At first Sokka was just really confused because he didn't have a door. Then he realized that the animal furs stretched across the doorway had frozen in place and that whoever was at the door was knocking on them. Or—he raised an eyebrow—possibly viciously kicking them.
"Open up, Sokka!"
Sokka blinked. "Toph?" He jumped to his feet, pried away the furs, and a huge smile spread across his face. "Toph!" Sokka held out his arms for a hug.
"Sokka," Toph said in a much less excited tone and, walking forward, poked him in the eye with her outstretched hand.
"Ouch! Why'd you do that?"
"Because I was trying to walk into your house and you, apparently, are standing in my way."
Sokka looked down and saw the boots on Toph's feet. "Oh. Right. No earth in the South Pole, huh?" He moved aside, allowing her to come in.
"Oh, there's earth here." Toph stomped into Sokka's house and immediately tripped over the spare parka he planned to put away but kept forgetting about. "In some areas, at least. It's just waaaaaay down there. Guess how long it took me to find it and pull some up?"
"Well, if you'll allow me to calculate the thickness of the average ice floe, I won't have to guess-" Sokka began in a self-important voice, but Toph cut him off.
"Five minutes, Sokka. Five!"
Sokka whistled.
"And if water weren't such a fluid element, like air-"
"Careful, Toph, that's the fire pit!" He steered her away from the fire by her arm, which she immediately jerked from his grasp.
"-I probably wouldn't be able to sense it at all. As it is, some of the ice is so thick I can't feel earth. And the earth that I can pull up-" Toph gave a little snort that made her bangs flutter "-I can't do much with it. Wanna know why, Sokka?"
"The boots?" Sokka guessed.
"That's right," Toph said disgruntledly. "That's right." She flopped onto the ground and leaned against the wall, crossing her legs.
Sokka caught a muffled sound. "Toph, are you…clanking?"
"Come now, Sokka. Why would I be clanking?" He couldn't help but notice that wasn't a real answer, but before he could further question her Toph plowed on. "Why does it have to be so cold here, hmm? Why is it always boot-wearing weather?"
"I don't know, but the cold's not so bad." Sokka thought of the six-month night, how endless it seemed and how he always felt like the moon was watching him. "The dark is worse."
"Totally," Toph said, and for a moment Sokka felt like someone was on his side. He almost said as much until he realized that she was joking at his expense. Then he scowled at Toph's smirk instead.
"Why are you here?" He sat near her, cross-legged.
"I came for your Moon Festival. Duh."
"Thought you didn't answer Aang."
"I didn't. I figured it would be answer enough when I showed up. Boy, were they surprised to see me when I pulled in on the private Bei Fong boat right before dinner."
"Did you eat dinner at Katara's?"
"Sure did. Her seaweed biscuits get better every time."
Sokka sighed a sigh of regret.
There was an almost companionable silence. He studied her as she leaned forward to warm her hands in the fire. It had been years since Sokka had seen Toph. Now she was older, taller—what was she, twenty-one?… her black hair was braided down over one shoulder… but as far as he could tell she was still very much the same Toph through and through. This pleased him.
"So. Why did you come to see me, Toph?"
"I was going to wait till I had some tea before I told you. Have any tea?"
"Just this." Sokka held up a packet of the weak, cheap stuff.
Toph sniffed the tea. "Ew. No thanks. Okay, then, I guess I'll get this over with." She got to her feet. "Stand up, Sokka. Good, good. Now. Stand over here."
"May I ask why?"
"This is the easiest way for me to show you how I feel. So stand there… good, no wait, a little farther away." She grabbed his shoulders and adjusted him so that he was facing her. "Okay." She began to pull off her parka.
"…Toph?"
"Just wait."
As the blue parka came off, there was a flash of metal.
"You are clanking," Sokka said in confusion.
Toph straightened up. She appeared to be wrapped in a… long, metal-link chain? She flung the end of said chain and it-
"OW!"
-hit him in the face.
"That's for abandoning me!" Toph snarled. In the firelight, her pale skin glowed and the metal chain draped all about her glinted. Her eyes flashed with the reflection of the fire and she cast a long, other-worldly shadow on the ice behind her.
"This can't be real," Sokka said stupidly, rubbing his chin with his gloved hand. "That awful gristle and sea prune stew is giving me hallucinations. You can't possibly be real- OW!" The chain snapped him in the stomach.
"That real enough for you?"
"Ergh," he gurgled. "So you're real. Why are you smacking me with that ridiculous piece of jewelry?"
"Okay, first of all, it's not jewelry. It's my punishment. And second of all, I already told you. That's your punishment. For abandoning me."
"Seriously, Toph, what are you talking about?"
"The last time you saw me," she said through gritted teeth. "Five years ago. When we were-"
"-scamming partners," Sokka said, a knot suddenly tying itself in his stomach. "Yeah."
"And we got caught," Toph said. "You made a run for it, and I got carted off to Earth Kingdom jail."
"I thought you wanted me to save the money," Sokka protested. "We had plans for that stuff."
"I'm not questioning your escape, Sokka. What I am questioning is why you didn't come bail me out the next day."
"…I didn't want to get caught?"
"You could have sent the money with someone else. Or bribed the guards to not turn you in. My point is, we were supposed to be partners. Friends. Best friends. Best friends don't leave best friends to rot in jail."
"Well." Sokka had no defense for that. "You can't blame me for using the money to start my inventing business, Toph. I never heard from you again-"
"This isn't about the money, you moron!" Toph exploded. "This is about the fact that you left, and that I had to write a letter to my parents, practically begging them to come pay my bail."
"I'm… sorry."
"You should be. Even the wealth of the Bei Fongs wasn't enough to get poor Toph off scot-free. The Earth Kingdom police only agreed to let me go if I wore a symbol of my guilt for the next five years." Toph raised her arms, better displaying the heavy chain wrapped around them. "So I've been stuck wearing this stupid thing for, gee, five years now, Sokka. Five. Years."
"But you're a metalbender. Wearing a metal chain shouldn't really bother- OW! Spirits, Toph, why would you do that?"
"You see," Toph said as Sokka rubbed the new welt on his forehead, "is that it's about the principle of the thing. And the principle of the thing is that wearing chains isn't fun."
"So you came all the way down to the South Pole just to tell me that?" he said incredulously.
"Yes and no. I also came to talk about this." Toph whipped a thick green piece of paper out of her pocket. "Did you get one of these? An invitation to the resort at Hot Springs Island?"
"How'd you get that?"
"Earth Kingdom nobility are frequently invited to Hot Springs Island for relaxing getaways. But this month, one of the ongoing events is the Inventors' Showcase Conference, which starts tomorrow night."
"Toph, you can read?" Sokka said in awe.
"What do you think?" Her tone of voice was dangerous.
He thought about this carefully for a minute, trying to avoid being hit with the chain again. "I think… someone read it to you?"
"Good job, Sokka. Good job. Anyway, I decided I'd better take a hop, skip, and a jump down here especially to make sure you weren't going to said conference."
Silence. "Well-"
"You can't go."
"And why not?" he said, irritated.
"Because."
"A little elaboration, please?"
"Okay, first of all, you do realize that the kinds of guys who buy stuff from inventors at these conferences aren't exactly the world's nicest? You make a lot of mighty fine weapons and vehicles that could be used for war, and some of the guys who would buy them wouldn't hesitate to use them for exactly that. They might tear apart everything we've fought for and worked hard to build."
"But," Sokka said, "I'll earn lots of money!"
A pause. "Seriously, Sokka?"
"The way I see it, the return is greater than the risk! See, if they buy my stuff, they might start wars, but they also might not. But, either way, I will get paid."
Toph looked at him for a long time. Sort of.
"It would be a very good investment," he felt the need to add.
"Okaaay," Toph said, shaking her head. "But here's the kicker. You and I both know there's a lot more on Hot Springs Island than conferences and relaxing hot springs baths. We both know that Hot Springs Island has the biggest casino in the world, and we both know that part of the reason you're going to the conference is because you want to try your hand at swindling all of those bigwigs out of their money."
"Wow," Sokka said. "That was my plan exactly. You're good."
"Of course I am. But that plan is one you can't go through with."
"Oh, come on-"
"I'm telling you, those gamblers play a different kind of game than the ones we used to cheat people. They play a tough, mean game, and if they catch you in the middle of a scam they'll make you pay for it."
"So what? They'll call the police on me?"
"If you're lucky."
"Ominous."
"Face it, Sokka. You just can't pull off a scam of this caliber in a playing field that's this high-risk."
"Why not? I've done it before."
"Yeah, but you had me. There's no way you can successfully scam this many gambling-savvy people without me."
"Now wait just a moment. I'm the one who always did the card-counting scam! That was one of the most profitable swindles, and it's not like you could do it."
A shadow passed over Toph's face.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly.
"Whatever."
"Come with me. You're right. I need your help."
"No, thanks. I'm glad I got out of scamming when I did, even if it was because I got arrested. It's good for me not to be in a business that's so much about money—and so selfish."
"Hey," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"You do whatever the heck you want, Sokka. Just know this: if you sell weapons of war to persons of interest, or if you get back into the swindling business, even a little bit —if you swindle anyone, anywhere— the metalbending cops from Republic City will come after you."
"They will?" Sokka started to get nervous. "Why would they do that?"
"Because I am the chief of the metalbending cops and I'll make sure of it!"
"Aw, Toph! Why would you do that to me?"
She ducked her head. "Because," she said after a silence, "maybe I care about you too much to let you do this to yourself. I'm leaving." She strode forward purposefully.
"Doorway's the other way."
She turned around and strode purposefully some more. As her hand began to push the furs aside, she paused.
"Tonight you'll be visited by three spirits. One will be the Spirit of Past Moon Festivals. One will be the Spirit of the Present Moon Festival. One will be the Spirit of Future Moon Festivals."
"Sounds repetitive. And not likely to happen."
"You'll see," Toph said. "Just remember, Sokka, if you don't change your ways, you'll end up in the Republic City prison, shackled in a chain twice this size. Or, worse, you'll end up completely alone."