Authors Note:Whoa! I'm updating for this story faster then any other! Isn't that amazing? I guess I'm just so driven to complete this, it actually means something to me. Ok people, I tried my hardest on this chapter, having a slight personal experience with this when I take off my glasses. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar, Mike and Bryan do. But I DO own this lullaby. I made it up. Yay for me!
Sorry for shortness.
Toph walked through the roads of what she suspected was the lower tier. She felt the grimy dust and earth underneath her feet instead of the hard, hot paved streets of the middle and upper tiers.
She loved the feel of soil underneath her feet and in between her toes. It made her feel…in her element. Yet even the warm earth beneath her couldn't make her happy today. Not the carefree girl, who didn't seem to care what others thought about her.
The voices around her were raucous and loud. It annoyed her; she really hated it when she didn't know what exactly they were talking about. She had to depend on heightened senses of hearing, smell, taste, and the vibrations of the things around her. It was what made her such a powerful bender.
But that doesn't mean she didn't want to see.
She remembered back home, in her suffocating household, when she would ask what things looked like, she would get a really stupid answer. "Oh, it's ruffled, and straight," or "oh, it's red and pink." They didn't get it that she didn't even know what colors looked like. Or what lines or straight edges looked like. The ruffles on a pillow, or the petals on a flower. She didn't know what they were, not really.
She knew what colors were supposed to be, or what a lake or something simple was supposed to look like from descriptions, but most descriptions couldn't really make sense, because she didn't know what fluffy or hard was supposed to look like.
If some miracle happened and she could suddenly see, she wouldn't be able to distinguish red from blue. She would be like a newborn baby, looking at the world for the first time.
She knew what darkness was though. Eyes closed or open, it didn't matter. Instinct told her, that darkness was what she saw, and that that was all she would ever see.
Here my child, a rose, a rose
Toph suddenly felt the feeling of cool, itchy grass underneath her feet and the feeling of the vibrations of shuffling people. As if they had been standing there for awhile. Her ears picked up the sweet voice of a girl, and the playing of a flute, and an island instrument called a guitar. Her blank, sea foamed eyes widened as she recognized the earth kingdom melody.
Grown from the earth the heavens have sown.
Toph walked to the source of music, feeling two familiar presences, one of a girl she knew well, the other of a boy she recognized to be the one they called 'Zuko'. But she wasn't really paying attention to them. Her ears and senses that were available to her were all on the lullaby.
Earth is apart of us, we are earth itself.
She loved this lullaby. When Toph became the blind bandit, the only thing keeping her from going to that house, to that suffocating life that made her feel like she was drowning in lukewarm water, was this lullaby. Her parents would gather around her bed and sing it to her, letting down their high mighty pretenses, and showing their child they loved her. That she wasn't a disgrace, and almost seeming that one day, they would release her from her iron cage.
You are my special rose, grown from earth's abundant wealth.
That wasn't the case. Toph felt a hot liquid form in her eyes that she had identified long ago as tears. She had decided she didn't like them when she was young, and hardly ever cried. This wasn't one of those times.
Remember, my child, you are a rose.
Her parents had been determined to clip her wings, seeing it as the best thing to do. The best thing for her welfare. It wasn't the best thing though. In fact it was the worst.
Toph felt small, delicate objects drift around her. Were they flower petals? Suddenly, she was reminded of the day she and Katara went to the spa. She remembered the girls teasing her, and Katara saying afterwards that Toph was beautiful. How she was confident. No one could remove her from the fate she chose. Not her parents, not destiny, not anyone. She had people to believe in now, and to believe in her.
Not just for protection, but for comfort and strength. They told her she was strong, and beautiful. Honestly, that was all Toph wanted to be.
Made from the loving earth.
Beautiful in not only a physical way, but emotionally. Personality wise. She wanted to be strong, and make her own choices, and even being blind, wouldn't stop her. For a second, she thought she saw something. A blur of what she thought were shapes, and what instinct and gut told her was light. And what her heart told her was a sign of a good future.
And filled with hope.