Toph Bei Fong (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seismometrics) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu2015-08-02 10:55 pm
seismometrics) wrote in tushanshu2015-08-02 10:55 pm
Audio - Backdated to 7/30
[Audio only is rare for Toph. Usually she doesn't even bother to toggle the settings; it doesn't matter to her whether she's seen or not. But today, right now . . . it's audio only, and her words come out hard and flat.]
Last night I had a dream. About a kid with a woman who was teaching him to earthbend. He pretty much sucked at it.
He was wearing a soul gem.
[There's a pause. For a long moment she says nothing else. But the silence is almost tangible in its thickness.]
He was home. My home.
[There's an undercurrent that runs through the words here, dark and weighted.]
[It's rage.]
((ooc: Toph can only "see" through seismic sense, so although she dreams, she still doesn't see images in the traditional sense -- and can't see color. So for ooc puzzlings, I shall pass on that the boy's hair shifted colors in the dream in case it's important and matches up with anything else.))
Last night I had a dream. About a kid with a woman who was teaching him to earthbend. He pretty much sucked at it.
He was wearing a soul gem.
[There's a pause. For a long moment she says nothing else. But the silence is almost tangible in its thickness.]
He was home. My home.
[There's an undercurrent that runs through the words here, dark and weighted.]
[It's rage.]
((ooc: Toph can only "see" through seismic sense, so although she dreams, she still doesn't see images in the traditional sense -- and can't see color. So for ooc puzzlings, I shall pass on that the boy's hair shifted colors in the dream in case it's important and matches up with anything else.))
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We've been here a long time. Both of us. They tell us nothing happens when we're here -- everything gets frozen. That means you and everybody else, you're waiting back home. Waiting for me to come back so we can wake up and finish the war. You've been waiting -- I've been waiting -- for two years.
One of those years I don't even remember. Even though I should have gone home, I woke up and was here.
Sokka's gone. Katara's gone. Zuko's gone.
[The thread of anger ripples back.]
Then I find out some kedan got sent there instead. Who's learning earthbending. Who doesn't even care where he wound up.
I'm still here. I'm always here.
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....I understand.
[He says this quietly, and with much deliberation. Because he does. He knows all too well what it's like to wake up in a world you didn't go to sleep in. To find all of your friends gone on without you. To know the pain of separation.]
[Aang never really understood it when the Monks said All Was Suffering, and then he woke up to a world where everything he knew and loved was dead. That the world went on without him.]
[The nightmares have been fewer since the ending of the war, but they still show up from time to time.]
I'm sorry, Toph.
[Because he can't imagine a worse fate for anyone, than knowing the pain he feels.]
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[The words are a quiet thread, but audible.]
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[He says just as softly.]
Me too.
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That's why I didn't talk about it.
[They're trapped there, both of them, and there's nothing either of them can do. Nothing but rail against fate and feel hopeless.]
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Yeah.
[Honestly, it's what's holding her together right now: Aang. She can't let down Aang. But it doesn't make her feel better . . . and she's not sure there's an answer.]
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[It's because of this that Aang does something drastic.]
[Something Un-Aang-like]
[Something he's never done before...]
[He carefully crosses the distance between them and punches her in the shoulder.]
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[Was unexpected.]
[The fist impacts her shoulder, which causes Toph's head to jerk up.]
[For a minute there's only silence, the blow hanging in the air between them.]
[. . . Before she does something completely un-Toph-like.]
[And snags an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.]
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[Then panic begins to set in. What has he done?! Why did he think that was a good idea? She's hurt. Hurting. Being vulnerable. And he goes and just hits her?]
[Shame begins to well up into his chest just as she reaches out to pull him in. Instinctively he wraps his arms around her, pulling her close as well.]
[It might be the airbending, or it might be the firebending, possibly a bit of both...either way, Aang is always warm. Even when it's snowing and he doesn't have anything covering his shoulder he's still warm. Now is no different.]
I'm so sorry....