This is a contest fic for *daughterofthestars on deviantArt and her pic titled "Ambushed". It's a sad, sad picture, and she did so well conveying the emotion and pain. :O Anyway, she got many offers from writers to expand on her short descriptive story and thus, the contest was born. Honestly, I don't care about being the best. I just wanna see the other entries! :D
UPDATE: I won da contest! :D This is officially the contest version, edited with the help if my amazing beta reader, Capt-BA from dA. She's the shiz, and I am so grateful for her wisdom and patience! There will be an Author's Cut, a full multi-chaptered fic to continue and further explore the characters! Yay Tokka!
[h e a r t],
Nyx
1. Be Grateful
The sand only gave her minor problems as of late, only made things slightly fuzzy. A beach was like a massive army of tiny earthen soldiers, each one pinging directions in the form of vibrations off of its myriads of brothers. It was overwhelming at times, with its millions of different angles and perspectives. Tonight, though, she was glad for the imprecise vision. It helped that her Earthbending sight was in tune with her heart and mind. In a strange way, it was comforting to feel so scattered.
She could feel the tide caressing the sandy beach, feel the throb of it against the ocean floor. To her it was an almost tangible sound of silk on silk. Even though she didn't feel the water the way she supposed a Waterbender could, she could still sense it. It felt like the bodies of two lovers pressed against one another, and this image made a flush creep along her cheeks to rival the warmth of the night air.
Images like that had been plaguing her for the past few days of their trip. Flashes of chaste kisses, twined bodies, and other maddening things kept swirling around inside her head like trapped sparrows. The stress and hardship of the war combined with her young age had kept her from really considering the concept, but she'd grown up since then and her mind was opening to the possibilities.
Maybe it was that she was older. Or maybe it was that a certain member of their group kept creeping into her thoughts more and more recently, and she just couldn't rid her thoughts of him. Nor did she want to.
She needed to clear her head, and so she crept away from camp and sought solace where the earth met the sea.
Though she'd never admit it, she longed to see the ocean. It certainly sounded interesting the way it constantly moved, never resting or pausing in its incursion on the earth. Swooosh. Crssshhhhh. Silence as it gathered itself again for another wave. It was one of the very few things, like flying, that frightened her because she couldn't really get a handle on it. It lacked the stability and surety of earth. It parted and flowed around its obstacles, rather than standing fast and strong in the face of its hardships. The concept was almost more than she could comprehend.
Vibrations of familiar footsteps coming down the beach towards her interrupted her musings and sent her heart into a chaotic staccato. "Hey, Snoozles." She didn't have the energy to think up any better taunts.
"Hey, Toph. I got kinda worried when I didn't see you at camp. Everything alright?" He plopped himself down right next to her in the sand. He was so close she could feel the warmth emanating from him. She was starting to regret coming to the beach in only her bindings, and she hoped very hard that he didn't notice the blush coloring her cheeks.
"Yeah, just admiring the ocean. The sounds are much more relaxing than listening to you snore all night." She punched him in the arm for good measure.
Sokka rubbed the sore spot, too used to such abuse to protest, and gently punched her back. "It's really beautiful, you know. The ocean. The moon is full tonight and is casting all sorts of reflections on the surface. It's kinda like someone draped silver satin on top of the cobalt waves. Pretty."
The corner of her mouth twitched downward. "You know, I ought to Earthbend you out into the middle of the ocean for that."
"What? Why?" She felt the shift in his posture as he turned to face her and felt slightly self-conscious at the scrutiny. She'd made a point all her life to make sure everyone knew she didn't care what they thought of her. Her parents had treated her like their own personal dress-up doll, and she imagined that the clothes and trinkets they put her in were fine and beautiful, but what was all that finery to a blind girl, really? She hugged her knees to her chest and wondered what he though of her tonight.
"You don't have to rub it in, Sokka," Toph replied quietly. She hated the tremor in her voice that betrayed her feelings.
"I… I just thought you'd like to know. I know you don't know what any of that stuff really looks like, but maybe you can try to imagine." His voice held a little bit of hurt and confusion. "I wasn't trying to make fun of you, Toph.
(Okay, right here I've got an idea how you could turn this into an honest-to-goodness first time attempt for Sokka to really explain the sight to Toph. He makes the mistake of using fancy color words and being poetic, and I like that, it's in character. But Sokka IS pretty much a genius, and I think he could take a different approach right here, instead of giving up. If I were to write a scene where Sokka describes things to Toph, I would use words like "deep" and "cold" and likening color to emotion and feeling, like "the color of peace" or "the color of contentment". Get creative! Sokka's a creative guy and if he really wants to be her eyes, he's going to have to work for it a bit more.)
He pushed himself up from his spot beside her and dusted the sand from his backside. He paused for a moment, and she was sure he was staring at her. He sighed and started to turn back towards camp when her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. Her traitorous heart skipped a beat as her delicate fingers slid over his smooth skin.
"Sokka… I'm sorry. It's just… so unfair, sometimes." She tugged on his arm until he sat back down.
"I know it is," he said quietly. He picked up a small piece of driftwood and doodled aimlessly in the sand. He drew two figures sitting beside one another. She couldn't tell for sure, but she thought that maybe he was drawing them.
"Imagine gentle waves." He took her hand and traced a wavy pattern in the air with it. "They're small, really just ripples, and at the top of each ripple is where the moon reflects."
She nodded slowly, and he continued, "Now, think of how warm the sun is, and think of that feeling as red or yellow, because those are warm colors. Water is cool and soothing and deep, blue and green." He laughed. "I'm not very good at this."
"I kinda understand, I guess. I've never been able to see, so I guess it shouldn't be as hard for me, but I'm always left wondering. My Earthbending sense only gives me shapes, which is great, really. But…" she sighed laid her head against her knees.
Sokka draped an arm across her shoulders and suddenly pulled her against his side in a comfortable half-hug. "Sometimes, Toph, you have to be grateful for what you do have. You have people who love you and would do anything for you. You have amazing abilities that every other Earthbender on this planet would give his left leg for." He let her go and stood again, this time holding his hand out to her.
"And you have someone willing to describe the ocean to you knowing he would most likely get to see those abilities used directly on himself." This made her giggle. She took his offered hand and stood. "I'll be your eyes anytime you want, okay?
"Yeah, that's pretty brave of you, Sokka." In a sudden impulse she would either regret or cherish forever, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. She could feel warmth spread to his face, which made her smile. "You go on back to camp. I'm going to stay out here a bit longer."
"Uh….okay." His voice cracked and she giggled again.
Without waiting for her response he walked away, and she turned unseeing eyes the color of faded jade to the ocean. She imagined what silver satin floating on the cobalt waves might look like, how blue was soothing and red was warm, and smiled to herself. She wondered what it would be like to have Sokka there to describe every detail of the world to her, patient and sweet, and willing to risk his own personal safety on her hair-trigger moods. She was grateful for everything she had. She sat there for a long while, imagining all of the possible futures until the breeze picked up and her skin prickled from the cool air.
Her own drowsiness blunted her senses at first, but after a few minutes on the rocky path back to camp the ominous rumbling and shouts rending the night air woke her up like a splash of frigid water to the face. She launched herself down the path.
Battle.
In a way, she was excited. It had been years since she'd seen any real battle, and she itched to do some real bending. Manipulating a little bit of metal and flinging rocks at her wussy Earthbending trainees back in Ba Sing Se wasn't much of a rush. Knocking the heads of whatever idiots who dared to attack their group would be a pleasant change. She grinned in anticipation, until a sudden explosion rocked the night. The shockwave from the nearby blast rocked her, and she stumbled to a halt, breathing hard. She concentrated on finding her friends in the chaos, but there were so many people, so many vibrations. She couldn't pinpoint anyone but Aang, and a cold stab of fear shot through her.
"No…." she whispered into the night. "NO!"
-
As Sokka trudged back toward camp his mind churned with thoughts of a kind he'd never had. Thoughts about Toph and what her life must be like. And what it would be like to be in her life.
He touched the cheek she'd kissed in wonder. In all his time traveling with the deceptively diminutive Earthbender, that had to be last thing he'd ever expected her to do. Punch him, yes. Hug him, maybe. Kiss him, never. He'd begun to think the only way she showed affection was through a little friendly violence, never a kiss.
He had never given the prospect much thought before. Of their little family of traveling friends Aang was like a little brother to him, and Katara, well, she was his sister, of course. But he'd never had sisterly thoughts toward Toph before. She'd always been more like his partner in crime and mayhem. He grinned in spite of himself. Yep, she was a good partner for mayhem.
He'd taken a chance tonight in trying describe the night scene to her. As tough as she tried to be, he knew deep down she was actually extremely touchy about her blindness. He'd learned early on that you did not try to coddle Toph in any way. Not without getting a rock to the back of the head, anyway (or any other sensitive bit of anatomy). Her reaction tonight had surprised and stunned him, as well as his own promise to be her eyes whenever she needed him. To him, that was a commitment he'd never take lightly.
The dizzy swirl of thoughts drained him and he stumbled into his sleeping bag, throwing off his tunic and laying it haphazardly across his pack. Much as Sokka tried to calm himself enough for sleep, every time he closed his eyes he saw the petite Earthbender there with her cocky grin and hair like black silk. He wondered whether it felt as soft as it looked.
Of everyone he knew, he was the only one she'd opened up for and shown that vulnerable side that she kept tucked away under lock and key. He knew, that even under pain of death, she would never have admitted to Katara or even Aang what she'd shared with him tonight. (In his opinion, he thought she overplayed the tough act mostly just to annoy Katara. His sister, bless her, just had to fix everyone's problems, and it drove her crazy that Toph repeatedly shot down her attempts and girly bonding.) To them, she'd be as strong and unmovable as her native element. Only to him had she shown she wasn't made entirely of stone.
Tonight, things had changed. Some small deviation from their normal path had Sokka thinking that perhaps Toph wasn't just a younger friend and traveling companion, good for collaborative mischief. She'd grown into a strong young woman, strength and beauty and passion all rolled into a deceptively delicate frame. He'd always seen her for who she really was, even when the world saw her as fragile and faulty because of her lack of sight. What she was to him, though, was taking on an entirely new form.
Maybe, just maybe, their futures were intertwined a little more closely than either of them had ever imagined.
The longer he lay there, staring at the stars, the more he thought about the future and what it might hold. He imagined a cozy igloo at the South Pole with little Water Tribe warriors and Earthbenders playing in the snow and listening to the stories their parents would regale them with around the fire at night. But then again, Toph wouldn't like the ice. So the scene morphed into a modest Earth Kingdom house with sprawling acres of land and hills. They'd have ostrich-horses and goat-pigs, and plenty of space for Toph to practice her bending and-
"Oh Sokka, what have you gotten yourself into?" he sighed to himself.
He huffed and flipped over in his sleeping bag. If sleep doesn't come soon, he thought, with just a hint of a smile gracing his lips, this is going to be a long night.
Sleep came quickly for him, though, only to be shattered by heat, pain, and panic as the night was set aflame around him.