Long Before the world finished forming, before life itself took its first breath. There were only concepts. Concepts that predate everything else, concepts that would be refined in the kiln of time and sharpened on the whetstone of existence as the world blushed into existence. Concepts that would in time turn Into the finished products of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.
In this time before time the concepts existed in balance in the form of a great weave. A tapestry entangled and flowing with a beauty fierce enough to rend Mortal minds.
An then something collided with this great work that would become a world and rippled across it. For it was Blood, Old Blood deep as the ocean and far more dangerous, as it seeped into every string of the work. Tinting every strand in its copper hue and staining it with the scent of moonlight.
It Changed nothing, and everything.
Upon processing the full weight of my past lives memory, or at least the few that my new puny mortal brain could process. My first thought was 'Holy shit that actually worked!' I was so surprised by my success that it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that I was blind, mostly because I was seeing with my feet somehow? I wasn't very good at it either.
As such It took me another week to realize my name in this life was Toph.
Toph Beifong to be exact.
My memories of Avatar were blurred and abstract but I could remember enough to know I was important somehow. Also that I was a Potential badass.
But hey it could have been way worse, my very morality could have been completely rewritten or I could have achieved soul death. So some vague memories weren't that much of an issue, nor was being a blind little girl either.
Really you'd think a gender change would be harder to get used to, but compared to my previous (and still technically true) form it wasn't that much of an adjustment.
Learning to slither was just a pain in the ass after walking on two legs for most of your life.
Blindness was even less of an adjustment once I remembered that while they were weakened I could still pull on a limited amount of power from my previous form. Only grain or two because I didn't particularly feel like dying of incineration, again, but it was enough to open a couple of the eyes lining my brain so that I could see and supplement my feet vision.
Sure it was a weird abstract version of sight that would have driven any sane being round the brink, but that was no real issue for me. After all enlightenment can drive you mad, and I'm nothing if not enlightened.
Either Way I'm certain I creeped out more than one servant by somehow staring despite my non-functioning eyes. There was also that one that went insane when I used too much power and couldn't handle the insignificance of her existence.
But other than that I was a pretty easy baby, really. Believe me, I'm totally not being sarcastic.
To be frank though, life as a child was strangely angelic once I Was old enough to leave the crib. The servants were never shy to play with me after they got over my relative creepiness. I got enough love and affection from the lot of them that (had I not lived a past life) they would have spoiled me rotten.
The Cooks always had lemon cakes on hand to slip me when I came to visit and the gardeners were always willing to humor me. The teachers were kind, if strict and I had no complaints. Even if they were all confused on how a blind toddler could cause so much havoc.
But those of you who were paying attention probably realized there was something missing from this equation.
My parents.
From age 0 to age 5 my I can only remember a sparse few visits from my gene donors, only frequent enough to ensure a form of familiarity.
From 5 to 6 that didn't change, but the servants did. It was a slow change and one I might have missed if I wasn't so insightful.
I said from ages 5 to 6 that the change started, but that was untrue. It was just when I noticed. Affection that used to be given freely without hesitation was becoming sparse. With lessons on etiquette and politics having taken their place with little prompting.
Little aborted movements where the gardener once might have ruffled my hair he stopped halfway through and made a shoddy excuse to leave. When the cook might have slipped me a lemon cake and let me watch as he cooked I was instead hurried off with a generic candy that they knew I didn't like.
Had I been a normal child it would have made them lonely or furious at the growing distance between me and the staff that had looked after me for most of my life.
It only made me curious.
After all a normal child wouldn't have been able to spot the subtle guilt that ate away at every single one of these events. Let alone a blind one.
But I was anything but normal, just as my form of sight let me perceive the waves of guilt and sadness wafting off their luminous forms.
Really while they weren't very good liars in the first place, the little bit of acting they did manage was wasted on me since I could see the truth in their souls. But it wasn't until I turned six that I began to understand what was actually going on.
As my birthday had grown closer and closer, my lessons on the world had grown more complicated. To the extent I wondered if a normal child would have been able to handle it. The servants grew even more distant to the point that Physical contact was rare to occur more than once a week outside of required duties like making sure I was bathed.
To children, to me even with my very odd circumstances, it was torture. The lack of affectionate contact setting off some sort of evolutionary failure as the world turned grey and life just suddenly seaming pointless. It might have even gotten to me had I not been able to see as the servants' very souls reached out to try and comfort me in spirit as they were unable to in the physical. The guilt practically formed a tsunami as it washed over everything around them.
It was beautiful in an almost tragic way to see the almost crystalline branches of grief growing out in lattice of emotion, reaching out to me. Trying to surround me in some attempt to bring some form of affection.
Everyday it grew akin to a tree drinking in misery in order to fuel itself, until it would have been a struggle for any other being to see past. Bringing me a near constant form of affection like I had my own meadow of loving flowers and trees. Until it reached its climax.
Upon my six birthday it was a metaphorical forest grown specifically for me. out of the affection from those who well and truly loved me, who were simply not allowed to express it.
Despite the lack of contact, despite how all of the servants did their best to act as though we had never met, despite the fact I didn't get a single gift let alone a birthday cake...
I didn't care, I smiled like my teeth were made out of the sun. I laughed in the gardens even as the gardener stiffly tried not to react to any of the jokes I knew he loved and giggled like an ancient nymph.
Because despite how they were acting I could see and feel exactly how much they loved me.
Even with the alien understanding of the cosmos and the right to draw upon and comprehend the most grievous of infinite's, the only measure I could put upon their love was unquantifiable.
A being who had earned the right to count infinities and witness the true end of everything could not see the end of their love.
And all of it was for me.
But truly life is cruel and fate is a female hawk-hound. For while I laughed and played the day away like it was the best I would ever live. I would wake just in time to watch as my crystal forest of love and affection began to crumble.
The forest was an ethereal construct built behind the thin veil of existence humans called reality. Maintained only through constant presence of the servants, and their need to express their feelings of affection.
So when I woke the next morning and went to say hello to the gardener after my morning preparations as I had since I could walk. It was no surprise that it began to wilt when I found that not only was the gardener missing, but that a stranger had taken his place.
More so that when in a panic I rushed to the cook if only for familiarity, to find that she was gone too. I was on the edge of a breakdown, a breakdown that was ensured when I found my teachers were gone as well. Only for the set of strangers that had taken their place, to try to act as though they had been there the whole time.
Picking up lessons right where I had left off as though my entire life hadn't been swept out from under my feet.
I broke down, I Wasn't able to process this with my tiny mortal brain. So my body reacted with instinct. I broke down into a crying and screaming mess all the while my mind evacuated my body leaning heavily on the connection to my true form.
I was able to escape the trappings of my puny mortal form and use the processing ability of my true form.
Only to find that this had been planned for since my birth. The reasoning behind this epiphany was almost as terrifying as the plot itself.
How did I come across it? Simple really with the imposters there my first reaction was to find my servants. How to do that? Well with my mind currently inhabiting my true form finding them would be easy. I'd just need their names.
Their Names.
Their Names
Their Names
Their names that I did not know. My physical body's brain had been tainted by my true nature since my soul had been pushed into by the cycle of samsara in the womb. As a result I had a perfect recollection of my entire life etched, into my neurons and yet their names were absent from my mind.
Their names, that had never been used in my presence since my birth, I realized. As I forcibly made the entirety of my life flash in my mind eye like a movie real.
The implications of it would have made me sick if it wasn't for the fact that it made me furious. It meant someone had been planning this since before I was born. So I needed to find who had planned this if only for my peace of mind (And so I could rip their soul to tattered shreds)
As my spirit returned to my body I couldn't help but contemplate that It was truly an amazing thing that this world somehow made miss Yarnham.
After all while the Beast plague was truly a scourge beyond any other, at least they didn't plot and plan to rip everything a little girl knew of the world from her with nary a warning.
Such was my last thought before the exhaustion of not only forcing my brain to process things on level no mortal could possibly comprehend. But also the tantrum my physical body had been throwing the while I metaphorically left the building forced me into unconsciousness.