This scene goes with Gabzillaz beautiful art at http : / / gabzillaz dot deviantart dot com / art / AMoH-Taang-bed-98992499 (copy, paste, delete spaces or just go to my profile and click on the link called "Secrets").
Gaby, este es para ti.
XXII. Sixth Interlude, Two Flowers and one Secret
Toph wrapped her drying linen firmly under her arms, tying a knot on her front, suddenly self conscious but not sure why. Well, she knew why, but at the same time she didn't.
"What was your sorrow?" She asked instead, moving to where she thought the chair with her clothes was.
"I wanted to be free of all responsibilities since I can remember. I didn't even want to stay at the temples with the other monks. When I was a kid I just wanted to roam the world and follow the air currents."
"You can still do that." She said. By the way his voice was carrying, she noticed that he was giving her his back. She realized for the first time that he had been probably looking away on purpose all the time she had been in the tub, trying to give her the privacy her own blindness sometimes took away from her. That would explain his shock when she stepped out. She dried herself and started dressing, while still talking. "My parents have a summer house in the northern territories of the Earth Kingdom, where the mountains are. The area is famous for its winds. Once I went there in winter, and the strong wind of the North was blowing. The locals call it Tramontana. The say that it carries craziness with it. They close their shutters and their doors to the pull of the wind, because it takes people senses with it. I'm mentioning it because I think you should try the winds. Maybe it will take some sense away from you and let you have a life. You keep loading yourself with responsibilities, the things that you have to do, like the Avataring, and the things you don't have to do, like shouldering the entire loss of your race. You and Zuko, you guys are a match made in heaven."
He made a sound, but she couldn't for once figure it out.
"Every one keeps coming at me looking for wisdom. I can't even sort out my own destiny, and I'm supposed to give people wisdom that I don't have."
"Just quote wise sayings from the monks, even if they don't apply. Iroh does it all the time and everyone thinks he's a wise man. What he's good at, is marketing."
That made Aang laugh a little. She finished with her underwear, her under robes and was trying to sort out her outer robes, with the sash. He must have realized that she was dressed because he came to her and helped her with the sash. This time she let him do it.
"Let's go get dinner." He said, carefully stepping aside and not touching her.
She started walking and thought that maybe he understood her ignoring his offer of dressing her as a nice way of rejecting him. He seemed very good at reading rejection. She wondered about Katara and how things between them must have transpired for years for him to be so careful about not crossing lines when there was the possibility of rejection. Sort of, because he was still big on the kissing ninja thing. The first time, and even the second time he had kissed her, had been by taking her by surprise. However, a little encouragement from her part had taken him a long way which meant he was used at being rejected but kept trying anyway.
"You need to take a vacation." She told him seriously. "Away from politics, your Avataring, your race, even us, your friends. Don't go seeking enlightenment. Just go and rest for a while. The last vacation you took was years ago. I think it was when we went to the library and Appa got kidnapped by those sandbending leeches. By the way, one of these days I'm going back to make them pay for that, so let me know when you're going to be away on vacation to take advantage of the opportunity."
That made him laugh again.
"Maybe I can go try the winds at your parent's house in the North. Well, I don't know if they forgave me yet for kidnapping you, but you can put in a good word for me."
She stopped and turned to him.
"I will. Now, give me those scrolls you were reading." He hesitated and then produced them from within his robes and offered them to her. She did not take them. "Read the titles for me, please."
"One is called 'Dark desires at night's end', the other one is called 'Driving Miss Daisy Crazy', and the last one is 'Jumping Tiger, Kicking Curtains'.
"That Chin is the worse. This is the shabbiest, raunchiest literature available out there. The foot massage descriptions are worth all the pages loaded with unimaginative repetitive adjectives and stupid dialogue, but frankly, you shouldn't take ideas from these. It's my fault, I didn't know how to finish the conversation we were having that day."
She heard him scratch his head.
"Toph, I'm a fast reader. I already read two of these scrolls. They are not that long and there is not much of a plot anyway. And I'm telling you, there is not a single foot massage description in those scrolls."
She didn't know if she should kiss him or punch him. She decided for neither.
"Just burn them. Or give them back to Chin. I need to talk to that guy, by the way. Where can we find him?"
"Maybe in the stables. He asked me earlier if I knew where Momo was, but I think he was looking for his bird actually."
Toph took her hands to her mouth.
"By the Spirits, we need to find Momo, now!"
"Why, what's going on with Momo?" Aang was concerned, following her when she started running. "You're going the wrong way, Toph, is this way!" He took her hand and started running with her.
"El Tuerto, that's what's going on."
"Who's El Tuerto?"
"That wicked poultry Chin's always hanging out with. That thing got its eye on Momo, and as I understand, that fowl is capable of making a platypus bear run for cover. Meanwhile Momo is like the animal kingdom version of you. Too innocent to understand what El Tuerto is about. Momo won't stand a chance. We need to hide Momo until El Tuerto goes away on his new mission."
They reached the stables out of breath. Appa was there, and she heard Momo's little chattering noises, and she would have felt relieved if it wasn't because of the smell. There it was, the reek of El Tuerto.
"Oh, hello Avatar." Chin said relaxed. "I found what I was looking for. Thanks."
"Chin, tell me the truth. What did your bird do to Momo?"
"Nothing that I know of, Great Master. When I got here he was in a perch, cleaning his wings!"
"Actually Toph, Momo is the one hugging the bird, for what I can see." Aang said, bewildered, scratching his head. She shook her head.
"We're too late. Momo is lost forever." She would have wished someone better for Momo. Momo was a good chap, that did not deserve something like El Tuerto. But it was what it was. "Chin, a word!" She took the fire soldier by the arm and guided him aside. "Chin, I'm warning you, that bird breaks Momo's heart and I'm going after it myself. I'll be feeding Tuerto nuggets to Master Sokka if it doesn't treat Momo right."
"The lemur is not complaining, Great Master. It seems quite happy, actually."
"Don't play innocent with me, man. I'm not Aang. And by the way, are you nuts? Giving romance scrolls to the Avatar? Do you know the kind of damage you may do with that?"
"Well, the Avatar asked me for those himself. And anyway, he's supposed to be getting married sometime soon, and he seemed concerned about certain things." Chin scratched something, probably his face. "His intended seems to be concerned with other things, though." He said reflectively but she did not indulge the conversation.
"Whatever. Take those scrolls back, please."
"Yes, sir. By the way, El Tuerto is ready for the next mission. This time he brought two shurikens and a piece of torn black silk. He's not betraying anything about the missions, but I think they are becoming more dangerous."
"Ok. Let me think about it. Go talk to the Avatar while I focus on the message." Chin went to where Aang was and she thought hard what to say to Mai.
Dear Mai: Third Rule of the Girly Code. Men secret thoughts: High-class is boring. Slumming is good. Signed, The Blind Bandit.
She then felt bad about the message. It seemed like she was saying that being with Katara was slumming it. And it was not. The Water Tribes were challenged in certain departments, that was true, but as attested by elite warriors, Gods and all levels of Fire Nation royalty, they were also warm, caring, meanly good looking and capable of making their loves and lovers truly happy. She then changed the onus of the message on the recipient.
Dear Mai: Third Rule of the Girly Code. Make-up is supposed to look good. Signed, The Blind Bandit.
She had no idea about Mai's make up except that Suki thought that it was hideous, full of scary black lines. Well, Suki was into weird make up too, but she was Toph's friend and Mai wasn't so she took Suki's word for it. She then walked where Chin and Aang were, talking in hush tones. They shut up as soon as she got close.
"OK, Chin, here is the message." She dictated the message to Chin, who wrote it promptly. Toph then waited for Aang to say goodbye to the soldier, but he was not moving. "Are you coming to dinner with me?" She asked. He seemed doubtful.
"Chin was explaining the Covenant of the water tribes. It's full of legal terms." That did it for her.
"You stay and sort out the Fish legal situation. Give me a brief summary when you guys are done. Which way to the dinner hall or whatever they call it?" Aang gave her instructions.
"I'll see you later." He said and she nodded. It was not an idle social farewell. It was a fact. And she understood that it meant that he would see her either in her room or his, not at dinner.
0o0o0o0o0
Toph paced her room, thinking carefully. Food had been as dreadful as usual, she was turning into a vegetarian against her will, just not wanting to deal with Water Tribe culinary efforts. Between rice cakes and lichen dumplings, she was keeping her diet diversity to a minimum. Katara and Zuko had walked her to her room, and left her there. She did not want to ask where Aang's room was and she didn't think that she could find it on her own. He did not come to dinner, and she suspected that such a long conversation about the Fish's covenant meant nothing good. Anyway, her mind was full of something else. She was thinking about him coming to her room tonight and the fact that she was falling in love with him, and that she wanted to do something that would have Gran-Gran filling her head with speeches. Abstinence Only speeches. And that she was absolutely sure of what she wanted to do but was afraid that he may not be.
"That monk is so ripe that if he were fruit, he would be at the foot of the tree already." Fate said.
Toph stopped her pacing. Last thing she needed. Peeping Goddesses.
"Go away."
"She has a point, Fate. Neither of them is going to be able to go back as things were before." Tlatli was chewing on something. Someone else's virtue, probably.
"Come on, luv, give us some trust. We know stuff. Being around a long time."
Toph sat on her bed, her elbows on her knees, her face on her hands.
"He always thought his first time would belong to Katara. I don't know if he's ready for otherwise."
"Ask him. Honesty may hurt, but it's better for you to know who is he thinking about when he's with you."
Ok, that one hurt. Just thinking about it hurt. She shook her head.
"Anyway, the problem right now is that you will be giving him something that you never expected to give in love. There is a lot of risk in loving without assurances."
OK, that one not only hurt but scared her. It meant pain in the future too.
"Yes, I know how you work, Fate. No assurances."
"Carpe Diem, little earthbender. No one can tell you where are you going to be tomorrow. Memories may be all you have left."
She heard a soft knock on her door and heard the Goddesses scuttling away. "Privacy, let's give them privacy." Fate was saying, probably dragging Tlatli away. Toph stood up and leaned against the door, trying to feel vibrations through the wood. She heard his ephemeral movements and opened the door. Aang stepped inside. He bended fire in her stove, as the fire that Zuko had bended before was dying.
"I always forget that you don't need lamps." He said casually, sitting on her bed. She sat next to him.
"Do you want to go to a place with lamps?" She did not want to sound too forward. "Hussiness is not attractive." Her governess used to say to the servant girls in her house.
"Not really." They stayed silent for a couple of minutes.
"Did you have dinner? I saved rice cakes and vegetarian dumplings for you. Only edible stuff during the entire dinner." She stood up, and pick up from a shelf the food she had wrapped.
"Thank you." He said and sounded really grateful. She heard him chewing quietly.
"Did you give the scrolls back to Chin?" She sat next to him.
"I did. I think you're right about those scrolls. They have nothing to do with how the monks used to refer to men and women. The monks used to say that the best poetry is the poetry two people create together. There's no poetry on those scrolls."
"I know, and believe me, I'm paying for it."
She heard him breaking another piece of rice cake and putting it in his mouth. Zuko's lessons were working. He was not as loud as before, when they used to travel together.
"Talking about poetry, you know, you keep saying that you are my dirty little secret, but that's not true. You're my secret, yes, but nothing about our secret is dirty or little."
"Your feet are."
"What?"
"Little. Your feet are little. But not your tattoos. I need to remember that for the next time I'm drinking fire whiskey with the girls. The key is not the size of the feet but the appraisal of the tattoos."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Archery."
He sounded confused. To the point that she felt uncomfortable. She blushed and changed the topic, drastically.
"What did Chin say about the covenant?"
"That is sound. However, Chin was taking a lot of little notes while talking to me. He seemed to be dissecting that document and everything that happened today. He may be able to come up with something." Aang paused his eating, and added. "He's interesting."
"That's a way to put it."
"I mean, he seems to be comfortable with whom he is. He doesn't try to portray himself in a different light. He's very truthful about his past, what he likes, things like that."
"Oh, he is. When he tells you he's a cheat at playing dice he's not lying."
Aang kept eating.
"You know why I finished the task early today?"
"You wanted to get out of the caves."
"Yes. Those caves swallow you if you let them. You know that I never wanted to be what I am. But it was more. It was as if my entire set of current decisions weighed against me and all I wanted to do was to run away."
He finished eating and she heard him put the linen napkin that she had used to wrap the food away. He then did something unusual. He laid down his head on her lap. She imagined the light of the stove flickering on his face, back and forth. She started caressing his face. She kept away from his ears this time. It was not the right moment for that.
"Sometimes," Aang said, "I feel like two people."
"Well, you have that thing with the multiple personalities going on."
She felt his smile against her hands.
"Multiple previous lives, not personalities. And I'm talking about being a different person when I'm here with you than when I'm out there."
She didn't want to ask, but the hag wanted otherwise.
"Is that because you feel the need to be good out there, all the time?"
"Sort of. More than that, is that here with you I'm not subject to any rules. Any expectation. You … you let me be. You don't see me as the embodiment of hope. You don't feel the need to protect me."
He did not say it, but the hag said it for both of them. You treat him like a man. Like a normal man.
Toph kept making circles on his face. She felt the prick on her neck and knew that he was looking at her. She closed her eyes out of instinct. She liked hearing this, but felt afraid of asking more questions. Free-will with her did not mean love, she knew that. But beggars can't be choosers and she was fighting many years of single mindedness. He spoke again, almost to himself. She was used to that, she was the perfect sounding board.
"Freedom feels so right."
Suddenly, he did something unexpected again. He sat down and said: "I probably should be going."
"Why?" her voice betrayed her disappointment.
"Because if I stay tonight, I won't hold back." He answered simply.
She understood his meaning immediately.
"Maybe I don't want you to hold back." She answered, in a low voice.
He held his breath.
"There's no going back. This is as irrevocable as it will ever be."
She shrugged.
"Better you than Kuei." She said but that was not what she wanted to say. She wanted to say that better him than anyone else. That she did not want anyone else.
"I don't think I like that." He muttered and she bit her lip.
"I understand. You want your first time to be with …" she couldn't bring herself to say a name "… someone else."
"No, it's not that. I don't know what I want." He answered honestly. "For a long time I wanted something specific. But now, I want to be with a friend and I want to be with someone that cares about me as much as I care about her. You're the best friend, and you know how much I like you and care about you. And I can feel that you really, really like me. Just me. Not what I represent. And I keep thinking about all the reasons not to do this, but all I can think of is that I really, really, want you."
She held a sob. She made it sound like a snort. Want and love were not the same thing, but it was easy to get confused. And if she had any modicum of self protection awareness it was also the right moment to step away. And then, she thought about La. Carpe Diem.
"There's a Spirit out there who wants me to be miserable." She said, drowning her pride under her emotions. "You can take misery away tonight. No strings attached. You said it yourself. Freedom. Here, in this room, there's freedom."
He grabbed her hand.
"Are you going to rub my ears?" He asked, hopeful.
"Are you going to kiss my feet?"
"I'm going to kiss you like all over." He tried to do the husky thing and she thought that it was hilarious.
"That's a yes on the ears, then."
He was serious, though, when he said:
"I'm going to kiss all of you, and you're going to know all of me." He kissed her hand. "Freedom." He said before kissing her on the mouth.
It came out as a complete surprise to Toph how much can two people do in one night. It was not the intimacy per se. After all, she absolutely knew all the theory about the facts of life. She was surprised by the laughs, every time the kisses subsided. And how easily can curiosity overcome shyness.
"Please, ask me to break all the rules that embody me and embody you." He told her while learning the taste of her skin.
And even tough they were both running on instinct, they couldn't be faulted, on anything. Of course they have been building up towards this. They both knew it. They justified it by arguing to themselves that she was getting even with Kuei on a preemptive-strike sort of way, and that he was getting the necessary experience for the gruesome task of repopulating the airbenders (a dirty job, yes, but someone had to do it). However, their voices betrayed all these arguments.
"Pull me near. I want to be cherished by you." She said later, when he laid her on her stomach.
"There won't be a single pore left untouched in this battle." He promised.
There was no way to ignore that the monks have been right about the fact that the best poetry is the one that two people write together.
At the end, she did realize that this was the most dangerous game of all. She was walking, all senses open, into probably the worst heartache in a millennia. However, she could not stop touching, exploring, moving. She put her mouth, her fingers and every bit of her in every bit of him, and he was game. For everything. At the last minute, just before she got scared enough to punch him in the head again, he softly pried her apart. She got to think for a moment that even if her heart hurt tomorrow, it was worth it tonight. She closed her eyes and told the monk "I love you" in her head, before giving in with all her might.
0o0o0o0o
Toph laid awake. She could hear his breathing, his head on her chest, his hand on her stomach, his body around hers.
"Don't be afraid of hurting me." She had said.
"You make my heart shrink like dried fruit. You sound like a child." The monk had whispered.
"I'm not."
"Well, don't you be afraid of hurting me."
She had laughed.
"I'm not."
She stirred, wondering about the fact that she could still feel him within her, even though he was laying next to her. Her flesh felt tender, alive in places she never knew could be awoken. Like a breathing fiend, that wanted to be fed the same sensations, again and again. She realized that he was awake because she felt him against her thigh. Well, at least the tattoo was reporting for duty.
"Are you sore?" He asked from somewhere in her chest, his fingers moving on her stomach now.
"Yes and no." She caressed his ear, absentmindedly.
"Is there anything I can do to alleviate the soreness?" He asked concerned, raising his head, probably to look at her.
"How do you know about the soreness?" She was curious.
"Someone explained some things to me." She nodded, thinking about the irony of from whom that information was probably coming and from where that whom had acquired the knowledge of details like this.
She grabbed his ears and tugged him towards her face.
"I'll tell you how to cure my soreness." She whispered, starting to kiss him. She then pushed him on his back on the bed and straddled him. He was surprised.
"Are you sure …?" But the phrase ended in a low whimper of pleasure, while she was accommodating him, sliding, the barest flinching on her face while adjusting to the still new, still raw, feeling. She writhed, biting her lip, finding her own tempo, helped by his hands on her hips, while in her head the crazy thought awoke that she needed to feed the fiend before it ate her alive. One of his hands moved to her neck and went down, with open fingers, from her collarbone to the valley of her breasts, to her navel, to the core of the ache that was consuming her. "How you move." He said, and there was so much wonder, appreciation and, yes, happiness in his voice. "By the Spirits, how you move." And his voice ended in a trail, while grabbing the hair on the back of her head and bringing her down to him to kiss her with greed.
The first time, she had been too overwhelmed with the new feelings, the pain and the emotion. She had felt him melting on her, and she had understood by his shivering that he was going through a truly powerful reaction. Now that she was the one dictating the rhythm, guided by his pace, building up, and up, and up their joint sway, she was taken by surprise by the outburst from within. And it exploded and imploded in her yelps while she melted on him and he held her tight against his chest, kissing her hair over and over again.
She realized then that all their research was turning into a higher education degree, and based on the way they were applying themselves to the task, most likely a doctorate.
Carpe Diem: Latin, seize the day.