#91. Bound

Takes place in the Season 2 finale (sort of)—you know the coup that takes out all the generals? Well, Toph and Sokka sort of got caught up in that in the middle of trying to rescue the king, and they've been taken prisoner as well. Context for those for whom it matters, anyway.

Disclaimer: Don't own A:tLA.


"We're going to die here, Toph."

The girl's teeth grit against each other with an audible clack. She squirms uncomfortably for a moment and then fall still, taking a deep breath in a failed attempt to keeping herself calm. Her biggest problem at the moment isn't panic, like him, but more a growing desire to try and headbutt him into unconsciousness that's growing harder and harder to squelch. "Sokka," she growls, "if I said shut up, would that make any difference? At all?"

"You are frighteningly unconcerned."

"We are not going to die."

"I might," he persists in a small voice. "They could starve us."

She squeezes her eyes tighter shut, doubling over as far as she could in the vain hope it would ease the cramping pain in her stomach. "I'm going to hit you if you talk about food again."

"With what?"

"Goddammit, Sokka, I will find a way."

"I don't think so."

The very thought seems to have cheered him up, and Toph closes her eyes in despair. Spirits, she thinks—with some effort, as prayer comes far from naturally to her. Spirits, please, I'll do anything, but get me out of here before I completely lose it… "The fact that we can't move," she mutters, "is not something to be happy about, Sokka."

"You not being able to hit me?" From the sound of his voice, he's raising an eyebrow. "Oh, but I think I'll enjoy that while I can. Silver linings could be worse."

Goddamn it—Spirits. Seriously. I will become a nun. "Since when," she inquires tightly, "are you an optimist?"

"Since when are you so touchy?"

"Since we've been tied up in a cell all night."

He shrugs, and she feels the rise and fall of his muscles, his back pressed against her shoulders. "Well," he says thoughtfully, "at least you're not scared of the dark."

For a moment, there's a very pregnant pause.

"At least I… did you really just—" She breaks off, dropping her head to her chest. "Never mind. Sokka, I'm not even going to respond to that."

"… Actually, I think you just did."

A noise somewhere between a strangled scream and a roar erupts from Toph's mouth, and Sokka cringes. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry don't hurt me?"

"If I could earthbend, you would be dead."

"I'm sure that's true," he says placatingly.

"Don't patronize me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Stop it!"

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Just shut up!"

Silence falls like a stage curtain, thick and abrupt and final. Sokka pauses and then says nothing—doesn't even dare move now. After all, they each have their hands knotted with thick, chafing rope behind their backs, and then they've been tied together around their waists, back to back, a lack of any personal space a final indignity.

He thinks, The Dai Li controls the whole city by now.

He thinks, No one is ever going to find us here.

He thinks, with a lurch of his stomach, I screwed it all up.

He looks upwards and then around again, at four walls and a ceiling he can hardly see, but for the sliver of candlelight shining through the hole in the door. It's not so much he can see walls as he can see slightly different angles of light, the way it stretches across the room, illuminating parts of the cell in faintly varying shades of black-gray. He catches his breath suddenly, or maybe it sticks a little bit in his chest.

There are things he should say to her, things that he'd never tell otherwise. His lips twitch and he nearly opens his mouth, before he hesitates. He should tell her he is scared right now, of more than just being captured. He ought to be afraid of the Dai Li outside, with their cat-light footsteps and hidden eyes, and okay, he is a little bit. But he can see them and he can deal with them. It's the things he can't grab hold of that are the problem right now.

It's the fact that he failed, and that here in the dark it comes back to him. If he opens his eyes he'll see it again, the general they were supposed to warn being sucked into the waiting earth, and the minuscule smirk on the earthbender's face. The Dai Li had taken all of Ba Sing Se by now, and Sokka had done nothing to stop it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, tighter and tighter, until spots of brightness appear behind his eyelids. If and when he opens them he'll see the Dai Li, and then he'll see Yue, and then he'll be too small for this darkness, five years old again and running from the soldiers who danced with fire and burned his world to ashes on the snow.

This darkness has become tangible. If he opens his mouth he'll swallow it and choke, and he's finding it hard enough breathing already. It's not so much suffocating as drowning in black, and he thinks with a final shred of lucidity that she's lucky not to see.

Soon, meanwhile, she regrets snapping at him. Not right away, exactly, but as he falls quiet and the silence of the cell begins to swell against her eardrums, she's sorry for yelling.

The silence is alive. It has a pulse that beats through her ears, the same pulse as her heartbeat. She listens a moment and then thinks, with a shiver, I am afraid of the dark.

There's a part of her which wants to tell him that he's wrong about that. What, she's immune to darkness because she's blind? That isn't how it works. Darkness isn't the amount of light in a room. Darkness is what you carry inside of you, the little corner in the back of your mind where you shove all the things you can't say aloud.

She feels darkness just like he does. He hasn't noticed that this room is wood. He can see better than she can: she's experimented, drumming lightly against the ground—to make sure he wouldn't ask about it, she pretended just to be absently tapping her feet—but there's nothing to see.

Spirits, she's scared.

This takes her back too, being lost like this. Everyone seems to assume she's always been able to see. Nobody realizes that she was six before she ran away and found the badgermoles. Six years of walking and half-tracing echoes of sight, but at the same time, six years of living in a world she knew nothing about. The reason she loves bending more than anything in the world is because she lived six years wholly blind. Six years afraid is a long, long time.

In the cell, where she's really, truly blind, she remembers. This kind of silence strangles her. She lived by listening before—even now, her hearing's probably the best out of anyone in their group—and when you listen and hear nothing it's like not being able to breath.

Her eyes prickle, and she takes a quick, sharp breath. If you don't use your eyes, then you don't freaking use them, and she's not making an exception just for crying. How stupid would it be, if the only time you ever used your eyes was for the sake of getting all weepy.

She's Toph Bei Fong. Nothing scares her, not even shadows, not even the kind inside. Other people get scared of that stuff—not her, never her, never...

At the same time, the two of them cringe against the quiet. Both nearly speak, but they've never said these things to anyone, and everything feels different in the dark—you can never tell if it's honesty or hysteria.

Then Toph's head falls backwards onto his shoulder, her hair straggling out of its bun. For a heartbeat, she waits for him to push her away, and when he doesn't she goes slack against him, all the tension leaving her muscles in the way of deep, sweeping gratitude.

"I wasn't patronizing," he murmurs.

"Yeah," she mutters. "Sorry 'bout that."

He hesitates, caught off guard by the apology, and then offers, "I bet they'll feed us soon."

Toph lets out a quiet breath, with a little hitch in it that, if she cried—if, if, if—might have been a sob.

And it all goes unsaid and said all the same.


Because there are some things you can't say out loud, and then there are some times you don't have to.

Ooooohmmm... sorry, I'll stop with the attempts at depth. Sorry for any lateness: I'm in the middle of exam week (which would be awesome if not for the actual exams) and my attention span's a little shot to hell. But as of today, two tests down and three to go—wish me luck ^_^

Reviews are always amazing!