Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ One Hundred Hopes ❯ Tokka-054-Unwritten ( Chapter 1 )

For the newly created tokka100.

 

O54: Unwritten

 

Toph found it quite annoying whenever Sokka decided to go for a stroll to the nearest library. Having not much else to do, she would usually follow him, only to stare at books and scrolls and those of the sort that she could not read.

 

The oddest part of it was Sokka's recommendations.

 

He never seemed to remember that she couldn't read the words printed before her, but nevertheless, he would pick through scrolls, and somehow they would end up in her hands.

 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, carefully spreading the scroll out on the floor. She knew better than to hurt the paper, less she incur the wrath of the thousand year old woman carefully watching them.

 

Sokka gave no reply, just moved onto the next row. She could assume he shrugged, but she could also assume he'd made a rude hand gesture. She considered giving him a little start, just in case.

 

It was a couple weeks of this, before Toph got tired of it.

 

“Haven't you read every book in here yet?” she groaned.

 

“You don't have to come with me,” he said.

 

“Why the library though?”

 

His answer was to pull the book she had accidentally been crumpling from her hands and replace it with a scroll that felt as if it were made of old paper and smelled like dried ink.

 

“I can't read this,” she muttered. “Why do you keep giving me this stuff?”

 

“If you're so bored,” he snapped, “then go home.”

 

“No.”

 

He set down whatever piece of paper he'd been looking at and cast her a look she wouldn't have been able to see anyway.

 

“Do the spirits hate me, or is that just you?”

 

She grinned. “Probably both.”

 

There was a moment of silence, and Sokka picked up the scroll again. Toph ran her fingers over the fine paper then reached for the where she'd felt Sokka set down the previous book. She could kind of make out the shape of the ink beneath her touch, but it wouldn't have mattered either way. She'd never bothered to learn to read or write for that matter. It was one of the drawbacks of being blind.

 

She stretched her hands across the tabletop, feeling for anything else to study. Admittedly, she'd come to appreciate the fine sense of the different types of paper. Older scrolls were made of finer stuff, but the newer books were thick and had a different scent. Some papers didn't use ink at all, instead etching the symbols into a thick material she couldn't quite place.

 

“I can't read,” she said suddenly. Why did she feel embarrassed over this?

 

Sokka stared at her a moment. “Okay.”

 

She thought it should be left at that, until he reached across the table, carefully taking her hand. He pressed one of her fingers to one of the symbols, forcing her to trace it. Toph really hoped she wasn't blushing, because she could feel her face heat up.

 

He traced the motion for her a couple of times before letting go of her.

 

“What—What was that?” Why did she feel so embarrassed? Because he'd touched her? She'd been around men all the time, and never had she felt so… gushy.

 

“It means love,” he answered.

 

Toph paused for a moment, before searching the rest of the text. She could barely find the etchings.

 

“What else does it say?” she asked.

 

She felt Sokka standing and moving over to her side, taking her hand once more and finding for her more of the characters. Within three hours, he'd managed to help her read the majority of the script.

 

“I'm not getting it,” she said, wondering how long Sokka had been this close, and if he always smelled like this (like he'd been sleeping outside under the moon?) “It's just a bunch of random phrases that don't make any sense.”

 

Beside her, she could feel his smile. He was enjoying this.

 

“It's not supposed to be straightforward. You have to see what isn't there.”

 

She scoffed. “That's stupid. How does anyone know what's going on?”

 

He laughed, releasing her. “You're not supposed to read what's there. The point of it is kind of…”

 

“Unwritten,” she said. “What if I want to read what's there?”

 

He patted her head, and she brushed him off. “We'll do some searching.”

 

The library was no longer such a boring place to be.