A Moment Under the Moon
Prompt: #22 Tokka Moment by lilsuika
Title: A Moment Under the Moon
Author: teamabodo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1282 (according to the Word Count website)
Warnings/Pairings: One-sided Toph/Sokka, past Sokka/Yue
Summary: It was that time of the month. The worst time of the month for Toph. And maybe for Sokka too.
*****
~A Moment Under the Moon~
The sand was extra fine under her fingertips, smooth as her hair was after the stupid spa day. So stupid. The sand had no grit, no real earth to it. What kind of stupid rock garden was this? Toph dug her toes deeper into the finely shattered quartz as she stood up, a small tap of her foot and the sand came out of the cloth at her knees. The sand at the desert was more worthy of being earth than this, and that desert was a pervertion of earth!
Toph sneered and stomped her foot, and twisted her foot into the sand. The sneered dropped to a smile when the particles melded together, forming thicker sand. Then pebbles and good decent rocks. Rocks that Toph could actually see through. Nothing fuzzy, everything in perfect clerity.
"Now that's the stuff!" Toph moaned and fell back, her limbs outstretched as the earth softened into a lovely bed.
If the crickets were anything to go by, no one was paying attention. Then again, if the crickets were anything to go by, it was because they were asleep.
Toph felt something in her hand. Digging her palm into the ground, she twisted her wrist. The ground smoothed and hardened beneath her skin, and the vibrations came in clearly. Toph bit her lip. It couldn't have been that time of the month. But the light breathing and straight posture on clay roof tiles did not lie. Well, it didn't feel like they were lying.
Laying there, Toph watched Sokka through the earth, her palms fisting as she knawed on her lower lip. She knew what he was watching. Toph couldn't feel it though. Not like she could feel the sun on her face. Not like she could feel the earth beneath her feet. It was made like earth, so she could sense it was there, she knew it was there, but Toph could not see it.
But she knew he could.
Toph hit the ground and the earth brought her back up to her feet. Turning with the earth, Toph walked back over to the house, the stupidly Upper Ring house. Flick of her wrist, and the ground beneath her feet brought her up as a staircase.
Two hands down, and the stairs went down with them. Toph felt Sokka's weight shift, pressure on the clay as he put his arm behind him, to turn his upper body. Looking at her.
"Hey Snoozles, what's got yoou up at this hour!" Play it dumb.
"Oh you know," Sokka said, a roll of his shoulders, pressure lifting from the tiles, "Looking for meat creatures. Keeping watch. Manly things."
Toph plopped down next to him, her feet gripping the slop of the roof subconciously, "Sure Snoozles." The dialogue died there and Sokka's hands both went back behind him, the pressure pushing back as he stared up at the night sky.
Toph grimaced and tapped her fingers, holding back on whistling. Nothing happening for her to pay attention to. Aang rolled over in his sleep, and Toph narrowed in on that. But it wasn't anything exciting, just the pressure lifting from one side, to wide then to the other side. Quick check and Katara... was asleep on her back. Boring.
"So, why are you up?" Sokka asked and Toph shifted her weight.
"The sand."
"The... sand?" Sokka's weight shifted as well, and Toph grinned. She had his attention. He turned to her. On his own.
"It was bothering me. So I fixed it."
"What... What did you do?" Sokka scrabbled on the shingles and Toph snickered as she felt him look off the edge of the roof.
"I told you I fixed it. Now, what are you doing up here?" Toph leaned back against the roof, reclined and bluffed a relaxed posture. She wasn't concerned. Nope. If she was, she'd have to punch him.
He wasn't the one she wanted to punch anyway.
"Nothing. You know, looking around. Taking first watch. You know."
Toph heaved an overly exaggerated sigh as Sokka returned to where he had been sitting on the tiles, scrambling a bit when he slid more than he intended. "Sokka, this is Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li are keeping watch for us."
"Huh?"
"They've been spying on us for... I dunno... Since we pissed off the leader of the Dai Li?" It was times like this that Toph wished she could see so she could fully appreciate the sight of Sokka throwing his weight around as he gapped and looked for the Dai Li. It would be awesome.
Sokka groaned outloud and Toph felt the pressure of his full weight falling flat on his back. She imagined what the expression on his face might have been. When nothing came to her, when no face would form, Toph opened her mouth, hand ready to punch--
"I couldn't save her."
Whatever bending was behind her fist crumbled away.
A shift in pressure, "She died in my arms, and I had to explain to her dad how she was... was just gone. I promised to him how I was going to keep her safe from Fire Nation and I failed! Zhao killed the stupid moon and she gave her life up to bring it back and I couldn't be with her and it's all Zhao's fault and I failed her!"
Toph swallowed the lump in her throat. The lump that came back with more force as Sokka just kept talking in that stupid, worshipping voice.
"It wasn't my fault, it was the Fire Nation's fault but I still couldn't do anything but neither could that jerk Hahn, but he was supposed to stop Zhao before he even got into the North Pole, right?! And we could have stopped Zhao waaaaay before he killed the moon if that angry jerk hadn't stolen Aang! And then the moon would still be here and Yue would still be here!"
So that was her name.
Toph didn't want to know that.
She didn't want to know the name of why she had no chance.
Sokka's breathing was heavy, and the tiles trembled beneath her sense of bending. Toph didn't know what to say, didn't know how to make it better. How could he when her chest was just so tight? Sokka was quiet, so quiet. "Sokka" and "quiet" should not be in the same sentance, unless "not" was some where in there. Even when Toph didn't want to hear anymore, it hurt more for there to be silence.
"What was she like?"
Toph didn't know why she asked.
The trembling stopped, and the quiet changed to a pause. Sokka's pressure shifted, and he was sitting up with his hands back like before. Before Toph knew too much.
"She was beautiful. She was as pretty as the moon..."
Toph would indure. Like the stone. Like the earth.
Sokka kept talking. He kept discribing her hair, her eyes, and all of her mannerisms. And his voice grew more and more sad and distant, as if as far away as the moon, where he wanted to be. Toph wondered why she was even here when it hurt so much. She wasn't used to this! The Blind Bandit didn't deal with girly feelings! She was tough! She was--
Toph's train of thought died when Sokka put an arm around her shoulder, and his voice trailed off. Everything went blank for a moment. Nothing came into her senses. Nothing. Just the steady breathing and heartbeat and pressure against the earth. Against her.
"Thanks, Toph. Thanks for being here."
Yeah. She was here. And she wasn't.
Maybe she did have a chance.
"Ow!"
"No problem , Snoozles. No problem at all."