Toph has always been pretty. She is becoming beautiful.
Katara watches her friend grow from child to almost-woman with a sense of proud anticipation swelling in her chest. This will bring them closer together, this will bring understanding. Once Toph grows up a bit they will get along much easier, Katara is sure, and nurtures her happiness with plans of future womanly bonding.
It's only a little while before the feeling is mixed with worry.
Her friend is drawing looks. Heads will turn and glances be exchanged when she walks through a room, and if she notices she lets is slip with a shrug and a scoff. Katara isn't as flippant. Toph may be the greatest earthbender of their time, her small hands loaded with enough power to crush tanks or take out whole platoons by snapping her fingers—against leers and hungry eyes she has no defence. She is strong, stronger than any man, but she's still a girl and the world treats every girl the same.
Katara keeps one step behind and wards the world off as well as she can without Toph noticing. She takes all her care, takes the friendship and love and turns it into anger, sharp and hot, throbbing in her temples. She furrows her brows and narrows her eyes and glares at anyone she thinks deserves it. Toph is still too young for this kind of attention, she thinks, disregarding the fact that Aang is the same age and Katara herself only two years older.
In May, Toph turns fifteen. The festivities will be grand, lasting three days or more.
"And I'm not gonna lift a finger," Toph grins and throws her feet on the table. For once, Katara doesn't complain. Birthdays are special.
The night before the party starts she goes to bed early. The sun is setting and the sheen of the crystals lighting up the hallways of the Omashu residence at night grows brighter as the outside gardens get darker. In the mirrors that stretch from ceiling to floor the cool green and vivid orange light of stone and sunshine meet and mix, tinting the color of the curtains so that they –though essentially the same- doesn't seem quite what they were.
Katara lingers outside her room, soaking in the last minutes of the fading day. Fatigue is heavy in her limbs. Her fingers as they comb through her hair are drowsily slow.
The hallway is still and the shadows are long, and when she sees Toph walk past a little further away the idea of calling out to her and disturb the calm feels strangely inappropriate.
Toph wears pyjamas that are light and soft and unrestricting, the pale green fabric a blend of silk and wool. Her waist is narrow and her pants are wide and the outlines of her thighs are faint, like faded brushstrokes. She sets her feet down heavily, swinging her arms from side to side, expertly sculpted muscles moving under the flawless white skin of her shoulders. The hairbun perched on the back of her head bounces for each step, the plain ribbons holding it up slowly giving after for its weight. Thin tresses and loose strands flutter around her neck, brushing by her jaw, by her puffy earlobes. As she turns around the corner there's a glimpse of a small-nosed, round-chinned profile before she's out of sight, steady thumps of bare heels on granite floor moving down the hallway until they disappear behind the slam of a door.
In the empty silence left, the deep rumble of flowing blood grows and grows in Katara's ears, swells and fills her head. Her cheeks are hot. Her heart beats painfully fast. She turns back to face her reflection and when she meets her own eyes their expression is all wrong.
She glares at herself in the mirror.