Lessons

Written for Probending Circuit round 4. Prompt: An Atla character teaches an Lok character something important. Other prompts: Jumping, Leaves and Republic City. A big thanks to telleroftails-weaverofdreams (I hope I spelled that right.) for giving me the idea for this story.


When Lin Beifong first discovered that she could earthbend, her mother was for shure the proudest in the whole United , when her second daughter Suyin was born and also discovered that she could earthbend, Toph was the proudest mother in he whole world.

So it happened that on a nice, sunny and warm fall day the three Beifongs- Toph,Lin and Suyin- went to the big Republic City Park for some eartbending lessons. At the beginning everything went good. The two kids did everything their mother told them to do and Toph could feel that they were doing everything alright.

But after a while, when their mother took a break to buy them some food at a nearby food stand ,Lin decided to sneak off to play jumping in the leaves that were laying neatly in a small pile at the roots of one of the biggest trees from the Republic City Park. Su who didn't want to be left behind, did what all younger siblings would do.

She ran after her big sister to do the excact same thing she was doing: jumping in he big pile of leaves.

When Toph returned from buying food, she got a real panick attack because she couldn't sense any of her children. "Su, Lin where are you ! Come out this is not funny! " the more often she called out to them, the more panicked she got. How could a twelve and six year old just dissapear?

Toph sighed and sat down on a park bench. She had planned out the day so perfectly. She would take out Su and Lin to this park to teach them some very special earth bending moves. She had taken a day off from work just for this ! And what happend ? She lost both her children. 'Are they mad at me for not being there for them all the time ? Did they run home ? Oh, no that would be bad, what if they did and got run over by a car?' she thought panick beginning once more to rise in her chest.

Suddenly she heard a all to familiar laughter. Well, two familiar sounds of laughter. Toph stood up and followed the sound of the laughing. When she was very close to the sound it broke up. Instead there were now two voices screaming: "Mum!" and two pair of feet were running towards her.

Lin and Su both hugged their mother around the waist and said: "Come mommy play with us in the leaves. Please, please,please." and while saying this they both took their mother by the hands and dragged her to the pile of leaves. "Okay, okay I will play with you." said Toph laughing slightly.

"You two know what ? I know a game this pile of leaves is your castle and I'm the evil emporer who tries to conquer it, but you two need to stop me from doing so. Got it ?" said Toph while kneeling down on her kids eyes levels and pointing around to make her plan clear.

Both kids screamed excited: "Got it !" and then they rushed to the pile of leaves to hide there, while their mother went to the opposite site of the pile to hide behind a tree. "Okay. When I say ready, steady, go I will attack, okay ?" Toph asked. "Okay !" screamed both children excited back. "Okay. Then. Ready? Steady? Go! " she yelled.

Imidiately she began to rip small chunks of earth from the ground to throw at her kids. Of course at a dodgable force. But her children were better than she thought. Together they ripped out a rather large piece of earth and threw it back at their mother, after they had doged her attack.

Lin screamed: "You will never defeat us evil tree lord!" "Yes the leave castle will always be ours!" added Su. "Oh, yes we will certainly see about that." retorted Toph back and threw a middle sized stone in the direction of the kids.

The kids laughed and dodged it and so it went on for at least two hours until Toph finally managed to beat them and conquer the 'castle'. "Okay, now that we had our fun let's go back to what we have come here originally. For your special earthbending training lesson." said Toph. "Ohh come on mom one more round please. It's so much fun playing with you." both kods mouned, pulling of their puppy dog eyes trick, to which nobody could say no. Not even their mother, even though she couldn't see it, but still she could feel it through seismic sense, like she did right now. Toph sighned: "Okay. One more round then training."

But what was originally planned as one more round ended up in three more rounds, all of them were won by Lin and Su. And after that in another three rounds, again all of them won by Su and Lin. So it went on and on whenever they finished one round the kids begged for another. Round after round.

Through all the fun they had they forgot the time. And so it got darker and darker until some time, after their what felt like thirtieth game was won by Toph, Toph said: "Okay, time to go home kids." Both children mouned again: "Oh come on mum. One more game. Please. We will even behave our best next week." "No, it's already dark outside. And walking home in the dark in Republic City is not a smart idea. Come on. Tomorrow after work I promise I will play with you again,but for now we need to go home." said Toph gently. As a response both kids took one of her hands in theirs and the family of three began to walk happily back home through the night streets of Republic City.

Later that night when Su and Lin were already in a deep sleep, Toph sat happily smiling at the kitchen table. Her planned earthbending lesson has ended up in a lesson of fun, but still when she thought about it she had taught them a very good lesson today: To never forget the fun bending makes.