The earth nation was a nation of gold sinking into black decay. The earth nation was a prosperous nation sought eagerly for its bountiful treasures, gold, luscious silk, tea, and delicate porcelain. Water nation peoples and fire nation peoples obsessed over these treasures adorning themselves in beautiful pearlescent silk sashes, filling their kitchen drawers with delft blue chinaware, and tea in every café and every kitchen. But it was run by a king who only sat around and hogged gold. The nations armies wilted, as the king ogled at his graceful dancers in their magenta chiffon hanfu dresses and pigged out on buffets of rows of rows of roasted turtle ducks, freshly steamed pork buns, finely chopped cabbage, bok choy, and golden chicken soup. The water and fire nation grew greedier and greedier, the large merchant ships and businesses only had money on their mind, and those treasures were going to be theirs. A thunderous cannon burst into Ba Sing Se, fire nation and water nation ships…

Okay by the way the visual details, I am relying on Aang to give me details on the colors, because I am blind after all. Okay let me give you a backdrop about Aang and I. Aang has been my best and only friend since we were babies. Aang's parents were air nation refugees who escaped the shadow poppy plantations when Aang was a baby. My parents sheltered Aang and his parents.

Now onto the main story Aang's parents Kiyana and Ashu had Aang. Poppy and Lao had me. Dad said I almost set my mom's nose on fire. I left a trail of fire wherever I crawled, and dad always had to call his servants to extinguish the flames. It meant two things for dad either I was the avatar, or I was an illegitimate child and both situations seemed horrible for my dad. He was afraid of me being the avatar because that means I would put myself in danger and be an illegitimate child, because yea of course that would mean mom cheated on him. One day my dad called a shaman he thought would control my flames. Really the shaman was there to check if I was the avatar, and turned out I was, but my dad offered a lot of money to make sure the shaman kept his mouth shut and word never got out. So here I was a small blind girl who never stepped foot outside the Beifong mansion.

Anyways about Aang. Each year on our birthdays we celebrate together. Lao Beifong would pay the finest artisans and carpenters to create wooden toys for us. We even celebrated the 100's day celebration together. Lao Beifong did not allow me to play outside, but we did play with wooden toy soldiers.

I pursed my lips. Dad always treated me like this, a piece of chinaware that could fall and shatter and needed to be stored away. "Dad why is Aang allowed to play outside. Why can't I play with Aang?"

"Well, my little fireball, you are born special, so it's a little more complicated to play outside. How about I get you those cookies you and Aang like from Yang Fang's bakery? I know it's your favorite."

Really dad? Really? I could do as much as you, mom, and Aang could do and more, I was going to prove it to you.

I ran in the yard, I heard Aang bouncing a ball. Aang saw me, I crept over to his direction.

"Do you want to play?"

"I do!"

"Alright!"

"Give me! Give me!"

"Yay!" the ball was soaring in the air.

The ball hit my forehead, and the back of my head crashed against the grass, and my shoulders were bruised.

"Toph! Toph! Are you okay?" Aang asked.

My dad heard a thud, I heard his footsteps come over.

"Toph!" My dad yelled.

"What did you do?!" My dad yelled at Aang.

"I'm sorry Mr. Beifong." Aang replied.

"Do you remember Aang?! Toph is blind, she can't play with you!"

Aang stared down putting his pointer fingers together.

"You could have killed her! You're never going to play with her! Understand?!"

I heard Aang mumbling under his breath.

"That's it! I'm keeping you away from Toph!"

"But I like Toph!"

"Too bad!"

I gathered my sore legs and arms up and ran away. I wrapped my head with my sash and ran away with a limp.

"I did not mean all those things, but you have to understand, I was worry – Toph?" Dad noticed I had disappeared.

I ran through the blackness, I would run, run until I found something, something away from this treachery. I did not need to be taken care of, I needed to find a way or to be shown a way to prove I was more than a blind little girl. I ran. I stepped on thorns that prickled my feet. That's when I heard a series of squeaky chirps echoing from somewhere. When I heard the animals' squeaky chirps, they were calm like they were cooing and welcoming me into their home, I walked closer, the grass that was under my feet, was now rock, I assume this was a cave. I sat there and cried.

The animal sniffed me. It seemed like it sensed the despair I felt. It seemed to understand what it was like being undermined, and my yearning to be stronger than people to be more than a blind little girl. I touched its muzzle, it was a badgermole.

I heard its paws thudding against the dirt and I think it wanted me to follow it. I followed in the badger-mole's footsteps and felt the ground under my feet. The badgermole guided me step by step to feel the earth beneath my feet. And soon every mall step with the badgermole made me stronger.

I heard some footsteps follow me.

"Toph, where were you?" It was Aang's voice.

"My parents and your parents were out looking for you. Look at you! We should get back quickly."

"Okay…"

One day I was strolling in the backyard with Aang. I sensed a fluffy creature eating from the bush and could hear him crunching the leaves. Aang knelt near the animal. "Hello little fella, what are you doing here? Where are your parents?" The creature gave a low rumble.

"You have no parents. I see my name is Aang, do you want to stay with us. The creature gave a happy low purr. "I'm calling you Appa!" Aang ran to his mom and dad, I trailed after him. "Mom, dad, can we please, please, please, adopt this adorable fluffy bison animal." The bison animal rumbled once more. "I have a name for him Appa."

Kiyana looked into Aang's eyes and knew he could not say no, "Okay, okay! We'll adopt Appa!"

"Yay!" Aang cheered.

"Also the bison creature is called the sky bison," Kiyana told him.

"Ohh Ooohh aah." And so that is how Appa became our new fluffy companion.

Dad thinks our mansion is always safe, but I know it's not. There was a waterbender who was blackmailing us by saying that we must give her thousands of dollars each month or she will reveal our address. Dad was happy when the lady never returned to our house. But dad does not know I scared her off with my earthbending so she would never return.

But getting my mind of that with my earth training I could sense Kiyana and Ashu training Aang in airbending. I was curious and watched Aang do the various exercises. One was where Aang had to balance on a wooden pole with one leg. Another was piling wooden blocks, but the whole thing collapsed when I placed the second block. I tried ten more times and failed. I wondered why Aang would work so hard to pile twenty blocks when it could all collapse. Then I stopped, it seemed stupid. Then I sat down with Kiyana, Ashu, and Aang to meditate, oh whatever this is dumb and pointless. I stood up and walked off.

Maybe while Aang and his parents are doing all that sitting. I'll be doing something way more awesome. Then I felt Aang's footsteps behind me, "Hey Toph where are you going?" Aang asked.

"Out of this boring mansion." I replied.

"Can I come with you?" he asked back.

"Sure."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"Well, I'm going to show off my earthbending someplace somewhere!" I said giving a giant smug grin.

"Wait you can earthbend?" Aang responded.

I shot a giant block of stone from the ground.

"Yep!" Don't tell my dad!" I responded. Aang and I strolled around Gaoling. I could feel a lot of rumbling going on, it felt like two burly men duking it out, wherever it was, I felt that I must go there. I sprinted off to the brawl with Aang following me.

There it was a giant arena, That giant arena, with the trapezoid above the square, and corner patterns. There was a massive rectangle platform where one burly dude was taking on a guy digging down in the ground with goggles. I walked in the loud cheers flooded throughout the whole stadium, "Aaaaah!"

"And once again the Boulder has won!" The crowds roared louder,

"Who wants to take on the boulder next!"

 "I will!" I shouted.

"Okay little girl, but I'm going easy on you," said the Boulder.

"Are you scared?"

"Oh, I'm no longer going easy on you!"

"Bring it on pebble!"

The boulder almost put his foot down, that is when I stepped in, a hedge of rocks thrust forward in the ground, capturing his foot and forcing him into the splits.

"Yea! Get him Toph!" I heard Aang cheer.

"Ooo!" I heard the boulder groan.

"And the winner goes to. What will we be calling you young lady?"

"The blind bandit!"

"Yeaaah!" I reveled in the cheering.

Then it happened a man in a black hood grabbed Aang's shoulder.

"Are you an airbender?" The man's snarly voice muttered.

"Huh?"

"Hey leave Aang alone!" I shouted.

I launched myself at the hooded figure, I tried to make the ground under his feet dissolve and smoosh him between two rocks. He slid away on an ice trail he created. With ice under his feet, it was harder to track his footsteps.

"Sokka! Look at her feet, they have flames!" I heard a gruff voice say, "She's the avatar! Now's your chance! Capture her!"

Next thing I knew I was ensnared in an electric net which stunned me. The whiteness washed over the blackness. My feet and eyes glowed a white light. I felt circles of wind circle around me and could feel the ring of heat and fire encircling me, and I could sense the rocks circling around me. I zipped to where Aang was and smacked the hooded figure to the ground. I collapsed; I woke up, laying on my bed.

"You stupid child!" My father's face puffed angrily.

"Me? Stupid? You're the one trapping Aang and I in this house for our whole lives!"

"You think our mansion is a prison?"

"Yes! Where's Aang, Aunt Kiyana, and Uncle Ashu?"

"Aunt Kiyana and Uncle Ashu were worried sick and went out to find you and Aang but were captured!"

"Wait what?"

My father's face became white as a ghost, his clenched face was like an empty shell.

"There's a reason why we kept you and Aang in the mansion. If Aang is captured he will become a fire nation slave like his parents were and if you go out everyone will find out, you are the avatar and the whole water and fire nation will be after you. Do you know what deep trouble you guys are in?"

I was angry, but also too shocked and upset about Kiyana and Ashu to say anything.

"I need to find Aang! Is Aang okay?"

"Aang is resting in his room." My father replied.

"Aang! Aang!" I ran to his room before my dad could block my way.

I walked in. Aang was sobbing in his bend and crying.

"Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?! My parents were captured and its because I followed you!"

"Now you know what happens when you go outside. No funny avatar business." My father said.

"But what about Aang's parents?"

"There's nothing we can do."

"There is something we can do! I'm the avatar!" I responded.

"Right twinkletoes?!" I asked Aang.

"Well the water and fire nation has been closing in on Gaoling, the people of Gaoling are succumbing from the shadow poppies and its only a matter of time before the fire and water nation attack Beifong mansion. I say we fight. We have to fight or we die."

"Yes." I replied.

"No, please." My father pleaded.

"I need to do this dad! The Earth Nation needs the avatar."

"Do you remember when you almost drowned in a lake?"

I froze for a moment before I continued walking, "I am twelve, I am the avatar, and I have a responsibility and the world needs me."

"It was not a lake! It was a waterbender she tried to kill you, your mom and me."

I felt his heartbeat, he was not lying.

That is why we moved from Ba Sing Se to Gaoling and dad secured the mansion even tighter.

"What?! It was a waterbender's doing?" my blood curled

My seemed to want to tug me back into the mansion as I continued walking forward. Everywhere outside there are waterbenders, my lip trembled, but I still continued walking on.

I remember it, the water that tried to strangle and wring my air tubes from the inside. The water refusing to let go from the walls of my air tubes as the oxygen just struggled to get by. It felt like the water dug hot knives into my throat.

I gulped and headed onward