Commentary: Yet again, a little bit longer than usual. I hope it's worth it!


DELIVERY

CHAPTER SEVEN: From Point A…

or

Sokka Spins a Tale


"Misunderstanding?" That was Toph's mother, Poppy Bei Fong.

Sokka turned his attention to the woman. The roundness of her face and the shape of her eyes she had gifted to Toph, and those things—plus the polite tolerance in her gaze—made her marginally more agreeable to look at than her husband. Tipping his head to her in deference, Sokka agreed, "Yes ma'am. A misunderstanding."

He paused for effect and used that pause to ferret around in his vest for the pair of reading glasses one of his secretaries had given him several months prior. Miraculously they were still there, having endured countless washes intact. Settling them on his nose, Sokka prayed to the Spirits they made him look more official than he felt. He tweaked the edge of the (admittedly bent) frames; the lenses caught the sun and sent a golden spray of light over both Lao's dark robe and Aang's bare feet. Clearing his throat, he supplied, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I haven't agreed to marry anyone. You've been duped. Someone has been lying to you."

For a moment—one single beautiful, sun-dappled, spellbound moment—no one in the garden made a sound. Even the birds, bless their little tweety hearts, refrained from singing.

But then the grass—the grass!—rustled as Toph stepped forward. That was the first disturbance. The second was the crackle of Sokka's neck as the Earthbender reached up, grabbed his wolftail, and yanked him down to the level of her mouth.

"What are you doing this is not part of the plan I am going to kill you," she hissed in his ear.

Lao snarled, "WHAT?"

"I beg your pardon?" his wife gasped.

"What Sokka means is—" Aang started, the panic in his voice unmistakable.

"Aang," Sokka interrupted. He revisited, "Avatar Aang." Twisting his head from Toph's grasp, which was easier said than done and involved leaving a very painful amount of hair behind in her convulsively twitching fingers, the tribesman drew himself up to his full height. "Toph," he continued, and finished, "esteemed parents—no, respected elder Bei Fongs." He looked over the lenses at the Earthbender's fuming family. "I offer you all my deepest, most humble, and perfectly sincere apologies."

He let that hang there a few seconds—a few delicious, satisfying seconds. Already the murmurs had started in the wedding party: had the Avatar lied to the Bei Fongs? Had Toph lied to her parents? Lao, his lips curled in a snarl still, looked between the bald savior and the world's greatest Earthbender, apparently wondering the same thing his guests were. Poppy looked too stunned to contemplate more than basic functionality. For his part, Aang's mouth swung ajar and his eyes bulged and he was probably having heart palpitations, unaccustomed as he was to being—however indirectly—accused of lying by one of his best friends in front of a huge crowd. Underfoot the ground gave a faint shiver, and a glance in Toph's direction told Sokka that she too was milliseconds from losing her shit.

In his heart of hearts and for the briefest instant, Sokka savored their confusion, their chaos, their fear.

Trying to outplan the plan guy, huh? he thought, not without some small malice. Amateurs. Watch the master.

Before either of his friends could say or do anything incriminating, and also before Lao Bei Fong had the opportunity to pop a vital blood vessel, Sokka cut in smoothly, "Those apologies aside, I might also be able to offer an explanation. As the last person to come into the situation, I believe"—he tweaked the glasses again; were they helping? He hoped they were helping—"I can see what happened here."

"Really? Please enlighten us," growled Toph. The sound of her grinding teeth was thunderous. Her unseeing eyes flashed grey death.

Reaching out to pat her gently on the arm—I'm going to pay for that later in bruises, he mused—Sokka reassured his best friend, "You have every right to be angry, Toph. So do your parents. Avatar Aang"—the tribesman shot the other youth a look—"I know your personal beliefs shy from grudges, but perhaps even you could afford a little… well, wrath, shall we say, regarding this terrible circumstance."

"Uh," opined Aang, his face a mix of hopeful and horribly confused.

"Conspiracy!" Sokka accused, throwing an arm skyward. He pointed at the harmless clouds drifting past. The sleeve of the tunic beneath his vest flapped importantly—yeah, that was good, that was great. As the assembled crowd gasped and Poppy Bei Fong's fingers flew to her lips, he said again, more softly this time, "A conspiracy. That's what this is." Lowering his hand, Sokka gave the glasses a final twitch, leaned as close as he dared to the seething elder merchant, and asked, "Do you have enemies, Mr. Bei Fong?"

Whispers erupted throughout the assembled crowd. Poppy looked fearfully askance at her husband, who reached up to adjust the collar of his ceremonial robe. "Of course I do," he answered. "I'm an important man—"

"A very important man," Sokka agreed sagely. "A very important wealthy man. Tell me, Mr. Bei Fong—would it be completely out of the realm of possibility for someone to want to…" He trailed off, shook his head, and ventured at last, "…to hurt your family?"

Lao's eyes flicked to Poppy, to Toph. Beads of sweat the size of coins sprang into existence across his upper lip. Licking them away, he coughed into his sleeve. "It is not an impossible idea."

"Avatar Aang?" Sokka looked again at the world's savior. "It goes without saying you have enemies too."

"Well, sure," Aang admitted, vestiges of panic and confusion still warring over his open face. "I mean, not everyone hated Ozai—"

"And you turned him into a noodle, so yeah, that rubbed a few people the wrong way," the tribesman declared. "Toph, you and I helped Aang and pretty much still do, what with keeping the peace and all. That means there are individuals out there who don't like us very much either."

"Everyone has enemies, young man," reproached Lao. "What does that have to do with all this?" He gestured angrily to the garden: the guests, the streamers, the uncomfortable outfits.

"Everything," Sokka supplied. "Everything. While it's true pretty much anyone can throw a stone and hit a foe, how many people can say they share a common enemy?" Turning to look in what he hoped was a thoughtful manner at the crowd, he persisted quietly, "And how many people would like to see the Bei Fong family, the Avatar, and the Southern Water Tribe's highest-ranking diplomat humiliated in one fell swoop?"

Quiet stretched its fingers over the lawn—faces in the crowd paled or darkened as the clouds overhead moved obliviously across the sky's bowl. Feeling the suspicion fester, Sokka suggested, "Let's see if we can craft a scenario for that sort of group humiliation, shall we? Toph, you wrote a letter to Aang asking for marriage help, right? In the interest of bringing honor to your respected parents, you requested the Avatar's aid in finding a suitable husband."

Toph's mouth twitched. Technically it was true. "Yes."

Rubbing his chin, Sokka hedged, "Suppose that letter was intercepted by an enemy—our common enemy, even. Suppose that enemy altered the letter. Suppose he—or she—corrected it to indicate to Aang that Toph was interested not just in finding a husband, but in having me as her husband, and that I had already said yes." Thumping his chest, he went on, "Avatar Aang, did you receive a letter that said as much? And did you take it in good faith that Toph, who you know is by nature an honest person, had told you nothing but the truth?"

"Err—yeah," Aang affirmed.

"And Toph"—Sokka rounded on his best friend—"when Aang arrived and announced to you and your parents that he would be delighted to present me as your husband, that he was thrilled for the chance to act as a witness on your wedding day… you must have assumed, despite your surprise at his choice, that Aang had simply done what you requested and found you a suitable match. And you probably next determined, for the sake of his hard work and the patience and honor of your parents, to agree with the Avatar's choice. To defend it. To ultimately go through with the wedding."

Toph said nothing. Her shoulders, though, visibly trembled. Her hands clenched into fists—her chest hitched, and the garden as a whole undulated faintly.

Poppy Bei Fong, misinterpreting her daughter's urge to kill as embarrassment, choked out, "Oh, Toph," and stepped to envelop the girl in a quivery embrace. Similarly moved, her husband groped for the blind Earthbender's shoulder and squeezed it.

Sokka allowed the trio a moment of familial anguish. He also privately enjoyed the scarecrow way Toph's arms stuck out from the parental pretzel like little brittle sticks.

"I received a letter four days ago," he admitted when Poppy loosened her grip a bit, "and I have no idea who wrote it." And really—he didn't have the slightest clue. "But it seemed to be from Toph, and it was urgent: it instructed me to be here by the solstice at the latest. Now I know why." Pulling the glasses from their perch on his nose, he folded them, tucked them back inside his vest, and summated, "Someone wanted to make fools of us all. They're probably watching us right now."

Hundreds of attendees in the garden exchanged wary glances. Sokka wiped the back of his neck. It was very warm.

"Well," spat Lao miserably, clutching at his child and glaring out across the crowd, "they succeeded, didn't they?"

Sokka resisted the urge to crack his knuckles. All right, Plan Guy. Time to tie it all together now.

"Actually," he provided, "I see this as more of an opportunity than a failure."

Lifting her teary face from Toph's hair, Poppy sniffed, "Opportunity?"

The tribesman spread his hands and made a show of looking around at the assembly. "Yes ma'am," he responded. "Given the current atmosphere, I think now is the perfect time for me to talk to you about marrying your daughter."