Split Personality



Toph Bei Fong was someone who preferred to think logically. While usually you could see her rushing into battle without a thought to her own safety, she was really a very logical person. Really. All her attacks had to be planned out and then thought about before she did them. What if she accidentally sent the wave of earth hurtling towards Sparky’s Ember Island mansion instead of at the attackers? That could really be embarrassing. And expensive. Her parents had not been happy with the rebuilding bill at all.  

But it honestly wasn’t Logical-Toph’s fault. It was the Weak-Helpless-Pathetic-Toph who panicked when she felt a soldier run up behind Sokka, sword in hand. So Logical-Toph, who should have realized that Sokka could take care of himself, was shoved out of the way by Emotional-Sickening-Toph who sent a wave of earth in the direction of the sword guy.  

At least it made contact.  

Sokka was saved, although he did look very befuddled, by a huge earth wave that dipped under his feet and smashed into the sward guy.  

Toph, sure that Sokka was safe, turned back to the battle. It isn’t exaggerating to say that when the earth wave smashed into the palace that the entire battle froze. Toph’s heart literally froze in her chest. She didn’t even need to ask what had happened. The vibrations were more than enough to tell her.  

“Dammit,” she whispered, smacking her forehead.  

“My…house.”  


*~*~*~*~*~


Now that Annoying-Stupid-Toph was out of the way, Logical-Toph felt that the only thing she could do was sulk for a few weeks and try to avoid the teases that were sure to come her way.  

“Earth-bending master, huh? I heard she completely trashed the Fire Lord’s beach house.”  

“That was her? I thought it must have been some left over bombs from the war.”  

“It was her. I heard she got angry that the kitchen made her food wrong.”  

Toph’s eyebrow twitched as she listened.  

“Don’t be ridiculous! I heard she got rejected by the Avatar’s wife’s brother.”   

Toph growled and stomped over to the gossiping ladies. “For your information, we were fighting pirates.” And she left, stomping away.  

The two ladies looked at each other and then giggled. “Definitely the brother. Pirates…honestly.”  


*~*~*~*~*~


“Hey, Toph!” Aang said cheerfully as Toph stormed into the living room of the gAang’s temporary living quarters. “How was your time in town?”  

“Can’t talk. Angry. I’m going to the beach.” Toph grabbed a towel and was off in less than 2 minutes. The door slammed, rattling the entire house. Katara poked her head out from the kitchen. “Was that Toph? Did you tell her that Sokka was looking for her?”  

Aang shook his head. “She looked really mad. Besides, she said she was going to the beach. She’ll probably run into him there.”  

“If you say so.”


*~*~*~*~*~*~


Logical-Toph told her that she shouldn’t be so angry. Just because Zuko looked so amazingly annoyed, or how much people laughed at her or how Sokka didn’t even thank her for saving his life was nothing to get upset about. She clenched a handful of sand in her fist. Really. It was ridiculous to get upset over something as silly as this. Her parents were paying for the house, so it wasn’t as if Zuko had to buy a whole new mansion. He really should chill. She stopped the pirates, right?

“Toph?”  

The earthbender opened her eyes and tilted her head in the direction of the voice. “What do you want, Snoozles? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m wallowing in my anger right now. So go away.”  

Sokka dropped down beside her. “I was looking for you. But you weren’t at the house or in town.”

“Yeah, I’ve kind of decided to ban the town from my list of places to go. People can’t seem to talk about anything else then what happened to Sparky’s house.” Toph snorted. “It wasn’t even that nice a house. The floor boards creaked.”  

Sokka didn’t bother telling her that it was nicer than any house he had ever lived in. He suspected that it might not help anything.  

The boomerang-bender looked at her and smiled. “Well, I know how to cheer you up.” He stood up.  

Logical-Toph couldn’t stop the blush that crept to her cheeks. “And how are you going to do tha- ARGH!”  

Sokka started laughing.  

Toph looked at him with a furious expression. “What the hell did you do that for?”  

The object of her affections just continued laughing.  

“Jeez, I knew you were stupid, but you have seriously reached a new level. Only stupid people would dump water all over Earthbender Toph.” She stood up, water dripping from her clothes and hair. With a stomp of her foot she sent a mini-tsunami rushing at the boy.  

In seconds he looked like a drowned dog.  

Toph barely had time to gloat before something grabbed her around the waist and sent her tumbling into the ocean. She surfaced with a choking splutter. “You idiot! Like I wasn’t wet enough-“

Her words broke off abruptly as he put a hand on her shoulder. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. Her cheeks flushed a bright scarlet. What had she been talking about?  

They only stayed like that for a couple seconds before Toph abruptly shoved away from him. “What were you doing?” She cringed at the flustered note her voice had.  

Sokka said nothing. Trying to maintain some dignity, Toph walked out of the water, dripping the entire way.  

Slowly, as Logical-Toph overpowered Weak-In Love-Toph, her cheeks dulled from the raging red and her mind cleared ever so slightly.  

“So…um…why did you come looking for me?” She frowned. Her voice wasn’t completely back to normal.  

Sokka dropped down beside her. “When you left the house this morning, you seemed kind of upset. You haven’t been very happy since the accident. So I came looking for you to see if I could cheer you up.” He grinned. “I think it worked.”  

The blush returned. He was worried about me.  

Logical-Toph rolled her eyes. In Love-Toph was so pathetic. So Logical-Toph did the only thing she could think of to save Toph’s reputation of being totally cool and un-mushy.  

Toph punched Sokka in the shoulder. “You still didn’t have to dump me in the ocean!”  

                       The End