A/N: This was written before the finale aired, but I think it remains plausible. Tokka has not necessarily been sunk, after all. :D Anyway, enjoy, and many thanks to Rawles for the beta! :D
(I know this is being posted during Tokka Week (1 August - 7 August), but I'm not sure it actually fulfills any of the prompts--especially because it wasn't written to fulfill any! But if it does, it comes closest to fulfilling the Day One prompt, funnily enough. :D)
(Yeah, it's present tense, sue me, it came out that way for some reason. XD)
An Almost Conversation, In Two Parts
The small Earthbender is unable to sleep. Too many thoughts are keeping her awake, so she slips away from warm body of her sleeping fiancé, breathing deeply in their bed, and out into the cool night air. She climbs a small hill behind their house and settles down onto the welcoming earth, fingers running through the grass as though it were his hair. She turns her face to the sky, hoping she is looking in the right direction, though she knows it doesn't really matter if she is or not. She will be heard either way, she thinks.
Though she has heard him speak to Yue many times over the years, mostly when he didn't know she or anybody else was listening, she's never done it herself, and she is hesitant.
How do you even talk to a spirit, she wonders. Do you just start talking? I never even knew Yue. I don't know if she even cares about me.
She thinks Yue still cares about Sokka, though, even as a spirit, even though she is not sure if spirits can love people. That part is not important. Yue did love Sokka, she knows, because everybody still talks about it now and then. When they describe Yue to her, they say she was beautiful, and elegant, and very kind. Toph snorts. She knows she is none of those things. Sokka, of course, tells her she is beautiful, but nobody else ever really has. Why should they, when she is always covered in dirt? Toph knows Katara is supposed to be the pretty one, and she can tell from the way men's heartbeats quicken that Mai is probably quite stunning, but she is just old dirt-covered Toph. Most of the time she doesn't mind, but when people go on about Yue's beauty, and everyone else's...
Toph knows she isn't elegant either. Dirt-covered and elegant don't exactly mix. Sometimes she acts elegant for her parents, as a sort of compromise. She knows that she is not the daughter they expected. But that's all it is, a compromise, an act. She can't stand to do it very often.
And kind, yeah right, she thinks. The Sarcastic, Punching Cynic, that's me. At least, mostly. Anyway, I don't get how Sokka loved you, and then was able to love me. We're completely different. About the only thing we have in common is that we love Sokka.
Sometimes Toph thinks he did that on purpose, chose someone so completely different to fall in love with after Yue. She thinks he did that with Suki, too. Only, in the end, Suki wasn't different enough. In the end, Suki chose duty as well.
Toph knows he still loves Yue. She can feel it. He will never stop loving Yue. It doesn't diminish his love for Toph, and Toph isn't jealous. She understands that the love he feels for Yue is different from the love he feels for her. Not more, or less. Just different. He still talks to Yue often, but she's been dead for years. She's the moon. She can only love him from a distance, she can't offer him her touch or sleep next to him in the same bed or talk with him and laugh with him and plan a future with him like Toph can.
Toph is marrying him in two weeks. It's going to be a big deal, because she couldn't get her parents to agree to a small wedding, and Sokka refuses to elope because Lao Bei Fong just barely tolerates him as it is, and he doesn't want to give his future father-in-law any reason to dislike him even more. So, to please her parents, they are having a big wedding. "The social event of the season," as Poppy calls it. Afterwards, they will have something just for them and their close friends at the South Pole. Though Toph has never been able to stand the cold down there, she has discovered that sleeping among ice and animal skins is actually quite fun when she has someone close by to help keep her warm. She smiles at the thought of days and nights spent close to Sokka, ostensibly to share their body heat, but really just an excuse to be with each other.
Finally, after a long while, she is done thinking, and she turns her face to the night sky and speaks.
"Yue? Princess Yue? ...I'm marrying Sokka, and we're going to have kids, and have a life, but I just felt like I had to tell you, and ask if you minded, even though I've never spoken to you before... I hope you don't mind. I would hate to think the moon was mad at me for the rest of my life, or jealous. You hear stories about vengeful spirits sometimes, and one as powerful as the moon... I just hope it's okay with you, that I'm marrying the boy you once loved. The man. I hope you understand."
Done talking and done thinking, she lies back on the grass and listens to the sounds of the night.
o0o
Yue looks down at the small Earthbender, watching her closely. For the longest time she merely sits on the hill, running her fingers through the grass, twisting it between her fingers, pulling it out and making small piles, clearly lost in thought. Finally, she speaks, and Yue listens.
She has listened to many people talk since she became the moon spirit, but she has always paid closest attention to those Sokka loved most. Not that she neglects the other people, mind, it's just that she cares most about Sokka. This girl, this woman, has grown close to Sokka, and though she has never spoken to Yue before, Yue has watched her over the years, and grown to like her, once she got used to the idea of her, the larger than life attitude, the loudness, the boldness, the in-your-face fact of her. She has never really seen this side of the Earthbender, so she listens carefully.
The small woman finishes talking, and, after considering a bit, Yue speaks.
"Don't worry, Toph, I'm not jealous. I don't begrudge you or Sokka a happy life. He loves us differently, and that's how it should be. His love for me is forever frozen in time, but his love for you is constantly changing and growing, as love should. I made my choice, Toph, and I'm happy with it. Don't worry about me; be happy with your new husband, live a long life, and one day we will see each other, and you will understand how I feel."
It's short, but Yue knows it is enough.
o0o
After a while, though Toph cannot explain it, she feels a weight lift from her shoulders, and, relieved, she goes back inside and lies down next to her almost-husband, and sleeps deeply.