Important Author's Note: This story contains sexual assault and the affects thereof. I understand how sensitive a topic this is and I assure you I take this subject seriously and I don't use it simply as a plot device. Sexual assault, rape and other acts of the like change a person's life forever, it shapes their lives in an unwanted way and there is so much pain and recovery involved in such an event. I respectfully hope to capture this and encourage others towards recovery and maybe shed some light on how awful a crime this is. This story could be triggering so read with caution or avoid all together. ABSOLUTLY NO EXPLICIT CONTENT ABOUT RAPE WILL BE IN THIS STORY.
On another note: The original version of this story is "This Isn't Happening to Me". I am currently rewriting it now that I've gained some experience in writing.
Toph awoke slowly, her eyelids dragging open, her lungs expanding as she took a deep breath. The air was smoky and musky, not the fresh earthy scent of her home. She blinked, clearing the stickiness of sleep from her eyes. Her mind felt foggy, murky even. As she awoke fully she felt her head begin to pound, sending shockwaves of pain to her eardrums. The young woman lifted one hand to her unruly black hair, clutching her scalp. She sat up, disoriented, feeling a bit dizzy and gasped as the blankets slipped of her naked body. "What?" She breathed clutching at the thin fabric, hurrying to cover herself. Where was she? She fumbled around, her ankle getting twisted in the sheet as she stretched her toes down from the cot to the floor. Her surroundings were unfamiliar and she could not recall ever coming to a place such as this. She had no memory of ever arriving in this room, this building or even the town she could feel the faint vibrations of about a half mile away. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her head and clutched the blanket closer to her chest as she scooted to the edge of the cot to begin searching for her clothes.
Where am I? She thought, waiting for her head to stop swimming. Why in Agni's name am I naked? Did I get drunk last night? She knew something was off, something deep her in gut told her something was terribly wrong when she couldn't recall last night for the life of her. She lowered her weight onto her toes and nearly cried out with the pain it brought. A deep ache resonated between her legs, something so very different but almost as painful as the worst of her monthly cramps. Her knees nearly buckled but she steeled herself and desperately began pawing blindly for her clothes. She may not remember what had happened the previous evening but every instinct in her body told her to get out. She located each article of clothing on the floor and yanked them on, leaving her bindings where they lay. She didn't have time to tie the intricate knots feeling panicked as she was. She hurried from the room, slipping quietly down the various halls, heading for the edge of the building where she could see a door that led outside. She limped along, ignoring the ache in her body with each hurried footstep.
When she finally got outside every fiber in her body was telling her to run, to run home as quickly as her feet could carry her. Toph could not feel anyone preparing to ambush her, actually, no one was even on the small dirt road trailing alongside the forest. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to calm down and figure out which direction she needed to go in to get home. Toph settled into a deep horse stance, well as deep as she could with the pain that was radiating from her center. Taking slow breaths through her nose she reached out with her earthbending. The vibrations she got back were fuzzy, she reasoned it was because of the migraine thumping away in her head, but she managed to lengthen her senses for miles easily enough. At twenty she had honed her senses so acutely she had even learned to read vibrations of other vibrations, therefore allowing her to see farther than ever before. Toph finally saw familiar surroundings about ten to fifteen miles away. Usually she was a good judge of distance but her head just hurt so much. She stood up straight and started walking. It wasn't long before she could feel the noon sun burning her cheeks, surely leaving a red tinge behind that would last for a few days. The headache had not relented and only seemed to worsen, aggravated by the hot sun. She was sweating, thirsty and still aching in private places. She was nearly in tears when she still could not remember what had happened the previous day. She had been walking for hours at this point, just barely halfway home now. The pain between her legs had intensified and when she could no longer bear it, resorted to limping, hoping to ease the pain. Slowly, slowly, she began to recall flashes of yesterday. She could remember small scenes in her mind, lasting perhaps a minute. A man. There was a man.
"I want you to have tea with me," he smiled broadly. She had met him just ten minutes ago when they had literally ran into each other at a jewelry stand. His name was Jai- Ling and he was tall, handsome and easy to talk to. Toph could feel with her feet his heart was racing, anxious for her response.
"Sure, why not?" She had grinned.
"Awesome! I know this great place!" He responded gleefully. He led her to the tea house, chatting the whole way about the things he'd seen when he worked at the docks on the coast of the Fire Nation. When they reached the little tea shop he showed her to a small table on the patio and disappeared inside the tea shop. When he came back she felt his heart hammering in his chest. She had nearly laughed out loud at him being so nervous, it wasn't even a date… at least Toph didn't think it was… or was it? Regardless, she was enjoying being in his upbeat company. "Here, just for you," he said sweetly handing her on of the teacups he was holding. "I'm so glad you decided to come with me," he said with a nervous smile as he sat across from her. Toph responded silently with a smile, sipping her tea. If not for her feeling particularly generous that day, she would have spewed that vile liquid all over this guy's face. It was sickly sweet with a bitter, bitter after bite. She choked it down, unwilling to let him know he had picked a bad tea shop for a "date". "Honestly, I haven't been out with anyone for a long time."
"Why's that?" Toph asked curiously, avoiding her next drink of tea that tasted worse than swamp water in an old water-skin baking in the sun for a week… and she had tasted that before.
Jai- Ling shrugged, "Been too busy working I suppose." He paused. "Can I asked you a personal question?" The man hesitated for a moment. "And I mean you don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"Yeah, sure, go for it," she replied.
"How exactly do you get around by yourself? I mean, you don't even have a seeing-eye lemur or anything and yet you're so confident walking around."
Toph chuckled a little. "I'm an earthbender. I taught myself to see using vibrations. It's kind of like a wolf-bats sonar. In a way, I see better than anyone else."
"Whoa, really? That sounds awesome! So how acute is it?"
"I mean I can feel heartbeats and see around myself for about a mile or two pretty well. But I've been practicing and I can sense vibrations up to… well miles away now."
"That's really impressive!" He responded in awe. Toph yawned, beginning to feel a bit sleepy from her day of shopping. She took another painfully disgusting drink of tea and almost groaned. She really wanted to tell this guy the tea sucked but she felt extra nice today… and she was really feeling too tired to start an argument. They talked for another twenty minutes, getting to know each other, chatting about little, unimportant things going on in their lives. Toph's eyes were drooping by then and she just wanted to go home. She could just imagine the sludge cake in the bottom of the tea cup. She winced and swallowed the last bit. It was possibly the worst thing she'd ever had in her whole life, all twenty years of it. She let her eyelids fall shut for a moment and she hummed in agreement to something Jai-Ling had said.
And that was the last thing she remembered. It was late afternoon now, the sun was at its hottest and sweat was rolling down her spine. She had begun to feel nauseous nearly an hour ago, she chalked it up to the migraine that was, thank the spirits, slowly leaving her head. She had tried to keep from vomiting but she could no longer stand it and she dropped to her knees as her stomach wrenched its contents through her throat, burning on the way out. She dry-heaved, nothing left in her belly now but stomach acid. She was so thirsty, every inch of her body crying out for something, anything to drink. She pushed on, cursing whoever, whatever had done this to her.
It was nearly dusk before she finally arrived home, sunburnt, dehydrated and miserable. She slammed her door shut and made a beeline for her sink. Sokka had actually installed what he called "indoor plumbing" and Toph was never more grateful for clean, cold water at her disposal. She drank, sipped water carefully from the clay cup she had crafted months before. She knew better than to guzzle for her body would simply, and promptly, return the liquid if she was not patient. She shifted her weight to her other foot and winced. The pain in her groin was no longer unbearably, simply more of a surprise than painful. Now that she was home, somewhere safe where she no longer had to worry about her safety, she could start trying to piece her memories together, try to figure out what happened.
She slid down the smooth cabinets under her kitchen counter onto the cool floor. She always felt better the closer to the ground she was. She felt gross, felt grimy and unclean from sweat and dirt caking her skin. Dust did not bother her, but wet, sticky dirt did. She started to pull her knees to her chest but stopped when she felt something pull at her skin at her inner thighs. Whatever dirt had managed to get there had caked and she brushed it off with her fingers. She yanked her hands back when she realized it wasn't dirt, it was dried blood. Fear started to seep into her veins. Why was she bleeding? She was in the middle of her cycle and shouldn't bleed for another two or three weeks. She pressed her center gently, grimacing when she felt pain shoot through her. She felt raw, bruised and ached so very deeply. Some part of her mind brought back the vile taste of tea she had yesterday, brought back the fuzzy, dazed memory of the last moments she remembered of Jai-Ling.
Her heart started pounding, realization starting to take hold. She felt wrong. Every cell in her body suddenly felt awry. She had woken up naked, who knows how far from that town she and Jai-Ling had shared tea in, she had been- someone had-
"No," she breathed. "No, no, no, no" she chanted, clutching her tangled black hair in her fingers. She tugged slightly at her scalp, utter disbelief freezing her heart, her lungs, all the blood in her veins. All other thought left her except for the one screaming that she had been violated. Ravaged viciously by a man… by- by him. By that monster that had been so kind to her and taken her for tea. Her skin crawled and she scraped her fingernails down her arms, leaving red trails in their wake. She had to get clean, now. She hurried to the bathroom and cranked the handle as hot as it would go. She stripped down and climbed into the tub. The water was hot, scalding, burning her skin, leaving it tinged red as the water rose. When the bathtub was full, the water at her rib cage, she turned the faucet off. Toph sat there, completely unable to wrap her mind around what had transpired within the last 24 hours. She shifted her legs, wincing at the pain in her most private places. Her hands shook as she reached for the sponge and soap she kept on the edge of the tub. And when she began to clean herself, she discovered bruises on her breasts and hips, bite marks on her sides she had not noticed before. Her grief came then, and she cried. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep from shattering.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this! She was supposed to be in love, she wanted to be married! All her hopes and dreams of a normal life seemed so small and dim and gone. She didn't understand how it could have happened, not to her, she was supposed to be the greatest earthbender in the world, and she couldn't even keep herself from being-. No she couldn't even think it, but it lay there still, stagnating in her mind, poisoning her thoughts.
She sobbed, her cries choking her and wracking her petite frame. Everything had been stolen from her, robbed so violently by a stranger. She hated herself for letting it happen to her, she was embarrassed, mortified. Toph had never, ever cried so hard in her life. She felt so used, so worthless, how could she possibly go in living in this skin? Her flesh crawled, feeling phantom touches that weren't there. She grabbed the sponge floating in the water and scrubbed her skin raw, until it burnt, until she was so sore she could feel her heartbeat burning her skin with every thump. She cleaned under her nails, between her fingers and toes and washed her hair three times, desperate to get the smell of him off of her. When the water turned cold and she stepped out of the draining tub, she dried herself with a soft towel. She would have regretted scrubbing her skin so raw but it seemed such a pointless, menial thing to worry about now. She braced herself, forced down the cries that threatened to escape as she picked up the clothes she had been wearing.
She entered her room, starting a fire in the fireplace across the room from her bed and she threw the soiled clothes in the flames. She clutched the towel tightly in her fingers, securing it around her body, too insecure to let it fall to the floor as she normally would have done as she dug through her draws for something to wear. Her free hand found a pair of underwear and a large tunic. When she had changed she curled up tenderly in the center of her bed, listening to her clothes burn. Sleep didn't find her for a long time, her mind was too busy racing and her heart too busy aching. She had no mores tears to cry, her chest ached from sobbing and now she lay there numb, unable to feel anything but sorrow and fear. She curled into herself tighter, her nose brushing the edge of the large tunic she wore. She caught the scent, it was familiar, of sea and woods and leather. This was Sokka's tunic he'd left here the last time he visited. Although she felt her heart race briefly at the thought of a man, it was dispelled when she breathed in again. The smell of the tunic calmed her and she finally, finally slept.