During "The Runaway"
Katara sat close enough to Toph to be friendly, but not close enough to invade the earthbending prodigy's personal space. Appa's saddle felt even cozier than normal that night. The scorching heat of the day had dulled, leaving the air feeling like a soft blanket. After the literally and metaphorically explosive events of a the past few days, Katara wasn't going to say no to a more pleasant warmth.
She had scrounged up a piece of parchment, a frayed brush, and all the remaining ink in their pack. Sokka had used up most of the ink, writing letters to all their friends and allies in preparation for the invasion, but there was more than enough left to write down whatever Toph had to say to her parents. And, if Toph ended up having more to get off her chest than Katara anticipated, she could add some water to the inkwell and pray that didn't dilute the substance beyond readability.
"Whenever you're ready, Toph," Katara said softly.
"I don't know really know what to say," Toph grumbled. "I probably shouldn't have asked you to do this, I don't have anything to say to those lily-livers."
Katara sighed. "If you didn't have anything to say, you wouldn't have asked me to write something for you in the first place." She slung an arm around her friend's shoulders. "Now, what do you feel?"
Toph smirked, and Katara cringed. Had that been too motherly? Could it be that only mothers were allowed to be concerned with feelings? She'd never thought of herself as the 'mother' of the group, she just...did the things that helped everyone. If that was what mothers did, then so be it.
Yeah, that really is what mothers do, Katara thought sadly. Until that awful day, she'd grown up as carefree as one possibly could during a war, thanks to her mother. Her mother, who had tucked her in every night so carefully and thoroughly, Katara didn't think she could escape the warmth of her bed if she wanted to. Her mother, who had marched in to declare a cease-fire in snowball fights between her and Sokka, only to scoop up two snowballs in her own hands and pelt her kids before they could react.
Her mother, who had died for her.
Mothering this group of immensely powerful, occasionally airheaded group of kids was the least Katara could do to pay the life debt she owed to her mother.
"I feel like no matter what I say, they're not going to care," Toph snorted. "They saw what I could do with their own eyes, and they still sent that meathead and that other meathead after me to lock me in a cage and bring me home."
"But you still wanted to write to them," Katara reminded her.
"Yeah, we all want stupid things, Snoozles over there wanted a messenger hawk!" Toph motioned vaguely in the direction of...Hawky. Sokka had not only bought the hawk without anyone's approval, he hadn't even bothered to give it a decent name.
"That hawk is how we're gonna send this letter," Katara breezed forward. "Now, come on. You don't want to say anything now, fine. What did you want to say?"
"Well, I wanted to say I was sorry for hurting them and making them scared when I left…" Toph said gingerly. "But also that they need to get their heads out of their-"
"Toph!" Katara chided.
"What? You asked!" Toph protested. "Fine! They need to accept me for who I am, and that includes the earthbending greatness." Toph snapped her head towards Katara. "Why aren't you writing this down?"
"Well, I'm not just going to write what you say!" Katara blustered. "There's only so much room on the page, we've gotta come up with an actual letter, not just a word explosion."
"Right," Toph said. "Sorry. Guess I'm not that aware of how writing works."
"That's okay," Katara said quickly. "Keep going."
"I wouldn't have run away if they had just let me be me. I want them to know that this is their fault," Toph said bitterly.
"You...you want me to write that?" Katara asked cautiously.
"You don't think I should?" Toph asked, and Katara noted the lack of steel in her voice. A day ago, if Katara had tried to temper her anger, Toph would've just gotten angrier. Now, having been locked up in a wooden cell by a seven-foot-tall assassin who could blow stuff up with his mind, well...that kind of experience tends to bring people closer together.
"I understand that's how you feel," Katara said, probing her mind for the right string of words that would allow Toph to continue expressing herself while preserving any hope of this letter effecting change in her parents' minds. "But put yourself in your parents' shoes. I know they hurt you, but you've got to make it as easy as possible for them to see this new you."
"It's not the new me, Katara! It's been me since I was six years old, but they've blinded themselves to it!" Toph shouted, finally brushing Katara's arm off her shoulder. Frankly, Katara was surprised it had taken her this long to break the embrace. "I can't put myself in their shoes. I'd never treat my kid like they were nothing."
Katara looked down at Appa's saddle. It desperately needed a wash, but that wasn't relevant (laundry duty isn't the kind of mothering we need right now, she chided herself). "I'm sorry, Toph. Sorry for how you had to live, sorry for judging what you feel now. I'm just…"
"Sorry?" Toph supplied.
Katara chuckled. "Yeah, you get it."
"It's okay. Look, if you tell anyone I said this, I'm gonna throw a boulder at you, but I'm really happy you look out for me, and that you wanna help me with this letter. It...it means a lot," Toph finished, exhaling deeply, as if every grateful word was agony.
"Let's finish it off, then," Katara said, knowing that the best favor she could do Toph was to not make a big, mushy deal of her show of gratitude.
"'Dear Mom and Dad'," Toph started, her voice clear and collected. Katara took this as an official cue to start writing. "Wait, should I just say 'Mom and Dad'? I don't really think they deserve a 'dear'."
"Too late," Katara said brusquely. "I already wrote the 'dear'. It's proper manners anyway."
"I hate manners," Toph muttered. "Okay. 'Dear Mom and Dad'," she started again. "'I'm sorry I ran away. I can't tell you where I am now, but I'm safe and very well protected.'" Toph smiled at Katara, doing an uncannily good job of meeting her eyeline despite being unable to see on the saddle.
"'Believe it or not, I didn't want to leave. But I didn't feel like I had a choice. I couldn't live the rest of my life sheltered. I hope one day you'll come to understand. The world needed to know my name,'" Toph declared.
"Is that it?" Katara asked.
"Yeah, I think that's it."
"How do you want to sign it?"
"Hmmm…" Toph considered. "'Love, your daughter. The greatest earthbender in the world.'"
Katara couldn't help but smile. "That's perfect, Toph. Sounds just like you."
"I'd hope so. They need a big dose of me to make up for all the fake stuff I've been feeding them all these years," Toph said morosely.
"Let's send this thing off to Gaoling, then," Katara said, and Toph nodded.
"Guess we need to borrow Snoozles' mangy bird."
"Should we ask him?"
"There's no way he'll allow it," Toph said flatly. "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission."
"Fine, you'll do the asking for forgiveness, then." Katara poked Toph in the side, eliciting a laugh. "Psst! Hawky! Over here!" Katara whisper-shouted. Sokka was cleaning up for the night in the lagoon just down the ridge. They'd be able to stealthily employ the hawk without its master noticing, so long as it kept the squawking to a minimum. Luckily, it flew over noiselessly and landed on her outstretched wrist. Its talons dug in, hard enough to be mildly painful but not deep enough to draw blood. It was a good thing that these birds were so joyless and thoroughly unentertaining. It made it easy to send them far, far away.
Katara rolled up the letter and tied it to Hawky's leg, then paused, unsure of how to get it flying in the right direction. "Did Sokka ever exactly figure out how to use this thing?" Katara asked.
"Beats me," Toph shrugged. "I try not to pay attention to whatever his latest crazy idea is."
Katara dug through Sokka's pack, which she was currently using as a back pillow, until she found one of his new fancy maps. She unrolled the scroll, searching the major cities and towns in the Earth Kingdom until she found Gaoling. "I don't think Hawky can just find your parents," Katara said.
"What?" Toph shrieked. Katara shushed her, whirling her head for any sign of Sokka. "Okay, well what are we supposed to do now, then?" Toph asked, quieter.
"Look at-um, well, nevermind," Katara caught herself a little too late, and Toph smiled ruefully. "These hawks can only fly to specific towns with rookeries in them. Probably Fire Nation colonies. From there…" Katara traced her finger along a red line extending from one of the Fire colonies in the Earth Kingdom to another town under Earth Kingdom control. The colony was marked with a rudimentary drawing of a hawk head. "From there, the letter gets mailed the old fashion way—ostrich-horse, I guess."
"So where do we send it to?"
"Looks like the closest colony to Gaoling is a place called Yu Dao," Katara said, triumphantly placing her finger down on the map by the destination.
"Works for me," Toph chirped.
"Hawky...Yu Dao?" Katara said, almost like a prayer for something to trigger in the bird's tiny brain. But, apparently, it did trigger something. Hawky launched himself gracefully into the air, twisting into a few barrel rolls to demonstrate his enthusiasm at finally being given a job. Huh, Katara thought. I guess they aren't joyless.
"You know that bird's never coming back, right?" Toph asked wryly.
"Yeah, I guess it probably won't be able to find us again," Katara said, a little guilty. She hadn't asked Sokka for his blessing to use his new pet, and now the bird was probably gone forever.
"We can always scam some more, get Sokka a stack of coins to buy a new bird with," Toph suggested.
"Toph, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm never scamming with you again."
Toph threw her head back and laughed her high, breathy laugh, and Katara joined in, more subdued but no less tickled. Just then, Sokka walked over the ridge, carrying his sheathed sword casually across his shoulders, as had become his habit.
Toph and Katara looked at each other, trying to compose themselves, but when Sokka approached them, they burst into laughter again. Sokka met Katara's eyes, raising an eyebrow curiously. Katara couldn't remember the last time she had laughed like this in front of him. He clearly found it peculiar too. His eyes darted around their campground, looking for something amiss.
"Hey, where'd Hawky go?"
Katara hopped off the saddle and patted him on the shoulder, then started heading down to the lagoon to clean herself up. As she was walking away, she heard Toph tell Sokka vaguely, yet accurately, "Hawky has been enlisted for an important mission, one from which he may not return."
The sounds of Sokka whining carried all the way over the hills until Katara reached the beach.
Why they didn't show this in the series is lost on me. This might be the most 'missing' of all the missing moments so far, if you ask me. I guess they thought it would weigh the episode down to have Toph get all in her feelings. Either way, that's why we write fanfiction, am I right? Thanks for reading, as usual, please review and/or favorite if you enjoyed, and I'll be back in two days with chapter 19! We've got two more chapters to go before I call it a fic. Twenty seems like a nice, round number. And warning, fluff incoming :)