Chapter Text
Toph had always gotten along well with rocks. They’d been her first friends, since the day her parents had first let her venture outside when she was, like, five, and she’d come across—okay, so she’d stepped on it, and it had hurt, but details!—a rock with so many layers and ridges and grooves, so smooth and so rough and so diverse in a way that was amazing considering it was so small.
She’d explored its surface the whole day, clutching it in her hands even as her parents dragged her back inside and cleaned up her feet, and her hands, and basically her whole body. The mess she’d caused by going out and “getting lost” was “not lady-like whatsoever,” which she’d proposed was an unfair statement because she couldn’t even see how she looked.
Her parents had told her she had four other senses, and she must at least be able to feel how dirty she was.
She couldn’t, or just didn’t mind it, but she’d wisely kept herself from saying that.
She also began sneaking out more at night, after that, being sure to wear her least fancy clothes and at least a pair of flippers so that if she got dirty her parents wouldn’t catch her. Over the years, even as she’d gained more freedom, she still liked to sneak out at night because of the adrenaline, as well as the ability to act as much of a “madwoman” as she wanted and not be seen. She’d take off her flippers to feel the grass or the dirt in her feet, and as she’d gotten older she’d learn to clean up by herself so there was no point in bringing the shoes out at all. Sometimes, she would test how far she could leave the estate without a cane, using purely her instincts, before she felt she’d get lost if she didn’t go back.
Her first few nights of freedom at the ripe age of five, however, were spent in the garden collecting cool rocks she’d found, and then bringing them back to her room.
She wasn’t weird enough to name her rocks or anything stupid like that, but when she was alone she liked to hold them in her hands until it hurt and she’d understood its entire formation. And she’d talk to them, sometimes. Maybe that was weird, too, but it wasn’t her fault. Who else was she supposed to talk to?
Not her parents, of course. They were actually the subject of most of her conversations. The ones who’d kept her isolated, the ones who’d raised her purely within the estate, the ones who treated her like a dainty little girl just because she was blind. The reason she liked sneaking out so much.
She definitely couldn’t tell the servants, either. They were loyal to her parents purely because of their money, and therefore they were also part of the problem as they enabled—and enforced—everything her parents were doing, like the stupid list of stupid rules that kept her “safe.” Her tutors were similar to her servants in that they just went along with everything her parents told them to.
It was that specific reason that made her argument to go to an actual school, with actual people and actual classes, so weak.
Her private tutors had taught her probably everything that was important for the daughter of an influential family to know. She knew all the proper etiquette. She could bow while keeping her spine straight, as well as sit with her spine perfectly straight, and, like, respect people while also keeping her spine straight. She knew when to keep her mouth shut, and knew that she definitely should not have as… vast of a vocabulary as she did. She’d learned pointless history (and had probably forgotten it as soon as the lesson was over). She’d had to learn music—which was kind of stupid, because she couldn’t really read sheet music or anything—and could now play enough piano to satisfy her parents. Her favorite had been self-defense, and even then they hadn’t really taught her too much.
And throughout her twelve years of life, reading and writing had slipped embarrassingly low on the priority list. Whether it was because she was blind or because she was a girl, she didn’t know, and she didn’t give a fuck except that it put her at a huge disadvantage if she were to go to school, like she was now asking her parents to do. Well, she knew enough math that she could understand how money worked, so at least she wasn’t a complete retard, right?
At least her parents were so worried about how she’d do socially that they didn’t really consider the academic side of it so much.
“Kids are cruel, sweetie,” her mother had informed her so very helpfully for, like, the hundredth time, as if Toph wasn’t a kid herself. “In the real world, people aren’t going to treat you so well whether you’re influential or not. People will see your differences”—she knew she was blind, ugh, her mother needed to stop using euphemisms—“and won’t be so nice.”
“Don’t I need to be prepared for the real world, anyways? If you’re teaching me so much about being an influential figure, shouldn’t I get some experience with real people? People my age, maybe?” Toph very subtly hinted.
Her mother sighed, the kind of sigh that always sounded rehearsed, as though she’d practiced shutting Toph down no matter what she said. "Being prepared doesn't mean throwing yourself into an environment that isn't prepared for you."
Toph folded her arms. "So the solution is to make sure I never meet anyone?"
"Not never, sweetheart, but you’re still young, and—"
"I’ve been stuck here my whole life! What’s so wrong with me going out and getting a little experience?"
Her father, who was definitely more of the silent, and logical, and also very stubborn type, sighed. "Toph."
"What?"
"You know why we're hesitant, don’t you?”
Toph pulled at the skin underneath her eyes. "Yeah, because I’m blind."
"It's because you're vulnerable," her mother corrected gently.
"I'm vulnerable because you keep making me vulnerable! I won’t know how to deal with real situations even if you give me all the preparation in the world, because you’ll never let me go out and face those situations in the ‘real world’ I’m preparing so hard to survive. How am I supposed to meet my full potential if I’m living in, like, a stimulation?” Toph noticed the slip of the tongue too late—she wasn’t supposed to use the word “like” like that, because it showed she wasn’t as confident and put her at a disadvantage.
Her father sighed again, as if he regretted ever giving birth to someone who couldn’t see how disappointed he was in her right now. "You already receive an excellent education."
"Then why haven’t I learned how to read, or write, or, I don’t know, deal with people my age?”
"Sweetheart," her mother said carefully, "children can be... thoughtless. They can be cruel with their words, or they could even get physical with you, and we just don’t want to see you get hurt."
"They say pain is the best teacher,” she recited gently. “I'd rather hear their cruel words now and learn to deal with it than when I'm twenty and running a company.”
"The world outside this estate isn't as forgiving as you think."
"And this estate isn't the world, it's a cage. You keep telling me about the real world, but you've never actually let me live in it. I don't want to spend my whole childhood alone and learning about politics and talking to adults."
After a long silence, her father spoke. "Public school is out of the question, Toph. As a Beifong, you are too sophisticated to be placed in a reckless area like that.” Toph was ready to argue again when her dad suggested, "A private academy. If you were to go to a school, it would have to be a top-notch private academy."
Well, an academy was an academy, and so Toph agreed before her dad could change her mind.
By the time summer was over, Toph was dressed in the scratchy uniform of a top-notch private preparatory school, ready to spend her seventh grade amongst a bunch of other snobby rich kids outside of this damn estate.