my best chapter

The wedding ceremony took place in the palace garden. It was an extravagant ceremony consisting of only the finest of things. It happened at sunset whilst the alter was woven in fire lilies. Katara described Mai's dress as a red silk flowing gown with many layers to it but wasn't too girly since it was Mai. It was customary for the bride to wear a red dress in the fire nation. The ceremony was rather fast and before long it was time for the reception. This was in the grand ball room. Tables and chairs were set up with centre pieces and tablecloths. They were positioned around the profligate dance floor where almost everyone was with their dance partner. Zuko and Mai, were seated above everyone else at a grand table with a fire dancing wildly behind them.

Toph sat at a table alone, a drink in her hand. Aang and Katara were out on the dancefloor. Toph could feel Aang spinning her and their laughter echoed to her ears. She felt so alone. It seemed that everyone had someone except for her. Well her and Sokka. She hadn't spoken to him since that day he'd walked away from her. She didn't want to. It didn't seem like Sokka told anyone about that what had happened. No one had said said anything to her and it seemed no one noticed the rift between her and Sokka.

"Excuse me," Toph felt someone tap her shoulder and turned towards their direction.

"Yeah?" she said, annoyed that someone was bothering her.

"Well, I was just wondering if you'd like to dance? You can consider it payback for yesterday." Toph should have known from his voice, but she wasn't too familiar with it.

"Jin!" she said excitedly. She wasn't annoyed he had bothered her anymore.

"Hey glad to see you again." he said.

"Yeah you too. What are you doing here?"

"I sometimes transport Fire Nation Imports. As a public servant, I got an invite. So about that dance…?"

"Umm yeah sure. I'd love to." She felt a blush creep up into her cheeks like it had yesterday. Holding out her hand for Jin to take, she rose from her chair, glad to leave the table. Together they walked out onto the crowded floor, Toph slightly nervous. She had never really danced before. Jin must have noticed she was tense.
"Just relax." He said "Here, put your hand on my shoulder." As he said it he lifted Toph's arm and positioned it for her. Toph became slightly annoyed by this, but she quickly remembered Katara's advice and pushed it out of her mind.

Be charming. Be nice. That's exactly how she would be tonight. For one night it couldn't hurt. Especially with Jin, a guy who actually liked her. He thought she was pretty. It would be nice to be treated this way.

Jin placed his hand on her hip and one in his hand and together they rocked back and forth on the dance floor, Jin leading her in small steps in a circle.

Toph liked this. She didn't think she would but in truth it was… nice. But the best thing was that Jin had singled her out. Out of all the pretty girls here tonight he had chosen her. She couldn't remember the last time she had been picked first out of so many other people. Had she ever? Sure she had been the Earth Rumble Six champion, but that was no where near the same as this. She had to work to get where she had been then. But this was just easy. Easy because she didn't have to be any better than she already was. Jin liked her the way she was.

It could have been because she was caught up in the moment, but Toph had completely distracted herself from everything around her. It was so hard to tell what exactly was happening because of her stupid heels, but Toph could have sworn that she felt him across the other side of the room. She couldn't tell if he was looking at her, but he was definitely facing her way and he was standing still. Was Sokka watching her? Why would he even care? It's not like he wanted to dance with her. It's not like he liked her. He had made that very clear.

So why was he watching her? Toph felt a smug smile upon her face. Could she be making him jealous? Deciding to be daring, she moved closer to Jin and lowered her head onto his chest. She felt Jin stop for a second and his heart fluttered. Apparently he hadn't thought she would do that. They swayed like this for about five minutes in silence before Jin spoke.

"Hey, do you want to get out of here? This is all just so formal, you know?"

Toph was taken aback. She completely agreed with him. This definitely was not her scene but she was enjoying dancing with Jin and making Sokka jealous. But then again, if she left with him Sokka could get even more jealous.

"Umm," she flustered. "Yeah. Yeah sure. Why not?"
"Great." He smiled. "I'll just go get your jacket and then we can leave." Jin's footsteps disappeared in the crowd. Toph tucked a lose hair behind her ear and smiled to herself. She made her way over to one of the many grand doors and waited for Jin to return. She would never admit it out loud but she felt excited by this. Suddenly, she felt footsteps behind her. Sokka. He was walking over to her.

"Where are you going?" he said bluntly.

"Well, hello to you too Snoozles." Toph replied.

"Toph, are you leaving with some guy you just met?" He asked. He was jealous.

"No. Of course not Sokka. How stupid do you think I am?" She put on a smug voice. "We met yesterday." This was too perfect. Toph could feel Sokka's annoyance bubbling inside of him. His whole body was tense with anger.

"What? Toph, don't do something stupid just to get back at me." His voice sounded angry too.

"This has nothing to do with you Sokka." She said, even though both of them knew this wasn't true. "Why do you care anyway? You've made your feelings about me perfectly clear."

Sokka sighed. "Toph please don't do anything you'll regret." He pleaded.

Toph was getting angry now. "I can do what ever I want, Sokka. You didn't want me and now I've found someone who does. You have no say in how I run my life!"

"Toph, I just don't want to see you get hurt." He said. Toph didn't need to see that his eyebrows were furrowed in concern.

"Well guess what Sokka? You already made that happen." Just as she said it, she felt Jin walking towards her. Sokka, lost for words, watched at Toph left the ballroom with her arm hooked in a stranger's.

Toph didn't really want anything to happen tonight. All she was planning on doing was walking on the beach with Jin. But Sokka didn't know that. She was furious at him. First for rejecting her, and then for telling her what she could and could not do. He had lost any right he had in having a say in her life when he walked out the bedroom door.

The sand beneath her toes was cold but the rest of her body was warm, walking arm in arm with Jin. They had left the party through a back way and walked straight down towards the beach. Although Toph couldn't see too clearly because of the sand, it was better than wearing those stupid heels. She didn't mind the sand too much anyway because of the situation. She was alone with a guy. A guy who thought she was pretty and liked her. She had never felt so special.

"So you're a pretty powerful bender I hear?" Jin said.
"Who told you that?" Toph asked back.

"Your friend Aang told me when I went to get your jacket. Can you really bend metal?"

Toph blushed. No one had ever been so interested in her bending.

"Yeah, actually."

"That's amazing. I don't think there would be anyone else in the world that could do that." Toph could feel him smiling at her and she smiled back.

"So are you a bender?" she asked him.

"Me? No. Too bad though, because I've always thought bending was the best thing ever. When I was a kid, I used to go out to the markets where the fire bending entertainers would perform and I used to envy them so much. But I'm ok with what I've got now."

"I like that. Hearing about stuff you like, I mean." Toph said, "I like getting to know you."

"Tell me something about you then, so we're both getting to know each other."

Toph thought for a moment. She didn't really want to say anything to personal but she didn't want to not say anything.

"I learnt to earth bend from Badger Moles." She said. That was good. She didn't go into specifics buts she still shared with him.

"Badger Moles? Wow that's incredible. How did that work?"

"Well they were blind like me. So I learnt to be like them and use the earth as a guide. After all without my bending, I really am blind."

"Wow. You are…You are really just amazing, you know that?"

This time Toph felt her face burn hot. There was no way Jin wouldn't notice it. He laughed slightly but before Toph could make any kind of remark, Jin pressed his lips against hers. Toph was in complete shock. She had never been kissed before and didn't know what to do. But it seemed her body did. Before long her lips began to kiss back. This was nice. Jin placed his hand on her hip and pulled Toph closer to him. He pushed his tongue into her mouth and deepened the kiss but Toph was confused about how to proceed. But before she even thought of what to do, Jin broke apart he kiss. Once the pair had both caught their breath Jim said, "My ship is right over there on the docks. Do you want to come see it?"

Toph hadn't expected him to be so forward. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea but she supposed if things did start to lead somewhere she could just break it off. And after all he could just want to show her his ship.

"Yeah ok." She smiled as he led her onto the docks.

"Here it is." They stopped at the end of the docks right in front of Jin's ship. Jin jumped across the gap between the dock and the ship and balanced a plank between them for Toph to walk across. Once on the deck, Toph could feel the full size of the ship. It was the biggest wooden ship she had ever been aboard. Not as large as a Fire Nation battle ship but much larger than a regular fishing boat.

"This is pretty big. Do you run it all by yourself?" she asked.

"Sure do. It's not too hard to do it single-handedly and it keeps me busy between voyages." Jin grabbed Toph's hand, "Here, I'll show you the below deck."

He pulled her along, travelling down stairs until they were in a bunker. He then lead her into a room that Toph could feel contained not much else but a bed.

Jin sat down on it, and still holding Toph's hand, made her sit down too.

"I really like you Toph." he said. She could tell he was waiting for a reply.

"I really like you too Jin." She smiled nervously at him. Again, Jin leaned in and kissed her. Toph kissed back and after about a minute, Jin began gently pushing her into a laying position and was on top of her. Toph was starting to get a little worried. She didn't want to lead him on, but she knew that people would just kiss this way sometimes. Hopefully that's all Jin had in mind. After a few minutes Toph was really starting to enjoy kissing. She felt Jin holding her neck as they kissed and it travelled up into her hair. There were too many pins in it from Katara's hour of styling to let it out so Jin moved his hand back down to her neck. But then after a moment it kept travelling down and before Toph knew it, it was on her breast. She opened her eyes but continued to kiss Jin, unsure whether to stop or not. His fingers grazed her nipple over the material of her dress. He began kissing her neck, his hand still on her breast, now squeezing it. Then with one hand still on her neck, the other on her chest moved down to her hip and touched her bare thigh. How was her thigh now bare? Toph then noticed Jin had been using his knee to pull up her dress. Just as she realised this she felt something hard on her hip. She had to stop this now.

"Jin," she said, breaking the kiss, "I'm sorry I gave you the wrong idea but I don't want to do this."

Jin opened his eyes and just looked at her, and then he chuckled. "What? Come on Toph, you'll like it." And just like that he went back to touching her thigh and kissing her neck.

"No, Jin. Stop it." He didn't. Instead Toph felt his hand go higher up her thigh. She tried to push his hand away, "Jin, I said stop!" She was panicking. Trapped under his weight, Toph became frightfully aware that she had nothing to bend. Everything in the ship was either wooden or some kind of material. There was no earth. No metal. She began to struggle but was unable to break free.

"Toph, cut it out." Jin said sounding annoyed.

"Get off me!" Toph cried. She had never been so frightened in her life.

"Toph just shut up and enjoy it." Jin's hand was right between her legs now. All that separated him from her was her underwear. She felt him tugging at them trying to get them down.

"Stop it!" Toph cried again. "Help me! Someone help!" but she knew no one would be able to hear her. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull it away from her but Jin was just so much stronger than her. She felt tears prickle her eyes and began to hyperventilate. Out of some miraculous thought, Jin lifted himself up enough for Toph to kick him hard in the stomach. He cried out in pain.

"Argh, you bitch." Toph seized her moment and rolled off the bed, and began crawling along the floor, trying to get to her feet. But before she even reached the door she felt a strong pull at her dress and fell back to the floor.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Jin was angry now. Toph tried to scramble away after kicking him in the jaw but he recovered almost instantly and seized her again. He pulled himself over to her and again Toph was crushed under his weight, unable to move. Jin held her hands together with one hand and used the other to hitch up her dress. He pushed his knee between her legs and forced them apart. Toph was crying freely now. She was utterly terrified and there was nothing she could do. She shut her eyes and tried to block out what was happening to her.

"No." she sobbed. "please don't." And then, thinking she had imagined it, Jin's weighed was forced off of her. Had he stopped? She opened her eyes and sat up, gladder than she had ever been in her life to feel his presence. Sokka. He was standing over Jin holding him by the shirt. He must have thrown him off of Toph. The two men wrestled each other to the ground. Sokka, faster, dodged a punch from Jin and quickly returned it right in his face. Then unbeknown to Toph that he had been carrying it, Sokka pulled out his Space Sword and pointed it at Jin's throat. Jin froze.

"Hey, she was asking for it man."

"If I could hear her say stop, then why couldn't you?" Sokka was more enraged than he had ever been. His body was shaking all over from rage.

Jin laughed, "She wanted it."

It happened so quick that Toph almost missed it. Sokka swung his fist so hard into Jin's head that Jin was left lying on the ground, unconscious.

It was a moment before Sokka returned his attention to Toph. Her face still tear stained, she hid her face in her knees and began cryng again. She had never been so ashamed. Sokka didn't say anything. Instead he just wrapped his arms around her back and under her knees and picked her up, carrying her like he used to, years ago when her feet were burned. Toph buried her face in the crook of his neck and continued to cry as Sokka carried her back onto the docks.

i'm actually not sure where to go from here, so i'm very open to suggestion. so if you liked it and want to read more please PLEASE review with your ideas or just let me know what you thought about this chapter