Chapter three: The Most Prized Posession
The Bei Fong household was in total uproar. Young miss Toph had dissapeared from her room, miss Senya had fainted, and none of the guards knew what to do in such a situation. Some of them were running around the house, looking in every corner in the hopes this was one of Toph's rare little jokes, and that she had hidden herself somewhere just for fun, while others took to the gardens, climbing up every single tree, walking legdeep into the ponds and cutting down the beautifull bamboo weeds just to see if they could find the girl easier that way. But the chaos was not helping anyone, and only one person really realised that.
Jahn laid his wife to rest in her bed. He stroked her long hairs out of her face, and kissed her on the forehead.
'I am so sorry this should happen to us, especially to you, my dear', he said. 'I would never have thought that our daughter would actually manage to get out of her room all by herself. But...it seems I've been underestimating her.'
He looked at his wife, who was still lying very quietly in her bed, as if he wanted her to reply.
'I know what you'd say... You tried to tell me yesterday. Toph's growing up and wants to learn about the outside world, even though that's too dangerous for her. I feel like such a fool...'
Resting at her bedside, he took a peace of parchment from his robes, and looked at it.
'And I know what to do to get her back...'
If Toph's jaw could be unhinged like a snake's, then it would have been lying flat on the ground by now. The sensations that were rushed over her like a rapid river, were starting to fall in place now inside her head. What was chaos and disorder to her at first, now slowly began to feel like a more organized kind of disorder, how strangely that may have seemed. She started sniffing, untill she picked up a scent she recognized from her own home.
'Chestnutbread...freshly baken... delicious...'
Taking her walking stick, she took another deep sniff of the scent she had found amongst the other scents that were overwhelming her. Now the scent became more distinct, as if it were a path to her. A path she could follow. And since she was going to explore this strange, new enviroment, anyway, she decided to follow the scent to its source. Because all this exploring had made her hungry, after all. She took her first few steps into a big, new world.
Meanwhile, at the Bei Fong estate, a guest was welcomed into the main dining room. This room was used most of the times for dinner of course, but on some occasions, it was used as a place where the more serious conversations of the Bei Fong family could take place. The more private ones. Jahn sat at the head of the table, as his guest was directed to sit down next to him. His guest was of average lenght, with long black hair and a small moustache. He bowed, and then sat down next to Toph's father.
'Sit down, my old friend.'
The guest looked surprised, yet respectfull. 'Old friend indeed. How long has it been since our paths have crossed? It must have been-.'
'I did not invite you for a trivial talk about old times', Jahn said descisively and abrupt. 'There are much more pressing matters on my mind right now that need to be solved in a discrete manner.'
'Matters such as what, may I ask?', the guest replied, trying not to be inpolite.
Toph's father sighed, and opened a drawer from underneath the table. He took out a little, green book with a flying boar on the cover.
'I need you to find something for me', he said. 'Something irreplacable, fragile and something the world has never had any knowledge of. And shouldn't have by reason, either.'
Jahn's guest was confused. Most of the times he and his host had spoken, Jahn had been much more direct and to the point, not trying to dance around the facts. Now it seemed like he had to cover up for something.
'What is it that you want me to do, mister Bei Fong?', he decided to ask.
Toph's father opened the book. In it were several waterpaintings of the beautifull Bei Fong gardens outside, all accompanied by pictures of the flying boar, the family symbol. There were also pictures of the house, artworks that belonged to the family, and more things that had to do with the Bei Fong family. The guest looked up to Jahn.
'Is it one of your posessions that is in this book that you have lost? Must I find it?'
Jahn let out a deep sigh. 'Yes. I will now show you my most prized posession. It has gone missing this night...'
Going through the pages, Toph's father got through, untill he got to one of the very last pages of the book. The page had a picture of a beautifull, young girl, with very deep, grey eyes that looked like a lake during a full moon.
'This is my dearest posession. You need to find her. You need to find my daughter.'
Jahn's dearest posession was walking around the market, still following her nose in pursuit of the scent of bread she had picked up earlier and she was determined to find. But then, all the sudden, another scent interfered with her senses. A cart came by that smelled like.
'YUK!', Toph yelled out loud. 'What is this? What is that foul stench?', failing to notice that it had been a dungcart which had crossed her path right in front of her. Disoriented, Toph tried to pick up the scent of bread again, but she seemed to have lots of problems with that right now because the scent of manure had more or less done a number on her smelling sense for the time being. She decided she should take her walking stick, and just start walking again, and try to find the bread with her other senses. Just as she started to tap her walking stick around, she was suddenly bumped into by someone, and fell down with her face in the mud.
'HEY!', she screamed 'OW!'
Another voice also yelled. 'Watch it! Come, let me pick you up!'
Toph reached out as a hand grabbed hers, and picked her up from the mud. It had been a woman's voice, in her mid-forty's, Toph had guessed.
'You really shouldn't just stand around when you're as small as you are, little girl!', the woman said in a dictative voice. ' By all means, a girl like you shouln't be in the market at all! I almost tripped over you and could have gotten hurt!'
Wiping the mud off of her face, Toph turned towards the woman who had so rudely run into her. 'I? I SHOULD WATCH OUT?! YOU ALMOST TRAMPLED ME!'
The woman hushed that remark away, thinking not so much of it. She didn't even seem to notice that Toph was a blind, six-year old girl. 'Listen, I am Aunt Wu. I am a very important seeer and I don't have time to waste looking after little girls like you, who get lost on the market and don't look out for grownups like they should! You should have respect for your elders, and that means watching out and letting them pass as well!'
Toph's anger was reaching a boiling point, and that meant one thing: she would simply keep it in and outsmart this stuck-up piece of nobility.
'A seeer, huh? That should be interesting. A seeer that can't even see a helpless little girl in front of her very nose!'
'What do you mean? I have no time for such trivial-'
'A little girl that is BLIND, by the way? Something you also fail to notice even though you can look me straight into the eyes!'
Miss Wu was now starting to stutter, not having expected a little girl to outsmart her. 'Well, you can't deny that..'
'And you don't even SEE that it should be YOU owning ME an apology? Which is something I'm still waiting for!'
The woman shrugged. 'Well, allright then, I'm -'
Toph sniffed. 'Don't even bother saying the words. I know you won't mean them anyway. You know what, you stink. And I'm going to take a few steps aside from you before I get covered in that stench, too.'
As Toph walked away, the woman looked flustered. She was outsmarted by a girl who must have been barely six years old, and blind at that. And she had insulted her too! She was so confused that she failed to notice a cart that was backing up behind her, also failing to notice her. A cart full of...
'AAAAAAAAH!' Miss Wu screamed, as a pile of dung fell onto her and her beautifull clothes. 'MANURE! MY DRESS! MY HAIR! RUINED! WHY?!'
A few steps away, Toph was laughing to herself.
'Told you you stink...'
