Disclaimer: Disclaimed! I disclaim thee, poor characters! Flee to your true owners!
Toph's parents had always tried to keep her away from fire. After all, she was delicate. The scolding just didn't sink in - it never did - no connection in her mind told her "fire is bad." She remembered sneaking into the kitchens, a warm place where teapots whistled and logs cackled in the stove, heating the spot on the stone floor where she rested and helped herself to quick meals after winter nights spent in the badgermole's caves. The fire was comforting; it shared in her secret.
Perhaps if they hadn't tried to stop her, she wouldn't have bothered trying to cook, but their restrictions made even the most routine activities of the kitchen seem utterly daring. The sound of knives on cutting boards and meats sizzling atop charred iron beams were thrilling. The cooks couldn't bear to turn out such a hopeful face. She peeled ginger, crushed berries, kneaded dough, and – despite the initial protests of the kitchen staff – tended the fire. The fire became her responsibility; it was as temperamental as she was.
In the end, the real challenge was consuming her blackened and burnt creations. Piping hot stew that slid down the unlucky tester's throat like goo and mashed berry tarts with stiff black crusts. Not delectable (sometimes unquestionably inedible, but the kind-faced cooks would never tell her so), but not boring. It all just seemed delightfully dangerous at the time.
Fire was dangerous. Fire was not boring. Fire was downright awesome by Toph's reasoning.
Back then she was young and had never been burned.
There was a war. To Toph, it seemed there always had been. She couldn't remember a time when she wasn't subjected to political discussions of battles raging just outside her reach. Her parents vocally opposed the Fire Lord's tyranny publicly and discussed ways to profit from an alliance with him privately, but that was politics and she only listened because there was nothing that put her to sleep faster. Servants gossiped about Fire Nation brutality (Did you hear about Kyoshi Island? Burned to a crisp!), but her only concept of violence was throwing rocks at beefy blockheads, which turned out to be fantastic fun. The blockheads themselves mocked the Fire Nation with their "Fire Nation Man" gimmick.
Whatever was said about firebenders, she could never be turned against the warming, exciting feelings fire brought.
Fire brought destruction, but she'd never seen it. So why care?
It wasn't until the real battles begun that she realized the true complexities of the element she'd found so thrilling. Fire wasn't just the temptation of danger or excitement; the life of fire was so much more. It was hungry, consuming, unforgiving. It was dread and destruction.
Neither comforting warmth nor fiery passion was ever strong enough to overcome the memories of those bloody days with the sun beating at their ranks. Blithe thoughts of charred loaves of bread became nightmares of charred flesh. Sizzling vegetables became sizzling eyes, hearts, and entrails - she'd sworn to never eat again. Piping hot, boiling blood had streamed down her metal and earthen spikes. Somewhere, she knew, hot tears streamed from widow's and parentless children's eyes.
She was neither, but the tears came all the same.
People can break, burn, and drown. She knew that now. She and her friend had seen it, had done it.
Now she was afraid. The sun rose every day; the same sun that had seen her kill and break.
Her shaking body felt unreal in his arms.
She wanted to beg the spirits for a world where fire didn't consume or kill. A world where blood, bodies, and spirits were unbendable. She wanted to beg for herself. Her youthful, arrogant self. Her swaggering and laughing self. Her absolute knowledge of right and wrong. Anything but the gray and bloody world she'd lost herself in.
His father would have regarded his wrenching, despairing sobs with contempt ("Disgraceful," the voice sneered. He wished that he didn't still hear it.) His mother and uncle would've thought it humane of him. The girl who held him neither scorned nor praised him. She only held. For hours after, they were quiet.
Until finally, she took his hands in hers and said, "Blood sticks, but we'll make things right."
Both their hands were as red as the moonless sky.
They hadn't saved one another; they had decided to save themselves, side by side. Fire held the very depths of compassion and taught them both the depths their own endurance.
They had wanted and wished and cried. Now, they dared.
Author Comments: Hey all, these drabbles are (finally) under construction! The next chapter (Serpentine) will be reposted with shiny new edits in the very near future.