Disclaimer: I don not own Avatar.
little white lies
Toph hates those little white lies
-
When she first discovers she can tell who lies and who tells the truth, Toph is overjoyed. Imagine all she could learn with this knowledge, imagine all she could see! That day, she learns babies do not come from the stork, her Earthbending teacher had no idea what he was do, and that they are not safe.
She does not understand the last part, but it unsettles her. She is nine years old. Her parents do not tell her of war, and everytime they whisper to themselves, each other, her, "We are safe," she feels their lies within the heels of her bare feet, within her every pore, within her core, it resonates, it echoes inside her: The world is dangerous.
Toph just wants her little piece of the world, the big, dangerous world, and with every, "We are safe," whispered in the emptiness that makes up her world, with every little white lie, Toph just wants the world more, she does not want to be safe, she wants the big bad world, she wants danger. She hates those white lies; she hates the fake-safety.
-
Toph knows, of course, that sometimes the truth hurts. It hurts more than those little white lies that she sometimes wishes she could believe.
"Who is Yue?" She asks Sokka late one night, after hearing him whisper the name. He is startled: she feels him jump, she feels his heart stop, she feels the blood rush to his face.
"No one."
He lies. She feels it; it rings in her through the ground as they sit on the rock, Katara and Aang fast asleep, the night air biting and cold.
"Did you love her?"
He does not speak, but his silent answer sends shivers up her spine, it echoes inside her head; the answer to her query is in his every muscle, every breath, every minor movement: He loved this "Yue", he still loves this "Yue", he will always love this "Yue". And a thought booms in her head, it sings its cruel words, it screams in her ears: I hate this "Yue"! I want him to myself!
This thought makes her shudder, it makes tears pop to her sightless eyes, and more than anything she wishes she could just believe this "Yue" is nothing to him, she wishes she could take his silence as indifference, and go on with her silly little crush like it was nothing, like "Yue" was nothing. She wishes she could believe those little white lies, because that night, Toph realizes something:
The truth hurts like hell.
-
"He's going to die, isn't he?" Katara whispers the night they leave Lake Logai. He voice is anxious, it crackles and break and hides tears that she will not shed for the fallen Freedom Fighter, that she cannot bring herself to let out for the man that had betrayed her long ago, but wanted more then anything to cry for the boy of the past few days. Toph closes her eyes, breathes in deeply, and tells a little white lie.
"I don't know." But she does know, and what she knows would hurt Katara more than anything. And inside herself, Toph feels the signs of a lie; she notices the slight change in heart rate, the minor alteration in her breathing. The little white lie vibrates within her, it sends silly little shivers up her spine: Katara cannot know, she does not know, she will never know, she cannot know.
-
Toph knows. In fact, she knows nearly everything. She knows Jet cannot live, and she knows she herself cannot hurt her friends so to tell them. She knows Sokka will never love her, and she knows she should not hate "Yue", but does so anyway. She knows the world is a dangerous place.
Toph knows the world is a dangerous place filled to the brim with little white lies. And more than anything, Toph wishes she could believe those little white lies.
-
A/N: Please review, m'dears.