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Neutral Jin #1: Waiting
Title: Neutral Jin #1: Waiting
Fandom: Avatar.
Rating: PG?
Challenge Fic: For 31_days, "lemon-flavored kisses"
The sky slips into the ocean, but Toph remains on her ledge, the perfect student of neutral jin. Beyond her, sensitive ears pick up traces of the camp, settling in for a long night, and she is content. Far above she watches, not with her useless eyes, but with every bit of her senses. She is still and vigilant, her power held in reserve, body tense with an energy begging to obliterate her enemies.
It isn’t going to happen again, she thinks with determination, the same thoughts she'd had too many times on watch.
An ear twitches, catching a wail as it slithering past Toph; thin and hungry, the cry of a baby longing for its mother. Muffled voices are harder to sense from Toph's ledge, but she imagines she hears a harsh plea, frantic in the mother’s need to quiet the babe, fear snatching the babe from its crib and against her ready chest.
It is fanciful, but something must have happened to the brat, because try as she might, Toph’s ears fail to pick up further wails.
She makes little change from her tense position, but her hands brush against the rock, feeling the world below, catching everything within the tents. Every toss of a sleepless widow, every shiver of a frightened orphan, every action the wounded tried to hide from their few remaining loved ones.
But as with every night, one by one each fell into sleep. The moment the last child ceased trembling, Toph turn her full attention to the world around her. Her people were safe. It is time to keep them that way.
The forest is alive, creatures of all weights and sizes bursting with energy. How anyone could sleep with all that racket, Toph never understands-- even her skin senses the forest, tensing with each flicker of the too warm wind, tiny hairs shivering against the breath of the land.
As with every watch, she sits motionless for hours, listening to the world. It is not pride that she feels as the only protector the camp needs, but a cool understanding that she is thee only champion the camp will have, period.
Heroes, it seemed, are in short supply. Funny how losing a war can do that.
The camp below is the final rebellion. They, Toph believes, are the true heroes of the war— the brave few who loved their partners enough to allow them to fight for them, to leave them, to carry on what life they could when their loved ones did not come back. These heroes had trusted in their partners abilities to come back from battle-- and for their trust, had been rewarded with pain, death, and lies.
Yet they lived, and in living, a tiny pebble of hope survived.
Sokka had mentioned once true heroes found their way into the sky, that the stars above told the stories of those who had lived and died to save the world. Toph still didn’t understand what these stars were, but in her weakest moments on watch, she wonders if her friends are written in the skies above she cannot see.
Six years ago, everything had been different. She had been different. Her feet burned, there was no way she could fight, and so she had been left behind, to help guard those deemed unfit for battle. As they left, her words had been of anger, hiding her fears and love in sour betrayals, and she paid for her foolishness.
None of them had returned.
She is 18 now— older than any of their group had been, but she doesn’t think she’s that much different. She sighs, twisting the strap keeping her battered cap secure, and pulls the heavy armor from her head. She sits, revealed to the chilled globe her friends called Yue with a familiarity she can never understand. How can you call the moon, a big hunk of rock that floated in the sky, a friend? A lover? A companion?
Toph sighs, catching the far off mating calls of skunkbears in the distance. There is always danger here-- they will never be safe. She is about to leave her post to send the beasts away with a stubborn wall of earth, when her nose stiffens, inhaling sharply the tang of off season citrus.
Skunkbears were one thing, but Citrus? They have remained in this camp far too long if the seasons are changing. Tomorrow, then, the camp will leave this place, find themselves a new island to hide on, a new camp to pretend the world isn't broken.
But as she tilts her head back, senses open to the animated forest, she wonders if this is necessary. The Firenation has left them alone for a whole year. Perhaps it is safe? Time to drop guard, to return to their homes, to let the fight finally be over?
To finally morn those she knows will never return.
But Toph is, and forever will be, stubborn. Six years is not a terribly long time to wait— the White Lotus Society waited sixty years before they struck the heart of the Firenation. So she will continue on a little while longer, pretending her heart hasn’t given up hope, pretending everything is perfectly fine.
But where her heart no longer believes, her mind clings to the hope her friends are merely misplaced.
If they still live, their feet will stand upon the same earth her own rest on, and that connection is the only comfort she allows herself.
Sometimes, when she is perfectly still, her senses primed to the world around her, her heart stops, and she can see them perfectly in her minds eye, suffering at the hands of the madman the White Lotus had been unable to stop. But her heart thumps again, the vibrations of her organs erasing every trace of her thin vision.
Tonight, there is only the forest, and she is glad. But as she beings to rise, she considers Aang’s final words to her, and lips stretch painfully across a face that has forgotten what a smile is.
She brushes her lips against the earth, and pretends it’s enough.
Three Islands away, the faces of a forgotten Avatar and his allies, pressed against soft road, tingle as the earth passes on the earthbender's kiss.
Fandom: Avatar.
Rating: PG?
Challenge Fic: For 31_days, "lemon-flavored kisses"
The sky slips into the ocean, but Toph remains on her ledge, the perfect student of neutral jin. Beyond her, sensitive ears pick up traces of the camp, settling in for a long night, and she is content. Far above she watches, not with her useless eyes, but with every bit of her senses. She is still and vigilant, her power held in reserve, body tense with an energy begging to obliterate her enemies.
It isn’t going to happen again, she thinks with determination, the same thoughts she'd had too many times on watch.
An ear twitches, catching a wail as it slithering past Toph; thin and hungry, the cry of a baby longing for its mother. Muffled voices are harder to sense from Toph's ledge, but she imagines she hears a harsh plea, frantic in the mother’s need to quiet the babe, fear snatching the babe from its crib and against her ready chest.
It is fanciful, but something must have happened to the brat, because try as she might, Toph’s ears fail to pick up further wails.
She makes little change from her tense position, but her hands brush against the rock, feeling the world below, catching everything within the tents. Every toss of a sleepless widow, every shiver of a frightened orphan, every action the wounded tried to hide from their few remaining loved ones.
But as with every night, one by one each fell into sleep. The moment the last child ceased trembling, Toph turn her full attention to the world around her. Her people were safe. It is time to keep them that way.
The forest is alive, creatures of all weights and sizes bursting with energy. How anyone could sleep with all that racket, Toph never understands-- even her skin senses the forest, tensing with each flicker of the too warm wind, tiny hairs shivering against the breath of the land.
As with every watch, she sits motionless for hours, listening to the world. It is not pride that she feels as the only protector the camp needs, but a cool understanding that she is thee only champion the camp will have, period.
Heroes, it seemed, are in short supply. Funny how losing a war can do that.
The camp below is the final rebellion. They, Toph believes, are the true heroes of the war— the brave few who loved their partners enough to allow them to fight for them, to leave them, to carry on what life they could when their loved ones did not come back. These heroes had trusted in their partners abilities to come back from battle-- and for their trust, had been rewarded with pain, death, and lies.
Yet they lived, and in living, a tiny pebble of hope survived.
Sokka had mentioned once true heroes found their way into the sky, that the stars above told the stories of those who had lived and died to save the world. Toph still didn’t understand what these stars were, but in her weakest moments on watch, she wonders if her friends are written in the skies above she cannot see.
Six years ago, everything had been different. She had been different. Her feet burned, there was no way she could fight, and so she had been left behind, to help guard those deemed unfit for battle. As they left, her words had been of anger, hiding her fears and love in sour betrayals, and she paid for her foolishness.
None of them had returned.
She is 18 now— older than any of their group had been, but she doesn’t think she’s that much different. She sighs, twisting the strap keeping her battered cap secure, and pulls the heavy armor from her head. She sits, revealed to the chilled globe her friends called Yue with a familiarity she can never understand. How can you call the moon, a big hunk of rock that floated in the sky, a friend? A lover? A companion?
Toph sighs, catching the far off mating calls of skunkbears in the distance. There is always danger here-- they will never be safe. She is about to leave her post to send the beasts away with a stubborn wall of earth, when her nose stiffens, inhaling sharply the tang of off season citrus.
Skunkbears were one thing, but Citrus? They have remained in this camp far too long if the seasons are changing. Tomorrow, then, the camp will leave this place, find themselves a new island to hide on, a new camp to pretend the world isn't broken.
But as she tilts her head back, senses open to the animated forest, she wonders if this is necessary. The Firenation has left them alone for a whole year. Perhaps it is safe? Time to drop guard, to return to their homes, to let the fight finally be over?
To finally morn those she knows will never return.
But Toph is, and forever will be, stubborn. Six years is not a terribly long time to wait— the White Lotus Society waited sixty years before they struck the heart of the Firenation. So she will continue on a little while longer, pretending her heart hasn’t given up hope, pretending everything is perfectly fine.
But where her heart no longer believes, her mind clings to the hope her friends are merely misplaced.
If they still live, their feet will stand upon the same earth her own rest on, and that connection is the only comfort she allows herself.
Sometimes, when she is perfectly still, her senses primed to the world around her, her heart stops, and she can see them perfectly in her minds eye, suffering at the hands of the madman the White Lotus had been unable to stop. But her heart thumps again, the vibrations of her organs erasing every trace of her thin vision.
Tonight, there is only the forest, and she is glad. But as she beings to rise, she considers Aang’s final words to her, and lips stretch painfully across a face that has forgotten what a smile is.
She brushes her lips against the earth, and pretends it’s enough.
Three Islands away, the faces of a forgotten Avatar and his allies, pressed against soft road, tingle as the earth passes on the earthbender's kiss.