Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or its characters.
This is in a different shipping from the last one and the italicsized words are from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. Please R&R and enjoy.
-Ardala91
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now
Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
The morning air hung with dense moisture that soaked the drooping branches of the tree. The sky was scraped in dark grays and whites above and the grass was flushed with dew. Branches were twisted in forgotten prayers from the knotted tree. It had been struck by lightning years ago, leaving a blackened and scarred tree behind. The trunk was as wide as several men with their arms around, but it seemed squat from the length of towering height.
At its base was a stone embedded in the earth, moss had grown into the words carved on its surface and weeds had begun to grow around it in its lost memory. The branches groaned while a bent over figure crouched beside the marker. Large, slender fingers reverently cleared the headstone of its litter from nature. The man stayed kneeling beside the marker and sat on a protruding root next to it while he leaned against the trunk.
His wide grey eyes were solemn and bleak as he watched the stone and his clasping hands twitched. The man was of a taller lean build with the lines of having just left early manhood. The clothes he wore were of fine make but were frayed from use and stained. There was no hair on his head; instead to decorate it was a long running blue arrow that stopped at his forehead. A hushed voice spoke with doleful tones, shattering the gloomy quiet. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to return...I was busy." The man gave an apologetic look towards the stone. "I always meant to come back, but I was scared to, to be honest."
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a dayIn a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
The man's voice became louder and foreboding. "You can't imagine how hard it's without you." He gave an abashed gaze. "Actually, you would since you're gone." The wind sighed softly on his face making him to blink. "I've learned to live again, I mean that I've had to move on to be able to live, but that's what you would have wanted." The man clenched his fists tightly. "I wish you were still here and I'm angry that you're not!"
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
The man had begun to raise his voice to a yell, full of anguish, anger, and sorrow. "I blame myself you know, but I know that there was nothing that I could have done!" He let out a ragged breath and his voice shook. "I miss you." He touched the stone lightly with sad fingers, tracing the words. "I'm sorry that I couldn't save you." he whispered, tracing her name. "Wait for me." The moss made the words a speckled green on the stone, making them stand out against its grey exterior. Toph Beifong, forever friend in our hearts and hero to the world.
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?