Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to Viacom.

A/N: First part is a flashback, second takes place early Book 2.

The Last Earthbender

77. Memories

She didn't speak with words. But that was okay, because Toph didn't need them to understand.

The young girl grew to learn every inch of her mentor. Her claws, hard and smooth as marble, each one larger than Toph's entire body. The crusted, callused skin of her feet. Her legs, like pillars. Her fur, thick and soft. The high dome of her back. Her tail, long and muscular and scaly. Her face, gently sloping to a velvet nose, her two pointed, furry ears, her long, stiff, bristly whiskers, her curved, distinguished lips. Her eyes, which closed when Toph's hands drew near, and the folds of her eyelids.

Her breath was hot and moist and heavy with the scent of rotting wood; the sound of her moving was like the hills dancing. She smelled of musk and earth.

She crawled through shifting tunnels, dark and sightless and unknown. She delved deep, and eventually led Toph to a nest of soft fur, in which was curled an infant cub, a blubbery mound of fur the size of an ostrich-horse. Toph crawled in next to it, and began to learn.

It wasn't learning from the earth itself, not exactly. But it was as close as Toph could get without burying her head in the soil. This language would be indecipherable for a student whose mind was cluttered with human teachings. But Toph learned it like a second tongue.

The paw moves, the stone shakes. The smooth stone is strong and good for tunnels.

The tail sweeps, the gravel trembles. No, not this stone. This stone will crumble and slide beneath us.

There are no names (shale and granite, conglomerate and quartz). There are feelings. There are echoes of mass and structure, becoming clearer until Toph can read the rock with a single stroke of her fingers. This one is full of air holes and this one is dense and solid. This one will break into sheets and this one into columns. Wait, listen. This voice is as old as dust.

After she had learned to read the earth, Toph began to speak back to it. The words were simple. Move here. The scrape of a foot. Lift up. The raising arms, the clenching fists. Shatter. The gesture of the fingers, the elbow.

She thought, after some time, that she was speaking not just with the badgermoles and the pebbles, but with something even grander. She could have sworn, sometimes, when she was in the deepest tunnels, that she felt heartbeats all around her. She felt noticed, like the tunnels were alive, or like they were the pulsing veins of some immense beast. Yet she was never afraid. This was the beast she came from, and the beast to which she would one day return. There was no need to fear.

She could have lived her life down there, under the earth's skin. She could have developed a taste for tree roots, and learned to roar and dig. Maybe one day she could grow fur. But Toph Bei Fong knew in her heart of hearts that she was no badgermole.

So one day she licked the badgermole mother on the nose, and said goodbye both with the rocks and in her human voice.

She did not stumble, walking out of that cave. A jackalope scurried, and its swift little feet told the earth where it had been. A branch dropped, and exclaimed its dropping to the earth. The grass bent in the wind, and informed the earth of its movement. And the earth, like the kindly gossip it was, told Toph of all these happenings.

Toph smiled. Things would be different.

The island was tiny. Just a few little round-tops, covered with seabirds, emerging from the waves. Azula doubted it was worth the stop, but reluctantly acquiesced to the Avatar's wishes.

"A short stop only," she said. "We need to keep moving."

As soon as they'd made landfall, Toph ran down the gangplank, past Zuko and even fleet-footed Aang, and up the slope of the hill. She found the cave easily, drawn there like iron to a lodestone, and plunged inside.

The cave was damp and cool. Was it damper, cooler than she remembered? That was hard to say.

Once deep enough in the cave, Toph took a wide stance, and let out a pulse, a greeting. A low note through the rock, the opening phrase of the subsonic music that was badgermole communication. She listened.

Nothing.

She sent another pulse, and listened. Nothing.

Toph got down on her hands and knees, and pressed her cheek to the floor of the tunnel. Nothing. No movement or vibration. The earth was still. The earth was dead.

Toph paused, but only for a moment. She ran deeper. Even if they were gone, the presence she'd felt in the deepest realms that the badgermoles dared dig, surely that was still there? Surely-

Her feet splashed into water, and Toph stopped. The cave was flooded. She could go no further.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to bring the whole cavern down. She could feel the power, trembling at the edge of her spirit, threatening to overtake her. The energy, the rush. She was alone. She could give into it. She could-

"Toph! Toph!" Footsteps, and then a hand on her shoulder shook her back and forth. "Toph! Stop!"

Zuko.

"Toph, I know this place was special for you. But you can't make things better by destroying it! We have to, uh. We need to look forward! To the future!"

The future. She couldn't change the past. They were gone.

The feeling left, and Toph felt her knees fold. Zuko caught her.

"It's not fair," she said, her voice quieter and more plaintive than she usually allowed. "They were my friends. My teachers."

"I know," said Zuko. "Like the dragons."

Toph nodded. "Yeah." She sniffed, and drew her dusty sleeve across her eyes. "Let's get out of here."

She was on solid ground, but still held onto his arm as they made their way out, more tightly than she had to.