EDIT: For those of you who have story-alerted this story, I had to re-post it a few times before it looked presentable. This is the final version :).
Chapter Five
Blind Bounty
The thing about fatigue is not that it wears down the body, but the mind as well.
I can hardly piece a sentence together…let alone walk in a straight line.
It pulls down on her body like gravity. She leans forward, knees buckling. Toph's footsteps lag behind the others, so far unnoticed. Her bare feet drag over the soil, making small piles and thick lines in the dirt.
Shoulders, falling, need to rest… Toph's shoulders and heels of her feet ache as if someone had hit them with a mallet over and over again. The dull ache blurs her feets' vision. Her eyes are irritated, and there's a thick swirling sensation in her head.
Why am I so tired? I haven't even started this mission yet.
A dull, roaring sensation is steadily building inside her ears, absorbing most of the noise. The roaring reminds her of high tide inside a large, hollow cave. Her nose doesn't seem to be the working either. She can't even smell the scent of her own sweat. It seems as if a thick, wet blanket has been thrown over her senses.
"Hey Toph, I've been meaning to ask how you get around." Aang asks.
Her eyebrows shoot up.
"Erm. What do you mean by that."
"How do you see?" He doesn't pick up on Toph's suggestive meaning.
Toph sighs, partially in relief, and partially to hide her laugh.
"I don't see like most people do. I see using my feet and the vibrations in the earth."
"That's amazing!" Aang exclaims. "Where did you learn how to do that?" Toph resists his flattery and shrugs nonchalantly.
"Badger moles. The blind stick together."
Just looking out for a fellow blind person.
Wiping the thin sheen of sweat off her forehead, she smiles slightly at the thought of the kind, blind old man. He had given her tea, incredible advice, and a sense of safety.
Why couldn't my father be like that?
Her smile slips from her face like a silk veil.
My father will never... ever understand me.
"The animals? I thought they only lived in caves." She realizes Aang had said that at least 15 seconds ago. She coughs and answers.
"They do. I ran away from home."
"To learn from them?"
She frowns. "I ran away from home."
And that seems to end the conversation. For now there's silence.
Something suddenly tickles Toph's throat, and she clears her throat. She swallows a few times, and the feathery feeling seems to go away.
Then..
"Heggh, Heggh. Kah! Kah!" Short, painfully hard coughs cause her stomach to arch inwards, air being shoved out of her lungs. She wheezes, trying to regain some of her lost oxygen.
"Hey, calm down now." Zuko says, mistaking her coughing for an anxiety attack.
"Calm-kah, kah- down?" she asks. The coughing fit stops, and she sucks in a long stream of air. The arrival of fresh air renews the tickling sensation, which has turned into a steady burn. Toph's eyes begin watering, and her knees quaver.
"Woah, are you okay."
She feels feverish and freezing at the same time. Suddenly a normal-temperatured hand perches on her shoulder.
"Toph, you need to sit down. Your face is really red."
"No…wheeze..kidding." She falls ungracefully on her behind, and clutches the ground for support. A bead of sweat finds a pathway down her nose, making it tickle terribly.
Suddenly a thick clump is stuck in her throat. Unexpectedly, her violent coughing starts turning into dry sneezing.
Choo! Choo!
"Stand clear!"
"ACHOO!" The thing making her throat thick and ticklish is evicted, and placed on the ground with a sickening splat. She spits, the sour taste gone.
"Wait, hold on what is that?" Zuko asks. His voice sounds extremely alarmed, and makes her head feel inflamed.
"What is what?"
"That!" Zuko's finger points to where she had sneezed out some odd…material.
"That's a strange color…it almost looks-"
"Orange." Zuko finishes. "Toph did you eat any kind of fruit in the past few days?"
From her position on the ground, she pauses, and then nods slowly.
"I won a drink in a bar."
Zuko mutters something under his breath.
"That's it! Isn't cactus juice orange?"
"Some plants are. But there shouldn't be any cactus juice around this area." Aang says.
"Nothing grows here." Toph says. "All the food is imported."
"Then you might have terra poisoning."
"Terra poisoning?" she thunders, standing up. A cool hand steadies her as she wobbles, probably Aang's.
"Yes…though it's very unlikely to get it from just a plant. Did the bartender add anything to it, like a smokey kind of flavor?"
Toph shakes her head, and pushes the hand off her shoulder.
"No. He just…"
Do you like my Lapsang Souchong?
It takes a while for even shock to settle into her system.
"Noo…" she groans. Why on earth did she think it was okay to drink that tea? It smelled funny and tasted funny too.
It couldn't have been. Toph has a thing about trust. It's only given to a few people, and he had been one of them. How could she even know that he was blind? He could've been sent by one of her many enemies…
She wants to cry. Trust? Trust? It's no longer anything to her anymore.
"I think I knew who did this." She says, sucking in an agonizing breath.
"Who?" they ask at the same time.
She shakes her head, and begins walking forward. "A person I met. He seemed harmless, in fact we had a lot in common. I was stupid enough to trust him." She says.
"Was he significant to you in anyway?"
Like a father to me?
"No." she sighs. Another wave of the poison weakens her joints, and almost brings her down to her feet again. Two arms catch her, and haul her to her feet again. The thick scent of orange and lemon grass coats her nose.
That must be Aang. Zuko smells like amber.
"Toph are you able to walk?" he asks. She nods, despite the dizzy swirling of her consciousness. Aang releases her.
"Okay. If you need anyth-"
"I got it Twinkle Toes." She barks angrily. He retreats a little, and his heart rate slows as if he's been offended by her words. He recovers quickly, and moves away from her. If he's angry at her he doesn't show it or say anything. Zuko speaks up once more.
"We're here." He mutters.
"Good. I'm hunnnggrry! What's for dinner?" Toph asks, a little bounce in her step. She feels new heartbeats, and judging by the signals sent by her feet, there's a male and female at the camp. They haven't moved in a long time.
"Oh, hello. Are you the blind Bandit?" The girl of the camp speaks up.
"That would be me." Toph says, stretching her arms high above her head. She yawns broadly, then crosses her arms across her chest, and grin/snarls at the person who was just talking.
"Oh...well...I'm Suki." she points towards the boy next to her. "That's Sokka. What's your name?" the girl named Suki tries to lighten the mood.
"Toph. Toph Beifong." she says, waving a hand to stop anymore incoming questions. Suki catches on, and stays quiet. The boy next to her, however, does not.
"Beifong? What kind of last name is that?"
The young girl crosses her arms for the millionth time of that minute, and glares at the boy.
"When you're rich you can name yourself anything you want." she says quietly.
How dare he judge her family's name?
How dare he-
"Enough chit-chat! Let's eat!" Sokka exclaims, moving towards a heat source. No doubt it's a small campfire.
A wide smile breaks across her face, as the flip flopping sensation in her stomach ceases.
Terra poisoning? Oh please, Toph's hungry and no measly tea is going to keep her away from a nice dinner.
Now how will this "Terra" poisoning affect Toph? Sorry for updating late! I had a summit after school for my group, SGU. In case your curiosity is peaked I have a link on my chapter had a lot of dialogue, and might have seemed a little harder to read. It does, however, bring a twist to the plot that I hadn't originally thought of.
A good writer only uses as many words as needed. Enough words? Not enough? You, the reviewers, decide.