Author's Note: I've had this idea for months, and am really excited to write this. Blind Bounty is my first long story, so a little patience please. :). Instead of giving short, pointless chapters every few days, I upload a longer chapters every Thursday. Any questions will be answered, but the story will reveal most of them. This takes place right after the Southern Raiders.
Blind Bounty
Chapter One
Toph stands at the top of the ravine, black cloak hovering only a foot off the dusty canyon ground. Her bare legs are washed in golden afternoon sunlight, glinting off the spires of rock and stone. Her brow hardens as the sunlight becomes level with her sightless eyes, beads of sweat shimmering on her forehead. She lazily wipes her damp face, and let her arm rest by her side again. A stiff wind blows through her cloak, chilling drops of perspiration, and taking a little bit of red off of her cheeks.
In the middle of the summer, the Great Divide was an unbearable inferno. Each gulch and valley felt like it has just been filled with boiling water, laced with matches, eaten by the sun, then spit out. She isn't bothered a bit by this, or at least that is what it appears to be. Her face is unreadable. Sometimes it looks as if nothing bothers her. If anything, she should be bothered by things more than most people are.
Toph was born blind. She has never seen the fiery orange of a sunset on the horizon, or gazed at the blue sparkling of the ocean. Never before has she seen the warm brown of hardwood floors, or the green of rolling valleys. Well, you get the picture. She couldn't see anything, until a fateful trip had taken her from home to the cave of two blind badger moles.
Badger moles were the first earthbenders, and were just as blind as Toph. They had taught her to feel the earth, and eventually to see with it. After that day, Toph never needed a seeing cane or nurse. She found that earthbending was an extension of herself, not just an opportunity to smash someone with a boulder.
Blindness isn't a problem anymore. At times, she can even see more than others. Dark places, tunnels, and mazes are amazingly easy for Toph to navigate, yet the smallest things, like reading books and walking over sand presented problems.
But, despite the things she can't do, there are things in life Toph can enjoy that no others can. And she is enjoying them right now.
The Great Divide is one of the Earth Kingdoms's natural wonders, yet most only saw about 12% of what's actually there. The rest took "special vision." Toph sits down right on the ledge of the ravine, baked sand warming up her legs. She pushes both feet against the steep ledge. The soles of her feet connect instantly with the earth, and a shockwave traveles through her legs.
Vibrations rattle her feet, turning into traveling waves, reaching out as further and further, until they fade into oblivion. Each formation the Great Divide has can be seen by her dirt-encrusted feet, and every little lizard and mouse could be felt moving. Her connection with the earth is so strong, she can even feel earth that wasn't attached to the ground.
"Ay, kid. You coming back in or not? Them coyotes get real nasty after dark," Someone says in an obnoxious voice. The fact that Toph has better hearing than others made the man's voice even more irritating. She's just trying to enjoy the Great Divide like any other blind earthbender.
"I'm not a kid," she says, frowning. By now Toph's lost count of how many times she's had to explain that.
"Hmph, yeah, right. You don't belong in a bar anyway."
Toph turns her head, and smiles mischievously.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"
The rowdy bar participants shout at their top of their lungs, ruddy faces slick with sweaty excitement. Toph holds a near-empty root beer mug over her wide mouth, gulping as fast as she can. Her bare feet are planted firmly on a table, the pounding fists of hyper (or drunk) drinkers only a few feet away. The age appropriate drink-off is nearing the fifteenth mug, Toph in the lead by an entire root beer filled cup. The man she's going up against is two times larger than her size, possibly the biggest guy in the whole tavern.
Toph finishes the last mug, and plops the empty cup hard on the table. She raises her hands in triumph, face raised to the sky, as the loud cheering of the crowd fills her with glory. She reluctantly high-fives her competitor, and then jumps off the table. Toph walks over to the bar owner, and smirks.
"Alright kid, you proved yourself." he grumbles. Toph loves proving adults wrong. "Now here's your gift."
Toph froze as the man pulls out a double broadsword pair from his scabbard, and points the tip at Toph's nose. Before she can move, he brings the sword down on an unsuspecting dragon fruit. She sighs with relief as he began to chop up fruit and ice, eventually transferring it to an ice cup. He never used his hands, not even once.
Toph gives a small, strained smile in an attempt to be polite.
"Thanks." She grabs the bevarage, and after a moment's hesitation, began drinking it greedily. Not one drop spills on her. The bartender is amazed at how confident she is for a blind girl walking alone. There isn't a cane in sight. The mysterious girl looks familiar too. The confidence she carries, or recklessness, isn't alien to the man.
Her face isn't familiar either, seeing how the owner couldn't even see past her dark bangs. But the way she moved is definitely familiar. She walks like she was raised in a wealthy home, and talks intelligently too. Yet the drink-off proved that the way she behaves is extremely different from any stereotype he could think of. Good lord, look at her feet!
It might be the clothes that throws off the man. He observes that she wears comfortable looking green shorts, and a tan/white shirt patched together. It's an outfit made for action, not luxury. To the bartender, the girl is like a patched quilt. One part of her is smooth and as high class as silk. That part of her seems as cold as ice. Yet, below that, in her blind eyes, there is a spark of light.
"So, this is great in all, but I didn't win that drink off just for a smoothie." she says, sipping the last remnants of the delicious drink. The bartender raises an eyebrow at her.
"You're not getting a beer," he says bluntly.
She laughs loudly. "No, I don't want that. What I want is to know where all the crime is in this town."
He tries to hide the surprise on his face, but realized it's pointless. He shook his head.
"There isn't much crime around here. This is just a small passing town." Toph nods, and taps her empty cup. She stares at it for a while, as the two sat in silence. The low murmuring and occasional laughing by the bar goers the only noise to accompany the awkward silence. She suddenly breaks the fragile ice cup, and throws the remaining shards over her shoulder.
"What's in that hidden compartment underneath the counter?" she asks suddenly.
The man freezes. She has to be bluffing. No one should know about that but him.
"Hidden? You must mean where I keep the ice." he says.
Toph frowns. "Well that's what I thought it was, until you lied."
Toph takes the leather chest that the old bartender finally surrendered to her over to an empty table near a darkened corner, and quickly pushes open the lid. She reaches into the chest, and pulls out what appears to be a book.
"Why on earth would he keep a book this old hidden?" she mutters to herself. She opens it, and is surprised to see that the book is written in some kind of raised font. She recognizes the odd writing as Braille.
She flips through the dusty, bumpy pages. Her fingers brushed over words like "casualties" "murder", even "death." She knows she has a special book as her hand rubs across a certain passage of text, with the words "Crime-Ridden Cities of the Earth Kingdom." Toph finds nothing interesting on the first few pages, and continues to flip through the book.
Part of her job requires that she could be able to read. She never would have known about Braille until she left home. It only took a few weeks for her to learn.
She only needed to learn words that had to do with her job: bounty hunting. Usually the key words were reward, bounty, last seen, and wanted dead or alive. Toph usually didn't pay attention the other useless information, because it made capturing the target (possibly sending them to death) a lot harder. to parents would've immediately thought that she would use her ability to read to run away. Psychos. Toph ran away even before she was able to read.
With the money from Earth Rumble Six, Toph had used her gambling skills to become a millionaire overnight. Well, she already had been one, but all the money she had was hers for once. She had a nice woman tell her where the most crime-ridden town was. It turned out to be a small, near century old town named Juniper Village. The woman, thinking she was trying to avoid that town, pointed it out to her. As soon as she knew where to go, Toph set off for Juniper. She figured that her parents would think she went to an orphanage, and wouldn't even think about finding her in a crime-ridden town like Juniper.
Toph hadn't really expected to become a bounty hunter. She hadn't even known what one was until she had gotten rid of an elusive animal that was picking off the townspeople. No one had been able to track it, because it left such light footprints. A DinosaurPeacock, they called it. Toph couldn't see its face, but ; the townspeople said she was lucky for that. That was the day that Toph had learned if there were enough vibrations in the ground, then footprints, even disturbed piles of leaves, could still be seen.
She also learned that she makes one good bounty hunter.
Toph was able to see within a 5-mile radius, and had the ability to pinpoint a person to their exact location. With just a one-sentenced hint as to where the target might be, Toph could track a man in under three days. Usually less, depending on how long the wanted sign had been up.
Bounty hunters found their target, and prey, by wanted signs hung up around towns. The posters would have usually had only a few sentences, all business. Beneath the poster would be a crudely drawn picture of the wanted criminal. Toph couldn't read these wanted posters. Instead she had others read them aloud.
Suddenly, the page Toph is holding becomes scalding hot, and warm boiling liquid splashes onto her clothes.
"Ow!" Toph shouts, jumping out of her chair. She should've noticed the clumsy waiter's irregular footsteps the instant he came within ten feet of her table. Letting her guard down isn't something that happens often, especially now that she lives alone. She glares in the direction of the waiter.
"Sorry." The waiter mutters in a boyish voice. He bends down hastily to wipe up the mess, nearly knocking down a lamp in the process. Toph notices his footsteps, which weigh about as much as feathers. He can get pushed around as easily as a broomstick.
"Twinkletoes." Toph scowls, and walks away from the table.
People had eyes, they should use them to not trip over things! After a quick decision, she leaves the valuable Braille book on the table, and moves quickly towards the door. She doesn't have any negative feelings about leaving the book on a table; it wasn't like anyone could read it but the blind. Posters were better then that century old book. It's time to leave anyway, something is going on outside.
Mae Silver :)