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After a few weeks of travelling on the back of a giant flying bison, Toph is getting used to being blind for the majority of the day. Katara makes a tea that helps settle her stomach and, after a few days of glaring in her general direction, she also stops fussing when she hands the cup to Toph.
Sokka asks her what it's like to be blind. She tells him that she has nothing to compare it to. He makes a noise like he has never considered that. She can't feel anything up this high. She tells Sokka that. He scoots over, and she knows because his arm and leg press against her right side.
"What about now?" he asks. Toph can hear the smile in his voice, can feel how warm he is, where his skin touches hers. But that's all.
"Not really," she replies, "There's a lot of things I still can't see, even with earthbending."
Sokka makes another thoughtful noise and makes to move away. Toph grabs his wrist to hold him in place. She might not be able to feel much, but Sokka's presence is grounding. It's something else she can feel other than the wind and the gentle rise and fall of Appa in the air. If she focuses too hard on that, it makes her feel nauseous all over again.
"Stay," she mumbles, "It's… nice."
Sokka settles in with a little shuffle. They sit in silence for a while, listening to Katara and Aang talk about water bending techniques and Aang answer Katara's questions about the airbenders. It's a new project she's been undertaking, finding out as much as she can about them.
Sokka clears his throat, and Toph can feel him shifting nervously.
"What?" she asks him, turning his wrist over and placing two fingers to his pulse as surreptitiously as she can.
He clears his throat, "Does that mean you don't know what people look like?" he asks, quiet and unsure if this is allowed.
Toph shrugs, "I know as much as I can about what my family and teachers look like," she says after a while.
"How?" Sokka sounds excited.
It's a bit awkward really, and Toph doesn't want to explain it to him but he sounds so curious.
"Why?" she asks instead.
She can feel him being shifty again, "Well," his arm moves and she can hear him scratching the back of his neck. She knows it's a nervous gesture, "I just realised you don't know what we look like."
He sounds sad about it, like something he takes for granted every day is finally important to him because Toph doesn't have it. She doesn't like the pity and tells him as much.
"I know," he replies, "I just want to help."
They revert to silence for a while longer.
"I touched them," she says quietly, turning her face to Sokka, "I touched their faces and I asked questions."
Sokka sucks in a breath, "Oh," he whispers.
He takes her hand in his and brings it up to his face, "Take a look then," he says, and she can feel his smile.
She traces the shape of his cheeks and his nose with the tips of her fingers, roughened with calluses. The last person she did this to was her mother, and oh, the pang in her chest makes it hard to breathe for a moment. She’s more herself here, with her friends and she still cannot tell what they look like. It shouldn’t matter, but she wishes she could see Sokka’s smile. She wishes she could see the colour of Katara’s eyes, and see Aang’s Airbender tattoos.
She traces Sokka's ears and feels the shaved sides of his head and the wolf's tail at the back. His lips are full and his nose is strong. There is very little hair on his face, and it's still soft with youth but she can feel it there. His chin is strong and slightly pointed and his cheekbones are broad and high. There's a nick in his eyebrow and a dint in his skull.
"Where did this come from?" she asks, touching it again.
He laughs again, embarrassed. Toph can feel his face heat up, blood rush in his cheeks and up to his neck, "Boomerang," he mumbles. The laugh that bursts out shocks her and she can feel Sokka smile again.
"You have long eyelashes," she says. He flutters them against her fingertips.
"Why thank you," he puts on his stupid smug voice and she slaps him playfully.
He pretends to be shocked by it and they laugh a little before reverting into a comfortable silence, side by side.
If Sokka makes an effort to sit very close to her when they ride Appa, she doesn’t say anything. It’s nice to see something from way up here, even if it is Sokka’s stupid mug.
When Toph is five, she runs away again. When she is found, much later, the house guards are screeching for her to come out. She can feel dirt caked under her nails and she knows she smells like the badgermoles. She likes them. She’s learnt so much from them.
Before she left this time, it had curled around her and sniffed her face and neck and hair. One even licked her face. She’d licked its face back laughing. She could feel it’s face; long nose and fur. She liked her friends.
The guards whisk her back inside and after she is chided for wandering off and put into a bath where one of her keepers scrubs her clean, she goes to find her father. She asks her father what she looks like. He explains the length and colour of her hair, and what she is wearing but all the talk of colours and fabrics means nothing to her, she can't see them.
She asks him what he looks like, but he is momentarily at a loss for words. He scoops her into his arms and takes her tiny hands in his.
"Why don't you just try to have a look this way," he says, putting her hands against his cheeks. It’s the closest contact she’s had to him in weeks. He smells clean and flowery. She misses the dirt smell of the badgermoles.
She slowly maps out his face. She knows his cheeks are rough and his hair is long and there are lines around his mouth and on his forehead. She asks what they're called, and he explains what wrinkles are and how they come with age. She asks what colour his eyes are, but brown isn't something she understands.
"What does mum look like?" she asks and her father picks her up and carries her, softly calling for his wife until she calls back. Toph can smell paper so it's probably the library.
He puts her on the couch next to her mother and says, "Toph wants to know what you look like. Can she touch your face?"
Toph likes that about her father, that he always asks if something is okay. He never asks her. But she likes that he asks her mother.
Her mother laughs and it sounds so lovely that Toph can't help but smile too. Her mother's cool hands wrap around her wrists and bring them to her face. Her mother is smaller and softer than her father. Her lips are fuller, and her hair is long and silky. Toph runs her fingers as gently as she can through it a few times. It’s so smooth.
Her father settles in on her other side and they sit like that for a while longer, Toph learning what her parents feel like. Eventually, she moves to her own face and traces her cheeks and nose but it does not feel the same, too many nerve endings making it hard to concentrate.
When it's time for bed, her father carries her to her room and tells her she is beautiful. She doesn't know what that looks like, but she believes him.
"I didn't realise how many things would matter," he says, mostly to himself, as he traces over her closed eyelids. She isn't asleep, but he does this sometimes, touching her eyes like his hands may heal her blindness. She has never known anything different, and it bothers her, that her blindness causes her father such sadness.
"Always ask Toph, but I think it would be okay if you wanted to know what others look like. It's important to know the faces of people you love."
It's the last thing she hears before she goes to sleep.
Sometimes people are uncomfortable when she asks to see them. They think it's odd that she wants to touch their faces.
She's learned to let it go.
She learned to stop asking.
"The best part about being blind is that looks don't matter so much," she tells Katara through a watery smile. She won't admit that those girls got to her.
Katara tells her she's beautiful, and not for her looks but for her stubbornness and bravery. Toph's insides soften and swell. Katara is so good to her. Toph can tell she’s telling the truth; Katara almost always tells the truth.
They walk back to the house in relative quiet. When they're inside, Toph asks Katara for help in taking the make-up off; it makes her skin feel itchy in a way that dirt never has. She sits on a stool pilfered from the kitchen while a warm cloth is run gently over her face. She closes her eyes so Katara can get her eyelids. It feels a lot like what she did to Sokka and her throat sticks. She lets Katara finish.
“Hey,” Katara says with her back still turned, “Sokka told me something and said you might be mad if I brought it up.”
She sounds nervous and Toph is automatically on high alert. Her fists clench in her lap and she shuffles a little so one of her toes can touch the floor. That would be enough for some earthbending. She’s been getting way better recently anyway.
“Yeah?” she replies, voice low, “What did you talk about?”
She can hear Katara take a deep breath and feel her turn around.
“He told me you don’t know what we look like.”
When Toph doesn’t move, doesn’t breath, Katara pushes on, “And it got me thinking about how you would probably never ask but I think it’s really important for you to know what we look like, and I mean, what if you get lost and you need to describe us to someone, how are you going to be able to do that Toph-”
"Hey," she interrupts Katara’s obvious anxiety-induced tirade, "Can I touch your face?" she asks all in a rush.
Katara is still for a moment. Toph waits for her to ask why to hear her friend say that's weird . Instead, she hears, "Okay."
Katara crosses the room and leans down to Toph. She braces her hands on Toph's knees, as Toph raises her hands to Katara's face.
Her skin is damp, and Toph realises it's because she took her make-up off too. She skims her palms along Katara's jaw and up to her ears. They feel like Sokka's, but smaller. Katara's hair is long, her braid thick and soft.
"Oh," she breathes, "Hair loopies?" she asks, tugging gently on the hair pinned away from her friend's face.
"Yeah, my signature look according to my idiot brother."
Toph can feel laugh lines creasing around Katara's mouth when she talks about her brother. Her eyes are large and her eyelashes are thick and short. Her lips are a little chapped from scrubbing. Her skin is soft and young but there are lines around her eyes too, from worry and loss. War does that, Toph decides.
"You're beautiful," she decides, taking her hands away from Katara's face, "And you have Sokka's ears."
That earns her a punch. She laughs.
Aang almost died. Aang almost died according to Katara and he's been asleep for two weeks now. Toph is getting worried and restless on this stupid boat. She can see, thanks to the newfound metal bending, but the ship is only so big and she can see every aspect of it.
She remembers what her father said, about needing to know what your loved ones look like.
She needs to know what Aang looks like before she almost loses him. Again.
She doesn't hear him wake up until he's on deck. She doesn't expect to be so relieved. She wants to wrap him in her arms and squeeze. She wants to punch him too, for scaring her as he did, but he's too tender for that right now.
"I have hair?!" he screeches later and Toph makes a note of that, on top of the anxiety she can feel shaking off him on waves. She didn't know Aang was bald.
All she knows about him is he's slight and there's, apparently, an arrow on his head, but she doesn't know what that means.
She slips into his room after everyone has settled in for the night.
"Aang," she calls quietly, "Are you awake?"
She hears rustling sheets, "Yeah Toph," Aang's voice is old and tired. Sometimes she forgets how old he is.
"I just wanted to check on you," she says, "And I wanted to ask you something."
Aang sits up a little straighter and Toph can feel the concern in his body.
"I'm okay," he says, and Toph knows it's a lie. But she lets him have it.
"Good," it's starting to feel awkward now so she takes a deep breath. It's not so scary anymore, not after all this time. Not after what they've been through.
"Hey, I was wondering if I could touch your face?" she asks.
Aang only feels curious when he asks her why.
"So I know what you look like," she explains and he settles a little.
"Of course," his voice is quiet, "It's a little weird. You don't know what the Avatar looks like," he sounds so self-deprecating and she realises he doesn't know about the others. He thinks it's because of what he is, not who he is.
"It's not like that," she says, "I want to know what my friends look like."
She tells him what her father said, "I've already seen Sokka and Katara. In fact, I'm angry I didn't ask sooner."
He laughs a little, "I don't look like my normal self," he says, reaching for her hands and holding them between his for a moment before putting them on his face, "I hope you don't mind."
She can feel the heat rolling off him, almost feverish, and she knows it's the sadness in him. She can feel it in the tightness of his facial muscles and the lines around his eyes and mouth. Her fingers gently prod the bags under his eyes and even after two weeks of sleep, she is not surprised he is still so exhausted. There are scratches across his cheeks and forehead, scabbing and ready to peel off in places.
His hair is thick and curly and she runs her hands through it a few times, scratching lightly at his scalp. His ears are big, and his lips are thin, chin pointy, jaw broad. One cheek has a dimple, while the other does not, and his eyebrows are in the middle of growing back from his interaction with Azula's lightning.
"I can't feel the arrow," she says after a while.
Aang reaches up and takes one of her hands in his, "It's here," he says, taking her finger and helping her trace a shape on his forehead. If she concentrates, she can feel slightly raised skin, tiny scars punctured into his skin. Tattoos, she decides, are weird.
She takes her hands away from his face, and settles them into her lap, making no move from the mattress. They sit in silence, and as much as it is tense, it is also comfortable. Aang is riled up, a permanent, hard set to his shoulders that makes Toph worry. But he is comfortable here with her. She misses his laugh though, his smile.
“Hey, Twinkle Toes,” she says, an idea springing to mind, “Give me your hands.”
Aang lays her hands down on hers, palm side up, and Toph lifts them to her face.
“Close your eyes,” she says. She reaches out with her own fingers to check that he has done as she asked. He has.
“Okay,” he breathes, “Now what?”
Toph tries to stifle a laugh at how ridiculous this idea is. She is sure Aang can feel her smile, and it forces the corners of his lip to twitch up against their will. That causes her to laugh, once, low.
“What do I look like?”
Aang takes a deep breath, and screws his eyes shut tighter, tracing her face. It feels weird. Tickles a bit. She tugs on her earlobe and runs a feather-light finger over her eyelids and eyelashes. He pushes her hair away from her face, and his lips quirk up again when it automatically flops right back down. She pretends to bite his thumb when he runs it over her mouth and he does laugh this time.
Toph breathes out.
Aang lowers his hands and opens his eyes.
“That was an experience,” his voice is low, “It’s not the same as earthbending, but it’s still heavily reliant on other senses.”
Toph nods and stands to leave, “I’ll see you in the morning Twinkle Toes,” she smiles at him.
She hears him yawn; his heart rate has slowed down a lot. He doesn’t feel so tense. It’s nice.
“Yeah Toph, goodnight.”
Toph is very focused on having to get into a submarine in about ten minutes and it’s already making her feel nauseous. She’s so nervous she doesn’t notice Aang until he’s right next to her.
“Breathe,” he whispers to her, “You’re going to be fine.” ‘
She punches him in the arm, “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else right now?” she grumbles.
He laughs and takes both her hands in his and brings them to his face, “One last thing before I go,” and he pushes her hands up his cheeks and over his head.
“Oh,” she breathes, “You cut your hair.”
Aang nods, “The Avatar is back,” and Toph traces the lines of his grin.
“Nice to know that’s clear.”