Part One: Winter
Chapter Seven: Lady Bei Fong
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender. The harsh reality of life...
She missed them.
She never thought she'd admit it, but she did.
Once in a while, she thought, a caged bird had to appreciate
The people who took care of it
Who kept it from harm
Before it was ready for the world.
She thought about her parents
Who were like the bird's caretakers.
She was flying back to tell them
That she missed them.
She never thought she'd admit it, but
She did.
Once, she thought that she needed freedom
And shunned them, said they were keeping her back.
Once, she thought that she was flying free
And they wanted to shoot her down.
But really, they loved her.
And even though she knew she couldn't show it now
She loved them too.
So far, the flight to Gaoling had been uneventful. Sokka was silent, probably still recovering from the fact that his sister had trusted Zuko, and Toph, who didn't feel like talking, followed suit. Butterflies flew in her stomach, and she hated it. When was the last time she had felt so nervous?
Probably never.
What would her parents do to her? Maybe they would keep her locked up and force Sokka to leave. Maybe they would throw a party or something. Maybe it was all a trap.
She sat still on Appa's saddle, sighing, and wished something interesting would happen.
Sokka tugged slightly on the reins, and Appa, growling, began to descend from the clouds.
"Are you hungry, Toph?"
"No, not really. Don't feel like eating."
"Alright. It's getting dark, though, so we should stop by this forest and get some rest."
"Fine."
The Earthbender lay her head back and reclined against the saddle as Appa flew down into a clearing.
It was so quiet now. The sunlight was slowly fading from the sky, and beautiful shades of magenta and crimson flooded the heavens. Sokka looked up at the dazzling sunset as the bison landed with a neat 'thud'.
"Hey, Toph, isn't the sky great?"
"Sokka... I can't see."
"Oh, yeah, right."
Sokka cursed himself inwardly at his stupidity and glanced over at the Earthbender to see if she had taken any offense. She was sitting placidly on the ground after sliding off of Appa's saddle.
"No, I'm not upset. I'm actually surprised that you forgot I was blind."
"Yeah, sure..."
"So I've pretty much convinced you that I'm a normal person, right?"
"A long, long time ago."
Toph grinned, and Sokka felt a smile light up his face. It was nice to be alone, just the two of them, where nothing could bother them. Not Aang, not Katara... no Firebenders. No war. If they could stay here forever, the sunset painting the sky in shades of beauty...
...They couldn't, but it was a relaxing thought.
He took his boomerang out of his bag and proceeded to sharpen it with a flat rock he found on the floor. "Toph, if you want to get a fire going..."
"Nah. I'm not cold."
It was a little awkward being alone with Sokka. She had been with him plenty of times before, and they had loads to talk about: the war, Aang's health, Katara's obsession for his safety... but now that they were really separate from the others, now that it was just her and Sokka, it felt so strange. Sokka had always acted big-brotherly to her, but why did she feel so weird around him?
Why did it feel so good when Sokka forgot that she was blind?
"I think we'll be able to get to Gaoling by tomorrow." The teenage boy remarked, snapping the girl out of her thoughts."Yeah... alright, then. Let's just rest."
The Earthbender bowed her head as the warrior's footsteps receded into a corner of the clearing.
" ''Night," she said.
"'Back to ya," he replied.
The chirping of the moon-crickets lured Sokka into sleep, and soon, all that Toph heard was the song of the bugs and Sokka's breathing in the night.
"Toph, where are you?"
The garden smelled like perfume, expensive, exotic perfume. The jasmine bloomed in fresh, lovely clusters all around him, and roses grew in bushes that were trimmed to magnificent perfection. He looked among the fragrant lemon trees, walked the path that led to a flowing stream...
"Toph...?"
A girl, dressed in flowing silk robes looked up. Her hair, done up in a tight knot, hung with beads and jewelry, and her face, painted white like a doll, looked like porcelain. Gold trimming laced her dress, and her family crest, a flying boar, was sewed extravagantly onto the edge of her skirt.
Her eyes, opaque and unseeing, seemed to burn a hole right through him.
"You will address me always as Lady Bei Fong. And who are you to intrude upon my prescence?"
"Sokka, your... friend. I wanted to talk to you."
The stream seemed to flow a bit faster, and the air smelled damp with an almost unbearing scent.
"Sokka... a commoner." The girl twisted her red-painted lips into a tight smile. "I don't know you."
The world seemed to swim a little faster. "No, Toph, stop playing jokes. And who dressed you up like that? You must hate it... don't worry, I'll get you away from here."
"Away? Away?" The doll-like girl gave a high, little laugh. "There's no escaping this, commoner. There's no escaping high society. I'm well-bred, and I intend to stay that way."
"What? I'm your friend! I know you, Toph, you hate this kind of stuff! What have they done to you?"
"What I've wanted to be all along, filth. What I've wanted to be all my life. Rich, and fancy, and away from trash like you."
"Trash-" The smells of the flowers was overpowering, and he sunk to his knees. "What are you talking about? Toph!"
"It's Lady Bei Fong, Sokka... Lady Bei Fong!"
The porcelain face started to blur, and Sokka saw the girl disappear, disappear into the swirling mass of color and smell and consciousness that was enveloping him... and all he could hear, all he could hear in his frenzied world was-
"Lady Bei Fong, Sokka, Lady Bei Fong..."
"Lady... Bei...Fong..."
Sokka was muttering something in his sleep, and Toph, who had woken up a while ago, was obviously not tolerating it.
"What, Sokka? I'm trying to stay awake, and you're muttering utter nonsense! Come on, it's dawn, we're supposed to be on our way now!"
She administered a rough kick to his side, and he yelped in pain, clutching his waist.
"What the- what was that for?"
"For being an idiot at this hour. Get up, we're leaving."
Sokka groaned. "Toph, don't forget who's taking you there-"
Toph! He immediately sat up, rubbed his eyes, and focused on the blind Earthbender.
Nope. Still dirty and grouchy as always. He sank, relieved, into his sleeping bag, closing his eyes and succumbing to the desire to close his eyes and...
"SOKKA!"
"What?"
"Now is not the time to sleep! Now is the time to get your lazy butt on that bison and steer us to Gaoling!"
"Come on, Toph, it's still dark. We wouldn't be able to find our way there anyways." He mumbled faintly, burrowing into his bag.
"Well, that wasn't the case with Aang! When he was steering, we never got lost! Never, never! You're older, you can get us there! Hurry!" She shouted, losing patience already. It was only dawn, and Sokka was still managing to drive her up the wall. Even without standing up.
This sucked.
Toph wasted the next half-hour or so pleading with Sokka to wake up. He didn't get much sleep with all the commotion, anyways, and the Earthbender groaned as he covered his head with the top of the bag.
"Will you get us to Gaoling?"
"Yeah, later."
"HURRY!"
"Five more minutes!"
Toph walked over, cool as you please, and immediately kicked him again, this time in the leg.
"I'm feeling compelled to knock you around like a rock if you don't get up in the next ten seconds!"
Clutching his knee, Sokka was, not surprisingly, eager to comply.
"I've got everything set up for her. She'll like this."
"She never was one for commitment."
"I know, but children get older. Now that she's been out so long, she'll want protection. She'll know what the world is like."
"Oh, if only we had protected her... if only we hadn't let her Earthbend..."
The woman sighed in despair, and Lao Bei Fong placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Let her come home. We'll ask her what she thinks about the idea. Maybe she'll meet someone she really loves and he'll keep her from wandering away again."
The two gazed out into the window, half-expecting to see the blind girl running up the garden path. Mistress Bei Fong shook her head quietly.
"The world is large, Lao. Who knows where she might be?"
Katara's new bedroom was spacious, light, and airy. It made her feel sick to see so much red in one room, but she could bear it for a couple of weeks. She tried lying down on her bed for a while, and immediately sunk into its soft, silky feel.
"This might not be too bad," she said to herself. "If we get to the North Pole and Aang gets help... this might not be too bad."
There was a small window in her cabin, enabling her to get a clear view of the sea. She stood up and ran over, expecting to see the dock still in sight, but regarded the scene before her with surprise. Waves, rolling and blue, gulls, flying gracefully overhead... they were already in open water, and she hadn't even gone up to see where Aang would be treated.
Feeling an enormous pang of guilt, Katara quickly left her cabin and locked the door. What if something terrible had happened to him?
Trying not to show her panic, she raced down the hallways, eventually colliding with a sailor, and in a rushed sentence, asked him where the infirmary was.
"Oh, the treatment room? Right down this hall, up those stairs, to your left. 'Can't miss it, the place smells like herbs all the time." His breath smelled like fire-whiskey, and he gave Katara a toothy grin. "But swing by my cabin afterwards, alright? Haven't had much... company... in a while."
He gave a loud laugh, and Katara groaned inwardly. To think, that she would be spending a month with these sailors on board.
"Thank you. I'll be... going, then."
She followed his directions, then stopped short when she heard someone shout in pain.
"Aang," she instinctively thought. Immediately, her heart was wrenched in sorrow for her poor friend. What were they doing to him?
Then she remembered. Aang's unconscious. But what if he woke up, surrounded by so many Fire Nation soldiers, on a Fire Nation ship...
Without her there?
She ran, then, ran up the stairs and to her right, frantically scouring the hallways for sign of a room that smelled like herbs. There was nothing, save for a storage room, where she found an upturned barrel of fire-whiskey and several cracked bottles at the foot of them. Katara remembered that the sailor's breath had smelled like the beverage, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
She would just have to find Aang on her own.
Katara dashed downstairs again. Every second that passed was crucial. Every second that passed could be one second closer to Aang's death, and she tried to force the thought aside. The thought of him dying in the enemy's prescence, the horrible triumph it would give them... it was unbearable to think about it. She wondered if he was awake now and wondering where she was, wondering why she had abandoned him and left him with these people.
It gave her the courage to move on, and she ran down the hallways, occasionally bumping into people and upsetting them.
Oh, Aang, I'm sorry!
"What-"
"Ow!"
Whoever she had collided into landed on the floor, and she went down as well. She scowled and brushed herself off, remembering that Aang needed her help, that he could be dead already.
"I'm sorry, but I need to leave now, it's an emergency, and-"
"Katara, calm down." The Waterbender stopped and looked into Zuko's amber eyes. "Aang's alright. He's in the infirmary now, so if you want to see him-"
"Yes!" She knew she looked like a desperate fool, but she knew she had to get help, for her best friend's sake...
"-He's right in this room."
Zuko smirked, and Katara flushed. She must have looked like an idiot, dashing around the hallways.
"Well, thanks. I'll get going, then," with as much civility as she could muster.
The prince left without a word, leaving the Waterbender feeling flustered. What was wrong with her today?
"Here we are! The Bei Fong Estate. We just have to walk through the gate."
"Wow... I'm so excited."
"You don't sound excited."
"Sarcasm, Sokka."
The Earthbender sighed as Appa landed in a patch of open grass in front of the Bei Fong Estate. It looked even bigger than Sokka had remembered, and he instinctively looked at Toph to see her reactions of setting foot on her own property.
"Ah, familiar vibrations," she sighed. "The only thing that's good about this place."
Sokka shrugged as she stepped closer to his side. "Toph, are you nervous?"
"No, not really." Yes, yes really.
"We're going to go in through the gate now. Do you have some sort of verification that you're of the Bei Fongs?"
"Um..." The Earthbender pawed through her small brown sack and produced an old, battered belt. "Will this do?"
"What-" Sokka inched forward and studied the belt as Toph carefully pulled it out. "Your Earth Rumble belt?"
"Well, they already know I'm the Blind Bandit, so I guess they'll let me in. Otherwise, they'll recognize me." Toph shrugged, closing her sack, clutching her Earth Rumble Champion belt in her free hand. "The guards will know me, unless my parents have hired new ones."
Sokka nodded and instructed Appa to stay put. He hoped that he looked presentable. Now that they didn't have Aang with them, he was just Sokka. Not the "Avatar's friend," or the "Avatar's companion," but a commoner. He turned to Toph for advice, but realized that she wouldn't be any help.
After all, she was blind.
Why did he find himself forgetting this fact lately? It could've been because she wasn't weak or dependable, she was like a normal person.
She fought very well, and she knew it. She knew that she was his friend, and he really, really liked her. Not in a "loving" way, but he admired her spunk and courage. Sokka couldn't think of anyone else that was so brave.
Maybe Aang, but that didn't count. He could actually see.
Toph was walking ahead, feeling the fresh earth with renewed wonder. "Come on, Antsy Pants. We're almost there, and you know that we need to hurry."
Everything was going to change now. After Toph saw her parents again, she might remember how much she missed the estate and living in luxury. She might forget how much she loved to Earthbend, how much freedom she had before, how much she loved her friends and loved to fight.
She might forget him.
He shook the thought away, gave Appa a final pat, and ran up ahead to join Toph.
"You think he'll be alright?"
"Only time will tell."
The nurse shook her head and gazed at the boy.
"Unless we make it to the North Pole in time, I'm afraid that his condition will worsen."
Katara shook her head and grasped Aang's hand. I won't let you go, Aang, not ever!
The nurse studied the two and sighed.
It would take a miracle for the boy to live through winter, she thought, unwinding a roll of bandages. But I can't bear to tell the girl.
It was fairly obvious that it would break her heart.
"Lao! It's Toph! Toph!"
The blind girl stopped in her tracks as a finely-dressed lady ran to her and immediately wrapped her in a tight embrace.
"You did come back, oh Toph, we were afraid for you out there, we thought, we thought..."
"It's alright, Mom," she replied quietly. Much to Sokka's surprise (and her own), she found herself hugging her mother back, and as if some unknown memory came flooding over her, she started to smile, a happy, relieved smile, the first Sokka had seen in a while.
The lady seemed intent on keeping Toph locked in her arms forever, but after a while, drew back, tears in her eyes. Sokka stood quite still in the back, observing the scene keenly, knowing that Toph was just as happy to see her mother again.
Even if she didn't show it.
Toph immediately looked at the ground, embarrased, as her mother started to fret over her state.
"Look at those clothes! You look positively filthy, but I don't mind a little dirt, I'm just so glad you decided to come back, and just in time for your thirteenth birthday... Toph, oh, I should call your father over..." Mistress Bei Fong looked absolutely ecstatic. "I know that I'm acting undignified, and that you should be ashamed of your mother making such a fuss, but I've missed you so, the whole household has." She glanced over at Sokka, who gave a little wave. "Oh, is this your friend? What good manners, Toph, you've remembered to bring an escort... you have taken my lessons to heart, dear, you haven't forgotten us!"
Sokka glanced awkwardly at Toph, who raised her eyebrows slightly. Never had her mother acted so undignified before. She was always so composed and calm, but Toph supposed that if she had a daughter that ran away for almost a year, she would worry endlessly too.
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Bei Fong," Sokka managed, extending a hand. Toph looked at him quizically, and Mistress Bei Fong gave a small, strange smile before turning back to her daughter. Confused, the teenage boy let his hand drop, gazing with uncertainty at the two before him.
"We need to get you dressed and presentable, dear. Your father and I have something to tell you, something extremely important. I trust that you've recieved the messenger hawk?"
Toph nodded, and her mother continued.
"Of course, we had to wait until after the war to send it back to you... it bearing the Fire Nation insignia and all, I was afraid it would get intercepted. It scared your father and I beyond belief to know that you were in Fire Natinon territory, but you're safe now, you're safe."
"I was before," Toph mumbled a little. She had forgotten how much her parents treated her like a baby, and flushed as Mistress Bei Fong hugged her again.
"Stop speaking such nonsense! With the war raging on and prisoners getting executed in the Fire Nation every day... oh, Toph, it was unbearable, we heard rumors about the war, about Earthbenders dying in the front lines, and..." Toph's mother let go of her and shook her head. "Well, let's not trouble ourselves with the thought. But you stayed away from fighting, didn't you? You just hid away and stayed safe?"
"Yeah," Toph lied. Hah, her mom would never know how much Fire Nation butt she kicked out there.
"That's wonderful. I'm just so grateful you're unhurt." Mistress Bei Fong took Toph's hand and smiled. "We've got your dresses all in order, just in case you did come back, and we'll get you out of those dreadful clothes and into some finery." Toph cringed in Sokka's direction, and he nodded sympathetically. "I know you've been traveling a lot, and we've got so much catching up to do... it's so surreal, just like a dream- oh, Lao, come out, it's Toph!"
As Mistress Bei Fong ran into the house to call Toph's father out, the Earthbender turned to the warrior, who was uncomfortably looking at the ground.
"Okay, Sokka. There are many things you can't do in front of my parents. One of them is trying to shake their hand."
"Yeah, sorry... didn't know that."
Sokka scratched the back of his neck, embarrased, and Toph went on.
"You heard my mom- they're going to force me into some finery. I'm going to grin and bear it, so don't act like an idiot and try to save me. I haven't been home in a few months, and I don't want my parents to think that I've become some sort of savage."
"Yeah, no problem." The warrior replied absentmindedly. This wasn't going too well- he had already made a bad impression on Toph's mother, and her father couldn't be much better about hand-shaking.
"And one more thing." Toph added. "Don't let down your guard. Just because you're my..." she paused for a minute, "escort... doesn't mean you can treat me normally here. You have to pretend that you're bent on obeying my every command."
"What?"
"Just pretend. I don't want you to get kicked off the premises for 'disrespect' towards me." Toph made a face. "Just act like you're a servant around my parents. I know that it's hard, and I hate for you to do it too. It's going to feel really weird. But you're my friend, and I want you to stay."
"Alright. So no hand-shaking, rescuing, and 'disrespect'. Got it."
"Thanks, Sokka. Really means a lot." She sighed. "And when you see me in a dress, don't laugh, okay?"
"I know. I'll just have to hide my snickering." Sokka rolled his eyes, and Toph huffed.
"Yeah, yeah." She paused for a minute. "You have any idea what my parents have in store for me?"
"You mean their 'surprise'? No idea."
"Okay."
She walked up to the large doors and gently knocked on one of them. Sokka walked forwards as well, keeping a safe distance away from the door. This was just too weird. He knew he shouldn't have gone with Toph to Gaoling...
"Yeah, Toph, I'm going to go check on Appa now. Can you manage?"
The Earthbender scoffed. "It's my own house. I think I'll do fine."
Sokka sighed and turned back down the walkway. He just hoped that Toph would actually like her parents' surprise.
He hoped it wasn't anything extraordinarily stupid.
In the next chapter: The big surprise is revealed, and Toph apparently hates it. What does Sokka have to say about it? Meanwhile, Katara needs someone to talk to, and so far, everyone on the ship has been treating her horribly. Except for one person- Zuko. And as Aang gets more and more help each day, what will finally happen when he wakes up?
