AN: ITS IMPORTANT SO READ IT :): alright. i know this is a more mature theme than i usually write but I've been careful and tried to be discrete about the main subject matter but no so discrete that one doesnt understand what's going on. But I think it's safe to read :) Now onto the reason I wrote this thing! I feel that Toph was never really one to be all girly and romantic and so I felt this might be (mind it being dark, too dark for Nick) how she came to have Lin. Please at least read to the middle of this and if it hasnt caught your attention, by all means you have my permission to scoff and leave :) Enjoy!
It wasn't happening to me. It wasn't. No way, no how. But as I became more conscious, I knew how much more it actually was happening to me.
I had known something wasn't right from the second I woke up. Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I didn't know that I wasn't in my own house. The smell was different. It was smoky, not the earthy smell I was used to. The feel of the air was heavier than my own breezy house. And it was when I sat up that I knew something was horribly wrong. A gasp shot from my lips and I jerked the covers back up to my chest. What was going on? I couldn't remember a thing from last night...wait a minute.
"I want you to have tea with me," he said. I could hear the smile in his voice. From what I could tell, he was taller than me (as most people were) medium build and was fit with lean muscle. From the images I got back from my vibrations, I could tell he had a handsome face, even though I couldn't see any of the fine details. And he sounded like a fun guy.
"Oh, why not!" I laughed.
"Great! I know this awesome place!"
I could feel the air cooling and the sun didn't touch my face as warmly as before; it was dusk. He helped me sit down along a sturdy feeling wall next to a building which I presumed was the teashop he wouldn't stop blathering about the whole walk here. He disappeared inside the teashop but came back out in a matter of a whole two minutes. "Here, just for you" he said handing me a teacup. I felt his heart quicken a little. If I was one of those girly-girls I would say 'How sweet', but I wasn't so it was simply chalked it up as just another observation.
"So why are we sitting out here?" I asked cradling the little cup between my hands.
"There's just something about sitting outside in the evening with a good cup of tea," he smiled.
"So what else do you do for fun?" I chuckled taking a sip of the warm tea. It was good, but had a bitter after-bite, but I wasn't going to tell him that and embarrass him that he had picked a bad tea shop for a date. Was it a date? I didn't know but being in the company of someone upbeat was enough for me.
"Nothing interesting really, I work and...well, that's basically it."
"Must be some job for it to be so fulfilling that you don't need to do anything else to have fun," I blurted.
He laughed. He had a nice laugh. "Well when you work down at the docks there's always something interesting going on." That was a bit of a lie, I could feel it. I took another swig of tea. Maybe if I could just muscle it down it'd be gone sooner and I wouldn't have to suffer as long. This seemed to please him. "You like it?"
"It's different, that's for sure," I half mumbled taking another drink. It seemed like this little cup was bottomless...well considering the after-bite was only getting stronger and stronger the more I drank. I decided I couldn't stomach the last mouthful just yet. I could just imagine the contents settling at the bottom in a thick sludge. It made me shudder a little. We sat in a comfortable silence for a moment before he spoke again.
"I don't want to sound pushy or anything," he started, (that also felt like a little lie; he absolutely meant to be pushy), "But I was just wondering...oh this sounds so stupid, but just exactly how blind are you? Like, I know of some people who are only a little blind."
"Completely. I'm blinder than a dungeon Wolf Bat in the sunlight," I replied cheerily.
"Oh, sorry," he said in a sincere voice. But it felt like a lie too. This guy was getting sketchier and sketchier by the minute. Nothing I couldn't handle, I'm the greatest earth bender to ever walk the face of the Earth for crying out loud! "So how do you get around so well?"
"I can sense vibrations through the ground with earth bending," I said simply.
"Cool!" That wasn't a lie. I let out a long breath and started to feel sleepy. We sat for a few more moments quietly. I figured he was probably watching the sun set while I was staring unseeingly into a cup of what I didn't want to swallow anymore of. Oh well, down the hatch. Ughhhh. That was awful, and to make it worse the tea had gotten cold. In my younger years, if I hadn't already insulted him on it, that last mouthful would have been enough to send me over the edge and tell him that this tea was worse than rotten swamp water that had been stuck in a water skin for weeks. And I had tasted that before. However, in my twentieth year I had finally learned to control my tongue...well at least a little better. I felt my eyelids dropping. Man when did I get so tired? It had been a long day after all.
And then after that thought...I remember my own special sight being foggy and that was it. I couldn't remember a single thing after that. But right now I had bigger fish to fry than trying to figure out how I got here. I needed to find some clothes and get the heck out of this place. When my feet hit the floor I was relieved to find that I could see. But, my vision wasn't exactly crystal clear (but it would do for now) and my head was absolutely pounding. I searched the room for my clothes and finally my fingers brushed the familiar feel of my tunic and pants. I yanked them on and gave a good hard kick to the floor with one foot and to the wall with the other. I could see the entire layout of the building...it was just a big single-level house really. I took off and tore out of the seemingly empty house. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and try to figure out just where I was.
As I pounded along I realized that I wasn't in the little city I called home. I was in a tiny village somewhere...but the landscape was familiar so that was good.
I headed towards the woods for cover in case anyone was after me and then took a good look at my surroundings. Good, the city I was familiar with wasn't so far away and that meant my little home outside of town wasn't too much further.
The walk back was agonizing. My head hurt so bad I thought I was just going to fall over and die. I had to stop and blow chunks several times and eventually it became painful dry heaves. I was going to be sore tomorrow. Speaking of which, what time was it anyways? Oh, there it was. As the thought crossed my mind I apparently walked out from the woods and the sun hit my face. It was late afternoon. I would make it home before dark, no problem (not that it really mattered anyway) but I still had a good two hour walk home on foot.
By the time I stepped in my cool house made of mostly of stone, I was fuming. If I was Sparky, I'd be breathing fire. My head was still killing me and after drawing a blank after tea with...what was his name?...(Jai Ling that's what it was!) I was furious with myself for not knowing what exactly in the flying lemurs happened to me in the last fourteen hours! And when I finally sunk down onto the floor of my kitchen it started to hit me and reality was suddenly a cruel fist that just slammed into my chest.
I was fitting the pieces together in my mind. "Oh no," I breathed. Suddenly I had realized I was drinking foul tasting tea with a total stranger, I lost all recollection of what happened after that last drink and I wake up in a house three hours away, nude.
And then panic set it. I had known something was up but I was too focused on my splitting headache and getting home to realize something was wrong with...me...with my body. "No, oh please no!" I yelped, tangling my hands in my ebony hair and shut my eyes tight and put my forehead on my knees. This wasn't happening, not to me, not to Toph Beifong! Not to the worlds greatest earthbender! I was stronger than that...I-I I'm supposed to be able to protect myself! "No!" I screamed. And it was then that I started crying. I hadn't cried in ages, I was too strong for that. Everything inside my body just collapsed in on itself and I felt like I couldn't breathe, like I couldn't move. I felt nothing and yet everything at the same time. The realization of what happened to me made me sick and I had to run into the bathroom and vomit. I rinsed my mouth out and slumped back onto the marble-tiled floor.
I curled in on myself and wound my arms as tight around my knees as they would go. It was everything I could do to keep myself from shattering. It wasn't supposed to happen like this! It wasn't supposed to! I was supposed to be in love, I was supposed to be married before it ever happened! And I felt like everything, everything had been stolen from me. I felt ashamed, I felt embarrassed, I felt like I was worthless. I felt...wrong.
I scraped my nails over my arms and realized I had to clean myself, to take a bath anything to get the smoky smell of him off of me. I had never felt like a particularly unclean person considering I was covered in a healthily coating of earth since I started traveling with Aang, but this was different. I drew the water in the tub and jumped in, desperate to get in the water and start scrubbing even if the tub wasn't full and the water was still cold. I was still balling my eyes out as reached blindly for the sea sponge on the edge of the tub and dunked it in the water. I grabbed the bar of soap and rubbed it on the sponge and scrubbed until my skin was raw. I shut the water off and leaned against the back of the tub, my skin already sore from washing even before the water had reached my shoulders. I put my hands over my face and just cried until my chest was sore I couldn't force out anymore tears.
I got out of the tub and dried myself off tenderly with a soft towel. I would have regretted scrubbing my skin so hard, but I couldn't really focus on something so menial right now. And to my utter horror, I didn't feel clean. I still felt dirty. I grabbed my clothes off the floor and walked into my bedroom and tossed them into the fireplace. I changed into clean underclothes and a super large tunic I just so happened to have in my dresser. I lit the fire and curled up in the center of my bed and listened to my clothes burn.
I was exhausted and yet I sleep wouldn't find me. I wished I could just sleep forever, and really it wasn't reasonable to think I would magically fall asleep as soon as I laid down, but it didn't keep me from wishing. Then I caught a very familiar smell. It was faint, but it was there. Sea and wood smoke. I buried my nose into the collar of the soft tunic. Sokka. It was one of Sokka's he had forgotten here months ago when everyone came to visit. Of course I had found it after they had all left on Appa and decided it was soft and a good nightgown so I kept it and wore it. Somehow that little comfort allowed me fall into a deep sleep.
Of course, I couldn't be so lucky. I was plagued with horrible nightmares and found myself sweating and shaking by the time I came to. My headache was gone, that was good news. But the bad news was, life had to coming swimming back in to my mind and I shuddered as I scrambled from bed and went to take another bath. I waited for the water to fill and I cringed when the cool water stung my irritated skin. I only used the soap bar this time and rubbed small, tedious circles over my arms, hoping to soothe my burning flesh a least a little.
I got out after I felt my toes and fingers wrinkle. I felt a sob wrack my body as I realized I felt no cleaner than I did when I woke up yesterday morning. I felt utterly destroyed. I didn't bother to appease my growling stomach and went straight back to bed and lay awake for hours. I felt the sunlight peek through my curtains and touch my face. Eventually it shifted away after a while and I was left alone for the time being. I laid there all day in a numb stupor trying to process what had happened to me and I couldn't come to grips with it.