Rejoinder
I.
The road to nowhere is icy and slippery, one step forward and two steps back.
Toph placed her foot on the ground, firm and resilient and just a bit scared (that one twice as much). She looked back over her shoulder and wished she hadn't turned.
Huddled behind, in the shadow, in the cold and dark and forlorn, he couldn't get his lungs to work.
II.
"Here, take this." She handed him a blanket, tattered and frayed at the edges, the threads coming apart. Covered in holes, it was a rag and he knew it.
"No."
"Why are you so stupid and stubborn all the time?"
(I don't know) he wanted to say, but that was impossible all because of something called pride.
Called foolish too, because that's what pride was when stripped away, had chipped off the paint—sluiced and dipped in acid. Just in case.
III.
Sometimes, she doesn't know why she even bothered. Bothered to be his friend, to comfort him, just be there. Toph wasn't nice. She wasn't some berry-rouge fairy come to make bad-things go away.
Still.
She listened and played out the little sister for him, the one for soothing and joy and endless childish despairs churned up in hope. (But she liked it too, the feeling of being free and savage. Legs and feet kicked way up in the air.)
And she never asked why.
It just was.