It's a dark world, she thinks ironically. Not that she's ever bothered to understand the concept of color, nor does she think she'll ever truly understand it. The only thing she's used to is darkness.
.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
.
Her parents are angry. Again. Something's happening, she's not quite sure what, but she can feel it, she feels it so painfully acute in the way the air crackles around the room. Or wherever she finds herself together with her parents. They stop whispering once she's in earshot.
The pretend she hasn't got a brain, that she can't put the pieces together and Spirits, it's frustrating, and unnerving and she probably isn't allowed to think all these things. Spirits know, her parents think life robbed her of more than just her eyes.
.
.
Toph remembers making the first mistake of her life (other than being born, anyway): she's once asked Poppy and Lao, yes, those were the names of her parents, and their constant absence makes them hard to remember, what was going on. She's said something in the lines of: "I'm not stupid! I know there's something out there, and I know it's bad. So tell me! I want to know!" or anything equally idiotic.
Instead of answers, she received gasps of surprise, and exclamations of wonder. She was chastised by her mother in an affected tone, a tone which made her want to screech in utter disgust, while her father tsk-ed loudly.
They'd let her know too much, apparently, she thinks, as she lays on her bed. Confined to her room until she learns to "control her attitude". She's bitter, and she recognizes the feeling, she's felt it many times, like when they'd coldly sent her to her room before, or when her mother addressed her, saying her name in a weird, dainty manner, but never, never like this, she's never had to fight the urge of breaking something, anything at all, anything that is in her way.
Her fingers itch, her lids tremble and suddenly, she knows she feels wrath. Pure, tangible, solid wrath.
Her tiny fist meets a porcelain doll, painted white with innocence and red with blood.
.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears
.
It's a nightmare.
She spends most of her days inside, listening to the dust gather on her bookshelves, but there are rare occasions, during which they let her walk in the garden. And she loves these precious seconds, the relative freedom in the open space around her. She knows there are walls nearby, but there's no proof of them, not in her dark world, not when the only steps she hears are her own, the grass and rocks caressing her shoe-clad feet.
And it is during one of these seldom walks outside, that she overhears her parents talk near the opened window, they talk about the- what? – the war.
She's heard about wars, yes, she knows what they are, from the minimal history lessons they'd allowed her, but there's a war going on?!
She tries to come closer, to hear better, but she steps on a tree branch, or something equally noisy, and she can't run, because they'd know she's heard, and the fury, the incredulity, they're all replaced by fear, because she doesn't feel like she could live without the little freedom they give her, and she knows they're going to take it away.
And suddenly, when there's no escape, she wants to hide, and there a loud crash or thud or bang or whatever-it-is, but her parents are outside and Poppy screams, and Toph feels an impossible weight around her, but she has no idea what it is.
.
.
She's an earthbender, to her family's horror. Apparently, she destroyed half the garden, and the fact that she was hiding under their window went unnoticed.
Poppy and Lao want her to be taught to keep her bending in line, for they can't have her wild and uncontrollable. Toph is dying with laughter inside, her face a mask of practiced indifference. They don't expect their blind daughter to express feelings. This, she learned the day they locked her in her room. They can't know what she's thinking, and she's no longer childish enough to think they want to hear her thoughts. They want her demure and unthinking; and that's exactly what they'll get.
.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
.
The idiot who's supposed to teach her earthbending is content with her gathering little rocks. At least, he lets her roam the fields around the Bei Fong estate freely for some time and then calls her back. She's never been outside the walls before, and the way the wind blows through her hair and clothes is the most wonderful thing.
There's something liberating about the wind, she thinks.
The idiot is robbing her parents blind, receiving gold for nothing, and she has more freedom than ever before, and everything is perfectly fine.
Everything is perfectly fine until that one, prodigal day. They day she tripped and fell, and fell, and fell, down into the earth, and the earth swallowed her.
That first day, she hadn't been angry. Toph had been terrified.
She'd screamed and cried, having hurt some part of her leg, and she was feeling blood, warm and heavy, dripping through her torn dress. She crawled through the damp mud, feeling it cake under her nails and she willed the earth to move, willed it to budge and take her someplace safe. Nothing.
There passed some time, some insufferably long seconds, minutes, hours later, when her howling had turned to dry rasps of hurt, as her knuckles bled, having jabbed the sharp rocks in the walls of earth around her, and then, Toph heard a sound.
At first, it was faraway, distant, and she thought she'd imagined it. Then, she felt steps, huge and heavy, steps unlike any other she has ever felt. And then, the hate, the fear, the anger, they're all gone, and Toph is safe.
.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
.
She doesn't know how old she'd been then. She knows though, that at nine, she builds tunnels for the badgermoles, and they run together, and she laughs like never before.
At ten, she scurries out of her room at night, not one of the Masters feeling the slightest indent in the soil. One of the badgermoles carries her on its back around, up, and down the hills, and she think swimming must feels like this, this endless jumping through apparently solid mass.
At eleven, she steals some rags and a bamboo hat, and walks barefoot through the market streets in Gaoling, seeing her mother taste her tea in the eastern drawing room. That's when she hears the words "Earth Rumble Six" for the first time.
At twelve, she's the Blind Bandit, the terror of all the earthbends, with a swear-word artillery wide enough to make Poppy and Lao die of heart-attacks. She spits and laughs, and there's nothing wrong in her world.
At thirteen, she doesn't care enough about the Bei Fong family to notice that there men, lords even, gathering in their mansion, more every day. She dreams in the sun of punches and kicks and dirt, counts the gold coins hidden carefully in her room, and unleashes hell in the ring at night.
On her fourteenth birthday, she receives her first marriage proposal, some pea-brained noble twice her age, ready to lick Lao's boots into the Spirit World and back again. She almost breaks her farce, wanting nothing more than to spit in his face. She doesn't, though. It wasn't like she was the one the proposal was made to, anyway.
The Hundred Year War wages on, she hears in the market one day, and it's getting closer by the hour. Word is, the Earth King summons young men to join the army. There's to be another Siege of Ba Sing Se, old crones whisper, equally scared and intrigued.
.
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
.
The ten proposals that follow are considered more carefully. A politician from Ba Sing Se wants his son to marry the famously beautiful blind Bei Fong. To believe the world hadn't given a shit about her existence three years ago!
Toph swears in her soul, wishing to bury them all… like that one sod said "in a landslide". Yes, bury them all and be done with it. Then, one particular evening, Lao comes into her room. He hasn't done that since before I was six. He informs her courtly that she is engaged to some half-ass wimpy lordling from Ba Sing Se, and she is to leave in two weeks' time to meet him.
She looks at him, unseeing eyes not widening in the slightest.
"Yes, Father."
He leaves, seeming proud.
.
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
.
The Bei Fong mansion is half-destroyed in the morning, the place looking every bit the natural disaster, statues of bagdermoles surrounding a giant replica of the Blind Bandit.
.
.
Toph Bei Fong struts the earth like she owns it, wreaking havoc wherever need be. She's met a couple of interesting people, people who like badgermoles and dragons and snow and boomerangs. People who walk in the dark, somewhat helping the world not to collapse on itself.
People she could call "friends", if it were necessary. In the end, walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
A/N: 'lo people! :3
nice seeing y'all so soon. this is my entry for the 2015 Probending Circuit Round 2, my challenge was the "Aang isn't discovered AU" and my prompts were anger (feeling), walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light (quote) and "A poison tree" by William Blake (poem). also, I obviously don't own the characters. duh. thanks for ruining my life, bryke.
these prompts, and the fact that i'm the earthbender of the team were signs. they were meant for Toph. i've never written her before, but hopefully haven't made a mess outta everything. i really enjoyed writing her, especially the second part of the story...
hope you liked it, and thanks for reading! :)
have an awesome day!
Jeanne xD