Where Is Your Heart?
Swamps are very loud things, especially at night. Insects whirring, various forms of frogs croaking, small mammals with glowing eyes (apparently) chittering. Even off in the distance, the sounds of banjo-playing and the laughing of swamp people could be heard. Perhaps more ominously, however, were the sounds without sources. Whispering, yeah, but un-earthly screaming far off in the distance too. Toph knew, or had at least heard the rumors, that the screaming was due to large birds, and therefore nothing to worry about. But every time she heard those horror-filled screams, every hair on her body stood on end. All of this made meditation very difficult, as one can imagine.
Toph, now approaching her thirty-second summer, had taken a sabbatical from her job, as she did every year around this time, and come to the Foggy Swamp, to continue her search. And so here she sat in lotus position, on a root of some "Great Banyan Tree" that was wider than she was tall. The heat was unbearable, and combined with the humidity, this was the closest Toph ever wanted to come to a sauna again. With her clothes clinging in the most uncomfortable way, hair sticking to her face, AND THE SPIRITS-DAMNED NOISE, meditating seemed right out.
Throwing back her arms and flopping backwards in frustration, Toph forcefully blew air while pursing her lips in a futile attempt to get her damp hair out of her eyes. Giving herself a moment to calm down, she tried to clear her mind of all things except one. Focusing on the sound of a voice, and doing her best to reach out with her mind, she spoke softly to herself, "I just want to talk to you TwinkleToes, please hear me."
Hours later, after Toph had given up on reaching Aang in the Spirit World, and having found a patch of drier ground, she began to set up camp for the night. Or, she thought it was night. She couldn't feel the sun on her face, but the heat in general hadn't gone anywhere. Something that had definitely changed was the noise level, but not for the better, if anything it seemed to have gotten louder. And to complement the increased volume of the sounds assaulting her ears, was the biting insects literally assaulting her ears, and her face, . . . and her eyes. Any exposed part of her body really.
Swatting something that sounded particularly vicious away from her face, Toph grumbled to herself, "Where are those stupid frogs when you need them?" Although hampered by insects, Toph succeeded in finding her spark rocks and getting a flame to catch in some pre-dried tinder, she began to stack some fresh vegetation on top of the wood. Once her fire was nice and smoky, and successful in driving away most of the insects, she went about her business, bending an earth tent out of the mud beneath her, and then preparing a water resistant sleeping bag. While she had been preparing her sleeping arrangements, her dinner had been simmering over the fire. Although blind as her Badger-Mole mentors, she saw being able to cook as a large part of independence. In her pack, she had various shaped ceramic bottles and containers, with no two alike on the outside, so she could tell the difference just by touch. In them were various things like dried meat and spices. However, having ingredients, and knowing how to cook were two very separate things, which Toph had learned after attempts number one, two, and four (three actually turned out pretty well). So she had sought out the best way to learn "Cooking Whilst Far Away From Civilization": her friend Katara. After a couple of months, she had learned the most important lesson, how not to poison yourself. From there, Toph had honed her skill until most meals were palatable.
And so tonight, dinner was a simple noodle stew, cooked slowly over a low fire. As she sat down on a fallen log that bordered one site of her little camp, and ladled some into a small bowl for herself, a slight breeze picked up, blowing the smoke from the fire into her face. Coughing violently, Toph moved to one side to avoid the fumes. "Well at least the bugs will leave me alone if I reek of smoke" Toph thought to herself, as she brought the bowl to her lips to cool its contents. As she was about to blow, her danger sense kicked in; the hair on the back her neck stood up, as she rose to assess why her sense were suddenly on high alert. The answer hit her almost immediately: the swamp had gone completely silent.
It was like she had been transported to someplace else, some other world. After the cacophony of sound that had become a constant of the swamp in Toph's mind, this silence was almost painful. Toph assumed her horse-stance and began searching the vibrations around her for any hint of imminent threat. Almost immediately she found it. Or rather, it found her.
"Hi Toph"
A little deeper than usual, a bit raspy, but completely and utterly "Aang?"
"Hi"
"Aang!" Completely forgetting herself, Toph crossed to where the sound of Aang's voice was originating. She crashed into him at full speed, nearly bowling both of them over, but he managed to keep both of upright, despite his weakened state and having all the air driven from his lungs in a whush. Recovering from the initial impact, Aang gently wrapped his arms around the shaking Earthbender.
"Oh Aang, I've missed you, so much" Toph whispered into his shoulder, as she breathed in his scent, Sandalwood. It completely overpowered the lingering scent of Jasmine she had used earlier to cover-up the scent of her own sweat.
"I missed you too Toph. I heard you calling for me earlier. You sounded so sad, so I came as fast as I could." Aang replied in the same volume. Neither party seemed to want to give up on the hug just yet, so they just stood there, encased in each other's arms, basking in each other's presence. However, the burning questions Toph was trying to keep suppressed kept poking at the back of her mind. The longer she tried to hold them off, the more pressing they became. Eventually they became too much.
"Aang . . . " Toph began in a hesitant voice, before managing to stop herself. She didn't want to ruin the moment with questions that could wait, she just had to know.
"Yeah Toph?"
". . . how, how did you die?" Toph managed to get out, as her eyes began to water, and her throat close.
". . . what?" Aang drew back slightly to regard her face, searching for any hint of humor, albeit dark.
"It's just that, well, no one knows how you died." Toph began slowly and quietly, but as she continued, her voice gradually got louder, and the words came faster and faster. "We just know that you've been missing, and Appa came back without you that day and with blood in the saddle. And then all sorts of weird signs were happening around the world, and Spirits kept saying you were 'Indisposed', and there was that radical group that split off from the White Lotus, and, and, we just really want to know what happened-"
"Toph!" Aang shouted, cutting her off and trying to get her attention. "I'm not dead!" Toph, who had been near hysterical over confronting the Spirit of her dead friend, suddenly went very still. Her breathing steadied as she turned her head to face Aang's. Asking as evenly as possible, she managed to grind out a simple "What?"
"Toph, I'm not dead. Here, feel my heart beat!" Pulling apart, Aang reached for Toph's hand. When the warm flesh met hers, she flinched, but let him grasp hers again. He brought her hand to the out-stretched wrist of his opposite hand. Toph curled her fingers around the inside of his wrist, as she felt the slight beating that lie there. With each beat, her hand grasped tighter and tighter. Her outward face was calm that hid the raging storm. Inside her mind, it was a cascade of emotions, but currently with Anger taking the helm.
"Um, Toph, can you stop grabbing so hard? You're going to cut off circulation. Toph? Toph!" Toph kept squeezing his wrist, until she could sense the minerals in his bones about to break, before she let go, pulling her hand back to her side, and taking a step backwards. Toph, whose anger only continued to grow, whispered something to herself so quiet that Aang was unable to hear. "Ow, Toph, that really hurt, and what did you-"
"TEN YEARS!" The only sound louder than Toph's outburst was the sound of her palm streaking across the side of Aang face. "Where have you been for Ten Years?! The White Lotus has been scouring the Water Tribes for your next incarnation! What Have you been doing for TEN YEARS that justifies leaving the world alone? Your friends alone? Me?"
Aang, holding his burning cheek, thought very carefully about his reply. "The Spirits-" With the blink of an eye, Aang was encased in mud, that was quickly turning to rock, to just under his nose. Toph, arms across her chest, stomped up to his immobile form, with the rock vibrating with each step. "I swear on my life, Twinkle Toes, that if you say 'The Spirits needed me' or 'The Spirits wanted my help', I will personally send you on your way to your next incarnation. I am now going to remove your gag, so don't make me murder you." Toph then bent the earth away from his mouth, but kept the rest of him immobilized.
". . . I didn't know ten years had gone by?" Aang asked in a weak voice as he regarded Toph with a sheepish expression. If his hands had been free, he would've been rubbing the back of his head.
Toph seemed to take this in rather calmly, digested it, and then replied in a calm, almost conversational answer "Wrong answer."
As her fist went flying towards Aang's face, he cried out "Wait wait wait!"
In the same tone as before, Toph asked "What?"
Aang answered as if his life depended on it, which seemed to be the truth. "It's the truth! I had a lot of work on back order because I was gone for a century, and once I defeated Ozai, and got everything working again on the material plane, they summoned me! I was helping them with a bunch of their problems, but time flows differently in the Spirit World! I didn't think ten years had gone by!"
Toph relaxed her arm, and that's where Aang's memory cut off.
When Aang awoke, with a severely bruised eye, he gradually talked Toph down from her murderous rage. She eventually released him from his Earthy prison, but she confiscated his staff, like she used to when they were younger. They eventually got to talking about what had happened in their lives since Aang had sequestered himself in the Spirit World.
"Did you do anything remotely interesting while talking to the high and mighty spirits?"
"I prevented a couple of wars"
"Boring"
"I witnessed the birth of countless souls?"
"Nope"
"I convinced them not to kill all humans?"
"Nada"
"I officiated a wedding between two river spirits?"
"Bub- . . . what?"
"Oh yeah, it was really sweet. Apparently they didn't want to show any favor to any other spirit, and since the wedding would mess with the actual geography of the Earth Kingdom, they felt that I had a vested interest in how things went. And it was a really beautiful ceremony Toph, they wrote their own vows and everything."
"Sounds boring"
"You wouldn't if you heard them"
"Try me"
"All right, but It wasn't so much spoken vows so much as it was a singing duet."
"Gross"
And so Aang began to sing, and although his voice was a bit raw from disuse, it became easier the more he sang. "Heart, beats, fast, colors and, promises, how to be brave, how can I love when, I'm, afraid to, fall . . ."
When he was finished, Toph had only one thing to say: "Dork". She then turned on her side away from Aang to hide her burning face.
Smiling at Toph's antics, he only replied at a whisper "I love you too, Toph, it's good to be home." He got a stiff jab in the shoulder, as they both fell asleep.
Uploaded 7/8/015
This is my entry for the Pro-Bending Circuit, Round one.
The Prompt for the waterbenders across all teams was "Someone returning to their family after they were thought dead", and I would like to make it clear I'm going for the "'1000 years' song" and "Jasmin scent" bonus points, and the actual fic has 2115 words.
Personally I am unsatisfied with this fic, but I must submit it as it is due to time restraints. I suffered from bad creative difficulties whilst writing this, and also personal problems. Even if you feel like dropping flames, it won't affect me because even I want to flame this. I would appreciate some creative criticism, as I know I'm doing something wrong, more specifically than everything, because unlike some, I can spell. Fuck if I know if my grammar is good.