Hello everyone! Im back with the second chapter of Love is blind and, as it turns out, its even longer the first one... I really have trouble writting short texts. I hope you all like this chapter, because so far it is my favorite (which isnt saying much since it is only my second). Anyway, Id like to give special thanks to the reader who added me on his favorite story list and the other person who put me on his story alert... thank you so much! Being a new author, it means the world to me! To the rest of you, Im very thankful that you are reading this... What would make me even more thankful would be if you left reviews, just so I know you have read. Constructive comments are also very welcome (if you find any mistakes, please point them out, it will really help me!).
Once again, thank you! Hope you will enjoy this!
Chapter two : Makeup, Ice and earth
Toph hated makeup. She hated the slick, bitter 'red' paint she used to outline her lips (whatever 'outlining' meant...), the powdery 'blue' eye shadow she carefully dabbed onto her eye lids and the sticky, intoxicating 'white' substance she had to smear all over her face to make it look 'tastefully pale'. She had been told that adding extra 'color' to her face helped bring out her traits. Everyone seemed to agree that makeup made a girl more beautiful.
As if being 'beautiful' meant anything to her.
The only thing she hated more than the makeup was the dress: the horrid, tight, insufferable dress. 'Green', her mother had said, to match your eyes. Right. Why not a live-size porcelain doll to match her own expectations, while she was at it? Than maybe, just maybe she'd get off her daughter's case.
And then there were the shoes.
She didn't hate them.
She only wished to kick them off, smash their fragile, stupid wooden soles between a pair of boulders and bury them deep, deep into the ground, never to be found again.
Only she couldn't, because she had promised herself to be nice.
For the millionth time in the last four years, she gave herself a well-deserved mental punch and made a note not to ever, ever promise anything to herself again.
The war had been over for six years. Six years since her great adventure with the Gaang. Six years since she'd helped save the world. Six years since she'd become one of the biggest war heroes in history.
The first two years had passed all too fast: right after the ceremony that had made Zuko the new Fire Lord, she'd escaped to the South Pole with Sokka. What else could she have done? Aang had a lot of Avatar duties to perform and Katara followed him wherever he went: the true nature of the relationship between Twinkletoes and Sweetness couldn't have been any more obvious. Not only didn't she want to hang around the two lovebirds (the vibrations sent to the ground by the frantic pounding of their hearts whenever they were together nearly drove her insane), but most of Aang's tasks involved staying within the Earth Kingdom. And as long as she stayed on Earth Kingdom land... she was at her parents mercy. Now that her existence had been revealed to the world, they wouldn't have hesitated to send every spare Earth Kingdom soldier at her research and the King himself would have been warned of her disappearance... she couldn't have escaped long.
She had considered staying at the Fire nation royal palace with Zuko, but had decided against it: she liked Sparky, but she just hated royalty and palaces and everything that reminded her the slightest bit of her pampered childhood in Gaoling.
So she'd followed Sokka (who had been more than happy to bring her along) all the way to the most inappropriate place in the world for a blind earthbender like her.
The South Pole.
The frozen, snow covered, blinding South Pole.
And, surprisingly, it had been the best two years of her life.
In the beginning though, it was pure hell : she couldn't see more than two steps ahead of her, couldn't distinguish anyone's body unless they were right up in her face and earthbending in these conditions was nearly impossible. It was cold, there was this stupid damp thing called snow everywhere and she constantly slipped on patches of another of the universe's idiotic inventions: ice, which she had once encountered in the Serpent's Pass, a memory she would be more than happy to forget.
But he was there and, although he was very busy rebuilding his home tribe, he still found the time to be by her side. Whenever she tripped, he somehow appeared out of thin air (at least, that's what it felt like to her, since she couldn't sense vibrations on ice) to catch her, and whenever she got lost, he would be there to take her hand and guide her back to safety. He never complained when she gripped his arm, making a habit of following him everywhere he went (because dammit, staying in Gran-Gran's hut all day was just too boring; she needed action!). No matter how occupied he was and how much trouble she go into, he was always there for her.
In the middle of these vast, icy, invisible plains, he became her rock, her earth, the one she could hold on to, the one that gave her stability and comfort. His strong arms were more solid than a boulder, his skin was warmer than any ground she'd walked on and his voice was more soothing to her than the feeling of the soft soil seeping between her toes...even his steady heartbeat kept in time with the rhythm of the Earth's pulse.
And, somehow, sometime during the coldest yet most peaceful period of her life, she and Sokka had wound up becoming more than plain friends.
They had become the BEST friends the world had ever seen.
So, things weren't too bad at the South Pole, and they suddenly began to go amazingly well when she finally figured it out.
Faced with blindness, she had learned to earthbend. Faced with her imprisonment in a metal box, she had learned to metalbend. Faced with snow...she had learned to see beneath the snow.
Facts were, under the kilometre thick layers of snow and ice that constituted the ground of the South Pole, there was earth. Or, to be more precise, a very hard type of rock. This rock was deeply connected with the ice and snow above it, and it was shaped by it. The glaciers, under the effect of their own gravity, slowly slid onto the rock, scraping it. This wide-scale movement generated incredible vibrations that could be perceived even through the ice... granted you were sensible enough to feel the subtle emulations. And, if someone could feel them, it was definitely Toph. It took her over two months of daily trips on the outskirts of the village (as well as a pair of winter boots with metal soles Sokka had made especially for her) to learn to 'sense' the earth, but in the end she could distinguish the landscape in great detail, even the ice cliffs and the village's huts. By stomping her foot on the ground, she could draw clear vibrations from the rock hidden under the ice, and therefore regain the integrity of her sight for short moments. Of course, subtler things such as the perception of heartbeats, breathing and temperature were lost to her vision, but she could tell the presence of other people and see their movements clearly enough to function normally. Needless to say, it was a great relief for her to have her sight back and it made her life at the South Pole nearly (it was cold, and she still couldn't earthbend) perfect.
Even more so because, despite the return of her vision, Sokka and her remained inseparable.
Not too long after she had reconnected with the earth, she suddenly felt it begin to shift under her feet, slowly at first, than more rapidly, until she felt the walls she had hid behind her entire life begin to crumble and her feelings spin wildly out of control and into the air, were she could no longer bury them at the bottom of her heart.
During those two years, her small crush for the Water Tribe boy morphed into something much more profound: she fell in love with Sokka. SOKKA, warrior of the Water Tribe, Sword Master and the biggest idiot she'd ever met. Sokka, Snoozles, Meathead, Ponytail, Boomerang... you name it! Sokka, her best friend, the only person that understood her, that had witnessed her greatest moments of weakness and had walked away from it in one piece. Sokka, who was four years older than her, Suki's boyfriend.
Sokka, the most caring, resourceful, funny, sarcastic and meat addicted person she'd ever met.
Sokka, her rock, her earth, her home.
And letting herself fall in love with him had been the most ridiculous, stupid and painful thing she'd ever done.
Even more ridiculous, stupid and painful than coming back here four years ago, despite the fact she had promised herself never to return (she definitely had to learn to keep the right promises).
The two years at the South Pole with Sokka had passed in the blink of an eye, and then it was over. Sokka was called by the Northern Water Tribe King to help restore relations between them and the South Pole, and he simply couldn't refuse. She would have followed him, but in the same moment, Aang had arrived with a letter from her parents. They had spent two years searching for her everywhere in the Earth Kingdom before pleading the Avatar (who, to Toph's demand, had kept his mouth shut when they'd asked exactly where she was) to bring their daughter a message : they were begging her to come home to Gaoling. The loss of their daughter was a tragic event, and they missed her greatly. They wanted her back in her true place, as the rightful (and only) inheritor of the Bei Fong estate, and for that they were ready to reconsider the rules that had directed her childhood. They promised she could earthbend and have more freedom. After much deliberation and discussions with Sokka (he was happy for her if she could reconnect with her family, but he sure as hell was going to miss her) she'd decided to give them a chance.
So now, there she was, trying to pass as the perfect noble lady. She hated to admit it, but she was pretty good at it. Even if her true self had been revealed years ago, her childhood of pretending had paid off. She was irreproachable in her manners and stature, graceful and polite as should be. She'd even learned to dress and fix her makeup and hair herself (anything to avoid having her mother dress her like a doll): she memorized the shape and size of the different makeup containers and the 'color' of their contents, the different combs to place in her hair, all her different robes... she also knew the form of her face by heart, where exactly to apply the lip stick and eye shadow and all the other crap. She'd memorized each 'color', each outfit: 'blue' dress goes with 'blue' shoes, 'red' comb matches 'red' tunic, and so on. And whenever she had a moment to herself, she would gladly strip off all the junk and put on her good ol' travelling clothes to go earthbending outside or at the arena (she totally ruled Earth Rumble VI).
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible today.
She was just finishing fixing her hair when she heard the servant walk down the hallway to her room, and she turned as the discreet woman creaked open her door. Even with her shoes on, she could sense the servant's surprise as she discovered the young mistress calmly waiting for her as if she'd expected her entrance. Aside from her friends, no one the young earthbender encountered understood her sight: they either saw her as a terrifying earthbending prodigy that could somehow miraculously sense their attacks or the freaky blind girl that could tell things she shouldn't be able to know. She knew for a fact that this particular servant looked at her as an abnormal, frightening phenomenon, the kind you'd see at the circus under the title of The ultra-sensible blind freak. It amused her... and pained her.
Right now, what amused her was the servant's awkward bow (the soles of her shoes blurred her vision considerably, but she could still roughly see the servant since she wasn't too far from her) as she muttered apologies for disturbing her while she was preparing. When the blind young woman summoned her to "quit beating around the bush" she straightened and stuttered:
"Your suitor has arrived, mistress."
Toph cringed inwardly at her words: yep, the reason I've spent all morning locked up in my room to prepare has finally arrived. It'd better be worth it this time...unlike the 15 other times.
"So", she said casually, "what is he like?" Not that I care, she thought bitterly. This is just a waste of time.
"Well, mistress, he is very handsome," the servant began hesitantly before gaining in confidence. "He has long dark hair and the most enchanting blue eyes..."
Toph just smirked and crossed her arms, causing the servant to stop mid-sentence as she realized her mistake. The blind earthbender couldn't see it, but she knew the woman was blushing mad.
"I-I'm so sorry, mistress. I-I don't know... what I was thinking..."
"You weren't thinking, apparently," Toph mocked her, enjoying it far too much. "You should know looks can be deceiving: it is shame for you to give such importance to something so... superficial."
"Absolutely, mistress! The woman agreed rapidly, attempting miserably to make up for her blunder. But, as... unimportant as appearances are... May I still remark that the mistress looks stunning today?"
"Do I?" Toph inquired, an ironic expression on her face. "Well, thank you very much, my dear."
And stop pretending I'm pretty: the flattery act grows old fast. I'm not an idiot, and I don't need to see to know I'm anything but beautiful. Makeup and fancy dresses don't change anything.
Had she not had her shoes on, she could have sensed that, in spite of the servant's desperate desire to enter her good graces, she wasn't lying.
Slightly reassured that the young mistress wasn't going to bury her to the waist in the floor (it had already happened once to one of the former servants, or so she'd heard) she continued:
"The young mistress's mother, Lady Poppy, wants her in the grand hall immediately. She says that the mistress's visitor has made a long trip to come here and that he refuses to rest until he's seen his fiancé-to-be. It would be improper for the young mistress to keep him waiting any longer."
"Very well," Toph sighed heavily. I'm coming."
"Oh, and by the way: her mother insists that the young mistress should make an effort to look her future husband in the eye as much as possible. She considers her way of keeping her gaze to the ground very inappropriate for the present occasion."
Toph was about to retort "that the young mistress was to look were she pleased" (because there was only one person in the world that she wanted to look in the eye, although she would keep this to herself), when suddenly realization dawned upon her:
"Wait a minute," she growled at the servant in a low, menacing voice. "Are you telling me that this man doesn't know I'm blind?"
The older woman froze, stuttering feebly:
"O-of course n-not! W-why would the young mistress imagine such a thing?"
Toph stomped her foot on the ground violently, causing the floor to shake and the servant to shriek in fear.
"You're lying!" she shouted before dropping to a composed, ice cold tone. "And I bet they didn't tell him I earthbended either? He probably doesn't know I'm the same Toph that helped the avatar save the world, does he? They let him believe I was a perfectly normal, perfectly correct high society young lady, didn't they? Answer me!" she shouted again, emphasising her demand by sending a few pebbles she'd brought from outside in the servant's direction.
The woman's only answer was an almost inaudible whimper.
" Tell my mother," Toph said in the same controlled, refrigerating voice as before, "that the young mistress left the house for a few days and that she is not returning until this man is told the entire truth or that he's gone. Also, let her know that if she tries marrying me to a man that doesn't accept me for who I truly am ever again, I'll leave. Definitely. You may now go."
The servant quickly closed the door behind her as she retreated, and as soon as she was gone Toph kicked her shoes off angrily.
Ten minutes later, she was jumping out her window and running toward the arena, barefoot and wearing her travelling clothes, the makeup and dress long forgotten.