A few more days later...
Y/n POV
Aang stood blindfolded and surrounded by Katara, Toph and I. We were sparring, exercising Aang's ability to handle anything that's thrown at him.
Toph started the assault, throwing up rock formations that Aang dodged easily. Katara stretched her water like a snake at him, but he redirected it back at her. I threw flames around his feet, and Aang responded by using air bending to float over them.
"Good job twinkle toes. Visualize, then attack," Toph said, throwing a boulder at his head. Aang sunk into the ground so that the rock passed over him and hit Katara instead.
"Maybe you should take your own advice, Toph," Katara said as she got up.
"What's the matter? Can't handle some dirt, Madame Fussy Britches?" Toph taunted. Um what is going on?
Katara didn't take that well and she splashed Toph with a wave of water.
"Oh, sorry. Did I splash you, Mud Slug?" Katara said. Toph clenched her fists and then earth surfed over to Katara. Katara ice surfed in the same direction and before I could step in, Aang stopped them by throwing them off their momentum.
"Are we taking a break?" Aang asked innocently, still blindfolded. All of a sudden, I heard a scream and turned to see Sokka running towards Aang.
"Sneak attack!!" He yelled but he ran right into a rock formation that Aang had lifted.
"Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud," Aang said and I took the opportunity to show them how it's done. I waterbent a funnel up and around Aang, trapping his body in the ice besides his head. He looked around confused before laughing.
"He's right Sokka, you gotta be smooth with it," I said as I walked over to help him up. He took my hand and brushed himself off.
"Hey, I'm the king of smooth," he defended and I giggled. He's so amusing. When a splash of mud landed at our feet, the three of us were alerted to the continuing "sparring" match between Toph and Katara.
"Hungry for a mud pie?" Toph asked before she kicked mud in Katara's face.
"I'll give you a mud pie!" Katara yelled and she bent mud up and over her head to knock Toph down. Toph retaliated by launching Katara backwards with an earth pillar springboard. The two were going to keep fighting so I spoke up.
"Uh, guys, we were supposed to be training Aang," I said, gesturing to the young Avatar looking on in confusion. The two paused and then stood up straight, composing themselves.
"Very well, pupil. I believe we've had enough training for today," Katara said calmly to Aang, and then she walked off. Probably to go get cleaned up.
"While Katara cleans up, let's go have some fun," Toph said, bending the mud off her completely. Sokka, Aang, and I looked at each other excitedly.
"Yeah!" We all cheered. I grabbed my dagger and strapped it to my waist, everyone else grabbing what they needed.
We walked into town and I noticed Sokka looked fascinated with the messenger hawks in the sky.
"Look at all those messenger hawks! You know, I've been thinking about getting one for myself. That way, I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I could send them messages," Sokka said excitedly.
"I got to say, I like the idea of not talking to you," Toph joked. Sokka pouted but the joke was funny so I had to laugh.
"So, guys, what are we gonna get with our last silver piece?" Aang asked. The rest of us kept walking until Toph stopped and spoke up.
"We can get more money," she said and she pointed to a street game. The dealer hides a rock under one of three shells and moves them around quickly. Then you have to guess where the rock is.
Toph explained that she had an advantage by using earthbending to "see" where the rock was, even with the dealer cheating and moving the rock. We agreed there was no harm in trying and walked closer to the stand.
"You there. Want to play a friendly game?" The dealer asked as soon as he noticed us standing there with a blind girl.
"How could I possibly play? I'm blind," Toph said innocently.
"You don't have to see to be lucky," the dealer argued and Toph fumbled to sit down to play. She bet our silver piece and the game started. The dealer showed the rock and then moved the shells around quickly. Toph picked a shell and it was right.
"Flameo Toph," Aang said and I pat her on the back.
"Wow, fancy guessing," the dealer said and he gave us the money we won. "Would you like to make the game a little more interesting?"
"More interesting? How?" Toph asked in her fake voice. The dealer smirked.
"Well, let's say you toss in your friends fine sword there. Then I'll put up 20 silver pieces against it, and that's more interesting," he explained. Toph grabbed Sokka's sword from right under him.
"I'll do it for 40 silver pieces," she wagered. Sokka gasped in surprise and I pat his back. He looked at me and I mouthed 'don't worry' to him.
The bet ensued and the dealer upped his technique. It was so obvious that he was moving the shells up so the rock went up his sleeve, but I guess the desperate wouldn't realize that.
Toph picked a shell and the dealer thought that he had won...until he picked up the shell to reveal the rock sitting pretty. He stared confused as we all cheered, grabbed our winnings, and ran off.
"Good going Toph, we are going to eat good tonight," I said, already leading us to the food market.
"Tonight and every night for the next week," Sokka added, throwing his hands in the air. We went to the market and got food before returning to the camp laughing. We dropped the food in front of Katara and our makeshift stove and she looked at us confused.
"Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff?" She asked.
"Toph got us money. She scammed one of those guys in town who moves the shells around all sneaky-like," Aang explained.
"She used earthbending to win the game. Classic," Sokka added, and he reached into the grocery baskets and tossed me an apple. I caught it and bit into it, savoring the sweet taste of fresh fruit.
"Ah, so she cheated?" Katara asked.
"She only cheated because he was cheating," I defended. Toph nodded.
"I cheated a cheater. What's wrong with that?" She said nonchalantly.
"I'm just saying this isn't something we should make a habit of doing," Katara clarified.
"Why? Because it's fun, and you hate fun?" Toph asked.
"I don't hate fun. See...fun!" She said forcefully after she put Momo on her head. A little on the nose with that one. Aang stood up and bowed to Katara.
"Katara, I'll personally make an Avatar promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams," he said.
The next day...
Aang held up our next bet for our next scam. We went over to a game of throwing long dice. This was another game that Toph could trick the dealers with her blindness and win with earthbending.
We won lots of games like this: ring the bell with a hammer, dice, and other games of chance.
"Guys you know we don't have to do just games, we can scam people other ways too," I pointed out as we walked through the city with our winnings.
"How?" Toph asked and I smirked and whispered something to Sokka. He caught on and matched my energy.
"I like the way you think," he said and he pulled his fake mustache out of his back pocket. He told me he always carried it around in an attempt to make me laugh, but I didn't think that piece of knowledge would come in handy so soon.
My plan was to scam a nobleman into bribing the police officer (Sokka) to let him go after he hit a girl (Toph) with his carriage. And let's just say it worked perfectly. The man loaded up Sokka's arms with sacks of money, and when he had paid enough, Sokka let him go.
He came back over to where Aang and I were hiding and added the money to our big bag that we were using to carry it. He put his arms around Toph and I and laughed.
"You ladies are geniuses!"
The next day...
Sokka POV
We sat around the campfire with our newfound riches enjoying ourselves until Katara had to ruin it.
"Guys, I think these scams have gone far enough. If you keep doing them, something bad is gonna happen," she warned us.
"Could you for once stop being such a sourpuss and just lighten up?" Toph asked and she flipped a coin into Katara's hands.
"Oh I'm sorry. You think I should be more like you? Like some wild child?" Katara asked and she threw the coin to the ground. I slid in to grab it and Y/n laughed at me. Oh she's so cute. Toph shrugged.
"Yeah, maybe. Maybe then you'd see how great we have it. I mean, look at us: we're traveling around the world, making easy money, having fun, with no parents to tell us what to do," she said happily.
"Ah, I see. You're acting like this because of your parents. They were controlling you, so you ran away, and now you act like your parents don't exist. You act like you hate them but you don't. You just feel guilty," Katara said. Wow that was a read.
"I do hate them," Toph said defensively.
"I don't think so. I think you miss them. But you don't want to deal with that so instead you act like this crazy person," Katara guessed. Toph stood up suddenly.
"Look, I ran away to help Aang," Toph clarified.
"It doesn't matter. These scams put us all at risk and we don't need that. We've already got some third eyed freak after us," Katara said and that made me think of something.
"Speaking of that third-eyed freak, I think I've come up with a name for him. What do you think of 'Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Man'? I said enthusiastically. Katara and Toph didn't even look at me so I dropped it. "Just think about it."
"We have enough money. You need to stop this," Katara yelled.
"I'll stop when I wanna stop and not when you tell me," Toph yelled back and stormed off with a bag of money. We all stared and I decided to break the tension.
"Speaking of money, I'm off to spend some. See you guys later," I said and I took off. I went back into town and picked up my own messenger hawk.
"Hawky, welcome to Team Avatar. My name's Sokka, and I'm your new owner. I should warn you that there's already a lemur in our group so I don't want to see any fighting," I told the bird and then something caught my eye.
I turned to the wall to my right and noticed the wanted poster for Toph. My hawk squawked at me.
"You're right, Hawky. This is bad."
I went back to camp and noticed Katara and Aang in the river practicing, while Toph and Y/n were at the camp. I walked over to them, Y/n noticing me first, and showed them the poster.
"Toph, when I was in town, I found something that you're not gonna like," I said.
"Well, it sounds like a sheet of paper. But I guess you're referring to what's on the sheet of paper," Toph said sarcastically. Y/n took the paper from me and read it.
"It's a wanted poster of you, Toph. They've nicknamed you 'The Runaway'," Y/n explained to Toph, who's eyes lit up.
"A wanted poster! That's so great. I love my new nickname. Is there a picture of me? Does it look good?" She asked quickly and Y/n and I looked at each other confused.
"Well, yeah, actually it does look pretty good. But Toph, you're missing the point," I said and Y/n nodded.
"Maybe Katara was right. These scams are drawing too much attention to us," Y/n said.
"Don't be such a worrywart. Think of it this way: now you have plenty of money to help with the invasion plan," she said dangling a sack of money in my face. Well I can't say that's wrong.
"Well, that is true. I had this idea of making armor for Appa," I thought aloud. Toph gave me some more money for my plans, but I think it was more of a bribe for me to keep my mouth shut.
One that I will be taking. What's the worst that could happen?
"Sokka, tell me you didn't buy a bird," Katara said as her and Aang came over. Y/n laughed.
"You thought no one was going to notice?" She whispered to me and I laughed nervously.
Oh well, time to sell the idea of a messenger bird. Soon, even Gran-Gran will be getting the new way of messaging.
To be continued...
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