CHAPTER 9: Reconnection
"We are all connected. To each other and to the earth. We are all children of the Earth."
"You good, jungle girl?" Toph smiled as she took another deep breath of fresh air, resting her head over her crossed arms in the saddle on top of Appa.
Normally, she always preferred having both of her feet on the ground, but at this moment she actually just felt relieved now that they had finally left the creepy jungle village below and were on their way back to the Air Temple.
She finally felt like she could breathe again.
"Mh," was all the jungle girl answered, earning a snicker to form on Toph's lips.
Toph could sense by the rapid palpitations of her heart that in fact she was not so good. She either felt really scared or really excited as they flew over the emerald tree tops below.
Toph was sure it was the first.
Back in the jungle, when the new girl had finally packed up the stuff that she thought she might need for seeing Aang and they had left the village, she had seemed almost taken aback by the sight of Appa. And she had been rather silent ever since.
Toph's memory flashed back to when she herself had met Appa for the first time. That had been a strange experience.
She remembered feeling his massive silhouette towering before her, while also sensing how gentle his paws had thudded against the earth. Despite his size, there was a weightlessness to his presence, a sense of freedom.
Kinda like Twinkletoes.
Even though Aang had grown in size and his voice had changed just like the rest of her friends in the group, he still felt as light as a feather to her.
It was annoying and comforting at the same time. He was the easiest to recognize out of all the people she had ever met.
Toph felt her smile fade a bit as thinking about Aang made her mind wander back to what had happened at the Air Temple. It had felt so strange when she sensed him shaking and twisting his body like that. As if something had taken over him.
She shrugged her shoulders as if to shake the experience off.
"Are we there yet?" she called out to Zuko at the reins.
"Almost," Zuko answered.
And it was not too long before they landed near the meditation garden at the temple. Toph quickly jumped off of Appa's back and sighed out as if in heaven from feeling the touch of the earth kissing her feet again.
She curled her toes as she felt the warm soil of the garden beneath her feet, and as her toes dug deeper, she savored the sensation of reconnection - the earth finally embracing her again, supporting her weight, grounding her. She felt the usual sensation of tapping into the beat that pulsed beneath the surface, as if she was drawing energy directly from the earth itself.
With the earth beneath her feet, and fresh air in her lungs, Toph sighed out in satisfaction.
She, Zuko and the new girl were soon met by Sokka.
"Did you find him?" was the first thing he said, as he came up to them in the usual rhythm of his Water Tribe feet.
"No," Zuko answered in his raspy voice, while he seemed to pick up some of the new girl's stuff, his weight shifting slightly on his feet.
"But we found another fluffy type, who might help us," Toph said as she waved her hands in the direction of the jungle girl.
She quickly sensed a subtle shift in Sokka's heartbeat that she recognized was from laying his eyes on the new girl. Even though she could not see his face, she felt a slight change in his rhythm from the vibrations in the earth.
Toph shook her head slightly.
She felt annoyed.
Zuko had also had a weird reaction when they met the girl for the first time in the hut. What was with these boys and that girl?
"Hi," Sokka said lamely. It sounded as if he was smiling.
"Hey. Nice to meet you," the new girl answered in a soft flowing voice.
She also seemed to feel better after getting down from Appa.
"Yeah, yeah," Toph waved at them. "Hello. How are you? I'm good, bla blaa. Could we get on with it or what? Our friend's still kinda not feeling too good over there."
"Right," Sokka said with a nodding of his head. "He's over there by the pond."
As they walked over there, Toph took notice of the rhythm of the jungle girl's feet. It was a very different rhythm than she was used to. It reminded her of a cat deer. Light on her feet, though still grounded.
"Who are you?" she heard Katara voice out as they reached the pond, causing the jungle girl to stop in her tracks a couple of meters from Katara and Aang.
Katara also had a strange reaction to the jungle girl, however, it was slightly different than that of the boys. Even though her heartbeat also quickened a little, her body seemed to harden somehow. With the boys, their bodies had seemed to loosen at the joints.
Toph felt Katara hug Aang a little tighter in a movement so subtle that she might be the only one to notice it. He was still laying in her lap.
"I'm Nii," the jungle girl said. "I was asked to come and take a look at your friend, and see if I can help him."
Toph was surprised to hear her name and also a bit puzzled that they had not learnt it earlier.
"And what about Guru Pathik?" Katara asked in Sokka and Zuko's direction.
She was still hugging Aang tight to her chest.
The jungle girl answered: "Guru Pathik hasn't been seen around here for years. Not since his vision… Um, since he left for the Air Temple years ago. He sort of vanished after that. I knew him pretty well, though. He was a kind of mentor for me when I was a child."
A moment of silence passed by. The subtle sound of the pond water lapping gently against the shore and Aang's body suddenly seemed loud.
"Can I see him?" Nii asked in a soft voice.
Toph sensed that Katara's pulse was still sort of quick, and she wondered what was going through her mind.
"Fine," Katara exhaled, tilting her face forward.
Her shoulders seemed to droop, and in a subtle movement, she turned her body slightly as if allowing the new girl to come closer.