Chapter Sixteen
--
Dressing Up
--
--
"So when are we going to this party exactly?" Sokka questioned as Katara dragged him into a clothing store he was pretty sure had nothing to do with the party locale.
"Just as soon as I find an I-love-you-Aang-I-want-us-to-be-together dress," Katara said, bee-lining for the racks of swanky garments. "And I'll probably need some and-I-really-mean-it-you're-the-one shoes, too."
"And by you wonder why you girls drive guys crazy," Sokka rolled his eyes, dropping into a chair, his eyes immediately glazing over.
--
--
After Sokka had departed from Toph's, Aang and Katara had stayed for some time after, both for their individual reasons. Aang had become more interested in spending time with Meng; and Katara, less than eager to return to the Water Tribe and her dating drama there, sought after time with her close friends. Also, she kind of wanted to hang out with Aang, which proved difficult with his frequent, unexplained absence. She did not complain, however, and avoided nosy questions and anything that could lead to an argument, all for Toph's sake. Between Aang and Katara was a tacit understanding that they stay for Toph, who merely feigned an upbeat attitude over the following days.
Stonehenge came by often to see her, but she always turned him away; and surprisingly, he listened. But he always returned the next day, sometimes with flowers, sometimes with fruit, sometimes with candy, and once with a teddy bear, which, unsurprisingly, did not go over well. Though she still did not like him, she quickly learned to tolerate him, growing accustomed to his presence and attitude and not flaring up as easily. It made no difference in her ability to focus if he attended one of her fights, though by his own choice he kept away from her whenever they were both at the stadium.
Without telling any lies or slights of truth, Katara managed to convey to Toph that she needed to return to the Water Tribe before meeting Toph at her parents' for the party. Presumably, she had work-related business to work out with Pakku, but she had actually gone back to drag Sokka out of his house and to the Bei Fong Estate.
Aang and Toph continued to stay at her place until the day of the party, at which time they and Meng and Stonehenge rode Appa to the Earth Kingdom. The trip was quiet for the most part with Toph in a dismal mood, dreading the event to come. Stonehenge kept to himself, seated not too far from her, and Meng and Aang sat up front, where Aang mentally prepared himself for finally introducing Meng to Katara as his date, and Meng quietly worried that this was just what was making him so nervous.
--
--
"Come on, Katara, just pick one!"
"What do you think of this one? Is it pretty enough? Not too slutty, but just right?" she asked, fingering the low neckline of the dress.
"I'm not even going to acknowledge that question," Sokka said, covering his eyes. "The less I see of you, the better."
"You know, it's not half bad," she said, looking at herself in the mirror and ignoring him. "Perfect shade of purple, you know, not too bright and not too light. Lavender actually. I love how it drapes, and maybe it's just me, but I feel like it gives me some cleavage!"
"Don't. Don't. Just don't," Sokka squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, revolted. "I never want to know what goes on in your head, okay? Never."
"Oh, quit whining, Sokka. I've made my choice. I want this one."
"Great, now let's just go. I don't even want to go to the party, but I'd so much rather be there than here," Sokka said, standing to leave.
"But I haven't found kiss-me-love-me-hold-me-sweetly shoes yet!"
"Katara!"
--
--
"Toph, dear, welcome home!" Lady Bei Fong trilled when she and her fellow attendees entered through the great doors engraved with the image of a flying boar. She embraced her daughter warmly, and Toph half-heartedly hugged her back.
"Hi, Mom," she said, her face slightly obscured by her mother's long flowing sleeve. "Hi, Dad."
"Hello, Toph. We're glad that you have come. Tonight is very important. Remember, you need to find a husband, so you will have someone to take care of you when your mother and I are no longer able to."
"Mom, Dad, these are my friends. You already know Aang, remember? The Avatar? Thought he'd kidnapped me when I ran away from home because you guys wouldn't give me any freedom?"
"Toph!" Aang hissed.
"Toph," her father said darkly.
"Great, you guys recognize each other," Toph said. "Moving on, this is my friend Meng. She's Aang's date."
Meng curtsied nervously, a bit overwhelmed by the wealth and pomposity around her.
"And this is my, uh, other friend Stonehenge," Toph muttered. "Yeah."
"I'm your daughter's date," Stonehenge explained, much to Toph's anger and chagrin.
"Will you shut up?" she snapped, whipping around.
"It's nice to meet you both, Lord and Lady Bei Fong," Stonehenge greeted courteously.
"You're dating my daughter?" Lord Bei Fong asked, raising a critical eyebrow.
"Yes, sir," he replied. "And loving every minute of it."
"No, he's not!" Toph barked.
"He's here to be my date tonight, yes, but that's it," she growled to her parents, but to Stonehenge as well, to make her point very clear.
"I'm pleased to hear that Toph," her father said, "because I would prefer you to be very open-minded tonight."
He eyed Stonehenge.
"And free from any pre-existing attachments," he added.
As a three-way glare fest took place between Toph, her father, and Stonehenge, Lady Bei Fong looked on anxiously.
"Toph, dear," she said, "Perhaps you and your friends would like to prepare for the party now? Get bathed and dressed and everything?"
Toph sighed. She already considered herself showered and dressed, but she knew her parents had already picked out exactly what she would wear, and her mother probably had one of the servants already trained to arrange her hair in a particular style for her.
"Sure," she muttered, and on this cue Lady Bei Fong beckoned four servants from the hallway, one to direct the two young men to a room, one to accompany Meng to another, and the latter two to oversee Toph throughout.
--
--
Some time later Meng knocked on Toph's door.
"Come in," Toph called.
Still a bit abashed by the Bei Fong Manor and hesitant to do or say anything she wasn't entirely sure she should--which was just about everything—Meng slowly opened the door. Toph's room, she found, was huge and ornate, but something about it felt stilted and lifeless.
"Does it always look this way?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"I don't know. Like what?" Toph asked sarcastically from the other end of the room behind a set of screens where the rightly supposed maid worked at fixing her hair just so.
"Right. Sorry," Meng said, realizing her blunder. "But your room is so fancy. I mean, it almost looks like…" Her sentence trailed off.
"Like nobody lives here?" Toph completed for her. "Yeah, you don't have to be able to see with your eyes to pick up on that feeling. Even when I lived here all the time, it still didn't feel familiar. Not really. I always feel like I can't breathe when I'm in here."
"Or anywhere near my parents," she thought bitterly to herself.
"It…" Meng began. "It is pretty, though, like a picture."
"I'll take your word for it," Toph snorted, not displeased to have Meng with her at that moment. She always found it helped her to bear the whole being-at-home-with-her-parents bit if she had an honest-to-goodness friend with her to support her in the sense that the friend knew none of this rich people stuff was Toph. Her true friends knew and appreciated who she was, and their presence was the necessary spoonful of sugar to make the medicine (aka, her parents) go down. Usually that friend would be Katara, but for some reason Katara had not arrived yet, and until she did Meng proved herself a worthy substitute.
"Toph, are these pictures of you as a baby?" Meng asked from a wall of hanging paintings.
"I would guess so?" Toph said, sarcastically, but not unkindly.
"Aaw, you were so cute back then!" Meng cooed. "It doesn't even look like you."
"Okay, all those nice things I said about her? Gone," Toph snarled in her head.
Aloud, she said, "Gee, thanks. Here I was just starting to think you were sucking up, but clearly that's not the way you're going with this."
"What? No, that's not what I meant!" Meng backtracked. "It's just, you look so quiet and delicate in these paintings, and that's not really you is all. You're not the sheltered little lady in these pictures."
"Oh," Toph said, blushing, not sure how to respond to that. She hadn't estimated Meng as the type to accurately read people; she'd really just thought she was a brainless little airhead floozy.
"But maybe not," she considered now.
"Your hair is complete, Miss," the maid finally said. "Your makeup, too. You look very beautiful, Miss."
"I don't feel beautiful," Toph grumbled, standing up, eager to get out from behind the blasted screens. "I hate how ridiculously tight this stuff is. It's like pins and needles all over, just poking, poking, poking."
"But, Toph," Meng breathed. "You look beautiful!"
And she did. Her mother might not have been able to see her daughter for who she truly was inside, but she could certainly see her daughter for the beauty she could be on the outside.
Toph's usual generous sprinkling of Earth had been scrubbed away by both of the overseeing servants. Her makeup complemented her every feature without dominating it. The especially trained maid had freed her hair from its customary bun, curled it slightly to a gentle waviness, and rearranged it into an elegant twist along the top part of the back of her head. Sparkling amethyst-encrusted clips held back her bangs in a clean sweep across her forehead, and similarly styled earrings winked prettily from her lobes.
But the dress was the kicker.
Her mother hadn't seen her wear a dress in five years, and she seemed to think this would be her only chance for possibly another five; so she took pains to make this one night compensate for all the time Toph had clad herself in her warrior and casual wear. The dress at hand was humble in color—a pale spring green devoid of yellow tinges—but the seamstress had designed the soft free-flowing fabric to catch at Toph's curves perfectly, accentuating the assets she naturally had and gently de-emphasizing those she naturally didn't. Toph had always been rather short in stature, and a graceful slit up either side of the skirt afforded her the appearance of a longer leg, as did the tall heels of the shiningly silver shoes her mother had chosen. The thin straps about her shoulders and the low yet modest neckline highlighted her perfectly sculpted collarbone and porcelain skin. Her bruise had healed greatly, but makeup masked the leftover discoloration enough to trick the unsuspecting eye.
The effect of her mother's keen senses and Toph's natural beauty produced an image of startling loveliness, all the more enhanced to those accustomed to seeing Toph look so radically different.
"Wow, Toph," Meng breathed.
Toph blushed fiercely. "I hate wearing these stupid corsets. It's one thing to feel trapped in one's own home and family, but it's even worse to feel trapped in one's own skin."
"I know this is your party and everything, but I think I'm kind of underdressed," Meng mumbled self-consciously. "I bought the nicest thing I could, but still…"
"What's your dress look like?" Toph asked.
"Red. V-neck. Kind of swishy. My hair's too short to do anything fancy, but I put in some barrettes…" she trailed off. "I'm going to look weird to the other guests."
"Well, you look beautiful to me," Toph said, grinning. "And don't care about what those rich morons think. It'll just drive you mad."
She took off her shoes, dropping several inches as a result.
"Here. I don't know if these, um, match your dress or anything, but I would much rather you wear them," she said, offering them to the other girl.
"Toph, these shoes cost more than my dress!" Meng objected.
"Look," Toph said. "No one will be able to tell if I'm wearing them—this stupid dress is long enough to cover my feet. Either you wear them, or I chuck them out the window. I can't see a damn thing in these, and I will not trip and fall and break an ankle because of a pair of ridiculous shoes."
"And, uh, they'd look prettier on you," she added as a kind afterthought but missing the mark.
"Thanks…" Meng said warily. "I guess it's much better entertainment for the random floozy to break her ankle at the party than for the pretty party princess to."
"Random floozy? Meng, you insult yourself. You'll always be the floozy in my book," Toph laughed.
Meng's eyebrow twitched rather angrily, but she couldn't help but smile up at Toph as she bent over to put on the shoes.
--
--
"Are you done yet?"
"Yes, I'm done."
"Have we missed the party?"
"No. We're leaving to go now."
"Hey, check out that bag!"
"Sokka, no stalling!"
--
To be continued…
--
--
A/N:
Okay, the final chapters are beginning because I have lifely matters starting strong in a week's time, and I really want to finish this and finish it well while I have the time. That being said, I am not going to rush things. I hope to end around twenty chapters, but if I feel the story requires one or two more than that, I won't hesitate to go ahead and use "extra."
So, yes, it is the beginning of the end, I think, and any and all suggestions are still welcome (preferably soon, so I can fit them in if I find they work for the story). Other than that, I always appreciate your feedback! Thank you so much for reading!
Oh, and another thing. What the heck would one call the Bei Fong family members? I went with Lord and Lady because Mr. and Mrs. sounds…wrong. lol
--
P.S.
These folks be not mine. 'Ceptin' Stonehenge, the little troublemaker. heh heh