Hi there everyone! I'm terribly sorry I haven't updated in so long, my life has been crazy lately. Anyway, PLEASE forgive me for keeping you waiting so long! I would like to thank everyone of my readers and reviewers: you guys are the ones that motivate me to keep writing! Otherwise, I'd let myself get distracted by other activities... like reading Tokka fanfictions instead of working on my own! Yeah, I know, I suck. Hope you'll like this chapter!

P.S- In this chapter, I make a description of the Gaoling Arena, but I'm not certain that it is acurate. Also, there may be mistakes in this chapter, because it was written on a long period of time and not always in the best conditions...sorry about that. Finally, the sentences in italics where taken from my previous chapter, in which Sokka speculates on his future wife; she refers to her.

As always, review! Now on with the story!

Chapter Five : She

He'd decided that she would be special.

The arena's doors were locked. In order to open them, Sokka had to use the tip of his sword as an improvised key. As he entered the stone building, the warrior could hear the deafening sound of a ton of rocks smashing against one another. The roar of a rock slide and a cloud of dust and grit filled the air as the Water Tribe man penetrated in the place, finding a seat out of harm's way. When the haze of earth dissipated, he saw the figures of the Dai Li agents moving swiftly all around the ring.

The Dai Li where reputed to be the most dangerous, stealthy and deadly warriors of all time. They were silent, rapid, cold-blooded killing machines that had a way of communicating and fighting in synchronization that made them almost invincible. During the war, the had controlled the legendary Ba Sing Se with Long Fen at their head, and no one had ever managed to stand in their way. Only once had they been beaten… by the Avatar and his friends. It seemed that only the all -powerful Gaang had a prayer of winning against them.

Or maybe just one, particular member of the legendary team.

She wouldn't be like any other girl he'd met.

The agents bended at an incredible speed, moving in perfect, threatening harmony, their thin braids and the sleeves of their ample cloaks swinging in response to each of their jumps and turns. They threw their gloves and stones daggers with the lethal precision that characterized them, eyes reduced to slits under the intensity of their concentration.

She wouldn't be a warrior.

At first, Sokka couldn't distinguish their opponents, but the reason for that soon became obvious: they didn't have any opponents. Or rather, their enemy wasn't human.

They where delivering a battle against the earth.

He guessed she wouldn't be Water tribe: that seemed too obvious.

The ground of the ring quivered violently, trembling and deforming in a continuous movement. Pillars of stone rose abruptly before crumbling down, small mountains with sharp edges formed and then disappeared, quick sands menaced to engulfe the men and sand and pebbles flew of their own accord towards their eyes and mouths. The agents used their own earthbending skills and phenomenal agility to avoid the traps of the earth and attempt to stabilize their environment. They also dug in the ground, and peered inside the fissures that formed under their feet, seeming to search for something concealed under the earth.

They were trying to find the person at the source of the turmoil, the only bender in the world capable of controlling such a large terrain of earth in such various ways, with enough skill and power to threaten the entire Dai Li.

Toph.

She'd probably be a powerful bender. He couldn't imagine marrying an ordinary woman.

Sokka's smile was so wide, he worried that his jaw would dislocate. His friend, the tiny, blind, seemingly helpless girl, was yet again proving the world just how amazing and capable and –let's admit it- dangerous she was. She was the Dai Li's personal coach, just like she'd described in her letters, and she was doing a fantastic job. He watched the show, engrossed like he had once been while watching sword tournaments, which seemed very boring now that he had become a master. Although he very much appreciated the spectacle of his invisible best friend kicking the Dai Li's butt, he truly looked forward to the moment where the training would come to an end and he could finally, FINALLY see Toph.

That moment arrived sooner than he would have ever dared to hope for.

She'd have to be pretty amazing and have a hell of a strong character.

The ground of the ring suddenly returned to its original, flat and still platform, and the agents all ceased their fighting and went in the center of the arena to form ranks. Toph was still nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, a feminine voice, high pitched yet filled with authority and power, broke the silence.

" Not bad," Toph's voice declared from somewhere above Sokka's head. The warrior looked up, trying to spot her, but the rows of seats above him where empty. In the center of the ring where they stood, the Dai Li showed signs of a similar surprise: wasn't the mighty earthbender supposed to be somewhere beneath the fighting platform?

She wouldn't be the gentle, charming, fairy tale type.

Toph's voice was different. It was distinctly hers, with her usual obnoxious tone and brashness, yet somehow, it was off. It was deeper… womanly? It troubled Sokka: when he and Toph had separated four years ago, she was fourteen years old, and she hadn't nearly reached her puberty. She had hardly grown at all during her two years at the South Pole, and she still looked essentially like a child: her frame was short and angular, nothing like a teenage girl's. In her letters, Sokka had witnessed her maturing and becoming more and more adult, but he had never given any thought to the physical aspect of things. She was eighteen years old, a woman by all means. What did she look like now? He realized with a jolt that he had expected to see his friend as she had always been: a tiny little girl. "How stupid am I?" he thought to himself. " I changed a lot myself during those four years, of course she would change as well!"

All in all, he wasn't at all prepared for what he was about to see.

Toph suddenly appeared at the top of the tribune were the ringmaster normally stood, her petite silhouette illuminated by a beam of light that came from one of the rare windows etched near the ceiling of the arena.

He thought he knew how she would be. But he never expected her to be so beautiful.

At first, he didn't recognize her. The girl before him was taller then his best friend, but still short compared to regular standards. She had a slim, flawless silhouette, with graceful limbs and humble yet well-defined curves. Her green clothes clung to her pale skin, outlining her breast and hips. The top revealed her flat stomach, and the pants her ankles and bare feet. A single jewel adorned her arm: a black bracelet made of space earth.

But it wasn't so much her body than her face Sokka was looking at.

A cloud of glistening dust formed a halo of light around her head, her waist-long black hair managing to gleam in the sunrays in spite of the earth that certainly covered them. Her pale face was harmonious and eerily familiar, her thin lips stretched in a smug smile that he knew all too well. Her eyes were wide and beautiful, a pale jade green that reflected the light in a glassy way. He knew those eyes were blind and yet could see everything. He knew they'd always captivated him.

He knew that he had already seen this girl, that his heart had recognized her the moment she'd stepped into the beam of light, but his brain wouldn't hear of it. This couldn't be Toph. Sure, Toph was cute and she could even be pretty when she made the effort to clean up and dress up a bit, but she wasn't, she could not have grown to be… to be…

… the most beautiful girl he'd seen in his entire life.

Yet, that's exactly what she was.

He expected to recognize the girl his heart was seeking the moment he saw her.

And for a split second, his heart and brain connected and he did recognize her.

Now looking for the ideal wife seemed a desperate cause so far, but he hadn't given up on finding her yet.

For a wild, infinitely small moment, he knew he didn't need to look any longer.

There she was.

Sokka had always been the logical, rational, down-to-earth type. Unlike his sister, he rarely allowed himself to believe in the unbelievable, preferring the security of the physical world to the unexpected of the Spirit world. Because of this tendency, he had often failed to grasp essential truths and had attracted a lot of trouble upon himself (the Swamp episode being the best example.) His relation with the universe was complicated and tended to be unusually difficult, most likely because of his refusal to listen to it's words. He always made things more complicated than they had to be, and he never saw the obvious.

This time was no different.

There she was.

As soon as the thought entered his mind, his rational side got the better of him and his bright illumination was swiftly drawn in the oblivion of his subconscious.

As always, things were bound to be complicated.

Toph's POV : The Stare

They still didn't get it.

Toph had been training the Dai Li for months now, and she had witnessed the agents making huge progress; the Earth King himself was very satisfied with the quality of her teaching. Everyone expected that she would soon have nothing more to teach them, but the young earthbending master knew better.

Sure, they had learned to identify the different components of the earth and use them to their advantage, and sure, they had become pretty good at creating earthquakes. But that wasn't enough.

They still couldn't listen to the earth.

Otherwise, they would have noticed that she wasn't bending from under the platform, but from above.

They had turned the ground upside down to search for her, without even pausing to verify if they could sense her heartbeat beneath their feet.

Pathetic.

She nonchalantly advanced at the front of the ringmaster's tribune that hovered above the fighting platform. It was connected to it at it's base, and through her bare feet she could feel the vibrations that traveled up to her from the center of the ring: the Dai Li had formed ranks, and she sensed them turn towards her in surprise as she spoke.

" Not bad…" she began, a sarcastic smile playing on her lips. The respect and admiration the Dai Li harbored for her made Toph one of the rare people that could address the agents with sarcasm and criticism without being neatly killed on the spot, and she much abused of this privilege.

" Not bad … for beginners." She finished; she could almost feel their hearts sinking in their chests as she said this. Good for them, she thought smugly to herself. They're so arrogant. Of course, she amended, she was twice as pretentious as they were, but wasn't she the greatest earthbender in the world?

" Sifu Bei Fong," one of the agents asked in frustrated puzzlement from below " weren't you supposed to be hiding under the platform?"

Her blind eyes shifted towards the source of the voice, but she was careful to rest her gaze somewhere above where she sensed the agent's head to be. She hated it when she accidentally met someone's eye: in spite of her blindness, she could feel their unease as they unwillingly plunged into the depths of her vacant orbs. She'd always been able to tell when people stared at her, and she was used to the aggravating sensation of a person's gaze seeping beneath her skin; when her eyes locked with someone else's, this sensation intensified, and it felt like they could see right into her, right through her protective walls of sarcasm, brashness and false pretense, something she most definitely did not want anyone to do. The truth was, she was very vulnerable inside, but she would not allow anyone to discover it, not as long as she lived.

" That's what I told you I would do, isn't it?" she answered slowly, willing the agent to understand what she was implying.

" Yes, that's what you told us, so why didn't you…"

" In battle," she interrupted harshly, raising her voice to address the entire Dai Li, "Do your enemies tell you where they are hiding to ambush you?" She paused expectantly, and faced with their lack of response she yelled: "No! You have to figure out by yourselves where the attacks come from, and to do so you have to pay attention to your environment. You have to use other senses then sight to detect the invisible: you have to stay alert to sounds, smells… and in this case, vibrations and heartbeats. If you had taken the time to listen to the ground, you would have found out pretty quickly that there wasn't a damn living thing under there; I was up here the whole time! You've got to learn to feel the vibrations and temperature changes in the earth: that's the only way you can truly keep tabs on your opponent no matter where he is."

" Sifu Bei Fong, what you are saying is very sensible, but the Dai Li hardly needs to learn how to avoid ambush, as this seems to be the goal of this lesson; we are…"

She loved when one of them tried to challenge her teaching: it didn't happen often, but when it did, she had a devilish pleasure to destroy their argumentation:

" Being the masters of sneak attacks doesn't mean that you'll never be crept up on" she mocked. " The day you'll understand this, maybe you'll have a prayer of beating me. Maybe. Dismissed."

She always went straight to the point, and she never lost time arguing uselessly with her students, no matter how fun it could be. Considering that she'd made her point and that they'd learned enough for the day, she ended the session by waving them off: accustomed to her abrupt demeanor, the Dai Li left the arena silently. It's only then that she descended from the tribune, making her way through the rows of stone seats that circled the ring, and that he suddenly entered her vision.

The section of the arena where the audience sat was separated from the fighting platform and tribune, which is why she hadn't sensed the man's presence before. She froze as he unexpectedly appeared to her, and at first she wondered how he had entered the arena: the doors where supposed to be locked to preserve secrecy. Then she noticed his unusually fast heartbeat and nervous breathing, and she realized with a start that he was looking in her direction. Staring at her. Now, if there was something that she hated more than someone spying on her private lessons, it was someone who outright stared at her: she should have felt that stare long ago! No one had ever watched her for so long without her noticing. Ever.

What she had no way of knowing was that this particular stare had nothing to do with the ones she was usually granted with: it wasn't a judgmental, unfriendly, frightened gaze that seeped beneath her skin, attempting to break her defenses. This gaze was enveloping, caressing, admiring, captivated and filled with wonder, alight with awe and the tender, powerful brilliancy of true love. No one had ever looked at the young earthbender with such loving intensity, and she never would have thought such a gaze could be laid on her. She didn't feel the stare because she couldn't conceive it to exist, let alone for her.

The man was tall and muscular, and she could tell by his stature that he was a fighter, and a good one. The vigor with which his heart sped in his chest indicated that he was fairly young; 20, 25 maybe. He could have seemed intimidating to anyone else if it hadn't been for his obvious lack of confidence and uncanny anxiety: she figured he must be afraid of her. Men who knew what she was capable of usually felt that way. But he was right to be scarred.

No one spied on Toph Bei Fong. And no one, no one, stared at her.

They faced each other for less than five seconds, only a few rows of seats and a dozen meters separating them. He took one step in her direction.

She stomped her foot violently on the ground and with a flick of her wrist she threw a huge boulder right at the man's face. She was even faster then when she was twelve years old, and her attack was so sudden there was no way he could avoid it.

Yet he did.

With one, impeccable back-flip, he moved out of harm's way, disappearing from her sight for a split second before landing neatly on his feet, a couple meters from the place where he'd stood a few seconds ago. Apart from Twinkletoes, she had never witnessed anyone moving so fast. But this wasn't her former earthbending student - Aang was much lighter on his feet. However, there was something familiar with the way he moved: he was graceful and precise, efficient and strong. But it wasn't only that: there was something fluid and harmonious in him, that conferred a particular edge to his movements, like he was in perfect unity with his body and environment; everyone of his actions sent a wave of vibrations that rippled like the surface of a lake, softly and smoothly.

A strong sense of familiarity overwhelmed her - she knew those ripple-like vibrations! And, now that she thought about it, she also new that heartbeat, presently in disarray but usually so steady and soothing.

She knew this man.

- "Hey!" Sokka complained, "why'd you do that? And what happened to the good old punch to the arm? Please don't tell me you've decided to demonstrate your affection with boulders now, cause honestly, I don't think I'll survive it…"

- "Sokka!" she breathed.

So, what do you think? I know the end is a little abrupt, but I don't have time to continue just know and I wanted to update as soon as possible. So here, a very long, very intense chapter. Tokka moments begin in chapter six! Thank you so much for your patience, I know this suspense is beginning to get annoying. I really hope I'll be able to put chapter six up soon... I unfortunately can't promise you anything.

Thanks for reading: it means the world to me!