Prophecy (Sun and Moon Book 3)

Chapter 14 - What She Needs

            Toph sat beside Aang, long after the healers had gone to bed. Sneaking into the room had been ridiculously easy--sometimes she thought that the people in the Water Tribe were stupid. They treated her like a blind girl, when she wasn’t. Just because she didn’t see like they did, that didn’t mean she was weak.

            Yet they didn’t take any precautions to keep her out, even after forbidding her to see Aang.

            They just left the door unguarded, and Aang alone. A paltry lock was nothing to her, since she could just metalbend it out of the way.

            It was a blessing and a curse, she decided, to be underestimated.

            Then she shook her head, because she knew that she was using these thoughts to distract herself. In reality, her mind was everywhere and nowhere at once. The past few days, she’d been fidgety and emotional and afraid. She was unsure of herself and she felt so, so lost.

            None of these feelings were familiar to Toph. She was used to being the strong one. The unmovable earthbender, the voice of reason… Iroh’s pupil.

            Iroh’s trainee.

            And now… now she was… just Toph.

            Just… a blind earthbender whose best friend was dying, and there was nothing she could do to save him.

            Toph reached out and rested her fingers on Aang’s hand. Even in this palace made of ice, where her vision was fuzzy at best, she could see him. The way his chest rose and fell against the blankets, the way his nostrils flared slightly each time he breathed out. The way his body laid so still, so unnaturally. So unlike Aang’s sleep, which was usually peaceful but rowdy, like almost everything her friend did.

            She could see each bone in his fingers, each muscle in his legs. Each dip and indent in his face.

            She knew the feel of him by heart, and her fingers traced his face then, following the paths she knew. She missed him so much that she felt like she was missing herself.

            Maybe she was.

            It came back to her then. Suki’s words echoed in her mind, stilling the hundreds of thoughts that vied for her attention.

            “You’re in love with him.”           

            She’d called Suki crazy. She’d meant it.

            But now, in the darkness of her blindness and the quiet of the night, with her fingers resting in the fuzz that was growing atop Aang’s usually bald head… Toph looked deep into herself, like she would look deep into metal to find the particles of earth.

            She thought about Aang, her earthbending student, her best friend… the one person who truly knew her, inside and out. The others were her friends, of course, but…

            But Aang KNEW her. Aang had invaded her heart without her realizing it, taken a permanent place in her day to day life. He had filled her with his laughter and his sudden boughts of seriousness, made her focus on something other than the earth for once in her life.

            Made her feel like she didn’t have to be ‘tough’ all the time. They’d talked so much, about her parents, about his people, about their homes. About themselves, about their likes and their dislikes, their fears and their loves.

            Toph couldn’t think of a single thing that Aang didn’t know about her, or that she didn’t know about him.

            The blind earthbender considered for the first time that, maybe… just maybe… Suki was right.

            Maybe… she did love him.

            She laid her head on Aang’s chest, feeling more confused and afraid than ever.

            “Aang…” she didn’t mean to say his name, but it felt so good to whisper it into the darkness that she said it again. “Aang… please. Please come back to me, Aang. I… I need you.” Toph let the tears fall from her eyes onto his blankets, not caring about being tough. She only cared about Aang.

            “I need you, Aang.” She clenched her fingers in the fabric near her fists, one in his pillow and the other in his blankets.

            And she let a single sob choke through her throat and echo into the silent room.

______

Wowz. Did that even take ten minutes? I doubt it.

If you keep this up you'll catch up to me. 0.o I've been trying to stay five chapters ahead, but seas. I'm one behind that now. *writes frantically*

XD