AN: Here's the second batch guys; hope you enjoy it and feedback is love!
037: Tactless
Grounded
She was stuck; stuck like her feet were surrounded in lava and it had dried, leaving her bones bleached and her body useless. Her screams, no matter how much they echoed and resounded, wouldn't free her. But she screamed and cried anyway, because that's all her voice and eyes were good for anyway now-a-days ever since she had gotten infected.
People usually talked about love so grandly, so elated in their light laughs and lighter hearts. But Toph knew better, love was a mistress that took to no one. It was something that was promiscuous by nature and hopped around at night, stealing hearts and rationality while leaving longing in compensation.
Toph hated love with a passion, would grunt and groan when her friends would cup each other's faces and bring their lips together.
She fought off the hormones, fought off the boys and their advances to her maturing face and body.
Toph knew she was truly a free soul from not being shackled down by love, to have freedom and flight that even Aang couldn't duplicate.
But then he had come along with his large hands and warm voice and cajoled her into kisses and dark allies, into pulling at his wolfs tail and moaning out his name. Sokka had come so sudden and so quick it left her actually breathless, even if it was from something as simple as taking her hand under the table.
So now she was stuck in something she had no idea was, had no idea how to maneuver and bend.
She was entirely out of her element and into something no one had ever mastered.
.
030: Female
Multi-Faceted Face
Sokka had always known Toph was a girl. It was obvious in how she never walked around shirtless and how her voice was high and her laughter (even when maniacal) was light and akin to bells.
But there were times, like when she would jump from cliff sides or stand with resolve, not giving up an inch of her precious earth to anyone, that made Sokka see her as a man, as a brave warrior. The way her movements were so sure and steady, so powerful in such a tiny body. She could make mountains and crumble cities with her fingers and wrists; could bring a fully grown man, a seasoned war veteran even, to his knees without even blinking and giving heed.
If traveling the world had taught him anything, it was that anything was possible. That nothing could be perfectly predicted and prescribed; every day had a surprise just waiting to jump up and bite him in the behind. Sometimes this belief was literally and those days were unfortunate ones.
It seemed that today (in this moment) that was happening to Sokka. Because he was here now, just swimming, and had almost drowned when he saw Toph discard her shirt to show white bindings that only just covered certain areas that had developed. They were thrown around her torso halfheartedly and chaotically, not the careful method his sister used. She made the binds look so easy to unwrap; to pull one part and the rest would come tumbling off.
There was a definite swell in her hips, a dip in her stomach; her hair fell down to cover her taunt back as she walked towards the water, a tentative toe dipping in for a moment.
But then she was taking steps back and had flung herself in with a shrill battle cry only to remember and realize moments later, as she surfaced heaving and panicking, that she still couldn't swim well.
Sokka still doesn't know what to make out of this beautiful fighter, he thinks, as he hauls her out of the water and she laughs.
.
073: Win
The Prize
I always come to her tournaments because that's where she smiles the widest. That's right – that's where she smiles the widest, not smirks the widest; there's a fine line and I pride myself in knowing it.
Sometimes she'll take extra effort and point me out to the crowd, which makes me go even crazier; not even Katara can wind me down from this high. She's learned to just sit back and cuddle with Aang, or something equally boring like that; I really don't care, I'm too focused on the barely five foot teenager in the ring.
How she can just take down any man in some embarrassing way with only a flick of her wrist and palm. Her feet are so light and set at the same time; it makes me cry my throat raw in amazement.
I always thought that each show surpassed the next and that the most recent rumble or fight she won was my favorite. But, then, in the last one, she did something that had made me melt to the ground and decide it was my favorite tournament of all time.
The fight itself was fairly orthodox; a few sarcastic quips before the nameless burly man was shot off the platform like a rocket. She then did that rare occurrence of finding me in the crowd, except this time rather than come to me, she made me fly to her. Her earth caught me of course, and set me down on shaky legs while I looked down at her.
And just as I had set my feet for balance, her arms were around my waist and she had swooped me down, like one of those cheesy dance moves Aang and Katara are always doing, before she had crashed (and I mean crashed; they were bruised the next day) her lips against mine.
The applause was deafening, but all I could hear was her fast pacing heart that was outrunning mine.
And for that moment I didn't care if I looked stupid and was the blushing girl, I moved my hands to tangle in her dark locks, forcing her face and heat closer to me.
When we finally pulled away to hear the cheers and she swung me back up to standing, she kept a hold of my hand and squeezed it. She had raised a hand in thanks to all the spectators, and I had felt suddenly so stupid and happy and entirely elated because I waved, too.
It was the greatest rumble, shake down, avalanche of events and emotions ever.
.
002: Past
Glory
The earthbender looks back at the times when it was just the four of them and can't help but smile; can't help but feel that pride that had run through her veins the night she had run away. The wind in her hair as she flew into the unknown and heard the voices to people she barely knew, it was all so daring and different that it made her alert and alive again.
She had felt victory when she won those tournaments and faced all those opponents, but nothing compares to those days with her tightest friends just living and surviving off of each other and some stray nuts or berries they would manage to find.
They had survived on essentially nothing. They had slept without blankets, had gone without baths and calm minds. But, somehow, they had kept their arms connected and had kept trekking on to save the world.
Toph doesn't know what the future holds and can barely get a steady hold on the present, but she knows the past. And there she can revel and remember; she can smile and think of how great everything and everyone was even if there was a war ragging around them.
And when that day finally comes when one of those four bends his frame down to her face and kisses her so faintly, she revels more in the few moments after he's pulled away. Because, no matter what happens next, this is in the past.
And no matter what, Toph will always hold her past beneath the protective cage her ribs make. Because it's just like her heart in how her life depends on it.
