CHAPTER 2: STRANGERS (LIKE ME)
"I can see there's so much to learn.
It's all close and yet so far.
I see myself as people see me.
I just know there's something bigger out there.
I wanna know (can you show me?)
I wanna know 'bout these strangers like me."
Of the things that Toph had expected when she stormed up to her room, a talking badger-cat had definitely not been an option.
"How can you talk?" she asked, unconsciously mimicking the animal's own question.
The badger-cat shrunk away from her, tensing as if to leap, and Toph decided that she was not going to allow this new development to run away. With a sharp gesture, she made the top layer of stone on the balcony shift to trap the animal's tiny claws. In response, the badger-cat struggled and hissed, but the stone held true.
"Answer my question," Toph commanded, trying to sound like her father did when he was instructing the servants. In Toph's experience, it was very effective.
The badger-cat apparently wasn't particularly versed in servant etiquette, however, for all he did was hiss louder. Then, giving up on escaping from the stone, he said, "You should answer my question! How can you see me when you're blind? There's no way you could have heard me!" Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "And loosen these stones, they're pinching."
"No," Toph replied instantly, rolling her eyes. "And I think since I'm the one holding you captive, my questions get priority."
"I asked first!"
"What are you, five?"
"I'm almost twenty, thank you very much," the badger-cat snidely snarled back, renewing his fight against the stone.
Toph bit back her initial reply, processing what the animal had said. Then, slowly, she said, "Badger-cats don't live until they're twenty."
The badger-cat paused and, in a strangely human gesture, tilted his head quizzically. "Huh?" he said.
"Badger-cats die sometime between ages nine and eleven," Toph said, quoting precisely from her textbook. When she was fourteen, Toph had gone through a phase where she was obsessed with animals. Her parents had encouraged it, apparently choosing to see it as a manifestation of her maternal instincts, but really, Toph just thought animals were cool. "Therefore," she concluded, "you can't be almost twenty. You would be dead."
Instead of bowing to Toph's logical insight, the badger-cat instead replied incredulously, "How do you even know that?"
"I read books," Toph answered.
"Wait, how can you read?"
"How can you talk?" Toph said, not bothering to explain the arduous process by which she had learned to read Braille.
Finally, the badger-cat seemed cowed enough to be straight with her. He calmed down and sat back in his stone bindings, clearly frustrated but unable to leave. With a long-suffering sigh, he answered her, "I'm not actually a badger-cat. I'm a human."
"A human?" Toph repeated, furrowing her brow. "And what, you just… change into a badger-cat from time to time?"
"No," he replied, sounding irritable. "A sorcerer turned me into a badger-cat."
"Oh, yeah, because that makes sense."
"Hey, who here is a badger-cat that can attest to the sorcerer story? You or me?"
Toph had to admit: he had a point. "Okay," she acquiesced, "Fine, continue."
The badger-cat huffed, sounding very put-upon, and he explained, "My sister and I were traveling together, and about a week ago, we were attacked by bandits. They kidnapped my sister and turned me into a badger-cat. I've been running from them ever since."
Toph listened to the badger-cat's story with growing skepticism. Then, when he seemed to be finished with the condensed version, she asked, "Are you leaving out anything? Like maybe the part where you explain how the hell they turned you into a badger-cat?"
"Hey, I have no idea either," the animal said, shrugging his tiny shoulders in a very odd gesture. "All I know is, one minute I'm trying to stop them from grabbing my sister, and the next I see a bright blue light, and then bam! I'm a badger-cat."
"Just like that," Toph said incredulously.
"Don't ask me," he said. "I didn't understand magic when I was human. I'm still kind of convinced bending is a giant fraud, and my own sister is a waterbender." The badger-cat twitched irritably, then bent and gnawed a little at his paw. Looking back up at her, he said, "Speaking of magic bending – if I promise not to run away, will you let me go? My paws are starting to go numb."
Toph considered the notion for a moment, and then gestured to smooth the stone back out. The badger-cat immediately set to work smoothing out the ruffled fur on his paws with his tongue.
As the badger-cat made himself more comfortable, Toph leaned back against the stone wall of her balcony. Thinking over the conversation they had shared, Toph said, "Your sister's a waterbender? That means you must be from the Water Tribes."
"Yep," the badger-cat confirmed. "My name's Sokka, by the way. What's yours?"
"Toph," she replied shortly. "If you're from the Water Tribe, what are you doing in Gaoling?" Then, hit by realization, she added, "And furthermore, what are you doing on my balcony?"
"I hid in your bag at that festival thing," Sokka explained, choosing to answer the second question first.
"Festival thing?" Toph repeated. "Do you mean the Earth Rumble?"
"I didn't exactly stick around to watch," Sokka said, making another strange shrugging gesture. "I was being chased by those bandits that took my sister."
Toph's eyes widened as she realized exactly what that meant. "Wait, so those jerks I beat up this morning-?"
"Yep," answered Sokka. "They were chasing me. Sorry?"
Toph shrugged. "Whatever, they were pathetic. But that doesn't explain why you were in Gaoling in the first place."
"We were looking for my dad," Sokka said. "He's in the Water Tribe navy. About four months ago, his letters completely stopped. So awhile back, my sister and I decided to look for him. Last we heard, he was in a port town near here, and we followed the clues to Gaoling."
"And then the bandits attacked you," Toph concluded for him. "Right?"
"Yeah," he confirmed. "And I'm pretty sure they're connected with my dad's disappearance somehow. They have to be."
Toph didn't bother mentioning that pirates and bandits were rampant in border and port towns, especially in Gaoling, which also tended to attract earthbending thugs. If Sokka wanted to believe the bandits were connected with his father, it would probably help his investigation.
Besides, despite all the times Toph had sat at the breakfast table and listened to her father gripe about the various crimes around the city, she had never heard of any kind of magic being used. That was just strange.
Just as she was processing all this new information, Toph suddenly felt a strange rumble beneath her feet. She frowned and wiggled her bare toes against the stone. Taking a deep breath, she extended her earthbending out to feel down the hallway outside her room, through the many corridors and all the way down to the main foyer. She had grown quite adept at judging people's movements at a distance, even despite the mess of vibrations she felt from people at the party.
"What are you doing?" Sokka asked, his voice cutting into her concentration.
Toph raised a hand to silence him, shaking her head to deter him from saying anything else. She focused her earthbending in on the corridor opposite the main receiving room, which lead out to the west garden. There were four burly men creeping through the hallway, too far away from the party to be guests. One of the men was walking weird, and Toph realized with a start that it was the man she had smacked in the face with a pillar, judging by the way he was favoring his left side.
Snapping back to the balcony, Toph hissed, "Those guys are here!"
"What?" Sokka asked. "The bandits? How do you know?"
"Earthbending," she replied succinctly. "Never mind that – the real question is, how did they find us? No one even knows who I am at the Earth Rumble!"
At this, Sokka laughed nervously. "Well," he said, shifting on his perch uncomfortably, "I think they might be tracking me, actually. I kind of stole something of theirs."
"Stole something?" Toph repeated. "What?"
"This," he said, and Toph found a foreign object being pressed into her hand by a pair of sharp claws. She examined the stolen artifact as Sokka explained, "It's some kind of necklace. I stole it from the sorcerer after he turned me into a badger-cat. I didn't mean to – I was just trying to go after my sister, and he was in the way, and there was some kind of fight…" Sokka trailed off, and then concluded, "I just wound up with it. They've been chasing me ever since, so I haven't exactly been able to figure out what it is."
Toph handed the weird necklace back to him, shrugging. "Whatever it is," she said, "we don't have much time. Wait here," she commanded. She dashed back into her room and collected a few items, stuffing everything into her Earth Rumble bag. It was mostly packed already; yesterday had been day one of a three-day tournament, so Toph had been prepared. When she had finished packing, she ran back out to the balcony.
"We can climb down the tree," Toph said, gesturing. "It sucks, but it's close enough to the house to brace yourself, and I've been doing it for years."
"You're coming with me?" Sokka asked, and Toph could feel his surprise by the way he sat up on his hind legs.
"Hey, these jerks attacked me and then broke into my house," Toph replied, enjoying the way her exhaustion had been banished by the promise of adventure. "I'm not about to let that slide."
She climbed out onto the tree, feeling the familiar disorientation of separating from the earth. She kept one hand braced on the balcony wall as she descended, though her progress was unavoidably hindered by her rather cumbersome dress. She felt Sokka jump off the balcony and follow her, though afterward his progress was nearly silent.
"But what about your family?" Sokka asked, his voice close to her head as they both climbed down the tree.
Toph thought about her parents, who she loved dearly, and who had no idea that their house had been invaded by a group of bandits. She paused for a moment, but then remembered how they had decided to spring a fiancée on her and sell her away to the highest bidder, without even bothering to ask her what she wanted for her future. Her mother hadn't even come after her when she ran off, clearly too worried about giving the wrong impression to the guests.
Toph set her jaw resolutely, anger and pain warring in her heart.
"Trust me," Toph replied quietly, resuming her progress. "My parents are the least of my worries right now."
Sokka followed after Toph, climbing down the branches with a grace that he had never had when he was human. Despite the complicated gown she wore, the young woman seemed to handle the tree nearly as well. Sokka guessed that this probably wasn't the first time she had escaped this way.
"How close are they?" he asked, perched on a branch near her head. They were near the ground, and Toph jumped down the remaining few feet with a soft grunt of effort. She paused on the ground for a moment in a crouch, concentrating, and then ascertained, "They're almost to the room. We'd better book it."
Without saying another word, Sokka followed Toph as she darted across the yard. For the first time, he saw the vastness of the estate, and if it had been any other situation, he would have frozen in shock. They weren't crossing a yard: they were crossing a valley. From their position, Sokka could see at least three different gardens, and multiple groves of trees. The entire estate was beautifully tended to, making the entire sight like something out of a storybook.
Yep, Sokka thought as he ran after Toph. Definitely a princess.
"C'mon, slowpoke," Toph commanded, easily outpacing Sokka with her longer legs.
Sokka tried to match up with her speed, but found himself running short on air much quicker than anticipated. He resisted the urge to swear, knowing that in his real body he'd have no problems keeping up. However, badger-cats were meant for short sprints across meadows, not dashes across an entire freaking field.
He had just caught up with Toph when she suddenly stopped, frowning and half turning back toward the house. He nearly rammed into the back of her legs but changed his orientation at the last moment and leapt up on her back, clinging to her shoulders just above the dark knapsack on her back.
Toph's eyes widened in surprise, but to her credit, she didn't knock him off out of shock. Instead, she hissed at him, "I think they're climbing down the tree, but I can't tell."
Sokka looked back. From his position on her shoulders, he could clearly see the balcony and its neighboring oak tree. Sure enough, the bandits were scrambling down the tree hastily, following after the biggest of their group, who was cupping a strange glowing object in his hands.
"They are," Sokka confirmed, heart sinking. "And I think I've figured out how they're tracking me."
"Explain it to me later," Toph said. "Right now, we need to lose 'em. Hang on!"
With that, Toph turned and continued across the yard, with Sokka clinging to her shoulders for dear life. She began to move even faster, which seemed impossible until Sokka looked down and realized that she was moving the earth beneath her feet in small mounds, giving each stride an extra push of momentum. Despite the earthbending, Toph didn't seem to be overly taxed; in fact, as their speed increased, her balance evened out, as though the earth was moving her instead of the other way around.
For the first time, Sokka realized that he wasn't dealing with just any earthbender. He and Katara had been traveling around the Earth Kingdom for a while now, and he had never seen anyone manipulate earth the way Toph seemed to be doing. Granted, he hadn't been running around with tons of earthbenders during that time, but even a layman like Sokka was able to tell that Toph's abilities were different, somehow.
As it was, however, Sokka was hardly able to process these thoughts before they were outside the estate and running into the dense forest that lined the back half of the land. Toph slowed down considerably here, unable to run on the earth like she had been doing, but she didn't seem to be hampered overly much by the trees.
Well, not the tree trunks, anyway.
"Ow!" she yelped, running headlong into a low-hanging branch.
"Uh," Sokka said, confused. "There's… a branch there?"
"I'm blind, idiot," she snarled.
"…right," Sokka said, and, graciously not commenting on her mistake in hiding in a forest, added, "Well, there's another one coming up in about five seconds."
Toph made an irritable noise, but didn't say anything more as she ducked underneath it. Sokka made a point to keep an eye out for the low-hanging brush.
"Are they getting closer?" he whispered to her.
"Too close," she muttered, crouching lower to the ground as she maneuvered her way through the forest. They had to deal with more brush as they went deeper, and Toph spent most of the time with her arms stretched out in front of her, pushing the branches away. Despite the head start they had from the bandits, getting through the forest was too difficult to maintain the same speed.
Sokka kept looking back over his shoulders, keeping his eyes out for the strange blue light he had seen emanating from the lead bandit's hands. The forest was too dark to see anything clearly; everything wound up being distorted by shadow, and even though being a badger-cat gave Sokka an edge in nighttime vision, he wasn't confident against the men who had managed to chase him this far.
"What should we do?" he whispered, tucking up close to Toph's neck, staring back through the forest toward the brightly lit estate. Where ever the men were, they were smart enough to stay away from being framed by the lights.
"Shh," Toph instructed, pausing. Sokka froze on her shoulder, waiting. For a few moments, all was silent but for the sounds of the forest. Sokka could scarcely hear Toph breathing.
Then, with a rush, the earth beneath them shuddered massively, as though it was being torn asunder. From all four sides, Sokka heard screams of astonishment, and suddenly he could see a few of the bandits leaping up in shock, trying their best to avoid being swallowed up by the ground. Their efforts were in vain, as the mud rippled like water and all four men sunk up to their necks in damp dirt. The entire attack took less than a minute, and Sokka felt almost startled by the silence as the earth finally settled beneath them.
Toph straightened and turned, stomping with heavy steps toward the nearest bandit, who was trapped like his companions with scarcely any room to breathe, much less move. She knelt in front of him and jabbed a finger in his face, though her gaze was directed somewhere to the right of his head.
"That," she said loudly, clearly intending for all the bandits to hear, "was for trespassing. And for trying to rob me earlier." She stood up and brushed off her dress, a gesture that seemed ridiculously delicate after what Sokka had just seen. Then, glaring blankly at no one, Toph declared, "Don't follow us. Or I'll bury you morons completely next time."
"We're not after you," said one of the bandits, struggling in his mud prison. "Just give us the beast and we'll—"
Toph stomped her foot, making the earth shudder and twist around the man, who abruptly stopped talking. Sokka glanced at her face and saw a mask of anger, clear and terrifying, and he curled tighter around her neck.
"Did I say that I gave a shit what you thought?" Toph asked. "Because I don't. This is my badger-cat now, and if you try and take him back, I'm going to hurt you. And that's a promise."
With that, Toph whirled around and took off into the forest, keeping her head ducked low to avoid any more branches. They made it through the densest parts in complete silence and without incident, and soon the two of them were walking at a normal pace. Sokka had stopped checking behind them to see if the bandits had somehow managed to escape, and Toph seemed less tense.
"It'll take us a couple of miles to get into town," Toph finally said, breaking the silence. "We could find some things there."
"Sounds good," Sokka replied. He wasn't exactly sure what to say after the whole incident. He could tell that she hadn't been faking any of the anger he had seen in her expression before, and it intimidated him. Toph had buried four men up to their necks in the matter of a minute, and that had been her holding back. Sokka wondered darkly what she could do if she really meant to harm someone.
Then again, she had done it to defend him, so it had to mean something. He wasn't sure what it meant, but as intimidating as she had been, Toph was on his side, and she had absolutely no reason to be. Sokka didn't really know how to deal with that.
Well, there was always the old standby.
"So," he said slowly, unable to let the let the silence linger. "I'm your badger-cat now?"
"Oh, shut up," Toph replied, but Sokka could hear a smile in her voice.