So here's a thing.


black

pitch black

in Sokka's lungs, choking him. Freezing water so cold it burned, so dark it was completely invisible, so heavy — heavy — it dragged him down, closed over him, swallowed him whole and no one would ever know what had happened to him, not Mom or Dad or his baby sister — he'd be gone, all except for his ghost, like in the stories — his soul would be trapped, desperately trying to claw its way back to the sunlit world, and his fingernails would leave cracks in the Ice —

Sokka woke all at once, in a single shudder of breath, and opened his eyes. All he could see was the darkness, as heavy and thick as the water in his nightmare, pressing down, suffocating him. He rubbed frantically at his face, checking his eyes were open. Had he gone blind? Had he drowned as a child, fallen through the Ice, and his whole life since then had been the dream of a lonely undersea ghost? Had he been buried alive?

His private panic was interrupted as something next to him started thrashing and grumbling. Sheer horror froze Sokka to his bones, as half-forgotten myths of giant squidsharks rose up from the depths of his childhood. He was trying to work up the strength to scream when he was hit in the face by a soft, fluffy pillow.

"Sokka? What's wrong?" Toph asked, sleepy and bewildered, and suddenly everything snapped into place. The hard surface under him wasn't the rocky seafloor, it was just a rock, the raised rock Toph covered with blankets and called her bed. He wasn't a drowned, hallucinating ghost; he was just in Toph's bed, in the house she'd built for herself, without the least regard for nonessentials like light.

He could still feel his heart racing with the horror of his dream; that must have woken her, he thought numbly. She had wriggled towards him and was now exploring his arm and chest with her fingers, marveling at the tension in his muscles, his sheen of cold sweat. "What's wrong?" she asked again, sounding more curious than concerned.

Sokka swallowed a few times. "Too dark," he choked out.

"What? Oh." Toph's hands paused on his chest as she concentrated. There was a cracking, crumbling sound and light poured in from up near the ceiling, brilliant late-morning sunlight, warm and golden and welcoming even though it was accompanied by a cloud of dust. The faint strains of birdsong drifted in with it. Sokka wanted to cry.

He could see Toph now, sitting up beside him with her hair twisted out at all angles. In the light from the new window, she cast a shadow that did look remarkably like a giant squidshark.

She still had one hand on his chest, over his heart, and she sat still for a moment, listening. When she was satisfied that his heartbeat was slowing back down, she flopped back down on the bed and turned her back to him. "Geez," she said around a yawn, "you seeing people are so weird."


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