Toph didn't know what bending was called until much later, but it came to her as naturally as breathing. Aang told her that bending was a gift for the children of individuals that were spiritually aware, but her parents weren't. They only cared enough about legends and spirits to laugh at them.

But still. She was a bender.

After she'd told him that, Aang went on and on about spirits and balance, and how there had to be earthbenders to balance out all of the other kinds of bending that were resurfacing in the world, but Toph was pretty sure he was pulling the spiritual mumbo-jumbo out of his ass at that point, so she stopped listening. Besides, she knew why she was an earthbender.

She had stood in a cavern with a badgermole, and she hadn't moved an inch as it came towards her. She hadn't been afraid. She had stayed rooted.

And she had thought: I am going to do that. I'm going to make the earth rumble, and see the way they do. I'm going to do it better than they do.

“Show me how to do it,” she'd told the giant things, and they had.

That was why she was a bender. Not because she'd had the right parents, or because she was part of some great balance. It was because she had demanded that it be true, and she hadn't moved until it was.

And if there were spirits watching her, to see what she would do- well, they'd better prepare to see exactly how badass she could be.