Devoid
Author: Hermonthis
Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters: Toph/Aang
Summary: [one shot] Toph, Aang, dreams and the spirit world.
Originally this was a drabble about Toph’s dream. Then it exploded.
PS. The February Toph challenge is still going on. Entries please! =)
Devoid
When the chambermaid told Miss Bei Fong that her room at the inn was ready the heiress nodded and said, “Thank you, good night.” Before retiring she passed by the Avatar’s door and knocked on the cedar wood.
“Night, Twinkletoes.” She called through the walls, tightening the bathrobe that hung around her. Through the vibration coming from the floorboards she could tell that he was getting dressed, so the woman thought it wise not to open the door and intrude on his privacy.
“Night, babe,” the airbender called out to her. “See you in the morning.”
She snorted at his remark. Well, he would see her in the morning but she couldn’t. She was blind and sometimes, Aang would forget that. It wasn’t out of ignorance but familiarity. Having been travelling companions for so long, Aang would occasionally forget about her lack of sight and speak to her like he would with Katara. It didn’t bother her very much, Aang simply behaved that way. He was still overactive, still optimistic, and still distracted by things that went boom.
Avatar Aang, who mastered the four elements at the age of thirteen and stopped the one hundred year war, was now nineteen years old. She was still eighteen, soon to be a year older next month.
After Sozin’s Comet, Katara and Sokka went back home to the South Pole. Sokka soon left after that and went to Kyoshi Island. Zuko stayed in the fire nation and became crown prince again, but he often called upon the Avatar’s guidance and travelled regularly to the earth kingdom. Toph was still heiress to the Bei Fong estate despite a nasty custody battle regarding her freedom against her parents’ wishes.
They wanted their daughter to stay home. Toph wanted to travel with her friends. After a year of confinement to her home and many letters to her friends for aid, Katara left the water tribes, joined up with Aang who kidnapped Toph from her room, and hid her away in the Fire Nation palace. There, Zuko was bitten by the love bug; smitten with Katara he wooed her, was rejected, wrote poetry, nearly drowned himself, was resuscitated, and finally married their favourite waterbender. Surprisingly enough, Sokka agreed to their union with one condition.
“It’s a double wedding!” Toph told her dumbfounded parents when they arrived at the palace door, demanding their lost, helpless daughter back. The drama that ensued was the stuff of servant gossip for the next three months. But Katara insisted that she needed Toph’s assistance and under the watchful eye of Uncle Iroh, a treaty was signed allowing Toph to travel for several years with the Avatar.
So Aang travelled the world once more, this time to find families that belonged to the air nomads, with Toph alongside him. In total, they had known each other for seven years; fought for peace in two, were separated by one, and travelled together for four.
Some things change, she mused as she left the Avatar’s door and headed to her own. Taking two footsteps, she sensed a shift in the wooden floors beneath her and turned around. A wind sphere sped towards her and Aang unexpectedly leaned towards the earthbender and kissed her on the lips.
“Wanted to see you before you went to bed,” he chuckled, as Toph’s eyes widened in surprised. “Okay, ‘night.” Then he sped away before she could earthbend him off the ball.
And some things don’t.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Toph entered her inn room and shook out her wet hair. It would be three days before they would reach Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, where the Avatar was needed for diplomatic reasons. She was there to negotiate further trade endorsements between the Earth King’s council and the Southern Water Tribe. Toph was acting as a substitute for Lady Katara who was resting from a prolonged illness she caught while travelling through the earth kingdom swamps. She would be fine in time.
Leaping into bed, the earthbender pulled the covers close to her chin and turned onto her side. She closed her sightless eyes and fell asleep.
In her dream Toph was surrounded by nothing. Everything was black. There were no walls, no ceilings, and no floors. There was nothing to cast a shadow on. She couldn’t feel the ground beneath her heels where her feet stood in place. She was nowhere.
And in this strange place she was not cold. Without light, Toph expected this black void to be as cold as the arctic poles where Sokka lived. She expected the hairs on her arms to rise and her breath to form wisps of gray smoke in front of her face. Her heartbeat should be louder.
But in this place her body remained as it was before she went to bed. Touching a hand to her hair, the dampness reassured her presence in this lightless world where all was silent and free.
There was nothing.
“Hello?” The earthbender called out to the void. A feeling rose in her and Toph knew that she was alone. “Hello?” she called again, hoping for an echo to comfort her in this unusual solitude.
“Is this the Spirit World?”
Aang often told her about the spirit world and his trips there. It both fascinated and scared her; to be in a place that was like their world but not. A place where spirits roamed free behind gnarled trees and a moving fog covered the land.
The Avatar told her about floating, glowing balls of light and giant pandas that kidnapped people. Raising his arms up to the sky, Aang explained what it was like to speak with his previous incarnations. It was intimidating, knowing that he received their power from all of them. Judging from his words, there was magic involved in the spirit world, which only made Toph more curious.
A part of her wanted to go there out of curiosity, to discover if the earth there felt any different from the one here. She wanted to know if there was a small chance that the magic there could make her see.
She told Aang about this wish and immediately he frowned at her, as if displeased with her childish thoughts.
“Don’t go there, Toph,” the orange-clad airbender warned her, “Don’t go there.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because,” Aang took a deep breath and reached for her hands, enclosing her small fingers in his, making her feel more like a child, “It’s a big world and there’s things there you don’t want to know.”
Toph waited in the dark and counted in her head the seconds that added up to a minute that soon became three minutes before she abandoned her count. She wasn’t even sure that she counted correctly in this overwhelming silence.
If this was the spirit world, it was very lonely.
With only the soft rustle of her clothes to accompany her, Toph’s heart sank to the bottom of her stomach and murmured softly.
Slowly placing one foot in front of the other, she walked onward without knowing where to go. Toph looked back but snorted at her stupidity, there was nothing behind her so how would she know to go back to where she started? Wiggling her toes with every step, the blind earthbender continued her stride.
Someone was knocking on her door.
“Miss Bei Fong! Someone is calling for you - it’s urgent!” The chambermaid rapped on the door again. Throwing the covers over her head, Toph mumbled incoherently and made a face. She didn’t like mornings, not when you knew that the whole day meant travelling by air in Appa’s saddle of land.
“Miss Bei Fong! The Avatar wants to speak with you!”
Grumbling more, she threw back the covers and bellowed, “Then let him in!” before throwing them back on again. To hell with Aang, if he wanted to speak to her that badly, then he could do it himself without getting the maid involved.
“Toph, can I come in?” Rolling her eyes at the ceiling, she gave him permission to enter.
Promptly dressed in his robes, it didn’t bother him that his earthbending teacher was still in bed, her hair a rumpled mass of black, and in her nightgown. He had seen her like this before and it his ritual to wake her up whenever they stopped by in town.
When they travelled in the wilderness, Toph was the one who usually woke up just before dawn. She liked to be in the open air and spent her time gathering water, chewing on beef jerky, and snacking on berries from last night’s excursion before Aang could wake up.
But when they reached the city Toph’s habits would change and she would fall back into her Bei Fong heiress routine. Here, she could be as lazy as she wished to be and sleep in as much as she could.
Aang knew it was one way for her to get out of trade talks. Once, he had made the mistake of waiting for Toph until he realized that they were late for negotiations by more than two hours. Aang barged through the door and found Toph reading old letters from their friends, her fingers moving back and forth across the parchment, when she grinned at his clumsy entrance.
“Hi, Twinkletoes.”
They had a long talk that night and Toph’s ears were still ringing from his lecture even as her head hit the pillow.
But this time she was sprawled out on the bed with one lazy hand hung over the edge. Smiling at him, Toph sat up and rubbed her eyes. He raised one eyebrow at her.
“Aang, I don’t know why you insist on having separate rooms when the first thing you do is wake me up in the morning,” Toph yawned, stretching out her arms. Planting her feet firmly on the floorboards she noticed he was in his airbender regalia and leaning against the door.
“You know what people will say. It’s improper for a man and a woman to share the same room at an inn, unless they’re married.” Aang crossed his arms and chuckled as his sweetheart patted down her hair without success, “And you, Miss Bei Fong, are an unmarried woman and should not be in the same room as a man.”
Toph tilted her head to the side and smirked, “Man? I see no man here!”
Laughing, Aang strode up to her bed, gave her a kiss, and wrestled the bed sheets away from her. She had to bathe and dress quickly so they could buy supplies. Then they would get Appa and Momo from the stables and head off. Toph’s green eyes opened widely as she grinned,
“We’re leaving the city today?”
Running a hand over his face, the airbender made a remark about heiresses and not knowing what day it was, which earned him a punch on the arm.
“What are we waiting for?” Toph hopped off the bed, grabbed a brush, and tore through her hair. Aang watched with interest, the everyday miracle that was Toph’s hair. With every stroke of the brush, the bird’s nest melted away and within the length of time it took Aang to make her bed using his airbending, her hair was all smooth and shiny.
“What?” she exclaimed, noticing that his eyes followed her, “You jealous of my hair, babe?”
He chuckled, “Your hair defies logic, Toph.”
Two hands touched his back and ushered him out of the room. “Out, out! I need to take a bath!” There was a pause when Aang looked over his shoulder at her playfully and laughed, his lips brushing against her ear. Blushing, Toph swiftly earthbended him out of her room and shut the door in his face. “Out!”
The noonday sun beat on them as Aang reined Appa over to a large cropping of trees near a lake. It was much hotter in the sky than down on the ground; there was no shade from the clouds and the heat was starting to make his companion sleepy. Momo was already sleeping on top of the air bison’s head, purring happily.
“Hey, Toph,” he said to catch her attention. The young man rolled his shoulder suggestively, “you can lean on me and use me as a pillow.” She smiled at him and gladly hung onto his arm, using his proffered shoulder as a pillow. Aang held onto Appa’s reigns with one hand while he hugged the earthbender with the other. Soon they would have to land near the lake where they could all find some shade from the sweltering heat.
After a while Toph spoke, “Twinkletoes, what’s the spirit world really like?” She couldn’t see the crease that formed on his face but she did sense a change in his pulse.
“Why?”
“People aren’t meant to enter the spirit world.” Toph objected by saying he was allowed to enter several times. He said he was the Avatar. She said that he was still human. Besides, she didn’t want to go there, she wanted to know what it was like. Aang hesitated, mulling over her words before replying,
“Magical. There’s no place like it.” But then he saw the creeping smile on her face and strictly warned her about going to that place.
“For whatever reason Toph, never go to the spirit world even if I’m stuck there. Don’t go. Not even to get me.” Then Aang shut up and the earthbender knew that he wouldn’t say any more on the subject. There would be no stories of giant pandas that hazy afternoon.
That night they camped near a cheerful, bubbling river. There was an outcropping of rocks on one side of the grass clearing and tall cedar trees everywhere else. The first half of the moon was partially shaded by puffy, grey clouds. Appa and Momo slept near the trees and the river, preferring the sound of the water to the snores of the Avatar.
Spreading her sleeping bag in the shadow of the rocks, Toph unravelled her hair from its bun and ran her fingers through them. Aang was already asleep, as usual. She, on the other hand, preferred to stay awake as long as she could; she relished the sound of the night birds calling to each other and the slow turn of the luminescent moon across the sky.
Turning onto her side, Toph closed her eyes and fell asleep. That night, Toph dreamt about the black void again.
Maybe this is what it’s like to be really blind, she told herself, to not be able to feel the vibrations in the ground. I can’t sense anything.
But the dream changed and this time, she wasn’t alone.
This time Aang was with her. She was in the exact same spot as before and facing each other, only that he didn’t seem to be looking at her. She could feel his hands around her shoulders and his warm breath on her face, but not the body in front of her. He was constantly moving, pulling them into an embrace or pushing himself away from her. His touch faded then became solid then disappeared altogether in a state of confusion. He whispered things into her ear and twice, she felt his lips caress her cheek, leaving a small imprint on her skin.
“Is this the spirit world?” she kept asking him, “Is this the spirit world?”
But the Aang in her dream didn’t reply, or rather, she felt that he didn’t want to answer her never-ending question. Soon, Toph forgot the words and they floated away from her lips like smoke and melted into the darkness. There was only Aang now. She was rubbing noses with him in a mock kiss and constantly touching his head. Embracing him in her arms, she rested her head on his bare back when the tattoos on his body started to glow a bright blue.
For the first time in her dream, she felt solid ground beneath her feet and was lifted off the ground when dream-Aang told her that they had to leave.
“Why?”
A string of words left his mouth but she couldn’t hear them. She only felt his hands on her legs as he hoisted her up onto his back and soon Toph was piggyback riding on a glowing Aang through the darkness. There was something behind them chasing them and although Toph didn’t know what it was, she got the sense that this thing was the reason she was in the dark in the first place.
“Faster,” he whispered nervously to no one, “we have to run faster.”
Then the darkness raced away and before them was the river. Not the same river that they had camped, but a mirror image. The moon was in the water instead of the sky, where fish swam and dispersed the grey clouds with a ripple from their fins. The land was covered in a silver mist save for the grass clearing where they set up camp. Under her feet, the earth was alive, its pulse beating to the rhythm of her heart.
“Is this the spirit world?”
Aang was standing in the river, his back towards her and his face focused on the water below. Toph felt the heat radiating from his body as his tattoos glowed a searing white. She threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his skin. The rocks were slippery underneath her toes.
She said something but he couldn’t hear her, or else he would have turned his head her way. His eyes glowed brightly and his body burst into white-blue flames, which made her stumble backwards. He started to disappear into the water; the earth was swallowing him up. Her clouded eyes widened; Toph tried to lift him up but still he sank into the river. Down, down, down he went, immobile as a statue and flaming with the light of the stars.
Without reason, the earthbender waded into the water, afraid of sinking into it herself, and tried to bend the earth beneath them but to no avail. Large, splashing tears fell from her eyes as Aang finally disappeared beneath the surface. Toph plunged her hands into the river and felt her way around, searching for any trace of her beloved but all she felt was a pair of koi fish swimming in circles around her fingers.
She tried to speak but no voice came from her mouth. Toph yelled at the water, kicked it, grabbed pebbles and threw them at the river bottom. Clenching her fists in frustration, she shut her eyes and demanded the spirit world return Aang to her.
Give him back, her mind shouted, give him back!
Toph opened her eyes and thought she saw Aang staring down at her.
She blinked again and now it was the moon.
I must be crazy, she thought, I’m seeing things - seeing things!
The Avatar woke up with a start when he heard Toph whimpering in her sleep. Concerned, he crawled out of his sleeping bag towards hers and immediately noticed lines of pain across her face. Her sea-green eyes twitched rapidly underneath her lids and he could make beads of sweat glisten in the moonlight. He called her name twice before placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Toph,” he whispered insistently, “wake up, sweetheart.”
Shaking her by the shoulder, Aang brought the earthbender back into the waking world and out of her nightmare. Snapping her eyes open, Toph choked on her first breath and started to cough violently. With one hand on her back, Aang helped her sit up before she fell back down on the mattress.
Although she couldn’t see, she could feel the weight of his gray eyes as the Avatar brought his face close to hers.
“Toph,” he urged, “Babe, what is it? You were crying in your sleep, did something happen?”
The earthbender stared at him, the details of the void and the river quickly melted away like all dreams did, but the fear of losing Aang did not. Toph grasped at the edges of the darkness before they disappeared.
“I had a nightmare,” she told him, turning her face towards the sound of the river before facing him again. “It was just a stupid dream, Aang.” Besides, he wouldn’t be happy if she told him.
But he wasn’t convinced. Settling down on the grass, he released his hold on her shoulders. “Toph, you were dreaming about the spirit world, weren’t you?” He saw her eyebrows narrow at the mention of the word and knew he was right.
“Of all places, why there?” The sharp edge in his voice caught her by surprise and Toph felt the edge of a knife against her throat. Was he accusing her of dreaming, putting the blame on her for having a nightmare? That’s ridiculous.
It’s just a dream; a stupid dream and it didn’t mean anything. She had been to a place where there was no sound, no laughter, no light, no Aang. She had walked into water willingly and lost him in the river. What was the spirit world really like? Did she really visit it in her dreams? Then why did they run away?
“Aang, tell me about the spirit world.”
“I won’t take you there.” The airbender replied abruptly, immediately not liking where this conversation was headed. He rose to his knees but Toph caught his wrist and pulled him back down roughly. After what happened, she wanted to know the truth behind the place he refused to take her too, the place that he often talked about with wonder and awe in his voice. Toph heaved a sigh and crossed her arms, he was giving her mixed messages and she wanted to know why.
“Why won’t you?” What are you running from?
“There’s an evil there, that’s all.”
Huffing irritably, Toph’s frustration bubbled forth and the rocks around them trembled. “Why won’t you tell everything about the stupid world? You’d talk about anything but that and when I ask you to; you shove it off and tell me not to go there.” The Avatar sighed heavily and refused to meet her face, which made her angrier.
“You’re all avoid, avoid, avoid Aang! Just tell me if you don’t trust me, it’s not like I known you for years,” she snorted. Aang stared at her dumbly and made no sound save for his shallow breathing. He heard her release a low growl and the Avatar kept his face impassive as Toph riled up against him once more.
“I just dreamt about the spirit world but I don’t even know what it is or if I was really there and why it scared the shit out of me and you won’t even tell me about the stupid place!” The words spat from her mouth like a frothing waterfall and Toph wondered if she was talking to a wall.
“Aang, am I talking to a wall?! Because if you don’t say something I’m going back to bed and you can stay awake for all you like.” An overwhelming sense of frustration seized her throat and Toph became mute just as Aang was deaf.
She waited and counted to sixty seconds before flipping around and throwing herself onto the sleeping bag with the Avatar still kneeling in front of her. Well, if he didn’t want to talk then be it.
Softly, his voice broke the silence that fell between them.
“Was the dream that bad?” He heard her grunt.
“It’s called a nightmare for your information.”
“I want to tell - I’ll tell - do you want to hear it?”
She grunted again. Cold, Toph drew her knees up to her chin. She wasn’t speaking to him anymore.
“There’s a monster there that calls himself Koh,” he started, his gray eyes looking down at the bundle in front of him. “Everyone calls him Koh, the Face Stealer, because that’s what he does - steal faces.”
Hidden deep inside her sleeping bag, Toph nodded.
“When I first met Koh, it was back when Zhao was attacking the North Water tribes. I didn’t know how to use the Avatar State so I went to the spirit world to find some help so we could win. I needed to find the moon and the ocean spirits, the patron deities of the water tribes, so I had to go to Koh to find them.
Why Koh? Toph wanted to ask, but her anger got the better of her so she said nothing. Aang waited for a moment before he continued with his story. How was he going to tell her what Koh told him? Would she understand or would she just make fun? If she laughed, it would hurt him deeply because she wouldn’t understand what Koh represented to him; what he did and what he could do to her.
“He’s centipede, a huge one that lives in this giant, dead tree. He scuttles along the walls and the floor like an insect, the sounds of his legs moving at once,” Aang shuddered visibly and he had to catch his breath before continuing, “Every time I hear it, it gives me the creeps.”
His audience the sleeping bag, stirred slightly. She was probably still mad at him but at least she was listening to what he had to say. At least, he thought she was listening. Toph could be exceptionally quiet when she wanted to be.
“He showed me his true face and then the faces that he stole. There was a baboon, a goblin, a man’s, and a woman’s.” The airbender paused and felt the need to reach out and touch Toph, to make sure that she hadn’t fallen asleep on him but thought better of it.
“It was this woman’s face that scared me. She was beautiful with long, brown hair and big, bright eyes. She had soft pink lips and she smiled at me.” For the first time since Aang started the story, Toph spoke.
“Do you know this woman?”
He sighed, “Yes. She was the wife of Avatar Kuruk, the waterbender who came before Avatar Kyoshi.”
“Do you love her?” Aang started at the boldness of her statement. No, he didn’t love her, he hardly knew her. Toph was getting his story all wrong. Furiously, he shook his head and shuffled a little closer to her sleeping bag.
“No, no. Avatar Kuruk told me that his wife’s name was Ummi but that Koh had stolen her from him. I’m telling you this because Koh said that she was the Avatar’s beloved, and that he would do it again.”
Aang hesitated, waiting for any reaction from Toph as he added, “And if Koh ever saw you he’d take away your face too.”
So, that was it. The spirit world scared Aang because of Koh - the Face Stealer. He had taken the faces (did he take their souls too?) of the people that the Avatar’s loved, so that was why she couldn’t go there. Toph released the breath she had been holding and pulled down the sleeping bag off her face a modest amount, enough to uncover her hair and forehead.
In a strange, convoluted way, Aang also had a nightmare. He was running away from Koh and his dead tree because he didn’t want his face to be sucked off. He didn’t want her going there. He didn’t want to go back because of Koh. Aang was afraid of him because he was the next Avatar and because…
Toph’s eyes widened and a shiver ran down her spine. Did he mean what he didn’t say? I mean, the things that Aang didn’t say, were they true? Was she - was she -
“Aang,” she started but couldn’t find the right words. With his story, Aang implied that he was afraid of what Koh might do to the people he loved. And as far as she knew, she was the only person Aang kept warning about the dangers of the spirit world. The earthbender’s heart quickened and she stumbled over her sudden awareness.
Was she really the Avatar’s beloved?
“Toph?” Upon hearing her name, the woman twisted her body around in the sleeping bag, turning her face towards his voice.
“Yes?”
“Do you understand?” he inquired meekly. She sensed a change in his heartbeat and felt his temperature rise; his body was flushed. Was he embarrassed by his story or did he think that she was still mad at him? Because she was, she confessed, she was still upset with Aang and her own nightmare. The dream had unsettled her nerves more than she admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Didn’t he trust her? Did he think that if he told her about Koh, she would immediately think of going to the spirit world and find a way? Because she already had thought about going there, his stories of Avatars and magic had already aroused her curiosity.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“About what?”
“About the Koh story, stupid,” she snorted derisively, “you didn’t tell me that someone like that lived in the spirit world.”
The Avatar scratched his head and looked down at the ground, “Yeah, but I think he lives in that dead tree and doesn’t come out much.”
Toph snorted again. Yeah, you tell that to Ummi. Shuffling closer until the edge of her sleeping bag touched his knee, a profound silence pervaded her thoughts. Angry, or not, human contact was still comforting.
“Are you afraid of Koh?” Aang didn’t reply. Instead, he lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around the sleeping bag that she hid herself in. Hesitantly, he rested his chin softly on the top of her head.
Raising his head a little, Aang saw the thin line of her mouth and the words she was carefully formulating. He sighed and took a deep breath. He knew what she was going to ask, he had left a gaping hole in his story that he didn’t want to fill. He wanted her to fill it for him so he could be sure that his fear was real, that she had been listening. He didn’t want Toph going to the spirit world; he didn’t want Koh living in that dead tree. He didn’t want the same thing that happened with Avatar Kuruk and Ummi to happen to him and Toph.
He didn’t want Toph to be truly blind.
A little scared, Aang readjusted his hold so that their foreheads touched. He drew back the covers and reached for her hand. Lightly, their fingers met and recoiled and then met again until their palms were pressed up against each other. His hands were cold like the river water, whereas hers were pleasantly warm. Moving her hands over his, their fingers kissed.
Her hand closed into small fists. Aang gently pushed them open until they were palm to palm and she entwined her fingers with his like blooming water lilies.
Tracing the shadows on her face, Aang closed his eyes and wished that Toph could see how long her hair was now and how her eyes were so bright and how the moonlight made their shadows do strange things on the grass surrounding them.
“Tell me you won’t go to the spirit world,” he begged, bringing her fingers to his lips and kissing them. “Promise me you’ll stay here.” Their foreheads still touching, he felt her exhale and lost contact with her. She turned her green eyes away.
And she told him,
“Tell me why.”
Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters: Toph/Aang
Summary: [one shot] Toph, Aang, dreams and the spirit world.
Originally this was a drabble about Toph’s dream. Then it exploded.
PS. The February Toph challenge is still going on. Entries please! =)
Devoid
When the chambermaid told Miss Bei Fong that her room at the inn was ready the heiress nodded and said, “Thank you, good night.” Before retiring she passed by the Avatar’s door and knocked on the cedar wood.
“Night, Twinkletoes.” She called through the walls, tightening the bathrobe that hung around her. Through the vibration coming from the floorboards she could tell that he was getting dressed, so the woman thought it wise not to open the door and intrude on his privacy.
“Night, babe,” the airbender called out to her. “See you in the morning.”
She snorted at his remark. Well, he would see her in the morning but she couldn’t. She was blind and sometimes, Aang would forget that. It wasn’t out of ignorance but familiarity. Having been travelling companions for so long, Aang would occasionally forget about her lack of sight and speak to her like he would with Katara. It didn’t bother her very much, Aang simply behaved that way. He was still overactive, still optimistic, and still distracted by things that went boom.
Avatar Aang, who mastered the four elements at the age of thirteen and stopped the one hundred year war, was now nineteen years old. She was still eighteen, soon to be a year older next month.
After Sozin’s Comet, Katara and Sokka went back home to the South Pole. Sokka soon left after that and went to Kyoshi Island. Zuko stayed in the fire nation and became crown prince again, but he often called upon the Avatar’s guidance and travelled regularly to the earth kingdom. Toph was still heiress to the Bei Fong estate despite a nasty custody battle regarding her freedom against her parents’ wishes.
They wanted their daughter to stay home. Toph wanted to travel with her friends. After a year of confinement to her home and many letters to her friends for aid, Katara left the water tribes, joined up with Aang who kidnapped Toph from her room, and hid her away in the Fire Nation palace. There, Zuko was bitten by the love bug; smitten with Katara he wooed her, was rejected, wrote poetry, nearly drowned himself, was resuscitated, and finally married their favourite waterbender. Surprisingly enough, Sokka agreed to their union with one condition.
“It’s a double wedding!” Toph told her dumbfounded parents when they arrived at the palace door, demanding their lost, helpless daughter back. The drama that ensued was the stuff of servant gossip for the next three months. But Katara insisted that she needed Toph’s assistance and under the watchful eye of Uncle Iroh, a treaty was signed allowing Toph to travel for several years with the Avatar.
So Aang travelled the world once more, this time to find families that belonged to the air nomads, with Toph alongside him. In total, they had known each other for seven years; fought for peace in two, were separated by one, and travelled together for four.
Some things change, she mused as she left the Avatar’s door and headed to her own. Taking two footsteps, she sensed a shift in the wooden floors beneath her and turned around. A wind sphere sped towards her and Aang unexpectedly leaned towards the earthbender and kissed her on the lips.
“Wanted to see you before you went to bed,” he chuckled, as Toph’s eyes widened in surprised. “Okay, ‘night.” Then he sped away before she could earthbend him off the ball.
And some things don’t.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Toph entered her inn room and shook out her wet hair. It would be three days before they would reach Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, where the Avatar was needed for diplomatic reasons. She was there to negotiate further trade endorsements between the Earth King’s council and the Southern Water Tribe. Toph was acting as a substitute for Lady Katara who was resting from a prolonged illness she caught while travelling through the earth kingdom swamps. She would be fine in time.
Leaping into bed, the earthbender pulled the covers close to her chin and turned onto her side. She closed her sightless eyes and fell asleep.
In her dream Toph was surrounded by nothing. Everything was black. There were no walls, no ceilings, and no floors. There was nothing to cast a shadow on. She couldn’t feel the ground beneath her heels where her feet stood in place. She was nowhere.
And in this strange place she was not cold. Without light, Toph expected this black void to be as cold as the arctic poles where Sokka lived. She expected the hairs on her arms to rise and her breath to form wisps of gray smoke in front of her face. Her heartbeat should be louder.
But in this place her body remained as it was before she went to bed. Touching a hand to her hair, the dampness reassured her presence in this lightless world where all was silent and free.
There was nothing.
“Hello?” The earthbender called out to the void. A feeling rose in her and Toph knew that she was alone. “Hello?” she called again, hoping for an echo to comfort her in this unusual solitude.
“Is this the Spirit World?”
Aang often told her about the spirit world and his trips there. It both fascinated and scared her; to be in a place that was like their world but not. A place where spirits roamed free behind gnarled trees and a moving fog covered the land.
The Avatar told her about floating, glowing balls of light and giant pandas that kidnapped people. Raising his arms up to the sky, Aang explained what it was like to speak with his previous incarnations. It was intimidating, knowing that he received their power from all of them. Judging from his words, there was magic involved in the spirit world, which only made Toph more curious.
A part of her wanted to go there out of curiosity, to discover if the earth there felt any different from the one here. She wanted to know if there was a small chance that the magic there could make her see.
She told Aang about this wish and immediately he frowned at her, as if displeased with her childish thoughts.
“Don’t go there, Toph,” the orange-clad airbender warned her, “Don’t go there.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because,” Aang took a deep breath and reached for her hands, enclosing her small fingers in his, making her feel more like a child, “It’s a big world and there’s things there you don’t want to know.”
Toph waited in the dark and counted in her head the seconds that added up to a minute that soon became three minutes before she abandoned her count. She wasn’t even sure that she counted correctly in this overwhelming silence.
If this was the spirit world, it was very lonely.
With only the soft rustle of her clothes to accompany her, Toph’s heart sank to the bottom of her stomach and murmured softly.
Slowly placing one foot in front of the other, she walked onward without knowing where to go. Toph looked back but snorted at her stupidity, there was nothing behind her so how would she know to go back to where she started? Wiggling her toes with every step, the blind earthbender continued her stride.
Someone was knocking on her door.
“Miss Bei Fong! Someone is calling for you - it’s urgent!” The chambermaid rapped on the door again. Throwing the covers over her head, Toph mumbled incoherently and made a face. She didn’t like mornings, not when you knew that the whole day meant travelling by air in Appa’s saddle of land.
“Miss Bei Fong! The Avatar wants to speak with you!”
Grumbling more, she threw back the covers and bellowed, “Then let him in!” before throwing them back on again. To hell with Aang, if he wanted to speak to her that badly, then he could do it himself without getting the maid involved.
“Toph, can I come in?” Rolling her eyes at the ceiling, she gave him permission to enter.
Promptly dressed in his robes, it didn’t bother him that his earthbending teacher was still in bed, her hair a rumpled mass of black, and in her nightgown. He had seen her like this before and it his ritual to wake her up whenever they stopped by in town.
When they travelled in the wilderness, Toph was the one who usually woke up just before dawn. She liked to be in the open air and spent her time gathering water, chewing on beef jerky, and snacking on berries from last night’s excursion before Aang could wake up.
But when they reached the city Toph’s habits would change and she would fall back into her Bei Fong heiress routine. Here, she could be as lazy as she wished to be and sleep in as much as she could.
Aang knew it was one way for her to get out of trade talks. Once, he had made the mistake of waiting for Toph until he realized that they were late for negotiations by more than two hours. Aang barged through the door and found Toph reading old letters from their friends, her fingers moving back and forth across the parchment, when she grinned at his clumsy entrance.
“Hi, Twinkletoes.”
They had a long talk that night and Toph’s ears were still ringing from his lecture even as her head hit the pillow.
But this time she was sprawled out on the bed with one lazy hand hung over the edge. Smiling at him, Toph sat up and rubbed her eyes. He raised one eyebrow at her.
“Aang, I don’t know why you insist on having separate rooms when the first thing you do is wake me up in the morning,” Toph yawned, stretching out her arms. Planting her feet firmly on the floorboards she noticed he was in his airbender regalia and leaning against the door.
“You know what people will say. It’s improper for a man and a woman to share the same room at an inn, unless they’re married.” Aang crossed his arms and chuckled as his sweetheart patted down her hair without success, “And you, Miss Bei Fong, are an unmarried woman and should not be in the same room as a man.”
Toph tilted her head to the side and smirked, “Man? I see no man here!”
Laughing, Aang strode up to her bed, gave her a kiss, and wrestled the bed sheets away from her. She had to bathe and dress quickly so they could buy supplies. Then they would get Appa and Momo from the stables and head off. Toph’s green eyes opened widely as she grinned,
“We’re leaving the city today?”
Running a hand over his face, the airbender made a remark about heiresses and not knowing what day it was, which earned him a punch on the arm.
“What are we waiting for?” Toph hopped off the bed, grabbed a brush, and tore through her hair. Aang watched with interest, the everyday miracle that was Toph’s hair. With every stroke of the brush, the bird’s nest melted away and within the length of time it took Aang to make her bed using his airbending, her hair was all smooth and shiny.
“What?” she exclaimed, noticing that his eyes followed her, “You jealous of my hair, babe?”
He chuckled, “Your hair defies logic, Toph.”
Two hands touched his back and ushered him out of the room. “Out, out! I need to take a bath!” There was a pause when Aang looked over his shoulder at her playfully and laughed, his lips brushing against her ear. Blushing, Toph swiftly earthbended him out of her room and shut the door in his face. “Out!”
The noonday sun beat on them as Aang reined Appa over to a large cropping of trees near a lake. It was much hotter in the sky than down on the ground; there was no shade from the clouds and the heat was starting to make his companion sleepy. Momo was already sleeping on top of the air bison’s head, purring happily.
“Hey, Toph,” he said to catch her attention. The young man rolled his shoulder suggestively, “you can lean on me and use me as a pillow.” She smiled at him and gladly hung onto his arm, using his proffered shoulder as a pillow. Aang held onto Appa’s reigns with one hand while he hugged the earthbender with the other. Soon they would have to land near the lake where they could all find some shade from the sweltering heat.
After a while Toph spoke, “Twinkletoes, what’s the spirit world really like?” She couldn’t see the crease that formed on his face but she did sense a change in his pulse.
“Why?”
“People aren’t meant to enter the spirit world.” Toph objected by saying he was allowed to enter several times. He said he was the Avatar. She said that he was still human. Besides, she didn’t want to go there, she wanted to know what it was like. Aang hesitated, mulling over her words before replying,
“Magical. There’s no place like it.” But then he saw the creeping smile on her face and strictly warned her about going to that place.
“For whatever reason Toph, never go to the spirit world even if I’m stuck there. Don’t go. Not even to get me.” Then Aang shut up and the earthbender knew that he wouldn’t say any more on the subject. There would be no stories of giant pandas that hazy afternoon.
That night they camped near a cheerful, bubbling river. There was an outcropping of rocks on one side of the grass clearing and tall cedar trees everywhere else. The first half of the moon was partially shaded by puffy, grey clouds. Appa and Momo slept near the trees and the river, preferring the sound of the water to the snores of the Avatar.
Spreading her sleeping bag in the shadow of the rocks, Toph unravelled her hair from its bun and ran her fingers through them. Aang was already asleep, as usual. She, on the other hand, preferred to stay awake as long as she could; she relished the sound of the night birds calling to each other and the slow turn of the luminescent moon across the sky.
Turning onto her side, Toph closed her eyes and fell asleep. That night, Toph dreamt about the black void again.
Maybe this is what it’s like to be really blind, she told herself, to not be able to feel the vibrations in the ground. I can’t sense anything.
But the dream changed and this time, she wasn’t alone.
This time Aang was with her. She was in the exact same spot as before and facing each other, only that he didn’t seem to be looking at her. She could feel his hands around her shoulders and his warm breath on her face, but not the body in front of her. He was constantly moving, pulling them into an embrace or pushing himself away from her. His touch faded then became solid then disappeared altogether in a state of confusion. He whispered things into her ear and twice, she felt his lips caress her cheek, leaving a small imprint on her skin.
“Is this the spirit world?” she kept asking him, “Is this the spirit world?”
But the Aang in her dream didn’t reply, or rather, she felt that he didn’t want to answer her never-ending question. Soon, Toph forgot the words and they floated away from her lips like smoke and melted into the darkness. There was only Aang now. She was rubbing noses with him in a mock kiss and constantly touching his head. Embracing him in her arms, she rested her head on his bare back when the tattoos on his body started to glow a bright blue.
For the first time in her dream, she felt solid ground beneath her feet and was lifted off the ground when dream-Aang told her that they had to leave.
“Why?”
A string of words left his mouth but she couldn’t hear them. She only felt his hands on her legs as he hoisted her up onto his back and soon Toph was piggyback riding on a glowing Aang through the darkness. There was something behind them chasing them and although Toph didn’t know what it was, she got the sense that this thing was the reason she was in the dark in the first place.
“Faster,” he whispered nervously to no one, “we have to run faster.”
Then the darkness raced away and before them was the river. Not the same river that they had camped, but a mirror image. The moon was in the water instead of the sky, where fish swam and dispersed the grey clouds with a ripple from their fins. The land was covered in a silver mist save for the grass clearing where they set up camp. Under her feet, the earth was alive, its pulse beating to the rhythm of her heart.
“Is this the spirit world?”
Aang was standing in the river, his back towards her and his face focused on the water below. Toph felt the heat radiating from his body as his tattoos glowed a searing white. She threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his skin. The rocks were slippery underneath her toes.
She said something but he couldn’t hear her, or else he would have turned his head her way. His eyes glowed brightly and his body burst into white-blue flames, which made her stumble backwards. He started to disappear into the water; the earth was swallowing him up. Her clouded eyes widened; Toph tried to lift him up but still he sank into the river. Down, down, down he went, immobile as a statue and flaming with the light of the stars.
Without reason, the earthbender waded into the water, afraid of sinking into it herself, and tried to bend the earth beneath them but to no avail. Large, splashing tears fell from her eyes as Aang finally disappeared beneath the surface. Toph plunged her hands into the river and felt her way around, searching for any trace of her beloved but all she felt was a pair of koi fish swimming in circles around her fingers.
She tried to speak but no voice came from her mouth. Toph yelled at the water, kicked it, grabbed pebbles and threw them at the river bottom. Clenching her fists in frustration, she shut her eyes and demanded the spirit world return Aang to her.
Give him back, her mind shouted, give him back!
Toph opened her eyes and thought she saw Aang staring down at her.
She blinked again and now it was the moon.
I must be crazy, she thought, I’m seeing things - seeing things!
The Avatar woke up with a start when he heard Toph whimpering in her sleep. Concerned, he crawled out of his sleeping bag towards hers and immediately noticed lines of pain across her face. Her sea-green eyes twitched rapidly underneath her lids and he could make beads of sweat glisten in the moonlight. He called her name twice before placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Toph,” he whispered insistently, “wake up, sweetheart.”
Shaking her by the shoulder, Aang brought the earthbender back into the waking world and out of her nightmare. Snapping her eyes open, Toph choked on her first breath and started to cough violently. With one hand on her back, Aang helped her sit up before she fell back down on the mattress.
Although she couldn’t see, she could feel the weight of his gray eyes as the Avatar brought his face close to hers.
“Toph,” he urged, “Babe, what is it? You were crying in your sleep, did something happen?”
The earthbender stared at him, the details of the void and the river quickly melted away like all dreams did, but the fear of losing Aang did not. Toph grasped at the edges of the darkness before they disappeared.
“I had a nightmare,” she told him, turning her face towards the sound of the river before facing him again. “It was just a stupid dream, Aang.” Besides, he wouldn’t be happy if she told him.
But he wasn’t convinced. Settling down on the grass, he released his hold on her shoulders. “Toph, you were dreaming about the spirit world, weren’t you?” He saw her eyebrows narrow at the mention of the word and knew he was right.
“Of all places, why there?” The sharp edge in his voice caught her by surprise and Toph felt the edge of a knife against her throat. Was he accusing her of dreaming, putting the blame on her for having a nightmare? That’s ridiculous.
It’s just a dream; a stupid dream and it didn’t mean anything. She had been to a place where there was no sound, no laughter, no light, no Aang. She had walked into water willingly and lost him in the river. What was the spirit world really like? Did she really visit it in her dreams? Then why did they run away?
“Aang, tell me about the spirit world.”
“I won’t take you there.” The airbender replied abruptly, immediately not liking where this conversation was headed. He rose to his knees but Toph caught his wrist and pulled him back down roughly. After what happened, she wanted to know the truth behind the place he refused to take her too, the place that he often talked about with wonder and awe in his voice. Toph heaved a sigh and crossed her arms, he was giving her mixed messages and she wanted to know why.
“Why won’t you?” What are you running from?
“There’s an evil there, that’s all.”
Huffing irritably, Toph’s frustration bubbled forth and the rocks around them trembled. “Why won’t you tell everything about the stupid world? You’d talk about anything but that and when I ask you to; you shove it off and tell me not to go there.” The Avatar sighed heavily and refused to meet her face, which made her angrier.
“You’re all avoid, avoid, avoid Aang! Just tell me if you don’t trust me, it’s not like I known you for years,” she snorted. Aang stared at her dumbly and made no sound save for his shallow breathing. He heard her release a low growl and the Avatar kept his face impassive as Toph riled up against him once more.
“I just dreamt about the spirit world but I don’t even know what it is or if I was really there and why it scared the shit out of me and you won’t even tell me about the stupid place!” The words spat from her mouth like a frothing waterfall and Toph wondered if she was talking to a wall.
“Aang, am I talking to a wall?! Because if you don’t say something I’m going back to bed and you can stay awake for all you like.” An overwhelming sense of frustration seized her throat and Toph became mute just as Aang was deaf.
She waited and counted to sixty seconds before flipping around and throwing herself onto the sleeping bag with the Avatar still kneeling in front of her. Well, if he didn’t want to talk then be it.
Softly, his voice broke the silence that fell between them.
“Was the dream that bad?” He heard her grunt.
“It’s called a nightmare for your information.”
“I want to tell - I’ll tell - do you want to hear it?”
She grunted again. Cold, Toph drew her knees up to her chin. She wasn’t speaking to him anymore.
“There’s a monster there that calls himself Koh,” he started, his gray eyes looking down at the bundle in front of him. “Everyone calls him Koh, the Face Stealer, because that’s what he does - steal faces.”
Hidden deep inside her sleeping bag, Toph nodded.
“When I first met Koh, it was back when Zhao was attacking the North Water tribes. I didn’t know how to use the Avatar State so I went to the spirit world to find some help so we could win. I needed to find the moon and the ocean spirits, the patron deities of the water tribes, so I had to go to Koh to find them.
Why Koh? Toph wanted to ask, but her anger got the better of her so she said nothing. Aang waited for a moment before he continued with his story. How was he going to tell her what Koh told him? Would she understand or would she just make fun? If she laughed, it would hurt him deeply because she wouldn’t understand what Koh represented to him; what he did and what he could do to her.
“He’s centipede, a huge one that lives in this giant, dead tree. He scuttles along the walls and the floor like an insect, the sounds of his legs moving at once,” Aang shuddered visibly and he had to catch his breath before continuing, “Every time I hear it, it gives me the creeps.”
His audience the sleeping bag, stirred slightly. She was probably still mad at him but at least she was listening to what he had to say. At least, he thought she was listening. Toph could be exceptionally quiet when she wanted to be.
“He showed me his true face and then the faces that he stole. There was a baboon, a goblin, a man’s, and a woman’s.” The airbender paused and felt the need to reach out and touch Toph, to make sure that she hadn’t fallen asleep on him but thought better of it.
“It was this woman’s face that scared me. She was beautiful with long, brown hair and big, bright eyes. She had soft pink lips and she smiled at me.” For the first time since Aang started the story, Toph spoke.
“Do you know this woman?”
He sighed, “Yes. She was the wife of Avatar Kuruk, the waterbender who came before Avatar Kyoshi.”
“Do you love her?” Aang started at the boldness of her statement. No, he didn’t love her, he hardly knew her. Toph was getting his story all wrong. Furiously, he shook his head and shuffled a little closer to her sleeping bag.
“No, no. Avatar Kuruk told me that his wife’s name was Ummi but that Koh had stolen her from him. I’m telling you this because Koh said that she was the Avatar’s beloved, and that he would do it again.”
Aang hesitated, waiting for any reaction from Toph as he added, “And if Koh ever saw you he’d take away your face too.”
So, that was it. The spirit world scared Aang because of Koh - the Face Stealer. He had taken the faces (did he take their souls too?) of the people that the Avatar’s loved, so that was why she couldn’t go there. Toph released the breath she had been holding and pulled down the sleeping bag off her face a modest amount, enough to uncover her hair and forehead.
In a strange, convoluted way, Aang also had a nightmare. He was running away from Koh and his dead tree because he didn’t want his face to be sucked off. He didn’t want her going there. He didn’t want to go back because of Koh. Aang was afraid of him because he was the next Avatar and because…
Toph’s eyes widened and a shiver ran down her spine. Did he mean what he didn’t say? I mean, the things that Aang didn’t say, were they true? Was she - was she -
“Aang,” she started but couldn’t find the right words. With his story, Aang implied that he was afraid of what Koh might do to the people he loved. And as far as she knew, she was the only person Aang kept warning about the dangers of the spirit world. The earthbender’s heart quickened and she stumbled over her sudden awareness.
Was she really the Avatar’s beloved?
“Toph?” Upon hearing her name, the woman twisted her body around in the sleeping bag, turning her face towards his voice.
“Yes?”
“Do you understand?” he inquired meekly. She sensed a change in his heartbeat and felt his temperature rise; his body was flushed. Was he embarrassed by his story or did he think that she was still mad at him? Because she was, she confessed, she was still upset with Aang and her own nightmare. The dream had unsettled her nerves more than she admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Didn’t he trust her? Did he think that if he told her about Koh, she would immediately think of going to the spirit world and find a way? Because she already had thought about going there, his stories of Avatars and magic had already aroused her curiosity.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“About what?”
“About the Koh story, stupid,” she snorted derisively, “you didn’t tell me that someone like that lived in the spirit world.”
The Avatar scratched his head and looked down at the ground, “Yeah, but I think he lives in that dead tree and doesn’t come out much.”
Toph snorted again. Yeah, you tell that to Ummi. Shuffling closer until the edge of her sleeping bag touched his knee, a profound silence pervaded her thoughts. Angry, or not, human contact was still comforting.
“Are you afraid of Koh?” Aang didn’t reply. Instead, he lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around the sleeping bag that she hid herself in. Hesitantly, he rested his chin softly on the top of her head.
Raising his head a little, Aang saw the thin line of her mouth and the words she was carefully formulating. He sighed and took a deep breath. He knew what she was going to ask, he had left a gaping hole in his story that he didn’t want to fill. He wanted her to fill it for him so he could be sure that his fear was real, that she had been listening. He didn’t want Toph going to the spirit world; he didn’t want Koh living in that dead tree. He didn’t want the same thing that happened with Avatar Kuruk and Ummi to happen to him and Toph.
He didn’t want Toph to be truly blind.
A little scared, Aang readjusted his hold so that their foreheads touched. He drew back the covers and reached for her hand. Lightly, their fingers met and recoiled and then met again until their palms were pressed up against each other. His hands were cold like the river water, whereas hers were pleasantly warm. Moving her hands over his, their fingers kissed.
Her hand closed into small fists. Aang gently pushed them open until they were palm to palm and she entwined her fingers with his like blooming water lilies.
Tracing the shadows on her face, Aang closed his eyes and wished that Toph could see how long her hair was now and how her eyes were so bright and how the moonlight made their shadows do strange things on the grass surrounding them.
“Tell me you won’t go to the spirit world,” he begged, bringing her fingers to his lips and kissing them. “Promise me you’ll stay here.” Their foreheads still touching, he felt her exhale and lost contact with her. She turned her green eyes away.
And she told him,
“Tell me why.”