He doesn’t know her name. He knows that she’s there every Thursday night at that same pottery wheel, wearing the same pale green shirt and tattered khaki pants, sans shoes with her hair pulled up into a heavy knot at the back of her head, bangs falling all over her face. He knows that she’s called Bandit by some of the other potters, in a teasing, fond voice. She frowns to hear it, but says nothing. Her hands are small, her arms short. She has to stand her left foot on two bricks and the pedal on a cinderblock, scoot all the way to spread her legs around the wheel, lean over it and lock her elbows firmly to her sides. She becomes hard fired ceramic in that stance.

He knows nothing about pottery, but watching her makes him learn things by accident. He learns that clay can’t just be smacked onto the spinning bat and quickly thrown into a vase. It has to be worked at patiently, with stubborn force until it’s centered exactly. It has to be molded with vast quantities of water, poked and pulled in certain ways.

Sokka thinks, after a month and some evenings of watching her, that she should be treated the same way. So he tightens the strap over his shoulder, making sure his practice sword is firmly at his back, and steps cautiously into Art Room 4.

It’s mostly empty tonight, thank the Spirits, but the art teacher gives him a confused look until he smiles a little and gestures toward the girl. She shrugs and goes back to helping some other girls glaze their slab pieces.

“Uh… hi, Bandit.”

He wasn’t sure how this would start, but at least he’s glad to get something out. She is prettier up close, the dark hair falling over her eyes making him think she must look pretty cute when she’s angry.

The wheel stops and she looks up, frowning again. Looking through him. Looking at nothing. She’s blind.

“What?” she snaps.

“My name’s Sokka… I’ve been watching you for a while, and I wanted to come meet you.” Again, he’s glad that words manage to keep coming. Sock still rings through him, but it’s tinged with awe.

She seems to contemplate this for a moment, then dips one hand into a small bucket of water, wipes it mostly clean on her shirt, and holds it out. He takes it.

“Nice to meet you, Sokka. Now get out of my face,” she says tersely.

He pulls up a stool and sits down.

She frowns.

“Can I help you with something?” she says, feigning politeness.

“I just wanted to watch you for a bit. Am I bothering you?”

She smirks. It’s eerie how it doesn’t reach her eyes, but it makes the air around her shake. He thinks that he feels the ground shift under him.

“Not at all!” she remarks, mock friendly, and thrusts her hands into the bucket, splashing him with clay soiled water. He decides to chalk it up to her blindness. There’s no way she could be that accurate.

The wheel starts up again, and her elbows lock firmly to her sides, she leans over the spinning bat, and presses her hands into the clay, forcing it into the center. At length she stops and wipes sweat of her brow, leaving a streak of clay on her pale skin. He smiles. She looks prettier this way, more and more.

“Does it always take so long to get the clay ready?” he asks conversationally.

Her head snaps up and she’s frowning. “I could go slower,” she says, obviously having mistaken his tone for sarcasm. It isn’t hard. Sarcasm go together like meat and Sokka.

“I didn’t mean to sound insulting,” he says hastily. It almost makes him smile. His father once explained the interactions/relationships between men and women like a road with the men constantly backing up. “I just wondered… when I watch you sometimes it doesn’t’ take long. Other times you go at it forever.”

Her frown softens. “It really depends,” she says slowly, as though she can’t believe she’s explaining. “Bigger amounts of clay take longer… and it depends on the clay, too. We use a few different clays. The one I’m using now is Solidate 60. It’s rougher – the minerals are obvious in it.” She pinches a bit out of the wide tray that’s been catching all of the water and slip and hold it out to him. He rubs at it in his palm. It’s heavy and grainy. “There’s another kind I use sometimes. It’s smoother and takes more water. It doesn’t take long to center. But this kind you’ve got to beat the crap out of it to make it do what you want.” She smiles.

He laughs.

She frowns.

He thinks he sees her cheeks flush pink before she leans over again and the wheel starts turning.

Finally the clay takes the shape of a little cake, and she presses down with less pressure on the pedal. The wheel hums and she sticks two fingers into the center and pulls, like ripping a hole in the ground. She does it so that she’s made a sort of well, and the thick ring of clay around is even.

“What are you making?” Sokka asks finally, when she’s stopped again.

“A mug,” she says flatly, not lifting her head. She lets the wheel spin very slowly and runs her hand over its shape. “This part’s kinda hard for me,” she admits, quietly. “If I can only feel what I’m doing, y’know?”

He nods, though she can’t see; but he’s sure the statement was more rhetorical than not.

She sighs, then steeples her fingers together tightly, locks both elbows to her right, and pulls the wall up and slightly in. Her fingers ripple the wet clay, and when she stops and announces it done, it looks like a mountain with a winding path up the side, but in the shape of a mug.

“It looks nice.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He helps her find a board to set it on and then she wraps it in a plastic bag and he puts it on a high shelf for her.

“It needs to dry,” she says. “So that next week I can trim it.”

She shoots a glare at him. “So, you watched me make something.” Her foot fidgets impatiently.

“Would you mind if I came next week? I want to see the mug trimmed.”

She frowns, then turns away from him, exhaling sharply with her bottom lip out. Her bangs flit out of her face, fall back. “I don’t care.”


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He comes the next week. And the week after that. Eventually he stops calling her Bandit and learns her real name. Toph.

The other students get used to their light bickering and the new sound of her laughter, brash and brazen but light as dust and just as infectious.

She’s throwing a bowl when it happens. She laughs at something he says – he can’t remember what – and she tilts her head upward at an angle. Her dark hair falls into the well of the bowl, her fingers curl just slightly, and she’s really smiling. Sokka grabs her hand.

“What are you doing?” she nearly shrieks. He blinks.

“Sorry,” he says, backing up again. “I… you looked…” he deflates. Beautiful? Well, yes. But he’s not sure that quite the right word. And then, he has no idea how she’ll react.

“I looked…?” she prompts.

“Never mind.”

She lets the wheel spin slowly and runs a hand over the piece. Frowns. When he grabbed her hand it jarred the wall. It’s ruined. She rips it off of the bat and smacks it onto the tray beside the water bucket. “Get me another lump of clay, will you?” she murmurs.


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Nothing happens again for two weeks, when she’s throwing another mug and he reaches out to push a few hairs out of the way. The wheel stops immediately. Her cheeks are definitely pink.

“What the hell was that, Sokka?” she demands in a whisper. There are more people than usual in the studio tonight.

“Your bangs were in your eyes…” he starts to explain.

“Well, thank you for getting them out of the way!” she exclaims in tones of mock gratitude, clapping her hands to her cheeks. “I couldn’t see with them in my eyes!”

He frowns.

“I’m sorry. Won’t do it again.”

She scoffs, leans over to the left and spits on the ground, wipes her mouth and goes back to it, muttering under her breath, “At least I didn’t ruin this one.”


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He doesn’t come the next week. At least, he doesn’t come in and pull up a stool in front of her. He watches from the doorway for a while. Every now and then she looks up, a slow, mischievous smile lighting her face when anyone walks up toward her. When she realizes that it isn’t him, her face falls. She frowns and goes back to her work. He watches for an hour, and she gets nothing done.

Similar events repeat themselves the following week.

On the third night, he walks in halfway through the hour and sits down in front of her as usual. She doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Hi, Toph.”

She grunts in a pathetic greeting, turns her head and spits again, wipes her mouth and lifts her head. It looks as though she’s fighting for words to speak.

Sokka cuts in for her.

“I was sick these past two weeks,” he lies.

She frowns a little, then shrugs. “What do I care? So, you weren’t here.” The wheel starts up again. Stops. “By the way, I glazed this for you. If you want it, that is…” she reaches to the ground and holds out the mug he watched her make the first night. It’s been painted soft blue, with silver undertones. He takes it carefully.

“It’s really nice. Can I keep it?”

She leans over the wheel again, makes an annoyed sort of noise. “If you want. It’s not like I made it specifically for you or anything… nothing better to do with it.”

He smiles softly and sets it on the table behind him.

“I missed you, actually,” he says.

Her hands wobble, making the ripple in the clay jagged instead of smooth.

“Whatever.” But her cheeks flush darker pink and her elbows tuck themselves in a little tighter.

He waits until she’s stopped the wheel again, not wanting her to be mad about ruining another piece. Her hand is small but strong.

“Sokka.”

“Your hands are amazing,” he remarks, smiling, and turns it over in his own, leaning down to kiss the palm of it.

She stiffens. “My hands are dirty, you idiot!”

He laughs, takes a towel and dips it in the water bucket, cleans her hand. She’s sitting frozen the whole time, staring ahead with unseeing eyes. He kisses the palm when it’s soft and slightly damp. The contact seems to wake her, and then her hand is touching his face, seeing with her fingertips. He leans toward her. She blushes even more feverently, then pulls away. He smiles.

At last, she leans toward him again, ever closer, smirks that smug grin that doesn’t quite reach her milky jade eyes. He puts a hand up, softly tilts her chin upward so that if she could see she’d be looking right into his eyes, and says three words.