Sorting it out (Toph)

[iphigenia]

Iphie wasn't quite running through the halls but she was shuffling pretty quickly. She tried to remember which room was Toph's. After the events from the last afternoon and through the night she really needed to talk to somebody and Toph was the only person she really knew all that well. She had at least found a shirt to wear, though it was too big for her having originally been Tiff's. Before she had drifted off Tiff had at least rewrapped the bandages.

Her mind was racing far faster than her feet. She wasn't gay, not really. She didn't care for women, though admittedly she didn't care for men either. But when the woman had kissed her it was like some sort of magic. Something about giving in, not having to control everything was just so liberating. The disease inside her was raging again. She had given in to something else and it had felt good. The disease wanted her to give in, surely it would feel good.

She tried to block out those thoughts. They weren't helping and would only cause trouble. The physical stress of her actions were taking their toll as well, her side was stinging again. Finally she came to Toph's door and knocked at it softly, then a tad bit harder as the anxiety grew within her. Would Toph understand what had happened? Would she understand that it had just been a moment of weakness? Was it a moment of weakness? Iphie didn't know but she had to talk to somebody. She needed some perspective.

[Toph Bei Fong]

Iphie it would turn out, actually had pretty good timing. Had she arrived an hour earlier, she would be knocking on the door to an empty room, as Toph had risen with the sun and went to practice yard for her morning katas. Then she worked on touching nature as Princess Calla had instructed. She was getting rather good at it. Then she spared with a few knight in training at the request of the castle's Master of Swords. He seemed to think that the pages and would-be squires under his charge benefited from being forced her eclectic and unusual fighting style.

Had she arrived thirty minutes earlier, Toph would have been submerged in a nice warm bath in her adjoin bathroom, and might not have heard/felt the knock, surrounded by water and procelin as she had been at the time. Had she arrived ten minuets later, Toph would have left for the castle dinning room and breakfast.

As it was, the Blind Bandit was currently half-dressed. She had a pair of underwear on with her bath robe thrown over it. As she was alone in her room had not bothered to tie the robe closed, and didn't see much point in doing so now; she still had yet to apply her breast wrappings. Her hair was still wet from her bath, and she was trying to towel it off with one hand while also feeling the contents of her wardrobe with the other, to get an idea of what to wear. Then the knocking started. And got louder.

"I hear you already!" she called. "Gaia, I'm blind not deaf!" Toph left the wardrobe, and approached the door, tieing her robe as she did so and letting the towel fall and rest on her shoulders. She extended her earthsight as she reached the door. "Oh!" she said in a less annoyed voice as she finally reached and started to unlock the door. "Iphie!" she said, smiling as she she swung the door open. "How the hell are you? Feels like I haven't seen you in --"

Toph titled her head to one side and her feet rubbed the ground again. Something was wrong. There wasn't a single muscle in her friend's body that wasn't tense, and that included her heart, which was beating faster than it had when she had been running at and carrying her in her arms. And her diaphragm, which was drawing and pushing her breath faster than she'd ever heard from Iphie before.

"Iphie?" she asked, the smile fading. "Hey, is something wrong? You dont feel so good..." she trialed off before steeping aside in the doorway to let her in. " C'mon in."

[iphigenia]

Iphie was relieved when Toph opened the door. For a moment she had suspected that Toph wouldn't be around and then...Well, Iphie had no idea what would have happened then. She was just lucky to have gotten to her. She stepped in quickly and shut the door behind her. She brushed past Toph a little more roughly than she would have meant to, though hardly with much force compared to what she could do if she meant it. Of course she hadn't planned anything she was going to say once she arrived, in fact for some strange reason she had believed that once she was there it would all get better. All of a sudden it was very hard to speak.

"Toph, I think I'm losing control." She started pacing the floor, staring down at it, unwilling to make any sort of eye contact. She had begun, she had to finish it. She took a deep breath and began the story. "I was in the hospital yesterday and there was this nurse with the most amazing gloves. And she was examining me and my ribs and chest and then she kissed me and she carried me back to her place and we had a lot sex and I think I'm a lesbian now but I don't know if I like women but I don't like men but I don't think I like women and now I don't think I can control myself if it happens again and if I can't control that how am I going to keep from not giving in to the virus again and killing everything?"

She took a few more deep breaths while she continued to pace the floor. One hand was rubbing her temples while the other clenched at odd intervals. "And I'm wearing her damn shirt." She said, suddenly realizing the implications and pulled it off and threw it aside. Now the bandages were all that covered her upper torso, not that it really mattered since Toph couldn't see.

[Toph Bei Fong]

"Whoa, who, whoa!" said Toph as she raised her hands up to catch Iphie by her now-bare shoulders on her last pacing pass. She was fairly certain that was the most words she had ever come from the smaller girl's mouth in one sitting since they've known each other. The grasp was more suggestion than command, Iphie was more than strong enough to shake it off if she really had a mind to. "You're freaking out on me, Lil,' Bit," she said, "wound so tight its a miracle you dont snap in two! Let take a deep breath, have sit down and we'll tackle all this one thing at a time, kay?"

Toph lead Iphie to a small stone bench (once part of the stone floor but raised by Toph not long after her arrival) near her bed, took a seat and patted the space next to her to suggest Iphie do the same. Though obstinately this was to help her friend settle down, in reality it gave Toph a chance to assimilate that verbal bombshell as well. After all, wasn't Iphie already gay? Wasn't she here to woo the Princess? What's with the orientation crisis now? Well at least I can relate there, Toph thought, images of Calla and Jo flashing through her mind.

Then there was the question of what she was doing in the hospital. in the frist place. Was she hurt? Sick? Well strike that last one. Of course she was sick, she was a living abode for all kinds of illnesses. That was normal for her, so she must have been hurt to need a nurse. Then who or what hurt her? Toph eyes narrowed and a wave of protectiveness crashed over her. When I find out who or what it was...

But one thing at a time, like she said.

"Okay," she said carefully, placing a reassuring hand on Iphie's leg. "I'm going have to ask you a personal question fist off, okay? It'll help us get to the bottom of this for you. I get that was your frist time with a woman. Was it your first time having sex ever?"

[iphigenia]

Iphie sat on the bench and took several deep breaths. They didn't help much. Her hands drummed against the side of her head. She was doing her best to keep control of herself but the anxiety was piercing through. "No, well yes. Kind of. There was a boy back on the farm but it didn't really go anywhere and...I don't know what to do." The disease inside her was fighting her at every point. Giving in felt good, it felt good in the fight, it felt good during sex, it would feel good now. Her left arm began to tremble and went pale, then dark.

Iphie needed her medicine. She didn't have anymore with her, but she always felt more natural with the medicine. Despite her body's violent reaction to the stuff it did make her feel good afterwords. Iphie pumped her hands a few times. "Toph, I don't want to give in to it. It could kill so many people. I'm losing control of everything and I don't want to die."

[Toph Bei Fong]

Toph frowned. Iphie's tension seemed only to increase with each passing moment, and the blind earthbender could not help but recall all she had been told about her small friends potential destructive power. Toph felt a pit of coldness form in her stomach. Fear. But what was fear to a war veteran like her? She pushed past it; her friend needed her now.

Hands still on her shoulders Toph, spoke again. "Believe it or not, Iphie, that part that you just said, that's the most important part. You dont want to give in to it. Look, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend to understand what it must be like to have that thing in you, always clawing and looking for a way out. But I do know a little something about willpower, and it the frist step to getting the outcome you do want. What we gotta do now is work and step two."

Toph paused, her thumbs rubbing Iphie's shoulders in a motion she hopped was calming. "Now, lets break this thing down brick by brick, okay. Sounds like this boiling down to control. And I think I get what happened to you last night. You always have to be in control or the virus kills everyone. It must have been awesome to surrender control for once and the result feeling so good. Iphie, that part is okay. You let go, and nobody was hurt. If anything, everyone involved was better than when you started. It going to sound weird right now, even scary, but I think that is exactly what you need, to allow yourself to let go in a away that wont hurt you or anyone else.

"But before we get all deep into that, we need to bolster the part you do need to control. Do you have any more medicine?"

[iphigenia]

Iphie tied to think, there wasn't much that much she knew. "Maybe two weeks worth if I cut down to one every other day." She looked down at the floor. The anxiety seemed to stop growing but it was still far from fading away. The hands on her shoulders seemed to help a little, but not enough. "This isn't the first time, Toph. About a month ago I was attacked by some soldiers. It wasn't anything too bad. I handled it well enough but the man leading them was strong. Not strong like me but really skilled with a blade. He got me in the arm and I sort of lost it. I mean, I was bleeding and I hate to see my own blood. It's not normal. Everything in me wanted me to let go, give into it. And I did."

Iphie had to stop herself from standing and pacing the floor again. "It felt so good that time too. But then afterwords I almost died." She shook her head. "This is the second time I've given in, it feels so good every time. I don't know if I can do it again, no matter what it is."

[Toph Bei Fong]

Toph gently pulled Iphie into a light embrace. If she was aware that her thin robe and Iphie bandages where the only things keep their bare skin from touching, she gave no sign.

"It was you or him, Iphie," she said. "I know that giving into it scares the hell out of you, but you did what you had to do survive. And think about it: if you hadn't given in and he had killed you, wouldn't that have been much, much worse? I mean, if you die all the diseases and stuff inside gets free and brings plagues to the world right? I think you're got more control in you than you're giving yourself credit for. When the chips are down, you have shown you can make the right choice. One man, who attacked you first, vs. everyone in the country? You did the right thing. Then you came back, resumed control even though giving in is so blissful."

Unconsciously Toph began to rock in place as he held onto her panicked friend, carefully keeping tabs on her rapid heartbeat. "I know you probably dont believe that right now; that's 'cause you're too close to it. And the whole night of amazing lesbian sex thing is only throwing you off more." In a smaller voice she added, "That part is something I can relate too..."

She had not planned on telling anyone what had happened with her and Jo, but if it could distract Iphie from her own worries for a little while... Toph was prepared to make that sacrifice.

[iphigenia]

Toph's statement bounced around in Iphie's mind a few times but much like anything else with such subtext, it didn't catch on anything. However much of what Toph was saying was catching on, unfortunately it wasn't catching on the right hook. Iphie's shoulders slumped, before suddenly stiffening. "It wasn't the right thing to do. It was the most convenient thing to do. It was easy, it was simple, it was good. Whether it was the real me or the disease inside of me, assuming we are not one and the same, I killed him. I might as well have devoured him myself, the effect would have been the same and I would have no less guilt. I think I am a disease, I make things worse is all." Iphie bit her lip and took a few deep breaths before continuing.

"I have so much to do Toph. I have made far to many promises. money is the least of it, it isn't hard to find. But that is but the lowest thing amid the rising tower. Swear to me that what I say to you will not leave this room. No, what need have I of swears and oaths? The brotherhood who holds my leash and directs me as if I were no more than a hound is pointing me in the direction of this kingdom. And I am worth less than a dog for agreeing to it. I am to win the hand of the princess or gain access to all the books in the library and archives so that they might collect all the originals and leave fakes behind them." Iphie laughed a mirthless chuckle.

"And from this deal I get both my freedom and a cure for what ails me. But as time goes on I get sicker and sicker, my medicine slowly runs dry, and I am left with naught but the ingredients for a far less effective potion that is far less effective in slowing the progression of this filth inside me." Iphie stood up and returned to pacing despite the grip of the earthbender. It wasn't as if Toph would have been able to stop her from doing so without resorting to true force. "And who or what do I meet as I craw toward my death in the sea, but a strange creature who offers me a job in the library. It seems fate has a deep sense of dislike for me."

[Toph Bei Fong]

Ah, that explained a lot. A whole lot, actaully. Like how Iphie was less than enthused about marrying the princess, how an alleged lesbian would be so thrown off by a one night stand with another woman.

But that was neither here nor there. Well it kinda was, but, there was another, far more pressing issue to address.

Toph was on her feet in a flash, bringing herself to her full six feet and change. Her face was flat and stern as she unconsciously slipped into 'army mode' from the war, and spoke with the same tone of certainty and command. It would be shocking to her later how easily it came back.

"You are not a disease!" Her voice wasn't loud so much as it was forceful, filled with a kind of certain authority that made volume almost inconsequential. "I would never allow someone to call you that, and that goes double for you! I would be dead right now if it were not for you! There is glove-wearing woman out there right now who's day just got to to a damn slight better start today, because of you! That's two lives you've made better already!

"You are a perosn placed in a shity situation by assholes with no souls! They're the disease, and I would track them down and bring their most likely stone temple down around their ears if I wasn't afraid that doing so would actaully make things worse for you!"

Toph took a deep breath as her explosion of anger passed. "Look I'm sorry I blew up like that... but you're my friend. I'm going to stick up for you, even if you're the one talking crap about yourself. I can't help you with your fear of losing control. If I could lend you some of my willpower, or if I could keep you from giving into it, I would. But I can help with the money front, if you want me to. As for that library job...maybe you should take it... at least if they ever decide to check up on you it'll look like you're making progress and they'll leave you alone for a bit."

[iphigenia]

Iphie was stunned at the outburst. All her conviction and drive just drained out of her. "I'm sorry, you're right." She rubbed her forehead with her left hand. "I don't want your money. I'm already enough of an inconvenience as it is and I've relied on others far too long. Well maybe that's the wrong way to say it. I've been owing people things far too long." Iphie wiped away the tears of desperation that had managed to escape. "I'm so sorry Toph. I shouldn't have lost it like that." She turned and hugged Toph carefully.

"Thank you though, your offer means a lot and so does the advice. I'm still not sure though. I mean, it really would be good to work at the library, but to be surrounded by all of that...temptation. It would at least be better than exploiting my umm strength for profit and making a spectacle of myself. Though it would be good for getting the money fast.” Iphie groaned. “It’s all far too complicated but I guess that’s my fault.” She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Toph on the cheek. “Thank you so much, having you here to help me like this, I feel like I have a sister again.”