16 Before The Cave of Two Lovers

"Toph, could you please help us set up our tents?" Katara asked.

"I can carry my own weight, and plus, it looks like you guys got it," Toph dismissed as she set up her rock shelter.

"..." Katara took in some deep breaths to calm herself. It didn't look like it was working that well. I didn't know why, but Toph just seemed to be able to get under her skin so easily.

"I don't even know why Hustler's helping you, he doesn't even use tents," she offhandedly commented.

"She's an insufferable, inconsiderate, immature-!" Just as Katara was about to go off and insult Toph for her ways, I interrupted.

"It's okay Katara, that's just how she is," I told her with a shrug.

"And how's that supposed to make me feel any better?! Ugh...! How did you even live with her for two months, and by yourselves at that?" Katara inquired curiously.

"Well, I guess I just understood," I said.

"Understand what?"

"I understood Toph. She... doesn't want to seem like she can't help herself. So when we offer stuff like that, or to help her, she feels it's because we're taking pity on her for her blindness. Instead of thinking that we're doing it because we care for her, and that she's our friend," I explained.

"I... wow," she was speechless. "How did you...?"

"Because I tried to, instead of instantly having her conform," Katara suddenly looked ashamed, "And, well, I have to admit, I also have my ways," I elaborated with a sly grin.

"..." Shit. Maybe I said something wrong? I knew I wasn't good at talking.

"Toph hasn't told you yet, so I won't be going into too much detail. She didn't have that much freedom growing up, so she'll be a bit rebellious," I clarified.

"She was a slave?" I blinked. I mean, I could see how she misunderstood that.

"No, Toph wasn't a slave, you know what? If you really want to know, just ask her or wait for her to tell you," I decided to quit gossiping. I didn't want any more misunderstandings to accrue. So I left with my tail tucked between my legs.

Besides, it just wasn't my place to tell her.

...

I knew I wasn't in the best place mentally. I needed professional help, unfortunately, therapists didn't exist in this world, not yet at least.

'... How the hell do I convey and let out my repressed emotions?' I asked myself. I've never been an emotional person in the first place.

I usually bottled things up, and I knew that wasn't healthy. But it was hard to stop. Any anger I had in my past life, I shoved down. Sadness? I never showed it to anyone but myself. I never wanted to worry anyone.

'That sure did me good,' I thought bitterly.

"I'm never going to get vitality up, am I?" My head fell back, staring up at the sky as I lamented the one flaw I had no idea how to fix.

...

It was me, but it wasn't. I was looking at myself from a third person perspective. Me, I, or... he? Rather, stood in the center of a pool of blood. Blood being everywhere, from the people I had killed.

My Mom, my Dad, My Brother, My Friends, My Teachers. I knew this was just a dream. Yet the implications still haunted me, even when I was waking.

I was going to be killing Azula, a fourteen year old, a child. My mind could somehow rationalize killing Zhao and his lackeys, but despite my desperate attempts to view her as a character in a cartoon, it didn't work. I may have been only four years older than her, but those four years felt like an uncrossable gap.

That didn't scare me the most, what this dream meant did. That once, if, I managed to ever get back home, that I wouldn't be the same. What would everyone think of me?

A killer? Worse, a child killer?

As I drowned in those thoughts, everything stopped. I woke up. Opening my eyes groggily, I saw Toph, shaking me.

"You okay Hustler?" She asked.

"Now that you woke me up, yeah," I responded, sitting up using one hand, and massaging one of my tired eyes with the other.

Standing up, I mumbled a quick thanks before I began training. One of the only times I wasn't questioning my own actions and decisions.

After all, how many times have I screwed up since coming here? It was too many for me to remember. You could only mess up so many times before you started thinking you were the problem.

I could only hope that after I killed Azula that I would manage to find some way to explain myself to Aang, and especially to myself. If there even was one.

'Why am I even struggling over this?' I asked myself in frustration.

I was going to kill her to protect people, even if the main reason was for myself, it didn't change what would happen. Ozai would die sooner, Ba Sing Se wouldn't be taken over, Aang wouldn't temporarily die, and all that good stuff.

'Let's calm down, I can do this,' I told myself as I stopped training for a moment. I cleared my head by taking deep breaths, and exhaling slowly. Deciding to stop training, I took off my shirt and began meditating.

...

Third Person POV

"Is he going to sit like that forever?" Sokka said to Toph as he watched from behind the same tree that she did.

"I don't know, probably not," Toph shrugged.

"Also, why does he always take off his shirt when doing stuff?" Sokka further inquired.

"How would I know that...?! But, yeah, Hustler did say something about feeling closer to the elements, or something stupid like that," Toph explained.

"He has a nice body, I wonder what type of training he does?" Sokka commented.

"You know what type of training he does! And, well... yeah, he does," Toph murmured the last part, a bit red.

"Are you serious? That's the actual training he does? Seems more like torture than anything," Sokka said to himself.

"Wait, how do you even know he has a nice body when you can't see?" Sokka suddenly realized.

Toph smiled bashfully. "I can feel him. His muscles expand and contract," she explained. Sokka had no idea what to say to that, he could only scoot a few steps away, not that it helped him feel any less violated.

...

Elliot's POV

I spread my Chi to the ground below me, and finally, something I had been trying for a while had worked. I sensed two figures, ahead of me, behind a tree. Toph, and... Sokka?

[Through repetition, you have learned the skill, {Chi Sensing}!]

[{Chi Sensing} has leveled up!]

I smiled widely, happy. While it wasn't Soundbending, it was still something I had been working on since I knew how to manipulate Chi. So it was a big achievement.

But despite getting it, I continued to meditate. Calming myself, clearing my head, and just relaxing. Meditating wasn't only about Chi, it was about being in tune with the body.

Only now did I realize that. I felt calm and comfortable, a smile gracing my lips.

'Maybe I'll become a Guru yet,' I thought to myself jokingly. I ignored the two peeping toms.

...

Meditating helped me feel better throughout the day, so I began changing my schedule to meditate at LEAST once a day. It was a nice change of pace, and it made me feel refreshed. So I didn't see the harm in doing it, since I could even train a few skills. Like, {Chi Manipulation}, {Meditation}, and {Chi Sensing}.

I still had nightmares, I still questioned myself, and I still just generally felt terrible. But whenever it got too intense, those emotions I mean, meditating helped me out. It felt like I was getting a hang of my tumultuous emotions, slowly but surely. I was feeling better than I did couple of days ago, and I was hopeful that I'd feel better tomorrow than I did today. If that made any sense.

Would this fix my repressed emotions? Probably not. I figured it was a start though.

...

Then, we met them. The hippies. Chong and... I forgot the rest of their names. All I knew was that they'd make a famous band in the future called Trustfully In Love. How did they do that with their horrible singing? I had no idea. I did know though, that The Cave of Two Lovers was coming, after what felt like years.