II. The Facts of Life.
Toph was lying down in Katara's bedroom. Katara was still talking, and for all she knew the only sure way to shut her up at this point was killing her. Toph cursed mentally. The woman had been talking non stop since the ship. If she were in any other place on the planet besides the stupid ice poles, she could have bent a concussion upon her friend by now and get some rest.
"… And since Aang has to keep with his work of keeping balance in the whole world, we just couldn't sequester ourselves here at the poles. So I told daddy, no I promised daddy, that we would at least have the Commitment Ceremony here. He wanted a traditional Southern Water Tribe wedding, you know, with the entire Tribe and our closest friends as part of the wedding party, but he was willing to accept that the Air Nomad way…"
Toph counted mentally before rising from the bed and smacking the back of Katara's head.
"Shut up." She said levelly. "Please shut up. I know you are nervous and everything, but you have been talking since I got out of that boat. You don't let me think". She heard Katara gasp.
"I am so sorry Toph." She said sincerely. " I've been so looking forward to get you here to have a real girl's talk, that I just cannot control myself." Toph tilted her head.
"You are joking, aren't you?" She asked seriously. "You've been waiting for me to talk about gifts, invitations and menus?" Katara's silence spoke a very loud answer. "You've been waiting for me to talk about girly stuff?" Toph realized with horror that this was, in fact, the case.
"But Toph!" Katara whined. "You're my best friend! My best female friend!"
"Katara." She said slowly. "I don't know how to put this gently, but I don't do girly. I don't care about menus and invitations, and I definitively cannot help you with the dress. I am blind!"
"Oh, don't worry about the dresses." She felt Katara waiving a hand in the air. "Suki is helping with those."
"Those?" Panic set in. "You are going to make me wear a bridesmaid dress, aren't you?"
"But Toph," Katara's voice sounded even whinier now. "It's absolutely beautiful."
Toph got up from the bed and raised a finger.
"Katara, I am blind, but I can feel fugly. And right here, right now, my entire body is shaking under the vibrations of fugly. Whatever you want me to wear, is in this room with me and I need to get out."
She ran.
"But where are you going?" Katara called back from the room. "You can't see in the snow!!"
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Toph ran helping herself by tracing her fingers across the ice walls. She was now wearing very warm moccasins, which helped. The shoes were courtesy of Sparky and Pops who being, as they described themselves, from the tropics came very well prepared for their time in the South Pole. Sparky, specially, brought the smaller size for her.
"I know you Champ." He said while giving her the shoes. "You will find any excuse to get me to carry you in my back."
Toph was so relieved with her feet warm, that thinking about Sparky immediately brought a smile to her face. There was a chap who was a good friend. The best in her entire world. Suddenly she stopped. Talking about Sparky, she could hear his voice. The raspy voice that sounded like something broken put back together.
"Sokka, no." He said, and there was final determination in the voice.
"What you mean no?" Sokka's voice was an octave higher. "What kind of friend are you?"
Toph slided along the walls, following the sound of the voices. On ice, she couldn't really tell where they were, but the voices carried enough strength to guide her, even if they were hushing.
"I am not the right person for the job." Sparky said.
"You are absolutely the right person for the job!" was the answer. Toph knew that Sokka was gesticulating wildly, even if she couldn't feel him. "You are Mr. Hotman for moon's sake! If you cannot talk to him about that, no one can."
"But ... what about your dad? He has become like a father figure to him, has he not?"
"Seriously. You didn't just say that. If I have problems talking about my baby sister, what do you think is going to happen to my Dad??" Sparky sounded deflated when he spoke again.
"You have a point."
"I have a point? Of course I have a point! One wonders how the Fire Nation got to be so mighty with what's going on in the head of the royal family."
"Maybe we can ask Uncle to …"
"Your Uncle? Listen to yourself man! This is Aang we are talking about. Uncle Iroh is going to fill him with wise sounding quotes and tea. How do you think that is going to work for a monk?" Toph heard Sparky's hand meeting his forehead.
"OK." He said in a murmur. "I'll see what I can do."
"You'll see? No, you're not seeing anything. You're doing it. Period. Listen Zuko, we are friends. You're Aang's best man. For the Moon, you are probably my best friend, and you and I know that is as crazy as the world can get. So you have no choice. You need to help. No way out this one. I am not doing it, my dad is not doing it, we don't want Gran-Gran to do it, Master Pakku is more clueless than Aang, if that's possible, and if any of the men of our tribe is forced to do it, well … we won't be able to show our faces in this village ever again."
Toph could not hear Sparky's answer, but Sokka's relieved "Thank you man" and the sound of a slap in the back told her that Sparky had nodded. She heard Sokka's sure steps and waited a couple of seconds before showing her face. She leaned against the door trying to asses the dimensions of the room. But it was made, as everything in this place, of wood and ice.
"Sparky?" She called. He must have been with his back to the door because she heard him jump, startled.
"Champ!" He exclaimed. "You gave me a fright." He walked towards the door and grabbed her hand, guiding her to a sit. He put a warm blanket, or fur or something, over her knees and gave her a cup of something hot. Tea, obviously. She smelled the tea and took a sip.
"Hey!" She exclaimed pleasantly surprised. "You're becoming as good as Pops!"
"I know. Sokka thinks is not manly, but then he also thinks that I'm probably the only man besides my uncle that can get away with it."
"With what?"
"Not doing manly things."
She sipped her tea wondering how to breach the topic.
"So," she said carefully. "You're in for a tough job, Sparky."
He seemed surprised.
"What job?"
"Teaching manly things to Aang." He was very careful to show no emotion on his voice.
"I told you many times to stop eavesdropping. Even if you cannot help it. One of these days you ears are going to get singed."
She ignored him.
"Well, this is going to be a challenge. Right up there with beating your dad."
"I know."
"You should know. How tough it isn't. I mean, it is."
"What?"
"Gracious me, you are denser than Aang. No wonder you guys get along so well. Well Sparky," she said resolutely, putting her tea cup down. "You need to know. I was there."
"You were where?"
"There, silly, when the entire thing happened."
"When what happened?"
The fact that the pace of his heartbeat did not change (and she was sitting close enough to tell), told Toph that he really was not getting it. She decided for the best policy.
"When you and Sugar Queen were going at it." She said bluntly.
The silence was deafening. Specially because his heartbeat was now racing and making more noises that a rhino in heat. Toph waited for him to speak but the thunderous silence continued until she had to stop it.
"You heart is going to make me deaf. Say something."
"I am so not the man for this job!" He said and she heard him lowering his head between his hands.
"You want me to do it?" She asked. He panicked.
"Do what?"
"Talk to Twinkle Toes about the facts of life."
"And what are you going to tell him for Agni's sake?"
"That he doesn't need to worry because Sugar Queen knows everything that there is to know."
"Aaggghhh!!" Toph thought for a moment that Sparky was throwing up, but realized that it was just his breath of fire.
"Listen Sparky," she intervened, deciding to be kind, "this is, I am not going to lie to you, awkward. Awkward for you, for Twinkle Toes and for Sugar Queen. It's not going to be easy, but Sokka is right. Someone has to do it. Friends don't leave friends in the dark regarding the facts of life." He did not answer, but by now she knew him well enough to feel the turmoil inside. She placed a hand on his back.
"What happened between you two after all? The way you guys were vibrating, I thought the entire building was going down."
"The building. Right." He paused for a long minute. "Honor happened." He finally said sadly. Toph raised an eyebrow. She could tell he was bent over his knees, probably looking at his hands, the floor or something. His voice always carried lower when he was looking into a focused point in space. "I was training Aang and suddenly he started telling me about his Avatar State and why he couldn't get into it. He told me about loving her and then I realized the extent of what we were doing."
Toph was speechless.
"You didn't know?"
"How was I supposed to know?"
"Everyone knew! I mean, even Sokka knew, and you have to be mighty stupid to be more stupid than Sokka."
"From what I remember, that did not stop you from liking the guy." He grumbled.
She shrugged.
"One can't help to like what one likes. Anyway, he never gave me the time of the day, so this part of the conversation is moot. So what did you do? You broke up with Sugar Queen because of Aang?"
"Yes and no. Not really. I mean, I don't know how it happened. I told her about it, how he felt and she was so confused, and I too was confused and the fate of the world was at stake. By then my only goal was to protect Aang and defeat my dad, and the whole thing was a huge distraction."
"So… she dumped you?"
"No. I mean, she said she was confused too. She did not know how he felt for her either and they had been together for so long..."
"So, she dumped you." It was a statement of fact now, not a question. He stopped.
"She dumped me." He said after a couple of seconds. "I dumped myself too. I mean, no way I would betray the Avatar. Not after everything I put him through."
"You and your psycho family." She added helpfully.
"Thank you, it's always good of you to remember that bit."
"So, you did the honorable thing. You stepped aside."
He sighed.
"I did."
"And now?"
"Now, I need to talk to Aang about the facts of life … and women". Toph reached for the tea in the darkness and he put a new warm cup on her hand.
"Look at the bright side." She said cheerfully, sipping the hot liquid. "You're definitively the right man for the job. The only one with first hand knowledge of what Aang really needs to know."
"Not helping."
"I know." She stifled a laugh and could tell that he was not angry. She felt bad, though.
"Are you sad?"
"Part of me is. I kept wondering about the 'what if's'. The entire trip on the boat on the way here, I could not stop myself thinking about how I would handle the situation and how uncomfortable the encounter was going to be, but nothing prepared me to be Aang's sifu again."
She looked for his hand in the darkness; he found it and grabbed it.
"You know," she said sincerely, "I think Twinkle Toes and Sugar Queen are very lucky if you are the one to give him the facts of life. Specially Sugar Queen, because is good to be loved and you can make sure that he treats her right. You know, right like that."
He sighed.
"How hard can it be?" He asked aloud, probably to himself.
"He was your student as well as mine, Sifu Sexy, you know the answer."
He groaned again.
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Toph was not the kind of person to leave well alone. She needed to know the other side of the story.
After talking to Sparky for a while, she was at ease regarding his peace of mind about the entire thing. After all, he had a fatalistic view of the world: his was a world where things would always be hard for him; where he would forever wade against the current. Besides, his honor was involved. Those were the magic words when dealing with Sparky. His honor was like a lamp, a beacon he cling to until it hurt. Especially when it hurt. It cured all ailments and gave him a reason to live.
He swore Katara off the day he found out about Aang's feelings, Toph knew that. Whatever he may say about confusion, and blah, blah, blah she just knew that he had, resolutely, taken himself out of the picture. It was his way. The quiet sacrificed way. At the time, she did not know what happened or the exact reason. Even though he was already her friend by then, he never mentioned anything and she didn't either. But she could remember that even the smell changed. Katara, particularly, started acting like a lunatic monkey-sloth for a while. Everyone thought that it was because of the approaching comet and the new moon. Aang became an expert on bringing Katara down from her own PMS State (Sokka would swear that her eyes glowed in the dark and everything).
Toph finally found Katara's room.
"Freaking frozen tundra." She mumbled to herself.
"I am so disoriented here." She grumbled aloud. She wasn't sure, but for the smell she thought that the other person in the room was Suki.
"Hi Toph!" Katara said lightly. "Where were you? We have been looking for you everywhere. We want you to try on your dress."
"I was with Sparky." She said casually. "You know? Sifu HotMan?" Yep, that was jump in the heartbeat. Suki, with the assurance of the older, confident woman who has been with the same guy for a while, intervened.
"That's sifu HotMan alright." She felt Katara turning to look at Suki.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you seen the guy lately?" Suki pressed on. "I mean, I thought he looked good before. Particularly when training without his shirt. But now, wow!" She whistled. "That height, and the shoulders, and the hair... it's probably a good thing that I'm not a firebender or I will self-combust." She stopped for a second. "Please don't tell Sokka I said this."
Toph threw herself on the bed.
"Is he that good looking, really?" She asked innocently. Katara's heart raced again.
"Well." She answered. "If you happen to like his type."
"What's his type?"
Silence.
"Dark, mysterious, willing to help?" Toph pressed. "Honorable?" The last one came out slower.
Katara stopped in her tracks.
"Yes." She said after a pause. "Honorable."
"I thought so." Toph rose from the furniture and shivered. "I am going back to look for my friend Sparky. He is a warm guiding light in this forsaken frozen place. And I can't even see light."
"Toph," Katara admonished, "don't be rude."
"I am not being rude. I'm just saying. By the way, I didn't notice before but the water tribe is really good a bending another element."
"What's that?" Katara asked distractedly.
"Stupidity." She answered matter of factly and left the room.