Cleanly, sir, you went to the core of the matter.
Using the purest kind of wit, a balance of belief and art,
You with a curious nervous elegance laid bare
The root of life, and put your finger on its beating heart.

-- James Kirkup, "A Correct Compassion"

oOo

One of the best things about peace, Katara had decided, was the parties -- not the formal receptions to welcome ambassadors or solemnize treaties, stiff with protocol and treacherous with politics, but the get-togethers people held just for the fun of it. And to impress the neighbors, Toph always reminded her. There's as much politicking going on at one of Lady Su Pan's "little soirées" as there is in a meeting of the Grand Council. If you don't watch your step, you could get yourself thrown out of polite society, she sometimes added, almost wistfully.

Katara knew her friend was right, of course, and she did watch her step (as well as Sokka's and Aang's, since neither of them could be counted on to watch their own once the food was served and the dancing started). Even so, she had a lot of fun -- especially in Ba Sing Se. Toph's despised polite society might be full of artifice and one-upsmanship, but it had also quickly figured out that the Avatar and his companions, despite their adult responsibilities, enjoyed the company of other young people. For the first time in her life, Katara had girlfriends to huddle in corners and giggle with -- friends who teased her about any boy she spoke to twice and whom she could tease right back -- friends who missed her when she went home and sent long, gossipy scrolls by message-hawk to ask, Are you coming to visit again soon?

Fortunately, the current diplomatic round frequently brought the envoys of the Southern Water Tribe to the Earth Kingdom. Her days were full of meetings, but at least one night a week Katara could put her hair up to let it down (as Sokka had taken to saying in the mistaken belief that it was funny). The Bei Fongs' servants could be counted on to lay out suitable robes for their distinguished guest; Katara bathed herself, but gratefully accepted their help with her coiffure and makeup. The finishing touches of scent and ornament having been applied, she swept down the hall toward Toph's suite, feeling more like a princess than she ever did at the negotiating table. It's like Dad says, she thought. There's show and there's substance -- mist and water. Her fingers traced a spiral in the air; a pale wisp of condensation followed them, winding itself about her wrist like a bracelet before dissipating. Enjoy the show tonight, she told herself. Tomorrow it's back to substance.

She never had to knock or announce herself to Toph. The moment she reached the threshold of the earthbender's chambers, a thump shook the wall around the door, popping it open. "C'mon in!" Toph called.

Katara did, shutting the door behind her with some effort (Toph's trick was deforming the frame). Catching sight of the younger girl, she stiffened, her pleasant, princessy mood evaporating like the fog she had just bent. Toph was seated all alone at her dressing table, clad in her usual green cotton shirt and trousers and tan tunic. She tossed the jade hairpin she'd been twiddling into an open jewel case, then swung her chair around to face Katara. "So, you ready to go?" she asked.

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" Katara demanded.

"What do you mean?" Toph ran her hands down her tunic, as if to check that it was there, and pulled a loose thread from the hem, flicking it away. "I've got clothes on."

"You know what I mean," said Katara, ignoring her friend's badly concealed smirk. "Why aren't you dressed for the party? If you don't hurry up, we're going to be late."

"I am dressed for the party. See?" Toph stuck her legs straight out in front of her, wriggling a set of neatly pedicured pink toes. "I even washed my feet."

"But those are your everyday clothes," Katara protested with a sinking feeling. This is it, she thought. Toph has finally decided to get herself kicked out of society, and we get to watch. Showing up at the Gao Bings' ball rigged out for Earth Rumble VII was no doubt only the first step in Toph's plans -- Katara had a horrifying vision of tables overturned, walls studded with smashed crab puffs, and the roof collapsing in an avalanche of tile and plaster while the Blind Bandit chortled with demonic glee. Katara straightened her shoulders with a jerk, settling almost unconsciously into a ready stance. Well, not if I can help it!

Toph sensed her change of attitude immediately. "So?" she asked, dropping her feet to the floor and bristling like a boarcupine. "There's a reason I wear these clothes every day, Katara: they're sensible, they're comfortable -- "

"That's fine," Katara agreed hastily, interrupting what promised to be a litany of reasons, rather than just one. Arguing with Toph never got her anywhere, anyway; the earthbender was more stubborn than any five Earth Kingdom trade representatives, if only half as self-interested. Still, if Katara could persuade the South Coast Fishing Guild to respect her tribe's traditional right of first catch during the salmon run, she had to be able to talk Toph out of making a public spectacle of herself. "I'm not saying your everyday clothes don't suit you," she went on. "I'm just saying that tonight you need something a little more formal -- a little fancier." She crossed to Toph's carved blackwood wardrobe and tugged it open. "How about the dragonfly-patterned brocade you wore last week?" she suggested, sorting through a bevy of bright linens, silks and velvets until she found it. "You told me you liked the feel of it, and you were getting compliments all evening."

"Yeah, right," Toph muttered.

Katara sighed, draped the robe over her arm, and turned to face her friend again. "Toph, I know you're not deaf," she said. "I was standing right next to you when Shen Su Pan told you how wonderful you looked, and I can't believe that his cousin Bohai didn't say the same thing when he brought you that shaved ice, or Junjie while you were dancing -- "

Toph waved her words away as if they were a swarm of gnathoppers. "They were just being polite."

Katara laid the dragonfly robe on the bed and smoothed it out. "Of course they were being polite," she said patiently, peering over at Toph's jewelry boxes. I wonder if I could convince her to wear the cloisonné combs from last week, too. "They were paying you compliments."

"No, Sweet Cream," Toph contradicted her. "They were lying through their teeth. You forget -- I can tell." She slumped down in her chair, kicking her right heel against the tiled floor. "Every single time: heart rate goes up, breathing gets erratic, and then, 'Wow, Toph, you look great tonight.' Forget it." She crossed her arms on her chest and ducked her chin so that her long bangs half-hid her face. "There's no point in pretending to be -- to be something I'm not. From now on, I'm going to be myself, and everyone can take it or leave it." She raised her head and glared at Katara, as if daring her to object.

Katara listened to this speech with mouth agape as realization struck her like spindrift -- followed swiftly by relief that Toph wasn't intending to wreck the Gao Bing mansion, pity for her confusion, and amusement at her utter cluelessness. She covered her lips with her hand to hold back the laughter that fizzed in her throat, but it leaked out between her fingers and she gave up, tittering helplessly.

"I'm glad you think it's funny." Toph stood up, cracking her knuckles aggressively. "Maybe I will wear that dress tonight, just for the comic effect."

"Oh, you should wear it tonight," Katara snickered, unintimidated, "because it was definitely having an effect."

Toph stomped toward the door, but Katara blocked her, swallowing her hilarity with an effort. This was no joke for her friend, after all. "I'm sorry," she said, as steadily as she could. "I didn't mean to make fun." She skipped aside as Toph bent the tiles under her beaded slippers in an attempt to slide her out of the way, then backed up against the door before the younger girl could reach it. "It's just -- " she suppressed another giggle -- "it never occurred to you that Shen and the others might be reacting that way because they like you?"

"Because they like me?" Toph frowned, but stopped to consider this. "You mean, they're lying to me because they don't want to hurt my feelings?"

"No!" The last of her merriment leaked away as Katara began to wonder how deep Toph's cluelessness ran. Of course, her parents had been bizarrely overprotective, but she'd competed for years in the earthbending underground, for Sea's sake, and crawled around in caves with entire clans of badgermoles -- surely she had to have encountered --

-- or somebody must have explained --

Don't tell me that I'm going to have to explain -- ?

Katara curbed her dismay and fumbled for a comparison that wouldn't mortify them both. "Haven't you seen -- I mean, haven't you noticed the way -- the way Sokka gets around Suki, or Aang -- " Katara hesitated; she knew this was a good example, but Aang's feelings for her, and hers for him, were still something she held close, like a seal-kitten just weaned from its dam -- "or Aang around me?" she finished, and seemed to hear her own pulse beat a touch faster as she spoke.

"Well, yeah, sure, but I try to tune it out because it's -- oh. Oh." Toph's pale skin slowly flushed as red as a roof tile. "You're saying -- you're saying that when Junjie said I should wear that dress more often, he was telling the truth?"

So it's Junjie, huh? thought Katara, diverted once more. A wicked smile pulled at her lips -- but no, mustn't tease -- yet -- "Yes," she said aloud, adding for good measure, "He was staring at you the whole time you were dancing, and I don't think he had all that color in his cheeks just from the exercise."

"Oh," Toph said again. She spun on her heel and strode back across the room, bumping against a bedpost along the way. "Well -- well, maybe I will put on some party clothes." She reached down to pat the brocade robe. "I wouldn't want to embarrass you or anything."

"Thanks, Toph," replied Katara as the other girl picked up her dress and disappeared behind the delicate folding screen beside the wardrobe. It wobbled wildly as Toph threw her discarded clothes over it in wrinkled heaps. Katara winced, walked to the dressing table, and began hunting for the cloisonné combs among Toph's disorganized collection of jewelry. Like they say here, strike while the rock is tipping ...

"Katara?" Toph's voice was soft and uncharacteristically uncertain.

Katara looked up. The dressing table, for whatever reason, had a mirror, and in its polished surface she saw the reflection of Toph's shadow against the screen's painted panels, straight and still. "Yes?"

"If boys -- if people react sort of the same way when they like me as they do when they're lying, how do I tell the difference?"

Katara set a small gold earring bearing the Bei Fong crest down with a click on the table's inlaid top. "I don't know, Toph. I guess you just have to listen really hard." She resolved to grill Junjie's sisters on her friend's behalf, and swear them to secrecy on pain of rainy weather for every garden party they tried to hold for the next three summers. "It's no different for the rest of us," she added, wishing that it weren't, wishing (as she often did during trade talks, and at other times, too) that she could look at people and know they were trustworthy without trusting them first. Betrayal was devastating, but she'd learned that it was a risk you had to take, unless you wanted to live alone forever. And I know I don't.

"Then maybe tonight you could let me know when they're blushing?" asked Toph, perhaps unaware of her thoughts, and perhaps not. "So I can practice listening for the real truth."

"Sure, Toph." I'll watch your back, too, Katara thought, plucking the other earring from the silk-lined box to lay it beside its mate, and anybody who takes advantage of you will answer to me. "That's what friends are for."

Toph made no further reply, unless the grunts of effort involved in yanking a close-fitting party dress over one's head counted. Katara spent the next few minutes choosing a set of ornaments she could weave into her friend's hair herself -- she rather suspected that Toph would draw the line at calling a servant for assistance.

"Katara?" This time the inquiry sounded both muffled and abrupt.

Katara closed the largest jewel case and her eyes together, praying that Toph hadn't changed her mind about the dragonfly brocade or the party -- or Junjie -- or anything else. "Mmm?" she responded, prepared to develop a selectively deaf ear to the other girl's complaints, if she had to.

"Uh, can you give me hand with this thing?" Toph asked plaintively. "I think I've got a toggle caught in my hair ... "