Hello again, friends! Only one POV this chapter, and it's our favorite Earthbender! It's been a while since i've written from this POV, so please be patient with me as I ease back into it all, but even with that I'm pretty damn pleased with how this turned out!
I hope you guys enjoy! I'm so happy to be writing this again, even with the need to dust off the cobwebs a bit in my creative brain haha
Chapter Title Inspiration: "Still", by Daughter
If you like the chapter, have constructive criticism and/or would like to make my DAY...
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Chapter 8: Still, Our Hands Match
The air was humid and warm; different from the coolness of early summer nights in Ba Sing Se but not unpleasantly so. Aang and Katara's mist creation shielding Appa from sight shivered across Toph's senses in a rush of airy wetness. She could hear them both working quietly beside her, Aang's breathing relaxed while Katara's had that slight hitch that always showed up when she was concentrating really hard on something. For all that Katara was a great Waterbender, she hadn't been actively and openly using her element for very long and so more delicate uses of her bending still required a lot of effort.
Toph turned away from them to focus on the other two teenagers sitting next to her. Sokka's breathing was as familiar as her own—strong and changing rhythm ever so slightly as his mind wandered. She assumed he was running through possible Fire Nation travel scenarios and planning for the worst outcome; a true mother pig-hen at heart. Toph could see where Katara got it from…and was also pretty sure both siblings would very loudly deny it if she ever pointed it out.
Dakota wasn't as known to her and so she focused hardest on her in order to start memorizing the older girl's distinct patterns. She was a pretty even blend of all of the markers Toph had created to label the other members of the group—steady and calm, but carefully measured in a way that betrayed just how fast her mind was racing. Not that Toph could blame her; they were entering Fire Nation territory. Sure, it was on the far eastern reach of the nation's borders, on the shore of one of the smaller islands, but it was still closer than any sane person would want to be to the person who had caused such awful scars.
What felt like hours later, Appa's feet finally touched ground. Toph's excitement must have shown on her face because Sokka chuckled and wordlessly helped her find the edge of Appa's saddle so that she could scramble down. The feeling of the sand beneath her feet and her full 'sight' coming back in a rush of sensation was so welcome that she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.
Finally.
Her newly discovered Metalbending was amazing—allowed for the awareness of people and their forms on metal surfaces in a way that she never would have thought possible—but if sensing her surroundings with regular Earthbending was like eating a fresh, homemade egg custard, then using Metalbending for that same purpose was like eating a sunken, two-day-old egg custard. Yeah, they both were technically egg custard, both technically edible, but if she was asked which she preferred, the choice would be a no-brainer.
"Oh, sweet, sweet earth—I've missed you so much," Toph crooned, crouching down and submerging her hands in the wet sand.
Spirits but was it good to be able to see again!
Katara shook her head fondly at Toph's enthusiasm—she could feel it, finally could sense the small movements of individual limbs rather than just the gist of the overall form—as she walked past.
By the time Toph was finished scanning the area and checking out any signs of life—just a few turtle crabs skuttling around the shore's edge and a pod of iguana-seals sleeping in the shelter of one of the larger rocks that helped make up the nearby tide pools—the group had finished setting up camp in the decent-sized cave whose entrance lay just beyond the reach of the tide. It was big enough for Appa to move around easily but wasn't enormous by any means, the ground slowly shifting from soft sand into a solid earthen floor the deeper they went in. Frowning slightly, Toph extended her reach to the entire cave, feeling for recent human disturbances in the sand and pleased when she found none.
Katara and Sokka stood off to the side and threw anxious, hushed whispers back and forth. Toph was just about to focus her senses to try and eavesdrop when she heard the signature crackle of fire to her right—much too quickly for it to be the result of the painstaking efforts of their fire-starter kit.
"Oh yeah, you can do that," Toph blurted out in Dakota's direction.
Her surprise was genuine—she knew that the older girl was a Firebender, sure, but since Toph had never witnessed her bending actual fire before it had seemed almost…separate from her, in a way.
"Beats having to watch Sokka and Aang sweat over it for an hour, that's for sure," Toph continued with a dismissive wave of her hands, sliding her pack off of her shoulders and dropping it unceremoniously onto the ground. Dakota's tense form relaxed ever so slightly at that and she followed suit in unloading her belongings.
"Aang can't…?" Dakota trailed off as her head turned toward Aang. The Airbender in question was walking towards the fire after settling Appa into his spot at the back of the cave. The sky-bison was half-asleep already, soothed by his human's reassurances and vigorous scratching of his itchiest spots.
Aang shrugged when he reached them, guilt radiating from his toes to his ears.
"I tried, a while back, but it didn't go well. Firebending doesn't come as easily to me as the others do. It feels more…more…" The Airbender paused and his shoulders scrunched up with frustration.
"Intimate," Dakota offered, her arms wrapping around her knees as she turned her head back to the fire. "Iroh, he…he said once that Firebending is more intimate than bending the other elements because Firebending comes from inside of us. Fire isn't a constant in nature; it needs a spark and fuel to grow into something that'll last. I was awful at finding that spark for a long time but I got the hang of it eventually."
"How did you figure it out?" Aang asked earnestly. He flopped down next to the Firebender; thanks to the unconscious use of Airbending to cushion his fall, the movement was almost indiscernible.
Dakota let out a soft, contemplative sound as she extended a hand towards the fire she had created. Toph felt a small tendril of heat extend out from the flames and hover above the older girl's palm.
"I don't remember the exact moment, really, but I think it started getting easier when I stopped thinking of the fire as separate from me, as something dark and evil that I happened to be able to create. It's a part of me; I choose how to use it and what fuels it. I think…I think that being scared of our Firebending actually means being scared of ourselves—of what we're capable of, deep down."
Aang was staring dumbly at Dakota—Toph could tell by the way his entire body faced her and even leaned towards her slightly—and seemed about to respond when Sokka suddenly spoke.
"Zuko is on our side, Dakota," he blurted out. "He has been ever since he and Katara were locked together in Ba Sing Se, since before the fight with Azula and the Dai Lee down in the catacombs where he…where he pretended to kill Aang to make it seem like he was on their side, to gain their trust and eventually send us information about the Fire Lord's plans."
Toph let out a stunned guffaw, completely lacking in actual amusement because she had never been good at the deep, serious stuff and laughter was all she could manage right then.
"Oh wow, so we're just coming out with it—" she started, but Sokka interrupted her before she could get another word in.
"He isn't doing it for any of us, Dakota, not really. He wants to help end the war, doesn't think what his family is doing is right, but he…he made Katara promise that in return for his help, after the war was over, Aang would use his link to the Spirit World to find a way to get you back to your world…back to your family," he said, and Dakota's head snapped up at that. "He made one of the conditions of him joining his sister that you be released, so that you'd be kept hidden from his father until the war was over—"
Toph was so focused on Dakota that the others were faint little blips on her radar. The Firebender's entire body was so still that the thud of her steadily quickening heartbeat and the rising heat of her body was the only indication that she had even heard the words at all.
A sharp pang of warning in her chest was all she got; luckily, Toph trusted her gut well enough at this point to act without thinking and formed a thick earthen dome around the small, crackling fire pit a split second before Dakota let out an ear-ringing shriek and the flames roared upwards with the size and strength of a raging wildfire. Thanks to the dome, the flames didn't escape the cave, didn't make an appearance at all, but the dome still burned red-hot against the edge of Toph's awareness. The sensation made her grimace, made her wonder what might have happened if she hadn't been watching Dakota as closely as she had.
Katara and Sokka jumped a foot in the air and stood in a shocked huddle off to the side. Aang flinched but stayed firm in his position next to Dakota.
Toph shook her head in exasperation. This is why they should have left the big reveal to her—she could have easily told them that the chances of Dakota needing to scream and Firebend her feelings out when she heard the truth were pretty damn high.
Slowly, very slowly, the angry flames began to die down. Once the campfire had returned to its former size, Toph let the dome crumble around the firepit and become one with the sand once more.
Dakota let out a harsh breath that hissed like water being poured over hot coals.
"He wanted me to hate him," she said, voice cracking. "But I don't. Even when I thought he killed you—" She paused, and from the tilt of her head Toph knew she was looking over at Aang. "—I didn't hate him! And I must be insane because even with him being a self-sacrificing idiot and stupidly choosing my path for me…I still don't hate him."
Toph scoffed. "Well, duh—you guys love each other," she said, stating the obvious and ignoring the shocked intake of breath from Katara's direction along with the spark of furious heat that flickered in the dying embers of Dakota's fire.
When no one said anything right away, she shrugged and created a solid slope of sand right behind her back for her to lean on before continuing:
"He faked killing Aang, turned against his uncle, went back to the Fire Nation eel-viper pit and is risking his life to spy for us—all so that you have a chance to get back to your family. He's still a moron, because just because he did it for you doesn't mean it was the right thing to do, but he's a moron that loves you."
Dakota let out a dismissive snort but didn't say anything else. Her legs moved to tuck up against her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her knees—as if to keep herself from breaking into large, angry pieces.
After a very long, very awkward silence, Katara and Sokka said quiet goodnights under their breaths and moved to make their sleeping spots near Appa, leaving Aang and Toph to stay with Dakota as she stared into the fire.
It wasn't until much later, as Toph was falling asleep despite her best efforts to stay awake, that Dakota spoke again:
"Do you think Zuko knows about…?" she whispered, lifting her bandaged wrists in silent indication. Toph sat up, feeling Aang's eyes on her and giving him a helpless shrug in response.
In true Aang fashion, he didn't hesitate to say the truth. "No, I don't. His sister and that other girl—"
"Mai," Toph spat. It was a name—and a pattern of sharp, carefully controlled steps and slow, almost lazy breaths—that she wasn't going to let herself forget any time soon.
Aang's head tilted slightly, looking at her for slightly longer than he needed to before nodding in acknowledgement and facing Dakota as he went on:
"They lied to him, told him that you left Ba Sing Se. He might not have believed Azula but he…he must have believed Mai if he agreed to join them after that," he finished, voice soft with sympathy.
Not for the first (or second, or third, or even the hundredth time), Toph was glad she couldn't see with her eyes like the others did. Dakota's pain and shock was bad enough to feel; she couldn't imagine how awful it must be to see it on the the older girl's face.
Just a few short seconds after Aang finished talking, Dakota stood and stiffly grabbed her belongings, silently walking away from the fire and setting up her sleeping roll just inside the cave's entrance—as far away as she could be from the rest of the group without being outside the cave. Toph swallowed hard to get rid of the angry lump in her throat that formed at the sound of Dakkota's ragged breaths—verging on sobs—as the older girl laid down with her back facing them.
Spirits, if Zuko ever blew his cover and ended up joining them on the run, he had better be ready to beg for Dakota's forgiveness—grovel, even. Even if Dakota didn't demand it from him, Toph would more than happily do so because he was an idiot.
Aang and Sokka both had too much softness to hold a grudge for longer than an hour or two but thankfully, she and Katara had more than enough grudge-holding energy to make up for it.
Because yeah, Zuko had noble intentions in leaving, but it didn't change the fact that he was currently skipping around in the Fire Nation Capitol totally unaware that his own sister had left permanent scars on Dakota's wrists, had left her for dead, and that Mai sat back and let it happen. Mai, the person Zuko apparently trusted enough to take at her word when she lied through her slimy teeth and said that Dakota had been allowed to leave Ba Sing Se unharmed.
Toph let out a relieved sigh when, a short while later, Dakota finally fell asleep.
Aang waited a few heart-beats longer before getting to his feet. On the sand, his already-weightless movement was even harder to track but months of traveling together had given her enough familiarity to manage it. The Airbender moved to sit next to Toph and without missing a beat she shifted over so that he could join her in leaning against the makeshift backrest.
Toph waited for Aang to say something but the boy was uncharacteristically quiet. Her expression she could force to remain neutral but she couldn't quite shove aside the warmth that bubbled in her chest when the Airbender silently reached over to grab her hand.
"Are you okay?" he suddenly asked.
Toph frowned, confused. "Why wouldn't I be?" she whispered back.
Aang knew that she couldn't see him, knew that he didn't need to look at her when he spoke, but he turned his head to face her anyway. It was a habit shared by everyone in the group—the whole looking-deep-into-her-eyes-while-talking thing. Toph would never admit it, because the feelings were gross enough without saying them out loud, but it made her feel…appreciated.
"Sokka's talked about how awful it was, being in that cell while Dakota was being hurt, but you've never talked about how it was for you," he said. "It's just…I've never heard you sound like you did when you said Mai's name just now, and—"
Toph scoffed. "I'm fine, Twinkle-Toes."
"It's okay not to be."
"Did the monks teach you that line?" she retorted sharply—sharper than she intended.
Aang didn't rise to the bait but that didn't surprise her one bit. He wasn't perfect by any means—traveling together and living in close quarters had revealed that pretty quick—but he was definitely able to ignore (and see right through) Toph's prickly moments in a way that Katara and Sokka never quite managed.
It was annoying.
Aang let out a heavy sigh before speaking again:
"Gyatso believed that the path to peace was the relinquishing of all personal attachment; that to allow negative emotions and anger towards others was to remain chained to the material world and all of its limitations," he whispered. His words rose and fell with the rhythm of someone who was told a particular phrase over and over until the exact words and cadence stuck around in their head for good.
Toph blinked, taken aback. Aang very rarely spoke about his past; to hear him so willingly talk about it (to even give her a specific name) was the last thing she had expected when asking him the question.
"Do you believe that?" she asked.
Aang turned his face towards her again. She could feel the tension in his body, the hesitance, and was about to tell him to forget it when he abruptly shook his head.
"It just…it sounded a lot like 'not caring', the whole 'relinquishing attachment' thing. Like you couldn't even feel what you wanted to feel because it meant you were attached to the material world."
Toph rolled her eyes. "Of course we get attached to things in this world—we live in it."
"Exactly!" Aang exclaimed with an obvious air of relief. Toph couldn't help but smile a bit at that; as always, the Airbender's moods were contagious.
They sat in silence for a long while after that. Aang stared upwards while Toph closed her eyes entirely because even with her blindness, closing her eyes had always helped her focus.
In that moment in particular, Toph was focusing on not returning to memories of the Ba Sing Se cell, on not reliving the smell of burnt flesh and the horrible screams of pain. It had been easy to block it out in the heat of the moment, focused as she had been on Metalbending and on getting Dakota out, but now that the girl in question was out of that cell and with them…
"Aang?" Toph whispered, grimacing at how pathetically small she sounded.
"Yeah?" was his immediate, equally quiet reply. Toph took a deep breath and turned to face him; copying what all her dumb friends did when they wanted to say something grossly sentimental.
Their faces were so close that she could smell the sharp mint of mouth-cleaning paste on Aang's breath—Toph had shamelessly stowed away several large jars of the stuff into her pack when they got to the Beifong Manor and it hadn't taken long for all of her friends to start using it (and thank the Spirits for that because being on the run didn't exactly make for the best smelling breath from any of them).
The familiar mint smell was one of the only things she missed about being home…well, that and the sound of her mother humming under her breath as she wrote notes to her Upper Ring social circle.
"I'm not fine," Toph said in a rush. "I'm angry…and sad," she grumbled, scowling to try and get rid of the stupid tight feeling that had appeared in her throat.
Aang's hand tightened around hers; the skin of his hands was smoother than hers would probably ever be.
"Me too," he whispered back.
Toph turned her face away from him, then, but tightened her grip around his hand—it must have hurt, considering how hard she was clutching at his fingers, but he didn't say anything, didn't try to move away at all.
For the rest of the night, or at least until Toph finally fell asleep a while later, Aang stayed exactly where (and who) he was; warm, calm, steady.
It was funny, really.
After all the years of not needing anyone (and liking not needing anyone), it ended up being an Airbender—floaty, flighty, almost invisible to her senses—whose hand she reached for when she needed to feel grounded.