2

Toph's house was small, bare, just the essentials all arranged in clean order. She liked to live alone, or so she thought. She wasn't sure what she liked, since she hadn't tried to experiment. Even though she had been invited back to city to live with her friends, she felt more secure all alone, not relying on anyone. Somehow this was better for her. She knew it.

And yet sometimes, on days when the wind blew, she would turn her face to the wind and hear it whistle through her empty house. There was no laughter carried on the gusts and no mirth in the gales. There was quiet, and while she was content with that most of the time, sometimes… she wasn't.

Toph sat in her chair. She was bored and not feeling great. There was the off chance that when she tried to make lunch, she had put the wrong herbs in, having misplaced them earlier in the week, and now she was suffering the ill effects of some inedible plants.

A knock sounded on her door and she pushed her hair over her shoulder, going to see who it was. "Hello?" she asked, not opening the door. She had enough enemies that this was the safest way to act.

"Toph Beifong, you better let me in." the female voice was no nonsense, demanding, motherly. Yup, that was Katara.

Toph barely had the door half open when Katara pushed her way in. "It reeks in here." She said waving her hand in front of her face as she entered the room fully. "And you look like a wreck. Have you even taken a bath in the last week?" She didn't wait for an answer and started to grab Toph's wrist.

Toph pulled her hand away. "Katara!" she said sharply. "Why are you here?" she pushed her hair back subconsciously out of her face.

Katara sighed and looked at Toph. This girl. Her sigh was cut short as she met Toph's glare.

"Why are you in my house?" Toph asked. She was on edge now that Katara had said all the rude things about her house and the scent, which she herself hadn't noticed.

"I'm here because you missed our appointment for fittings." Katara said half sternly.

Toph groaned. She hadn't meant to forget, but having just gotten back yesterday, she was so tired she must have slept through it all. "I'm sorry." She said unmeaningfully. Her eyes looking straight ahead. "I was so tired and I just…"

Katara gently touched the younger woman's shoulder. "Toph. It's okay." She took some of Toph's hair in her hand and braided it up, pushing it into the bun that was so customary for Toph. "I just dropped by to make sure you were okay, not to admonish you."

Katara was so hard to understand sometimes. She could be all bossy and annoying one moment, and then be the person you wanted to pour your whole heart out to. Toph didn't get it. But she didn't have to. That was just part of their relationship. Katara being… well Katara… and Toph not understanding her at all.

Katara broke the silence that had been formed after her statement. "I thought about hanging some art on the walls of our house." She blushed as she said the word our. Of course, Toph wouldn't have picked up on it and instead just sat down on a stool.

"Yah?" she asked, just knowing Katara wanted someone to listen.

"I was thinking maybe something blue or yellow." She said looking around Toph's little hut. "Toph. You don't have any art…" she commented in disbelief. "Art would spruce this place up so much, give it a fresh new appearance." She waited for Toph's response.

There was a roll of eyes. "I'm not big on art. Most of it's the same texture. Gets boring." Toph said waiting for reality to dawn on Katara.

Sure enough it did.

Katara shifted her weight to the other foot. "I… uh… I just forgot, sorry." She said looking down.

Toph yawned. "It's fine. Sokka did it all the time.." she paused as she said his name. It was so foreign still. How long had it been? Seven years, give or take. And the last time she had seen him, she shuddered just thinking about it.

"Aang!" Katara was calling from the kitchen. "Aang, come help me with this." She was trying to reach something in an upper cabinet. It was funny, how just two years prior, Aang would have been the last person she called. But though all of them had grown, Aang had been the one holding out on them. He shot up, to be almost taller than fully grown Zuko.

Zuko was passed out asleep on the couch. A little too much cactus juice had put them all in a tipsy state. Sokka and Toph were sitting on a mat, rolling a marble back and forth between the two of them. Toph wasn't using her hands, just raising the earth a little to send the marble rolling back to Sokka.

"Teach me to do it." He mumbled in his cactus juice stupor. "Teach me to bend." He stopped the marble and looked at her. Toph looked back at him, her dead eyes staring straight ahead.

"It doesn't work like that Sokka." She answered almost falling forward.

He reached for her hand. "I can learn. I can be useful. I can stand out and do more."

Toph's breath hitched when he caught her hand. "I think you're stronger than anyone here." She whispered.

They were both leaning in, she was looking away, but he was looking straight at her.

"Sokka, I'm going to kiss you." She said as she closed the gap.

Sokka smiled. "I'd like that." Their lips met gently, with an innocence in Toph that was unapparent in any other part of her. Yet in love, she was so naïve and young.

Toph was returned to reality by Katara. "You're just so capable, Toph! And it's so easy to forget that you're blind." She bustled over to the window.

"I think the curtains will be orange." Katara said decidedly as she kept moving around. Her eyes fell on a bunch of fabric on Toph's bed. "What's this for?" She looked at the boldly designed fabric. It made her eyes hurt.

Toph moved over to her, hoping she hadn't missed too much of the conversation. "I don't know. I was in the market the other day and I saw this fabric, and for the first time I could actually see the pattern on it. It's like the colors are vibrating at such a strong frequency that I can sense it." She knew it sounded silly, but she had bought the whole bolt of fabric, simply because of how new and different and foreign this all seemed.

Katara didn't understand. She had never been put in Toph's world, where everything was just a feeling, an expression of the basest sort. "Well, it's kind of bright." Katara mused. "But I think you could find someone who would make you a nice dress out of it." Her brain was already going a thousand miles a minute as she worked out a solution for her friend's problem.

Toph felt a chill of cooler air whip through her hut; she got up and shuffled around to close the curtains while Katara talked. Finally, Katara seemed to notice that the sun was getting lower.

"I have to get back home," Katara said to a quite Toph. "But I will be back to do the fitting for your dress. Okay? That way you don't have to go into town. I know you don't like it." She looked around as if looking for someone.

Toph was tired and still a bit achy. "Okay. Whatever." She said shrugging and going toward her door. "Be safe getting home. Goodnight." She ushered Katara out curtly then fell into bed. Everything was black around her.

There was no light. There was never any light. Everything in her life… was dark.

Just a quick author's note.

Thank you all so much for reading this. It means a lot. I hope you'll continue commenting and sending feedback or where you think the story is going. I appreciate it a lot.

Obviously, I don't own the characters, they're Nickelodeons, cuz if I owned them…. Tokka would be a strong ship.