mud), because who needed eyes when you could see the world through movement?

The saddle lurched as Appa's muscles bunched beneath his thick fur for take-off. Toph clung on for dear life.

This was just not a good day.

"Are we there yet, Twinkles?"

"Toph, we just took off."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"No, Sifu, not yet."

"I will get you for this, Twinkles," Toph grumbled, and curled into a tiny ball in the middle of the saddle. It was where she felt safest; not that she distrusted Twinkles or Appa, because she knew that if she did fall, they would catch her, but—

BUT STILL, OKAY. BLIND EARTHBENDER GIRLS WERE MEANT TO KEEP THEIR FEET ON THE GROUND. OKAY? OKAY.

She had near three years of experience on this creature, and she was still totally never getting over it. Aang patted the top of her head, gentle as a summer breeze and somehow twice as warm. Calm settled into Toph's bones.

Stupid Twinkletoes, she thought, fond.

Couldn't keep his feet on the ground if his life depended on it.

"How does he think this is a good idea, Twinkles?" Toph asked idly. The sky flew over them, or at least she thought it must have because she could feel the air through the loose hair of her bangs. For a moment, she thought that maybe she'd take her hair out of its binding to let the wind have it. It was always a mess, anyway.

"Huh?" said Aang.

"Bumi. How does he think I'd—does he actually think—I don't get it."

There was a stir in the air, a hitch in his voice. "You'd be a good princess."

"Explain that," Toph ordered. "Or I will smash you so hard next time we train."

Rustle of fabric as he—shrugged? She couldn't see anything on this saddle; it was such a huge pain, she had to rely on voice cues, and Toph had never been much good at that.

"You've got that whole—lady thing. From your mom."

"My mom would prefer it if I never stepped outside, remember? I like dirt, Twinkles. What kind of princess likes dirt?"

"And earthbender princess?" he asked rhetorically.

"You are so lucky I hate moving on Appa, Twinkles, or I would punch you so hard right now."

"I know how this works, Sifu," he said. There was a smile in his voice, Toph could hear it. He just vomited sunshine, didn't he? Why had she ever agreed to hang with him, again?

Oh, right, because if she hadn't, she still would have been stuck in Gaoling, sneaking out at night to win every single underground rumble within walking distance. She wouldn't have ever felt wind on her face, or have had her feet burned, or wouldn't have—wouldn't have met Sokka. Or Sweetness. Or Sparky. Or Aang, even.

The thought made her shudder. Because even though she was still the Blind Bandit (no matter what anyone said), and she could totally still take the Avatar down when she was in the mood (which was not something just anyone could say), a good portion of the world still saw her as a helpless little blind girl.

Which, clearly, Toph Bei Fong was not.

Whatever, fuck 'em, anyway.

She was so not in the mood.

Toph curled up in the saddle, and tried to get some sleep.

—

There was the hollow ringing in her senses that always accompanied long flights and separation from the earth for too long, when she woke. Ugh, gross, her bending would be all wacky. Toph rubbed at her face to wake herself up.

She croaked "Are we there yet?"

"Almost," called Aang cheerfully.

Toph didn't even need to ask how he was so upbeat this early in the morning—Aang was an Airbender, the last one in all of the entire world. For him, being high up in the air must have been the only place that he might have felt like the world hadn't caved in on itself because he'd run away.

She didn't call him coward.

She didn't need to.

There were other people to do that, and she'd touched his face when he was scared and burned and hurt. Toph knew what the Avatar's fear felt like, and she wouldn't wish it on him ever.

Twinkletoes didn't deserve that.

No one did.

Omashu's air tasted different than the air in the rest of the world. There was grit in the air here, dust from the transportation systems, maybe—Toph could feel it between her teeth, the sweet relief of dirt after too many hours of sensory deprivation. They were close to setting down. She could tell.

Finally. Thank the Spirits.

Toph didn't kiss the ground when she jumped off Appa. The first touch of stone under her foot sent a shock through her system. Because she could see again, and Spirits, it was so lovely. So she didn't kiss the ground.

She thought about it, but she didn't.

It was a close thing, though.

"Let's go find Bumi, Twinkles. I got a bone to pick with him, and he ain't gonna like it," Toph said grimly.

Omashu hummed around her. The palace wasn't far from here. Her hands clenched into tight fists, and the ground rumbled before it split straight down the middle. Three transport shoots broke right off, and Toph would just like to see them get mad at her for it.

(Haha, see, geddit?)

Wanton destruction was still her favourite thing.

And, hell, if she was going to be princess of this place, she was going to have some fun.

But first she had to crunch Bumi for orchestrating it in the first place, though.

And she was going to revel in it. Fifteen-year-old Toph was twelve-year-old Toph, only a little more bitter and a little less tolerant of incompetence (if that was even possible). A little older, a little wiser, and deep-running as bedrock.

Shaking things up was exactly what she needed to do, here.

Toph thought Aang looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and tried her very hardest not to succumb to temptation and sink him into the ground. He was almost floating, again, Spirits, when was he gonna learn?

"Keep your feet on the ground, Twinkletoes. What the hell kinda earthbender are you?"

"Not," Aang said, but it came out more like a question.

Toph rolled her eyes towards the sky. "Airbenders," she sighed. "C'mon, we got work to do."

"Why do I have to come?"

"Because I said so," Toph said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Koh, Twinkles, don't you know anything?"

"I still don't like that guy," Aang muttered.

"No one does, he takes people's faces for a living," she said, matter of fact. "Are you coming, or what?"

"Yes, Toph."

"That's Sifu Toph to you, Twinkletoes," she said.

He made a sound like he was about to complain, and Toph threw him the look that she always used to quell her parents. He shut right up.

Classic, thought Toph. It never failed.

(And it was better, frankly—Aang hadn't been the same since he'd blown into her room in Sparky's palace three weeks previous, wild-eyed and shaking so hard he might have brought the entire place down around their ears. Toph hadn't asked why. She didn't really need to ask, to know. If Sweetness wasn't sleeping in Hotman's room by the time they got back, she was going to eat Foo Foo Cuddlypoops, and who in Hei Bai's name wanted to get close to that abomination? Noone in their right mind. Exactly.)

Toph took one look at the vibrations coming off the stairs leading up the palace, and decided that it was not even worth her time.

"Twinkles, bend us up there."

Aang didn't even bother to argue with her, this time. He bent them a platform from the rock beneath their feet, muscles loose even with the precision. Good, she would have whapped him one if he hadn't—no student of hers ought to strain to bend something as simple as a platform.

Toph would never tell anyone, but she enjoyed watching Aang bend. It was the Air in him, maybe, that kept her interest, a smoothness that didn't belong to any other element. There was no one else like him in the world. He was the end of an era, and he was her best friend.

Sometimes, she thought that maybe he'd be happier if he'd died along with his people.

But she'd never say it aloud.

And so instead, she crossed her arms over her chest, tipped her chin up, and waited for the stone beneath her feet to rocket them up to Bumi's palace so that she could punch his face in and get back to being the tough little shit she was the rest of the time.

Toph didn't have time to be a princess.

Frankly, she had better things to do.

—

"OI, BUMI."

"Sifu, maybe we should—"

"Shut up, Twinkles, I got a bone to pick with the old coot," Toph tossed over her shoulder. She squinted up at the old man, face squinched up as she tried to figure out exactly just who he thought he was.

"Well, look who it is!" the King of Omashu hooted. "The little princess!"

"Yeah, about that," said Toph. "No. Not happening. Do I look like a princess to you?"

Bumi raised an eyebrow. "I don't know, do you not look like a princess?"

"Oh, no, you did not go there! Get down here, old man, your ass is rubble!" Toph shouted, already stretching out her legs. There was movement in the ground—

He cackled again, a jagged peal of laughter that echoed through the cavernous room. The ground retched, belching up an area. Toph could feel the balance of it—Bumi had built it to feel like the ancient stone had been there for a hundred thousand years.

She grinned, and cracked all of her knuckles.

"Sifu—" Aang said again.

Toph turned to look at him, gave him the full force of her attention.

"Aang," she said quietly. "I need to do this. Let me, okay?"

Aang stared at her for what like a very long time, but really couldn't have been very long at all.

"Okay, Toph," he said, and he stepped back.

"So," Toph said, returning her attention to Omashu's ruler as the dust settled.

"So," he repeated. "You don't want to rule? But you'd be so good at it!"

"Uh, no," she said. His footing was off. That was something to exploit. She shifted a little, gravel crumbling beneath her foot.

"Then fight for it," Bumi chortled. "Fight for your freedom!"

"Okay," said Toph. "But only if you admit I'm the best Earthbender there is when I win."

"Princess Bei Fong does have a ring to it, no?"

Toph dropped to the floor, drawing the dirt in the air to her. She was Toph Bei Fong. She'd invented metalbending. No old man was going to decide her destiny. She'd taught the Avatar, helped win a war. There was nothing she couldn't do.

When she smiled, it wasn't nice.

"Come on then, Bumi," she smirked. "We got a score to settle."

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fin.