Epithetically InCorrect

Chapter 1: Empathy

The moment Toph slid the shoji door open she thought she might drop dead. Incense, candle smoke, and the aroma of lilies were heavy to the point of excess. She itched her nose and stepped inside the threshold, feeling numerous velvet flower petals under her feet. The room itself was noticeably warmer than the hallway, so warm Toph felt a little dizzy. And confused. It reminded her of the day spa Katara had dragged her tooth-and-nail to upon their first visit to Ba Sing Se.

However, these being the quarters Iroh had sanctioned for the boys, this particular room for Sokka, the atmosphere was more or less something she did not anticipate. Then again, it was Sokka.

"I've been waiting for you."

She had seen Sokka sitting in the corner of the room before she had entered. It was his words that caught her off guard. "…Waiting?"

"Yeah, I have. I just wanted to tell you that you're pretty special." He took a slow breath. "Where ever you go, there is a smile on your face, and mine. You make us all laugh and I know I can always count on you to make me feel better."

Toph could hear the subtle flutter of paper behind his voice, undoubtedly the one on which had written this little speech on. She was far too taken by what Sokka had to say to be concerned with how he was accomplishing it. She felt herself blush a little, even if the things he said weren't true and sounded a little silly.

"Your eyes are something I could get lost in, and your lips, silky and smooth, are a perfect fit against mine, chapped and manly…"

She silently wondered how he knew the way their lips fit together right before he answered her unspoken question.

"Suki, you are a jewel in my—Toph! What are you doing here?"

The thing inside of her that had been beating so loud and hard fell out of the hole in her chest and broke in two. A pregnant silence stretched between them as they simmered in mutual embarrassment.

Toph crossed her arms and kicked the floor, causing the petals near her to jump. "I came to tell you that dinner is ready. So move your feet."

"Wait, Toph!" Sokka grabbed her wrist before she could escape, pulling her into the center of the room. "You've got to tell me what you think of this!"

Toph took back her arm with more force than was necessary. "It's… nice." She itched her nose again. "Not really my style, though." But it could have been.

"And you've gotta feel this kimono!" Without regards to her space, he took her hand and shoved a bunch of his sleeve into her fist. It was soft, silky, and obviously expensive. "I know you can't see," Toph clenched her fists, "but the obi has Suki's favorite flower on it, the lily!"

"Great," she said through her teeth.

"And, oh! That's what the incense is. And I got her a bouquet, and the petals on the floor, they're all lilies, and we're going to watch the stars come—"

"Awesome, she'll be thrilled."

"Wait, Toph! Where are you going? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just really hungry."

He chased her as she walked out of the room. "I think you're still embarrassed, but don't be! I mean, it was an honest mistake, and—"

Toph punched the wood paneling of the hallway hard enough to make it splinter. "Look, Lily Lord, I don't really care. Iroh was nice enough to make dinner for us during rush hour and I just want to go eat."

"Geez, somebody is awful hangry!" He shrugged. "I just wanted your opinion, that's all."

Toph stormed off down the hall, the disgruntled knot in her chest suffocating her with more totality than any aroma ever could.

Toph crushed the pebble in her hand, opened her palm, and sucked the pieces back together into a complete and perfectly round whole, then repeated the process. The earthbender figured that if life's problems were as easily fixed as the pebble in her hand, then she wouldn't be blind, but beautiful, whatever that meant. Sokka wouldn't be ignorant, but perceptive, if that would be an improvement. She wouldn't be alone, but—

"Toph?" The girl in question closed her eyes and tried to think of all of the nice things she could say to Katara. None really came to mind. What Toph really wanted was to be alone so she could brood over her pebble.

"Hi, Katara," Toph said insipidly.

"Can I sit with you?" Katara asked.

No. "Sure."

Katara sat herself about half a foot away from Toph, more than a little disturbed by the earthbender's insidious rock crushing and reformation. "So," Katara began. "Um, is that the earthbender's version of a stress ball?" A meager attempt.

Toph fisted the pieces of the rock, turning the bits into dust. "What makes you think I'm stressed?"

"You just, suh, eem... out of sorts."

"I've got every last one of my sorts, thank you very much… hey, Katara, what do you think of lilies?"

"Why are you changing the subject?"

"Normally when someone asks you a question, you answer it. I think lilies are for losers. Now it's your turn."

"I like lilies."

Toph snorted. Katara sighed. "What's bothering you, Toph? You look stressed."

"Why does everyone have to talk about looking at things and seeing them? How can you look at me and say I look stressed?" She flicked the pebble twenty feet away. A cat mewled in surprised pain. "You can't see my heartbeat, you can't hear my pulse, and you can't gage my breathing. So how can I look stressed? I don't get it!"

"Toph," Katara rested her hand on the Toph's shoulder and felt the earthbender tense. "I see differently than you, you're right, but this has never seemed to bother you before. I don't need to look for the things my eyes can see and your feet cannot to know that something is bothering you. You're moody, your voice is raised, and you're being destructive. That's something anyone can hear."

"Except a deaf person."

Katara sighed and let her hand fall. If Toph was determined to shoot her down, then fine. "Look, all I meant to do was come out here and see what was bothering you. I don't think it's that you're blind. What is it?"

"Look, Sugar Queen," Toph said as she stood abruptly, "have you ever been frustrated by something you couldn't do, no matter how hard you tried? Wait, firebenders killed your mom when you were little, right?"

Katara's heart skipped a beat, leaving a painful absence. Toph knew she had hit a soft spot, but Katara had been asking for this. Now she would render the waterbender to a bitter understanding.

"Yes," Katara said. "But I don't know what that has to do with your sight."

"I bet as she lay on the floor, writhing in pain from the burns you knelt at her side and told her to get up. And she didn't, did she?" Toph tilted her head, strands of hair falling around her useless eyes. "But you wanted it more than anything in the world."

Whispers of memories gnawed on the edges of Katara's composure, creating gaps. Faintly, she could see her mother's body on the floor. The smell of flesh cooked so long it was charred, crisp, and rancid. Her father yelling at Sokka to take her away so she wouldn't see—both of them too paralyzed to move. The ash that danced in the northern wind as her mother drifted to the place above the earth.

"You're wrong." Katara said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, you're wrong. My mother wasn't in any pain when I got there."

"So you're saying she was smiling and all humpty-dumpy?"

"No," Katara took a deep breath, summoning the dregs of her courage to fight the vivid memories. "I'm saying she was already dead."

The chime of the tiny bells on a house pet's collar was the only noise to that intruded upon their silence.

"Oh," Toph finally said. No apology followed.

Katara softly shook her head back and forth. "I… do wish I could have brought her back. I still wish I could." She paused to breathe in the magnitude of that statement. The waterbender had not anticipated such a heavy talk this evening, at least not about her own afflictions. "Do you wish that you could see like the rest of us?"

Toph dropped her head back so her blank eyes pointed in the direction she knew as up, but everyone else called the sky. Right now they were probably sweetly nuzzling each other under the paling light of the stars and drinking forget-me-nots from the each other's warm lips, all of this tasting like the lilies that Suki's eyes so loved to devour. The thought was sweet enough to give anyone a toothache.

"Sometimes."

"Oh Toph," Katara put a hand on her shoulder again. This time she didn't tense up. "Your unique vision is part of who you are. Your life would be so different if you could see." For the better or worse? "Would you be such a powerful earthbender if you could see?"

Toph brushed Katara's hand from her shoulder "Look, I know you're trying to help, but I wear the badge of a crippled child just as proudly as you do the whiny little cry baby that lost her mommy."

It was Katara's turn to become tense, but Toph felt her heart drop with said bitter understanding. "Toph, I'm not sure why you're so crabby tonight. I think it's because—"

"I'm not crabby, you're just a soft-skinned floozy! Do you realize how backhanded that compliment you gave me was?" Toph didn't give her a chance to answer. "I didn't think so. The least you can do would be to leave."

"Toph—"

"Come on, quit while you're way behind. I don't need your pity." I'd rather wallow in my shame. "Just go, Katara."

"Fine, Toph. You know if you ever want to talk—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She waited until Katara disappeared inside of the teahouse. When Toph was certain Katara was gone, she sat down again and began pulling up grass shoots.

And then she began rubbing at the dirt. It turned into clawing, drawing, and scratching, the kind of exploration someone who wanted to scream silently might use as a medium. Toph knew no letters with which to write or she would have spoken the language entitled solely to those with vision. Bei Fongs' were surrounded by a rich collection of art, authors, and alphabets—none of which had a place in her life; all of which she barely grasped the meaning of their existence, if at all.

It was after she carved a disgruntled hole big enough to make her calloused palms bleed that the first one came.

There was lots of little pain, pain like thousands of pins and needles, all stabbing through her eyes to the place behind them. That wasn't all. There was more. This pain had a sort of substance she had never known. It wasn't like any spoken word, vivid taste, or memorable scent. Pain was the sensation nearest this one, but it was desperately lacking as her equilibrium all disappeared.

"Did you like it?"

A/N: I would like to give a giant THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to kookoofozuzupuffs for helping me with character development and my spazzy grammar. Hats off and a round of applause for my other beta, writingshizo101, for catching still more grammatical errors and helping me to understand blindness and all that accompanies it. They're both wonderful friends and accomplished writers and this story would not be alive WITHOUT THEM! No kidding. You should seriously check out some of the incredible work they have done.