Life never has any color. Go ahead, yuk it up. Blind girl jokes, right? Hilarious. But I'm serious. Life is boring. Ever since the world got saved we've been sitting around with absolutely nothing to do. I miss the hero worship! But I figure a hero's gotta have something better to do than lounge on her butt all day. So I grab Katara, who's teaching a group of kids how to bend water.

"Good day, Madame FussyBritches," I say. Katara's face turns sour. Don't ask me how I know; yes, I'm blind. No, I can't see color. Yes, I still know her face is sour. And priceless.

"Hello, Toph," she says, splashing more invisible water around. More questions, I see. No, I can't see the water in the air. Only stuff in direct contact with the earth. And not just the planet, I mean earth as in rock. Katara and her pupils are standing on the fancy marble floor, so I can see them. The water they're bending is in the air, so I can't see it. Is it cleared up yet? Too bad. I'm continuing the story.

"Could you help me with something after the lesson?" I ask.

Katara looks at me. "What?" she asks. "A big, strong girl like you can't handle it?"

"Do you really wanna see my handwriting?" I ask. "'Cause I can try if you want."

"No, that's okay," she says, stepping back. "Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour."

I give her the thumbs-up and walk over to wait in the courtyard. Could time go any slower? I mean, c'mon! Finally Katara comes over the hill in all her prettiness. She sits down by me. "What did you want to ask me?" she asks.

I fold my arms. "I'm a hero, right?"

Katara stares at me weirdly. "Umm... well, heroes are normally a little more modest..."

"Good, good, good," I say. "And don't heroes normally have memoirs?"

"Umm... I guess so."

"But I can't write, right?"

"Umm... where are you going with this?"

"Could you stop starting every sentence with umm?" I ask, sitting by her. "I'm asking you to help me write my story down."

Katara smiles and stands up. "I'd be happy to. Let me get a brush and some paper." She walks away and time passes like a snail again. Finally she comes back and gets ready to write. "Okay, what do you want me to say?"

I think, then I begin to dictate. "When I opened my eyes for the first time, nothing was different."