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It’s a few minutes past midnight. No sound can be heard save for the soft rustling of leaves as the breeze passes through the trees. However, the stillness of the night is broken by the sound of rumbling earth.
Toph lands in a crouch on the ground after jumping from the slab of rock she’d raised to get to the other side of the estate’s 10-foot high stone walls. She hadn’t bothered bending a hole in the wall itself, though that would have been more convenient, because doing so would have drawn too much attention. Beside her, her companion falls less gracefully. Sokka lands on his back with a dull thud and emits a groan of pain.
Drama queen.
She had deliberately chosen to enter the property from the western wall because she knows that this side of the grounds has the widest expanse of soft grass which could one, cushion their fall, and two, muffle their footsteps, which is ideal when they’re trying to be stealthy.
Keyword there is trying.
“What now?” Sokka says, his voice a ‘whisper’ that was probably loud enough to wake a hibernating platypus bear.
She raises her index finger. To her, it’s a gesture that means ‘just be quiet and wait for my signal! I didn’t come all this way, travelling almost 3 days to get to this stinking town only to be discovered the second we break in, you dunderhead’. Sokka apparently understands what she was trying to say because he doesn’t say anything more and just squats behind her.
Toph’s muscles are tense, like she’s gearing up for a fight, and she waits for any oncoming footsteps. She fears that their less-than-clandestine entrance or her friend’s poor attempt at discretion might have alerted some of the patrolling guards to their presence, but no one comes. All is quiet except for the chirping of crickethoppers and the sound of water trickling in the pond by the eastern wall.
She wills herself to relax. She takes a deep breath and inhales the all too familiar scent of poppies and wet soil in the process. The cool night air creeps into her lungs and she supresses a shiver. The garden was always coldest this time of night, she thinks. She should know. After all, she did grow up here.
The Beifong Estate.
This is the first time she’s been back ever since she ran away and joined Aang’s group to teach him earthbending. She had no intention of ever returning but… well, some stuff happened and now she needs to retrieve something really important. So here they are. Not that Sokka knows what they’re here for. She refused to tell him.
Toph digs her toes into the cold ground, trying to get a better feel for her surroundings. If she remembers correctly, there are always two guards on patrol at night. She senses Guard Number 1 inside the guard station by the main entrance, probably keeping watch over the entire grounds. Guard Number 2 is somewhere around the back of the estate. If they’re quick enough, they could probably make it to the servants’ quarters before Guard Number 2 comes around.
She turns to Sokka, pointing to the general vicinity of the main buildings. “Alright, here’s the plan. See that smaller house? The one across the pond?”
Sokka puts his hand on her shoulder and leans, straightening up from his crouched position to peek over her head. The act makes her brain short-circuit for a few seconds and she forgets what she was going to say next but she quickly recovers and shrugs his hand off.
“That’s the servants’ quarters,” she manages to continue. “They’re all usually asleep by this time so we should be able to get in and out quickly. The back of that building faces the east wing of the main house so that’s our point of entry. From there, we sneak in, take the thing, and get out. It should be easy as long as we don’t get spotted by any of the guards. Any questions?”
“Pond, servants’ quarters, east wing, steal, avoid guards. Got it,” he replies in a dazed tone. “You know, I’d forgotten just how huge this place is. I know your parents are rich but this is amazing.”
“I agree. That’s why I left.”
“Wait, I thought you left because they were too strict?”
She shrugs. “Eh, same thing. Now stop talking and let’s go before the guard gets here.”
They start moving and Toph leads the way, darting from bush to tree, to bush, to hedge, with Sokka following close behind her. She makes sure they’re staying out of the line of sight of the guard station the entire time. Their footsteps are quiet, making virtually zero noise on the paved concrete. The burbling sound of the pond gets louder as they reach it and she runs straight across, arriving at the front steps of the servants’ quarters without a hitch.
“That was easy,” she says, more to herself than to him.
Nevertheless, Sokka replies. “Yeah. One would think that after a bunch of muscle-y dudes got in once and literally kidnapped their daughter, the Beifongs would tighten their security but I guess not.”
The statement makes her smirk. That seems so long ago now. “Well, here’s hoping the rest of the plan goes just as smoothly.”
Toph pauses by the front steps for a few seconds, trying to see if anybody inside was still awake, but the house was still. She tries the door, finds that it’s unlocked, and steps inside.
Behind her, Sokka produces a low, approving whistle. “I would have gladly signed up to work for your family if it meant I could live here.”
The place is nice. It’s as big as some of the more ‘regular’ houses she’s been to, if not bigger. Directly in front of them is a cozy living room, furnished with plush chairs around a soft, wool rug. Patterned stone tiles cover every square inch of the floor, from the corridors on their right that lead to the different sleeping quarters, to the kitchen on their left. There are rows of windows on each side of the door that can be opened to let the breeze in, which was a big relief during summertime when the heat can get unbearable.
She knows this place well. She recalls coming here often when she was younger, stopping by to chat with the friendly servants whenever she became bored of roaming the grounds. Her parents disapproved, of course, and they had scolded her too many times over it. ‘Proper ladies like you should not be talking to the commoners. You should know that by now. It’s the first rule of society’ they’d said. Ugh. She scrubs the unpleasant memory from her brain.
She motions for Sokka to follow her into the kitchen where the back door is.
When they get there, she plants her feet firmly on the ground and presses her ear to the door. Her feet tell her that Guard Number 2 is now making his way to the garden. In a few seconds, it’s going to be safe for them to cross the yard and get to the main house.
She is mentally high-fiving herself for timing everything perfectly when she hears munching.
“What are you doing?” she scolds. “We’re not here to steal their food!”
“But look! They have tiny fig pies,” he says, words muffled by said fig pie in his mouth. “It’s so good. Seriously, you should try some.”
Maybe I should just knock him out and leave him here, she thinks, and come back for him later. She seriously mulls it over for a few seconds before realizing it’s not worth it. Instead, she grabs his hand and runs, dragging him behind her.
The east wing wasn’t far, only a few yards at most, so it doesn’t take them long to reach it. They come to a stop in front of the entrance. It was a large, wooden door, a grand, old thing embellished with many intricate carvings.
She’s about to try the knob when she realizes that she is still holding Sokka’s hand. She feels her heart skip a beat and she promptly lets him go. “Oops, sorry.”
“No biggie.”
Toph grabs the cold, metal doorknob, the feel of it replacing the warmth of Sokka’s hand in hers, and she twists. It doesn’t budge. She tries again. “Crap. It’s locked.”
“Can’t you just bend it or something?”
“That’d be too loud. And I’d rather not destroy anything because I don’t want to leave any evidence of us ever being here.” After all, who else could bend metal? Or maybe you just don’t want to vandalize your childhood home, an intrusive inner voice tells her, but she quickly dismisses the thought. She doesn’t get nostalgic. Especially not for this place.
“Well, the windows are too high up for us to reach,” Sokka counters.
Toph is racking her brain for a solution when she hears rustling. “Hold on, let me try something.”
He’s retrieved his boomerang. She doesn’t know what he’s doing with it exactly but there are some jangling, wood creaking, a few frustrated grunts, then finally, a mechanical click and the door opens.
“Ta-da!”
She nods approvingly. “Impressive.” It’s a good thing she didn’t knock him out after all.
“Did I just get a compliment from Tough Beifong herself?” Sokka says with a hint of smugness in his voice.
“Yeah, well, you better not get used to it.”
“I know, I won’t. But I’ll treasure those precious few moments all the same.”
She shouldn’t feel thrilled about that but his words send chills down her spine anyway and Toph tries not to physically shiver.
Sokka pushes the door open further and holds it, waiting for her to enter before he does.
Whatever chill she felt out there unpleasantly spreads throughout her entire body the second she walks in the room. It’s like someone just poured a bucketful of ice water on her, the way her body runs cold. To say she’s overwhelmed at being back inside the house again after so long is an understatement.
All at once, she feels so many sensations that are so familiar yet so distant. The feel of the cold tiles beneath her feet, the ghost of her mother’s perfume in the halls, the low whistle of the wind as it passes through the cracks in the window. She gets transported, memories of her as a kid playing through her mind. Her, running around the rooms, jumping on couches, lying on the floor. Never when her parents were looking, everything done in secret. Small. Withdrawn. Alone.
Always alone.
She doesn’t realize she’s stopped moving until the weight of Sokka’s arm around her shoulders jolts her back to reality. “Hey. I know it must be weird for you being back here. You ok?”
“Just dandy.” Her voice shakes a little, and she prays that he won’t notice just how rattled she sounds. Thankfully, he doesn’t press further.
She takes a few moments to calm herself down, Sokka beside her waiting patiently. Then, she stomps her foot on the smooth stone floor to check the perimeter.
It seems like nothing has changed much since she left. The door they entered from leads to the eastern corridor. The dining hall where she had dinner with Sokka and the others that first night they came here is in the room to their left. The house’s living room, a large, open space that’s been furnished excessively is on their right. Beyond that lies the foyer, the main entrance to the house, with the stairs leading upstairs facing it. On the other side of the stairs, in the west wing, is the room that housed the thing they came here to get.
“Ok.” She turns towards Sokka. “So the thing I’m looking for is in the drawing room whi—“
“The drawing room?” Sokka says, sounding incredulous. “Is that a room specifically just for drawing and painting? Wow, I never knew your parents were art enthusiasts.”
“They weren’t, you dumdum. That’s not what it is. The drawing room is where my parents entertained their guests.”
“So… like a living room? Isn’t that where we are right now?”
“No, the living room was always more for our family’s personal use.”
“Wow,” he says again, sounding dumbfounded. “Rich people.”
Toph gives a little shrug. “As I was saying, we need to get to the drawing room which is on the opposite side of the house. My parents are probably asleep in the bedrooms upstairs so I don’t think we’ll run into anyone, but still. Try not to make any noise.”
She is about to signal him to start moving when she feels a separate set of footsteps moving somewhere in the room on their left.
Shoot.
“It seems like my parents did tighten the security after all. There’s another guard somewhere in there.” She points to the dining area. “Just be quiet and we should still be able to sneak by unnoticed.”
“Got it,” he says. “I have a tiny question though.”
“What’s up?”
“Can you please tell me what we’re here for? Maybe I can help you find it.”
“Oh, I know where it is.” She reassures him. “Now, hush.”
She starts moving, sticking close to the walls of the dining room, and crouching low. When they get to the end of the hall, they cross to the living room and are about to reach the foyer when she hears a loud thump behind her.
“Oh crap. Sorry.”
“What was that?” she asks in a horrified whisper.
“I bumped into some kind of vase. It’s fine, it didn’t break—“
That’s when Toph feels the footsteps of the guard approaching. Crap, crap, crap.
She all but dives across the foyer and runs straight into the hallway. It’s as though her feet had a mind of their own because they take her left instead of going to the drawing room on the right. There’s an empty room at the end of the hall and the spirits must have decided to take some form of pity on her because the door isn’t locked and opens without a sound.
Sokka stumbles in behind her and she shuts the door. “What happened? Did he find us—“
Please, just shut up. She brings her hand up to cover his mouth, backing him up against the door, trying to keep him as still and as quiet as possible.
She concentrates on figuring out the exact location of the guard and senses that he was making his way to the living room. A few seconds more and we would have been discovered.
She waits until the guard’s footsteps become too far for her to detect before she relaxes, releasing a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
Sokka does the same and she feels his breath brush the top of her head and she realizes just how close he was and in what position they are in.
They are standing chest to chest, her head directly under his chin and her hand still covering his mouth.
Too close, her brain warns, too close.
She steps away like she’s been burnt and takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart, trying to forget the feeling of his lips on her palm.
And then she starts berating him.
“I thought I told you to stay quiet!”
“I’m sorry! It’s just, it’s so dark and I haven’t been able to see anything clearly since we came inside.”
That kind of takes her aback. She slumps to the ground, her back to the wall beside the door, and her feet stretched out in front of her. “Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to bother you about it.”
She feels Sokka settling down on the floor beside her. They’re sitting close enough that their legs are touching and she could feel the heat radiating off of him.
She thinks back on all those times he’d complained about it being too dark or not being able to see something clearly and she realizes that she’d always responded to him sarcastically. Maybe she made him feel like he couldn’t talk to her about those kinds of things and she feels a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry. That’s not really fair on you.”
“It’s fine. Sorry I’m such a klutz too.”
She smiles at that and puts her head on his shoulder. “We should probably just wait here until the guard goes outside or something. I don’t want to risk it. ”
“Ok,” he replies simply, and Toph feels him rest his head on hers.
They sit in silence for a few moments, their breathing synchronized, and neither of them move from their position. This is nice, she thinks. I’m happy just staying here with you.
“What room are we in anyway? How much further is the drawing room?” Sokka asks in a soft voice.
She takes a brief moment to examine her surroundings and it dawns on her just exactly where they are. She lifts her head up from Sokka’s shoulder so suddenly that their heads collide.
“Ow, what the—what is it? Are you ok?”
No wonder it felt almost automatic, the way her body knew exactly where to go.
Toph sits up and pats her hand on the ground gently, both anticipating and dreading what she might find. She reminds herself that she doesn’t care. She’s just curious.
Everything was still exactly where she left them, seemingly untouched since the last time she was here. A big, old dresser. A bed and 4 pillows. On a shelf, a flute she never bothered to learn how to play. A pile of stuffed animals in the corner.
“Toph? Is everything ok?”
She realizes she never really answered Sokka’s question. “Yeah, um. We’re in my old room.”
“Oh.”
She feels his heart beat faster for some reason, but she really doesn’t want to read too much into that right now.
“I thought the bedrooms are upstairs?” he adds.
“My parents’ are. Mine's here because they don’t want me going up the stairs. Spirits forbid their poor, blind daughter should miss a step and fall.”
She feels him wince. “They were really that overprotective?”
She nods slightly. “They had good intentions. I know that. They just wanted to keep me safe. But…” she trails off.
She feels Sokka shift in his seat, probably waiting for her to continue. When she doesn’t, he asks.
“Do you regret ever leaving at all?”
She thinks about it for a bit.
“I love my parents. Why they protected me the way they did was because they truly cared for me. But they were so suffocating. Being back here makes me realize just how miserable I used to be. This entire time, I kept having flashbacks of when I used to live here and all of them were bad. I don’t think I have a single, happy memory of this place. So no, I don’t regret leaving. I think leaving was the best decision I ever made.”
She means every word but her voice still cracks as she says it. “If I stayed, I wouldn’t have felt true freedom. I never would have found friends who accepted me as I am. If I stayed, I’d probably still be miserable.”
Sokka reaches for her hand, the one she still had on the ground, and squeezes. It blurs the room around her and she is grateful for it. “Then I’m glad you left too.”
She doesn’t bother hiding her smile.
A few moments pass and they are both silent again, their hands still joined between them. Toph finds that for the first time since they arrived, she’s finally feeling calm.
That is, until Sokka starts asking questions.
“Will you ever tell me what we’re here for? What’s so important that you had to drag me all the way to Gaoling? And also, why me? Why not take Aang? Or Katara? Or Zuko? Doesn’t he still owe you a life-changing field trip?”
“That’s way too many questions, Snoozles. My only answer for you is, ‘you’ll see.’”
He starts grumbling. “Fine.”
Toph wonders just how long they’ve been sitting there. About 15 minutes now? Guard Number 3 still hasn’t gone outside but she thinks he’s somewhere upstairs. Hmm…
“New plan,” she says while standing up. He follows suit. “You stay here. I’ll go to the drawing room by myself and come back for you when I have what we came for.”
“What? Why?”
“Because frankly, you’re a liability.”
“Ok. I,” he says in a dramatic tone of voice. “Am insulted.”
“I mean, you won’t be able to see anything anyway. We don’t want you running into any more vases now, do we?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, relenting. She hears him walk to the other side of the room. “I guess I’ll just explore your bedroom while I wait then.” The bed creaks as he sits on it.
Toph can feel her cheeks heating up at the thought of Sokka. In her room. In her bed.
She clears her throat. “Ok. Whatever. You do that. I’m going back out there.”
She leaves the room, shutting the door carefully behind her. She then creeps across the hall, keeping her steps as light as possible so she doesn’t make any noise.
Guard Number 3 is upstairs, confirmed when the only other vibrations she feels nearby are Sokka’s. Was he—nope, she refuses to get distracted.
Toph rounds the corner and enters the drawing room.
There it is.
Still where she remembers it. It’s probably just been there since before she was born.
She reaches up to grab it from the wall where it has always hung proudly, gripping it with both hands. Huh. It’s lighter than she thought it was going to be. She slings the strap over her shoulder and across her back.
Finally. Now they can leave.
She makes her way back into her old room in a flash and knocks on the door lightly so Sokka would know it’s her.
“Toph? Is that you?” Guess not.
“Why would I knock if it wasn’t, idiot? And why would you answer if you thought it wasn’t?”
“Fair point.” He opens the door. “So did you get what you needed?”
“Yes. Let’s go. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”
Sokka was about to leave through the door when she gets an idea.
“Wait,” she says, smiling. “Let me show you how I used to sneak out all the time when I was in Earth Rumble.”
She shoves Sokka toward the back of the room. There’s a big window above the pile of stuffed animals, which, now has a dent in it. What was Sokka doing here? She pushes the window open and it swings noiselessly, allowing them to climb up and over.
They drop onto the soft, damp grass outside.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Sokka says after he lands. “I was expecting your nightly escape route to be more… I don’t know, exciting?”
“Well, sorry it wasn’t thrilling enough for you, oh fearless one.”
They are somewhere by the southern wall. This side of the house has less manicured shrubbery and had more, taller trees. Somewhere on their left, Toph could feel a new addition to the wall, some kind of enclosure that hadn’t been there before.
She didn’t think much about it and was about to bend them a ramp out of there when she hears Sokka shout.
“HAWKY!”
Oh, this idiot!
She hears heavy footsteps running toward them.
“Who’s there?” a guard shouts.
“You just had to make it more exciting, didn’t you?” she says. “Come on!”
She grabs his hand and, not bothering with a ramp anymore, just catapults them straight over the edge of the wall where they land on the ground roughly. They pick themselves up and run as fast as they can.
They don’t stop until they are a fair distance away from the property, hidden by a dense cluster of trees. They’re both struggling to catch their breaths, her leaning one hand on a tree trunk, and Sokka, hunched over with his hands on his knees.
“Did you see him? Hawky was there, I’m sure that was him!”
“No Sokka, I didn’t see him. But I believe you. We, um.” Oof, how does she explain this? Oh well. Honesty is the best policy. “Katara and I kind of sent him here to deliver a letter to my parents. They must have kept him after all this time.”
“A-ha! So that’s what happened to him.”
They’re both still panting a little but she felt composed enough now.
No more stalling.
Toph unstraps the thing she’s been carrying and shoves it toward Sokka.
“Here,” she says. She places it into his hands and backs away, suddenly unsure. “This is for you actually.”
When Sokka doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, she continues.
“It’s a sword. Well, duh, I know you can see it.”
She starts to get nervous when he still doesn’t say anything.
“I know it’s nothing like your old one,” she offers. “But I just felt really guilty you had to lose your space sword because of me. This one’s one of our family heirlooms and, although you’re not a Beifong, I thought it seemed fitting that you should have it. You saved my life, and therefore saved my family’s bloodline.”
She stops rambling and waits for him to say anything, anything, please, until…
“Toph. I can’t take this,” he answers finally, his voice sounding a little hoarse.
Oh.
“Okay. That’s okay. If you don’t like it or whatever, it’s fine. You don’t have to keep it.” Even her voice sounds as pathetic as she feels.
“No, it’s not that. This,” he pauses. “This is yours. It’s your family’s. I can’t take this.”
Toph feels Sokka take a step closer.
“And besides, I told you,” he continues. “It was no big deal. I had to choose between saving the gi—saving my best friend and keeping my sword. That kind of seems like a no-brainer to me.”
He moves closer still and takes one of her hands in his. “I don’t regret anything. I’d make that choice a million times more if I have to. Yeah, losing my space sword was hard but it would have been way harder if lost you. I won’t be able to handle that.”
Toph chokes up, feeling tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “It’s a big deal to me, Sokka. I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you. Just take it, please. For me.”
She feels him shift but after a few seconds, he finally asks. “Are you sure? If it’s an heirloom, it probably belonged to your grandparents. Won’t your parents notice it’s gone missing?”
“More like my grandparents’ grandparents actually.” She hears Sokka make a strangled noise. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t think my parents are going to miss it. They had that hanging in the drawing room like it was just decorative, and I’m pretty sure neither of them know how to use it anyway. Also, my ancestors would probably be more grateful that it’s with someone who actually knows how to wield it.”
Sokka seems to be considering it, both hands holding the grip of the sword now.
“Come on, you know you want to try it out.”
Finally convinced, he unsheathes the sword and swings it around a few times.
“Oh man. Oh man, oh man.” Sokka’s voice gradually gets louder until he’s almost shouting and Toph thinks he actually sounds excited. “It’s so light! Look at this! This is some quality steel! And the hilt! Is this real gold? Oh, MAN.”
Toph can’t help the small, relieved laugh that escapes from her throat.
All of a sudden, Sokka drops the sword to the ground and Toph feels the earth disappearing from under her feet. Her breath gets caught in her throat as Sokka wraps his arms around her waist and picks her up.
“Thank you. Thank you! This is amazing!” he says, spinning her around.
“Put me down!” She’s fully laughing now.
He complies, setting her down on the ground, but he doesn’t quite let go of her yet. “I mean it. Thank you.”
She was about to say something back when her brain blanks out because he grabs her face and kisses her.
He’s kissing her.
He’s kissing her!
She doesn’t know how to describe it. It was a clash of sensations. The kiss was fierce and sweet at the same time. Sokka’s lips are gentle yet crushing as he presses his lips firmly on hers, moving slowly, and she can’t help but cling to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, wanting more. He in turn wraps his arms tighter around her waist, pulling her closer. She feels as if she’s both grounded and floating, and she finds that she can’t focus on anything but him. The pounding in her ears is deafening and she doesn’t know whose heartbeat it is, if it’s hers or his, or theirs.
After what feels like an eternity, they finally part, gasping and breathless, but they don’t let go. Their arms are still wrapped around each other, their foreheads touching. Around her, the world slowly starts to come into focus again.
After a few, blissed out minutes, Sokka lets out a small laugh, the heat of his breath brushing over her lips.
“What?” she asks softly.
“You know what I’ve been thinking since we started this whole thing?”
She shakes her head.
“How your old nickname suits you much better now. The Blind Bandit. You’ve become an actual bandit!”
She laughs and punches him in the shoulder.
After a few more moments of silence, Sokka picks up the sword and asks her.
“So. Miss Blind Bandit. Think you’re up for another heist?”
“Depends. What did you have in mind?”
“I want to go back and get Hawky.”
Toph feels a grin spread on her face. “Let’s do it.”
And hand in hand they run back toward the house.