Time for some Lin and Toph angst. This was inspired by a very depressing YouTube video. I'd say check it out, but no one likes tears. Anyway, try to enjoy.
Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender belong to Bryke and Nickelodeon.
She had never known such agony. It was unbearable, crippling. She found it difficult to breathe, to see through the earth, to do anything but suffer. Her chest was tortuously hollow, what had once been there stolen, ripped from her before she knew what was happening. How she wanted to be strong, strong like her mother, but she was not and perhaps never had been. Her rock had been taken, yanked from beneath her feet. Toph Beifong was dead.
The inventor of metal bending. A hero of the Hundred Years War, instrumental in defeating Ozai and preventing calamity. Beloved chief of police in Republic City. Most importantly, her mother. She was dead. It had been such a routine sting but no one had expected the gang of fire benders to know how to bend lightning. Toph was dead before she hit the floor, taking the synchronized seven bolts for her daughter. Lin could not remember for the life of her what happened afterwards except for flashes of wires and walls of earth, but she could remember in crystal clarity holding her mother's body.
Now her mother laid on a pyre, her hair cut to remove the singed ends and her body clean and clothed simply as she would have wanted. It seemed even the spirits mourned her passing, the sky foreboding, threatening rain.
"Don't put me in a box, Lin. I had my fill of boxes as a girl." It was always a joke between them, but now Lin was glad she could remember nearly every conversation she had had with her mother.
One would be hard pressed to find a dry eye in Republic City, half the population along with people from all of the world stood in a circle stretching hundreds of feet back around the platform. Not two weeks ago the same people and more had gathered in the exact spot to honor Avatar Aang. Lin was still raw from the passing of the man who had been a father to her when her mother was killed. She did not think she would ever be happy again. It was a small comfort though knowing her mother did not have to bear the weight of Aang's passing anymore. She had not really been the same since his funeral.
Katara was inconsolable, gripping the side of the pyre while her brother attempted to remain strong, an arm around her shoulder. She had lost her husband and her best friend in the same month, not even twelve days apart. Brother and sister were alone once again. Zuko stood rigid a few feet away, tears streaking down his scarred face as he prepared to burn the corpse of a dear friend.
Lin did not realize she was kneeling until she opened her eyes and found herself level with the top of her mother's head. She was crying, sobs wracking her lungs. She could not feel the warm ground beneath her or the air so filled with the impending rain, only her anguish. She did not want to cry, her mother hardly ever cried, but she was lost and had no defense against the onslaught of sorrow.
How could her mother be dead? The woman who as a child ended a war. The woman who had been through so much, struggling and struggling until she was victorious. The woman who never gave up, her determination unmatched. How could she be gone, finished by a group of thugs, leaving only her body for her daughter to burn? Her friends thought she would outlive them all. Lin herself had hoped she would outlive even her and challenge Avatar Kyoshi's lifetime, but she was dead at sixty-six.
Bells began tolling and Lin watched blankly as Zuko approached her, offering his hand. She stood without his aid and followed him to the pyre. This was to be her last goodbye. Lin almost collapsed at the thought. When Zuko stepped away to at least give her some semblance of privacy with the thousands watching, she clung to her mother's cold hands. "The fire will keep her warm." The errant thought almost made her smile. Lin wanted her farewell to be meaningful but she could only repeat "mother" over and over again, her legs shaking dangerously. Her tears stained the funeral garments of her mother, but she did not care. At least her mother would have a piece of her to carry along the wind. After several moments, Lin kissed her mother's forehead as she had done for her so many times and bade her goodbye before moving away.
Zuko, with tears shining in his eyes, ignited the pyre, enveloping Toph's body in flames. Lin could not help but to muse about the elements working together to welcome the hero home. Fire purified and rendered her mother's body to nothing. The wind fed the fire and carried away what the fire left behind. The rain held itself back, waiting for the ritual to finish and the earth welcomed the ashes, Toph becoming one with the element she had adored so.
The sky opened up, sending rain in a deluge when nothing remained. Slowly, the crowd dispersed, until only Lin, her "cousins," Katara, Sokka, and Zuko remained. No words were spoken, all lost in their personal grief. Eventually, even the closest of Toph's friends departed, but Lin would not leave, not even when implored to do so by her family. She never wanted to leave. Leaving would mean forgetting and she could never forget her mother, her idol.
The sky thundered and rain fell through the night, the entire world mourning the passing of Toph Beifong but Lin remained. She was soaked to the bone, but she could not bear to take just one step away from where her mother's body had been.
At dawn, Lin awoke, finding herself curled up beside the remnants of the pyre. Her chest still ached and her eyes had yet to tire of tears, but Lin had had a dream and knew she had to move on. Her mother had spoken to her, urging her to live when she could not, to be tough, to be better than what she had been. It was the same speech she had always been given as a child and it worked once more. Lin did not know whether her mother's spirit had reach out to her or if the dream was a construct of her sorrow and memory and she did not care. She knew no matter the source, the dream held truth in it. Her mother would want her to stand up and push forward.
As Lin walked to police headquarters, she knew one thing for certain. Her mother was in a better place. A person as stable, as unwavering as her, as wonderful, could not simply be gone, she had to have moved on. Lin earned quite a few shocked looks as she entered the station laughing at the thought of her mother giving the Avatar hell in the Spirit World.