The only thing she is absolutely sure of is that she isn't absolutely sure of anything anymore.
The ringing in her ears, so prominent the moment before, has receded back into her head. She sighs in relief, but has celebrated too soon; it's back, the roar of white noise that pounds through her skull, and just as suddenly as it came, it stops again. Then she understands. It is a tidal wave, in and out, loud and soft, side to side. She sways gently along with the wave. Her hand hits something hard.
She opens her eyes with a flourish, but everything is still dark. She blinks. Then blinks again. And again. Still the horizon is black. She leaps to her feet, panic bubbling inside of her. Why can't she see? Where has her sight gone?
She stumbles blindly about her surroundings, trying to calm herself down. Okay. She feels the soft, down grass beneath her feet and the cool, autumn breeze blow through her hair, which makes her feel slightly better. She takes a deep breath. Okay. She gets to her hands and knees hesitantly, trying to feel what her hand had knocked onto. She is tentative, going about the plants and rocks with a kind of dance that her fingers perform. Somehow it seems very familiar, and she has the strangest feeling that she'd been here before.
There. Her hand brushes upon a hard rock set into the ground. Something wet is coating the front of it, making its way onto her fingers. She brings them up to her nose, takes a sniff, and immediately recoils. Blood. Hot, sticky blood is on this rock. Something has happened here, and she feels a strange desire to find out what.
And like the roar in her ears, the pain in her head comes back in a hurry; not there one moment, there the next. She cant't stop it: she screams in agony, her hands frantically touching her head to find the source of the pain. She stumbles across a wet patch of hair and feels a gash in her forehead, just above her ear. Blood. The smell is cascading off of her, and it makes her retch. Blood. That is her blood on the rock, coating it in her filthy insides. She falls back onto the grass, still shrieking, but quieter now. Somehow the knowledge of what had happened on the rock makes her calmer.
She sits back, leaning on her hands, evaluating the situation. Okay. She had fallen on the rock, bashing her head open. Yes, that makes sense. She glances around before remembering it wouldn't do her any good, and yet she can't be alone out here, can she? Surely someone had accompanied her out here to this place.
No sooner has she thought this than she hears someone shout something. A female, by the sound of it, and she is surprised to find that she is very confident about this fact. The voice shouts again, the same thing every time, like she is calling for someone. What is it she's saying? "Tough?" That couldn't be someone's name, who names their child Tough? And yet the girl keeps calling out, her voice getting nearer and nearer until suddenly there she is.
"Toph!" She says, relief flooding her voice. "Oh my Spirits, Toph, where have you been? We've been so worried, Sokka nearly had a heart attack when he realized you were gone, and I told him you'd just gone for a walk but thankfully Aang said that had been over an hour ago so he volunteered to go look for you and they told me to stay home, of course, but I told them that there was no way I was going to sit around and do nothing -"
On and on she goes. Is she supposed to know these people? Who is she talking about, this "Toph" person? She supposes it had to be her, since this girl obviously thinks she knew her, but wouldn't she remember her own name?
Fear courses through her veins. She can't remember her name. How silly, she chides herself, of course you know your name! It's....it's....it's...
"It's what, Toph?" The girl says, and she realizes she has been talking out loud. She scowls.
"Look, I don't know who you think you've found, but I'm not Tough, okay? So why don't you take your little chatterbox show on the road and leave me be."
