~*~ This is just something I'm scratching at for fun. I think I'll continue with it, since I've got a vague plot in my head, but don't be surprised if I don't get on with it for a while. Projects don't like me. You betas out there, you butcher this like you've never butchered before. I need an Avatar beta. Who wants the job? *prods DarkBluexx* ~*~
Really, things weren't too different.
It's just that we were given more money and praise than we knew what to do with after Aang and Zuko had made alliances and we were staying in one place for over two weeks and there was the fact that we didn't know exactly what to do anymore. Katara and Aang were being awkward and dorky around each other and all Sokka ever did was drool after Suki (which was far too amusing to me for my own good). And people taking me, a blind, twelve year old Earthbender seriously?
It was totally awesome.
It was a new life and a new chance. Everything I had been hoping to come out of the war had, and even though returning home would be a difficult and emotional journey, the months I had spent with Aang had only prepared me for it. Saying goodbye to my friends would be one of harder parts, but I still felt that talking to my parents and learning about why they couldn't give me the freedom I had always wanted, that felt like it would be okay.
"You're leaving already?" Katara's voice comes from my doorway. I turn around to face her.
"I have things I need to take care of." I reply, and I stand a little taller because one day I hope to grow past Katara; it's a secret I refuse to reveal.
"It's only been over for a few weeks!" she says in a slightly flustered tone. I feel the corners of my mouth peel upward slightly. Good ol' Katara.
"I need to get home to my parents. Been gone for a long time, you know." I say nonchalantly, brushing my fingernails over the front of my robes. I can tell by the way her feet are planted that she is still unhappy with my plans.
"But… you're supposed to be teaching here." She says, and her voice is a bit softer than it was before. I shrug.
"I'll come back for that. I have to take care of other business before I can pursue more, isn't that what you've been teaching me?" I ask her, raising my eyebrows. I feel some of the tension leave her muscles and she leans against my doorframe slightly. Only slightly and I can tell that's she's ready to pounce on me if she needs to. I don't think I'll give her reason for such a futile action.
"I can't handle Sokka without you." She says with a smile in her voice. (I only know what a smile looks like because sometimes I hear Aang's heart flutter in his sleep, and he doesn't know it, but sometimes, only sometimes, I reach out to touch his face) "Him and Suki are inseparable."
"Much like you and Aang?" I say, and I can't keep the bitterness out of my voice. I didn't mean to put it there but there a lot of things that I put into my words that I don't necessarily mean to put there.
Katara is quiet for a moment before she says, "It's not all that it's cut out to be, you know." I hear my bed creak as she sits down and she sighs heavily, as though she is much older and has more trouble than she knows what to do with. Ironically, she only did this a few times while we were out and about around the world. She confuses me sometimes.
"What do you mean?" I say, and I don't take the time to sit down next to her and comfort her, like I have been for the past few weeks while she muddles over her emotions and rather odd sense of loneliness.
"We're both… it's not working. He may have grown up a lot since I met him, but he's still just a kid who needs to do kid things, and I have to get back home. He wants to travel the world and master all of his elements, but I want to go back to the South Pole and rebuild the tribe there. We both want to be leaders but we can't be leaders together. I tried doing that while we were out there and… well, you saw how much that didn't work." Her voice is toned with sadness and I even though I can't see her face, I know there's a slight frown hanging there, the one that Aang sometimes has when we're alone and talking about Katara. (He lets me explore his expressions when we're alone sometimes, only because he knows I'm curious but I told him that if he let it slip to anyone, his toes would be useless for weeks.)
"So what do you plan to do about it?" I ask. I do want to know, as my friend's best interests are in my heart but I have to leave and I have to know what is going to happen to her.
"I want to be honest with him… I have been, actually. He understands. We're straying… you haven't been around us much the past few days but we're back to just being awkward around each other, just like before."
"I wasn't there for before, goof. When I showed up you two were already hitting things off."
I know she's blushing because I'm an expert in reading the way her feet move against the floor and I take a secret pride in making her blush. It's too much fun.
"When are you leaving, then?" Katara asks, and she stands and puts her hands on my shoulders. I want to cringe away because I honestly don't like physical contact with anyone other than Aang (but that's only because he's soft and sweet and doesn't think anything of it) and sometimes Katara doesn't understand this.
"As soon as I can say goodbye to everyone." I say, moving away from her and grabbing my rucksack. I've packed the essentials; food, a change of spare clothes, but there's one stupid thing that Aang carved for me once the war was over.
"What is it?" I say, moving my fingers over it. It's smooth and flawless, reminds me of his skin.
"A whistle." He says cheerily. "Any time you need me, just blow it."
"I don't think you'll be able to hear me from the Earth Kingdom, Twinkletoes."
"Who says I'm leaving the Earth Kingdom?"
I hadn't quite known what he meant then but we were still residing in the Fire Nation, where Aang was helping Zuko with so many things and Sokka was training with the soldiers. It had been about a month since we had been back in the Earth Kingdom and I want to go home. As much fun metalbending was, I'm tired of steel and pipes everywhere, all around me, all the time. I just want to feel grass and dirt and rock.
I haven't tested out the stupid whistle ("I shaped it like a blade of grass. Grass reminds me of you.")and a little thought crossed my mind that maybe I should, just before I leave. Maybe I should give it a little go.
But I discarded that thought and slung the rucksack over my shoulder, dragging my toe in a half circle around me as I turned to the door again. It was my way of taking a sweeping last look of the room. I felt Katara follow me out the doorway and down the hallway, and just as I was about to tell her to buzz off, I heard—or rather, felt—Sokka come bounding into the room.
"You guys will never believe this! There's—Toph, why do you have your things all packed up?" He stopped mid sentence to question me and I could tell by the way his knees were shaking slightly that he had either just had a very long workout or he was very nervous of my answer.
"I'm leaving Sokka. Going back to the Earth Kingdom."
"But… why?" He sounds hurt and that kind of hurts me in return. I don't like it when Sokka isn't feeling well.
"There are things I have to do. I can't do any of them here." I step towards him and his weight shifts to the balls of his feet, implying that he's leaning towards me. I hold out my arms in an awkward but suitable goodbye, so Sokka takes them and holds me close for a moment. My head barely reaches his collarbone—he's been growing like a lunatic, with all his training and eating lately—and I don't feel sad, saying goodbye to Sokka. It feels like we'll just meet again some other time and from the way his heart is beating calmly, I know he feels the same.
"Don't get yourself too messed up, Sokka." I say, shoving him a little with my palms.
"You too, Toph." He sounds chipper and it's easy, knowing that Sokka doesn't really care where I go as long as I come back at some point. I brush past him and step outside, reveling in the feet of the rough clay beneath my feet. Another reason I need to get out of here; I hate clay.
I'm just about to walk on and then I feel Katara's hand on my shoulder and she spins me around. She clutches to me, almost a little desperately, and even though I think it's kind of dumb and sappy, I give her a hug in return and she's only a little emotional when I let her go.
"Cheer up," I say, patting her arm, "I'll come visit the South Pole sometime."
"There isn't any dirt down there."
"Sure there is, it's just all captured under the ice."
"Maybe we'll come visit you instead." Katara said, and I gave her a smile. She squeezed my hand one last time and I turned away from her, walking past the gardens that Iroh had kept up so nicely and I didn't feel her light footsteps or Sokka's heavy ones trailing behind me like they had for so long. It was an accomplished feeling with a dash of lonely, and the combination reminded me vaguely of Iroh again; he'd always liked mixing recipes for his tea.
I wait until I'm two hundred paces away from the luxurious home we had been staying in before I retrieved the whistle from my pack. I twirl it between my fingers for a time and then bring it to my lips, debating then and there whether or not this is a good idea.
But when it came to Aang, a lot of things weren't good idea. In contradiction, a lot of things were good ideas. You just had to find the compromise between them.
So I let air flow through my lungs and into the miniscule little thing. It was an odd sound, but it reminded me of the wind blowing through an open field on a sunny day. That's what it sounded like. I could hear the air brushing through all the tall grasses and trees. It's wonderful and I'm suddenly hit with a feeling of homesickness. I can't wait to be back in an open field again.
I wait a few minutes. And then a few more before I begin walking again.
"Alright, Twinkletoes," I mutter under my breath, "this better not be a trick."
"I'm not stupid enough to try and trick you, Toph." His voice, so light and airy and wonderful, came from in front of me and I stop dead in my march. I lift my head to where I thought his would be.
"I'm leaving."
I think he frowns, but I can't tell. "I was wondering when you would." He says in reply. His lack of distance to my body makes me feel uncomfortable but a little too happy for my own good. I'll have to knock some sense back into myself when I get home.
"Why do you say that?"
"You don't have your heart set into this place." He says, taking my hand and putting it on the pulse point of his wrist. It echoes beneath his skin in a way that I can only find soothing and completely enviable. "You're the one who taught me how to sense that."
Sometimes I wish I could see. I just want to be able to see what my fingers on his wrist would look like.
But I shake my head instead of wishing more and say, "Well, I'm off as soon as you let me leave."
I think he frowns again, but still, I don't know for sure. "I'm not keeping you anywhere."
"You aren't saying a proper goodbye, idiot."
I'm almost positive he smiles then. He smiles when I tease him when we're alone. I've felt it before, and it's a nice feeling.
I feel his arms go around me in a way that isn't strange or unemotional. Instead, he's warm and friendly, so I return his gesture and try not to think about how his heart just fluttered in that way it often does when Katara blushes. It confuses me but then I feel my heart do the same. I pull away from him.
"You'll visit the Earth Kingdom from time to time?"
"Seeing as I still have some earthbending to master, I think you'll be hearing from me at some point."
"Well, come back before that. It's awfully boring now that we're done running around and saving the world and all that noble junk." I know I should plant my foot a step back so that he knows I intend on leaving, but I can't. My foot likes being planted where it is now.
"I promise I will." Instinctively, my fingers stretch for his face and the soles of my feet feel his weight shift so that he's leaning down ever so slightly. The tips of my fingers ghost over his cheeks, brush over his eyelids and then settle on his lips, which are formed in the upward slant that they usually are. He's smiling.
"You plant your feet differently when you smile." I think out loud. "They're off the ground more."
Aang stands on the balls of his feet to annoy me, and it works. I summon a pebble and crush it into a little diamond. (He likes diamonds, but I don't know why.) He understands that I'm going to throw it at him so he just closes my fingers around it instead.
"Don't give me a reason to beat you up before we continue earthbending lessons, Twinkletoes."
He smiles again.
"I wouldn't dream of it."