Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing the characters. Really.

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Leisurely

It's midafternoon when Aang returns from training, and nearly sunset when Toph returns with bruises and scrapes all over her arms and legs.

“What happened?” Katara demands, morbidly fascinated. She's reminded of Sokka's first successful hunt, when her brother came back with a hole gorged out of his side and more scrapes and cuts on one hand than the local healer bothered to count, except the small girl radiates annoyance instead of pride.

“None of your business,” huffs Toph, stomping past Katara and heading for her rock tent. “I'm going to bed, end of story. Good night.”

Katara grabs Toph by the forearm. “Wait,” she says. “Where did you get these?”

“Where did I get what?” And when Toph looks up at her with those innocent, blank eyes, Katara forgets what she was talking about, but only for a moment.

“I can see them, you know,” she says. Toph scowls. Not getting an answer, Katara decides it's from an accident from Earthbending, and Toph is too embarrassed to come out and say it. “Come on. I know some things that can keep the swelling down.”

The Earthbender looks almost ready to refuse help, but then agrees with an annoyed sigh. She tells Katara to wait for a moment, and she dives into her tent just long enough for Katara to consider reaching into that rock tent and grabbing Toph by the hair like she did to Sokka back home, and then emerges with a bunch of impractically thick, blunted needles.

“It's for my hair,” Toph says, as if she could sense Katara's 'what is this?' gaze. “It slipped while I was training.” Katara makes a soft 'oh', and asks Toph to give her a moment while she gets the necessary supplies from her pack before they go out. When she returns, she finds the Earthbender slouching against her tent, a blade of grass twirling around her tongue in lazy swirls.

“Come on,” she says, steering Toph away from the campsite and to the nearby river. The view is good here, especially for starwatching, but she doesn't comment on it. She still feels guilty about that stupid jab she made back when Azula was chasing after them with that metal machine. So instead she puts her supplies, a comb made of bone and a healing salve, on the ground and sits. Toph settles down in front of Katara, landing with a 'thump'.

“So what are you going to do?” Toph asks, sounding more suspicious than curious.

“I have a healing balm,” she says. “I'm just going to put this on your arms.”

“I can do it myself,” Toph says. That's alright. Katara came prepared.

“Then let me put your hair up,” she offers. “That way it'll take less time.”

She can see the first response on Toph's tongue: No, go away. I don't need your help. But instead Toph's brow furrows and she lets out a shaky breath.

“Alright,” she says.

Toph's hair is longer than Katara expects. When she shakes her hair out of its bun, it falls down around her shoulders and ends somewhere past her shoulder blades. It's unwashed and a little greasy and it feels weird in her hands. Rough, gritty, like someting dirty. It takes Katara a moment to realize that the grit is actually from sand and dirt, and finds this strangely appropriate.

“You should wash it out,” Katara says, running her hand through the mess of tangles and knots that is Toph's hair. Katara begins to suspect that Toph's hair will snap the comb's teeth after trying to tug through the first knot with her hands, and decides to work out the tangles with her hands first.

“My hair's fine,” the Earthbender says, stubborn and hardheaded as always. “I took a bath two days ago, and I don't need another one.” Katara can see one of Toph's arms reaching out for the salve, dabbing a finger into the jar gingerly.

Katara mutters something about 'personal hygiene' and 'worse than a boy' under her breath. Her fingers are tiring. This just might be the hardest thing she's ever had to do. She bends some water from the nearby river and adds a bit of water to a particularly tough tangle. Under hehands, she feels Toph stiffen a little.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm just trying to comb your hair without tearing it off your head,” she says.

“With water? I told you, I already took—”

“I know you did,” Katara butts in, rolling her eyes. “I was there, remember? I'm just trying to make the job a little easier.”

Toph says nothing, but relaxes a little. Katara takes that as permission to apply the same treatment to the other difficult patches.

“If you keep this up, I might as well get the rest of me wet, too,” Toph says, sounding a little disgruntled.

“It'll dry out quickly,” Katara says. She's nearly done now. The only thing left to do is go through her hair with the comb, and then she could put it into that weird bun. Toph mutters a quiet 'ow' when Katara starts, and squirms uncomfortably. Still, it's a lot easier than before, when Katara was afraid the comb teeth might snap against the black hair. It's almost soothing, sitting here in the sunset and not saying anything while Sokka sharpens his weapons and Aang practices Earthbending. She remembers doing this with her mother when she was a child, before her mother died, and her hands still a little before she remembers what she's supposed to be doing.

“You're awfully quiet, Sugar Queen,” Toph says.

“What's wrong with that?” Katara says, sounding more defensive than she really wants.

“It's just an observation. Normally you'd be talking me to death or something.”

“I was just thinking,” Katara says. “I used to do this kind of thing a lot with—my mother.” Toph doesn't have a snide remark at hand. Katara's glad.

“Do you miss her?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Katara says, hoping that her voice didn't sound as stuffy as she thought it did. How couldn't she? She thought about her mother everyday, trying to cling onto whatever memories she had of her. But memories are intangible, subjective. In her mind, mother is becoming an association, a feeling while the person erodes away. “Don't you miss yours?”

Toph shrugs indifferently. “I guess,” she says. “We weren't really that close.” Toph stretches her arms and cracks her knuckles.

“Why not?” Katara asks.

“Mom is a little... high strung,” says Toph carefully. “She was fine until I was born. After that she kept getting all worked up and getting nervous breakdowns.”

“Oh.” Katara doesn't know what to say without sounding tacky or insensitive, so she goes with the unspecific and relatively neutral “that's too bad.”

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees distantly, as if she's talking about someone else's mother. Katara wonders if Toph ever writes back home, but realizes that no, she probably doesn't. Katara also wonders how the mistress of the Bei Fong family is doing now, and wonders if her daughter even cares. Probably. Underneath the bluster and pride, the Earthbender really isn't a bad person.

She finishes combing, and Toph gives instructions on how to set the mass of hair back into the bun on top of her head. It's absurdly complicated for such a seemingly simple hair style, and Toph is almost insanely critical of her. When Toph stops barking instructions, Katara is holding what seems to be six snakes of hair doing complicated acrobatics between her fingers.

“I don't see it,” she says, her brow crinkling. “How do you make a bun out of this?”

“You don't, actually,” Toph says cheerfully, the grin that was undoubtedly on her face all too evident in her voice. “I just wanted to see if you would actually do it.”

“Ha, ha, ha.”

Toph leans forward a bit, and Katara releases the hair, letting it fall back against Toph's back. Slowly, she sets her hair back up by herself, using strategically placed needles to keep the entire thing from tumbling over while she works. It's times like these when she realizes that Toph was raised differently from them, even though she doesn't act like a noble at all. The way she puts up her hair is graceful and almost automatic, but also machine-like in her efficency and calm. When the smaller girl finishes, she plucks out the needles and ties her headband securely around the bun.

“Thanks,” Toph says, less abrasively and casually than she normally would. Maybe as an indirect apology for toying with Katara earlier.

“No problem,” she says easily. “It was a lot of fun.” Katara gathers up the comb and the needles and the salve into her arms. “Hey, why don't we do this again some time?”

Toph raises an eyebrow and smirks. “Maybe some other time,” she replies, and heads back to the campsite. Katara sighs a little and follows.

Well, she'll take what she can get.

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Author's Note: Grammar is mine enemy.

The one thing that really annoys me here was that this was originally supposed to be a fic explaining how Toph got involved with Earth Rumble. Instead, it wound up as a friendship-fic. Emo, woe, calamari, the works. I suppose that will have to come later.

Feedback is always appreciated.