Blind Climate
Summary: Sokka and Toph get separated from the group in a storm. Sokka finds out a little something about blind girl logic, and Toph's tether is as short as ever. Bad jokes, bad weather and boogiemen ensue. (Split into several parts due to length.)
A flash of lightning arced a little bit too enthusiastically across the sky.
Sokka speared the canopy above him with a dark look. "I saw that," he muttered by way of warning, waving his vine-entangled sword at the clouds. "And I gotta tell you, I am not impressed."
He waited a few moments to make sure there were no repeats of such insolent weather, before resuming his dogged pace. His sword dragged limply after him. Nope, not impressed in the slightest.
How long had it been now, anyway? He was growing tired of hacking his way through this forest in conditions that were typically less than ideal. Perhaps it would be more of an adventure if they didn't seem to always be on some wild goose chase, either trying to find - or running away from - something sparky and magical and very likely to give him an anti-bending bone to pick. He was all fine with flying by the seat of his pants, but not when he was being accosted by every single piece of shrubbery in the valley.
He supposed that happened when you were following a blind girl.
"And apparently now there's lightning," he griped. He sliced at a wildly swinging branch with his Space Sword, delighting in the sound it made as it crashed to the ground. He ground his foot into it as he continued on his way.
Normally nature didn't make him so vindictive. Normally he might just make a sarcastic comment and sidestep such a hurdle. But the day had officially turned to custard and mother nature was taking no prisoners; he was pretty sure she - personal history told him it had to be female - was bordering on assault. The breeze that had only a few hours ago been taking the edge off the spring heat was whipping up a gale. The clouds he could see through a gap in the foliage were racing through the sky like Momo after a live meal, and-- "Ow!"
... Turn of the season leaves were being blown about like that one kid's dandruft at the dance party.
His sword fell from his hands and narrowly missed his foot as he clutched at his eye, whimpering theatrically. Forget assault, this forest was going straight for his pride. "Toph."
The earthbender ploughing her way ahead of him didn't stop.
"Toph!"
There was a sigh and the audiable crunch of twigs underfoot as the girl swiveled back in his direction. "Snoozles, it's only a bit of leaf. Be a man!"
He brandished his arm blindly. "Oh right," he muttered to himself loudly, "I should have known better than to expect sympathy about this from a blind girl!"
Toph snickered and leaned back against a tree, crossing her ankles as she felt him stumble about. "If you rub at it you'll just make it worse."
She sounded far too amused for his liking.
"This," he poked gingerly at his eyelid, trying to massage the object free from where it was lodged, "is not funny. This abomination of the cosmos is glued to my eyeball!" He chose to disregard the fact that his abused leg muscles ached much more than his eye. "You're so cold, Toph! What if I lose an eye?" He stuck his chin out stubbornly and fixed her with a pointed, one-eyed stare. Which... she couldn't see.
The earthbender rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead, as if that would massage away the last few hours. Her legs were tired, her ears were aching from the cold wind, she had blisters upon cuts upon blisters on her feet from trudging through the forest bed. And - not that she cared, of course, about this last point, but - she was pretty sure that since her headband had been torn off by a low hanging branch, the wind had she and her wildchild hair better impersonating a hedgehoglion than a human.
She had never claimed to be anything but class.
"You want an eye? I'll give you one of mine," she intoned drolly, and began on her way again.
That's so kind, To--Hey." His grin froze. "I see what you did there." He scooped up his sword and jogged up to her side, blinking his eye in exaggerated motions. Almost there...
She flashed him a devilish grin, all gleaming white teeth in the dark of the night. "Just trying to help, toots."
"I'll bet you are. You know--Hah!"
A crackle of thunder dwarfed his crow of victory. Toph jumped at the sound, then cursed at her jitterishness. "Why the hell does it have to do that!" she hissed to no-one in particular.
Sokka finished examining the tiny, troublesome piece of leaf on his thumb and flicked it away, risking another glance at the sky. He sighed and shouldered his sword, rubbing at his shoulder to chase away goosebumps. As great as his arms looked in a sleeveless vest, the intended effect was a.) lost on Toph, and b.) utterly idiotic when the temperature dipped below 'sunny with a side of lemonade'. Let it never be said that he risked looking good for the sake of comfort.
"I dunno, but it smells like rain."
Toph felt the swagger fade from his step, and at once she recognised Sokka switching from 'clown' to 'serious pain-in-the-butt' mode. He had been yoyoing in and out of this for the past few hours now, ever since they'd found themselves separated from the others. She assumed he was trying to reinforce his role of leader in the Avatar's absense, do the sensible thing and stay put so Aang and Katara could track them to their last known whereabouts. Unfortunately, to her, sensible had nothing to do with it.
All she wanted to do was get the heck out of this creepy place as fast as her legs would carry her. And if that meant putting her patience to the test and ignoring Sokka's whingeing, then so be it; Sokka in Leader Mode was like his very own avatar state, only with less explosions and consequently far more boring.
His protective gusto had been almost cute at first. But now?
"Seriously..."
Now it was just annoying.
"Come on, Toph. It's time to stop."
"Nope. Nope, it's not."
"It's the middle of the night!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Can't you see?"
Sokka rolled his eyes. Right. "The weather is getting worse. It's already cold, and I'm not sure how bad it's going to get - I can hardly see anything through all the stupid leaves to tell."
"All the more reason not to stick around!" she chirped in falsetto, and sped up.
Sokka shook his head and teetered after the girl with rapidly dwindling enthusiasm. He knew all his arguments sounded the same to her. They were fighting a losing battle against the elements, and the various knuckle-shaped bruises on his arm, as well as his empty wallet, never failed to remind him just how much she hated losing.
"We haven't seen any sign of them yet. And as much as I want to find Katara and Aang too, we're probably just getting ourselves even more lost than we already were. Come on, you know I'm as worried as you are, but there's nothing to gain by going around--" his eyes narrowed at a very familiar looking tree, "-- and around in circles."
"Continuing trying to find them is better than sitting around doing nothing." She growled, sounding more badgermole than human. "I hate doing nothing."
"We don't even know if we're going in the right direction!"
The earth under foot quivered in warning. "We're going in the right direction, Snoozles. Now that you're not leading us."
He leveled a finger at her in mock hurt. "Hey now. It's not my fault that Aang's singing sounds a lot like a mooselion in heat, okay?" He gestured skyward. "Besides, what if they're in the air? No amount of tricky earthbending is going to tell us where they are if they're yip-yipping around on Appa."
"They're not. In. The air." Her fist balled at her side, but her voice lost some of its conviction. "I know they're not."
"How? Are you channeling Aunt Wu now, too?" He could hear the nagging tone in his own voice as he tried to curb his frustration, and instantly regretted it. He took a deep breath. The last thing he needed was her to get in one of her moods and send him sky-high.
The ground in front of him quaked and broke apart. Too late, he thought. A fold of mossy cloth whipped past him and suddenly Toph was eight feet tall, standing on your average earthbender pedestal, glaring down at him - or where she assumed was him - with her cloudy eyes. She looked pretty impressive for someone wearing half the woodland, hair and clothes snapping frenziedly about her in the formidable wind, malting twigs and Appa-only-knew-what. Her arms were crossed. Her nose upturned. And the sole of her pale, grubby foot, was now level with his face.
He wrinkled his nose, swatting the offending extremity away. "Your aim is impeccable, as always," he drawled. "But did ya have to--"
"That's how we're going to find Aang and Sweetness! Don't like it? I don't care." Her tone was every bit the petulant child he often forgot she was. "I'm not sitting on my butt in these stinking woods while our friends are out there without us!"
Before he could retort another peal of thunder echoed in the distance. Toph abruptly froze. The pedestal at her feet began to fragment and flake at the edges. Sokka watched, fascinated, as a shiver resonated down her body, and it occured to him briefly that if they ever ran out of water, Toph would make a great divining fork. If they ever lost their waterbender, that was.
As the thunder faded Toph seemed to come alive again.
"Screw this for a joke." The earthbender hammered her foot against the soil, and with a deafening stomp the crumbling pillar billowed, then sunk down until it was nothing more than a scar in the earth. In the ensuing dust Toph set out on her mighty four-feet-something way again, but not before a sliver of moonlight peeking through the trees illuminated something that one Water Tribe warrior had failed to notice until now.
Was that blood?
Sokka's face softened, and he caught her wrist before she could get too far. Barraging through the forest was all very well for him, wearing calf high mocassins. She, in bare feet, had to be having a much harder time of it.
"Toph.."
"What." There was an edge to her voice that suggested he tread carefully.
"Your feet..." He shook his head, "I'm sorry, I should have thought. Please, we've gotta take a break. At least let me give you something to cover them with."
He hesitated, his eyes gaining that faraway look he got when envisioning one of his grander schemes. "Not shoes. I know you hate shoes. But I've got some linen in my bag, some spare stuff from when we were taking care of Aang. We should be able to wrap them so you can walk comfortably and still feel where you're going. Somwhat like earthbending shoes! Like a Mummy earthbender!" He gave her an enthusiastic nudge, pleased to see her head tilted owlishly toward him. "Huh?"
She liked the way he got, when he got like this. The excitement of a new idea, as simple as it was. As stupid as it was. She felt her spirit lighten. Or her chi. Or her chakra. Which one was it again? The hippie stuff was Twinkle Toes' domain.
She summoned her best 'I could give a damn' routine and smacked him hard in the arm, pleased when she was rewarded with an over-the-top whimper. "Nice try, Ponytail. But so far we've stopped because you hit your head on a branch. Because a cricket beetle climbed into your vest. Because you needed to pee. Three times. Because your cricket beetle needed to pee. And because the planets were aligned, and if we didn't stop the world was going to teeter off balance and we were all," she waved her arms in the air spookily, and it was Sokka's turn to grin, "doomed!" She tilted her head back in his direction. "I'd say we've stopped enough, wouldn't you?"
His grin turned sheepish. "If I'm gonna be the plan guy, I suppose I'd better think a little sharper on my feet, huh?"
Toph wedged her fingers in the air. "Just a smidgen."
"How about this, then --" he sidestepped her fist before she could hit him "--hold on, wait! We take a break, wrap your feet, and grab a bite to eat. Then we find a delicious spidey for Petey to munch on, and we're on our way again! Sound good?"
The thin wrist in Sokka's hand relaxed some. The cricket beetle on his shoulder chirped impatiently at the promise of a spider as the silence between the two stretched out. He clapped a hand over it.
Finally, there was a sigh, and Toph tugged her hand from his grip, less in defiance this time than weary acknowledgement. "Maybe... it sounds just a little bit good." What little light there was bounced off her hair as she looked down at her feet. Sokka puzzled at that, the way she felt the need to communicate the direction of her attention to those around her, though her eyes were blind and all sight was located in the soles of her feet.
"Petey needs a spider?" She curled her toes in the underbrush thoughtfully. "I think I've got at least two stuck between my toes."
Sokka resisted the urge to gag, plastering a grin on his face instead. He knew when she was just being cute; this was how Toph made peace.
"Great!"
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It was a more subdued duo that found themselves huddled under a crude earth tent next to a miserable looking fire awhile later. The clouds had finally broken under the weight of their burden, and the rain that had begun not long after they'd set up camp gave no indication it was about to let up.
Sokka had smugly called it a sign they were meant to take a break. Toph had prompty shoveled his face into the ground. Petey was beginning to wonder if he'd ever get his spider.
"Do you think they're okay?"
Sokka looked up from where he was fussing with a bandage on the girl's feet. It had taken a fair amount of persuading on his part to let him near her precious tootsies, because, apparently, it was like 'poking you in the fricking eyeballs, okay!' Despite having no slot for head trauma in his schedule this evening, he had made a valid point in that no matter how capable Toph was, she couldn't 'see' every little bit of dirt in the various wounds. If she didn't want to run the risk of infection then she'd just have to let him do his thing, sit back and--
A bony heel promptly connected with his nose.
"Watch it! I'm not a piece of steak!"
Okay, so he was no Katara.
He offered an apologetic smile through his wince. "Sorry."
Toph snorted and waved her hand dismissively. Apology: ignored. "Did you even hear my question?"
"I heard you." Sokka finished tying off off the first bandage. Satisfied with his handiwork, he gently lifted her other foot into his lap. "And. Knowing our wonderful tendancy for trouble to find us no matter where we go, no matter how small the trail is we leave, or how many people we don't see, and," his expression grew mournful, "how often we purge ourselves of luxuries like delicious, juicy meat,just to avoid the public eye?" He shrugged. "I'm sure they're fine!"
"You astound me with your reasoning."
He chuckled, turning his attention back to the task at hand. "Toph, how many horrible situations have we been in? And just how many times in relation to that have we come out by the skin of our teeth? Sure, we've had close calls, and they'll probably go off and have some mindblowing adventure without us while we're getting doused by this crappy weather, but it'll work out."
Toph quirked a dark eyebrow behind her web of hair. His envy at the thought of adventure did not go amiss. She could also tell Sokka's confidence in his words wasn't as solid as it seemed, but there was nothing good that could come of persuing it. He was only telling her what she wanted to hear, right? Time to change the subject.
She drummed her fingers on the backpack beside her, inside which the warrior's intricate schedule scroll took up well over half of the space. He'd had to purge some basic supplies to fit the stupid thing into his inventory. "So you're not going to panic now that your master plan is all falling apart?"
There was a pause.
"No." Sokka's eye twitched, "Because it's not 'falling apart'."
"You're lying," she sing-songed.
"I'm not--" He saw her creeping grin, and resigned himself a laugh. "Fine, I'm lying. But that's cheating."
"Gauging your heartbeat isn't cheating. It's taking the initiative."
"Fine, then. It's eavesdropping, and it's not fair. Anyway, right now I'm more worried about us." That was the truth. "The only reason we're dry right now is because we've got you with the mama voodoo earthbending tent-making skills. We've got what fish we caught earlier. Everything else is on Appa."
"That's not true. We've got a ton of water if we get thirsty!" She slapped her newly bandaged foot on the ground, sending a spray of sopping wet mud his way. To her dismay, Sokka's reaction was to merely wipe the mud off his face with the back of his hand, and resume working on her feet.
"Careful!" he admonished. "You're going to mess up all my hard work!"
"As opposed to what, meathead?" she retorted, bored with this Captain Resonsible act. "We're going to be soaked through before too long. This soil ain't exactly solid rock, and we both know what dirt and water equals."
He groaned. "Mud."
"Mud!" she crowed.
He leveled her with a stare, digusted at her refreshed enthusiasm. "You're worse than Aang, you know that."
"You're just jealous."
"Jealous of what exactly? The fact you and Aang like rolling around in mud like pigs?"
"No, stupid. Pick one! My youth! My astounding ability to adapt to any situation. My mad earthbending skills." She made as if to examine a fingernail, the futility of the gesture not completely lost on him. "Oh, and," she puffed up her chest, "My fearless courage!"
"Your mad skills," he echoed through a grin, unable to help himself from rising to her childish bait. There was something comforting about sinking to her level.
"Mmhmm." She wriggled her toes. "You should be kissing my feet, not bandaging them. You are in the presence of the greatest earthbender in the world!"
Despite his best efforts Sokka felt his face crease into a wider smile. He was on the verge of telling her that she was still a midget carnie to him, his finger already on its way to jab her fondly right between the eyes (she hated that), when the thunder let out a mighty bellow above. All words he had died on his tongue, and he found himself utterly flummoxed as Toph, caught off guard, sprung like a taught coil. Her half bandaged foot flew from his lap, and he had to lean back to avoid being cuffed by it as she promptly ducked and tucked her head into her knees, clasping her hands tightly over her head.
Sokka blinked.
He knew he shouldn't laugh. He knew it wasn't even close to the realm of smart things he should do in the situation. But even as a crack formed in the earthen roof over his head and a small piece of it bounced off his skull, he couldn't help it. All the odd little things that had been niggling him about her behaviour for the past couple of hours were beginning to make sense. Why she didn't want to stop for a break. Why they had maintained a dogged pace into the early hours of the morning, despite the trail having been cold for hours; she really had wanted to beat the weather.
"Tell me then, Oh Adaptable One," he managed through a chuckle, casting all self preservation to the wind, "Would the greatest and most courageous earthbender in the world happen to be afraid of a little thunderstorm?"
Toph didn't look up from her private huddle. Nonetheless, her reaction was instantaneous; the unraveling bandage whipped through the air as she hammered a foot against the ground. It took less than two seconds flat for the resulting wave of dirt to blow him free of the small 'tent', and out into the rain. He landed with a yelp, skimming backward through the mud before finally stopping at a tree. The heavy door to the tent slammed closed and he was alone in the dark.
As the world righted itself, Sokka had to wonder. Why did people think he was smart again..?
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Author's note: And there goes part one! I hope you enjoyed it. The next section will be up in a few days.