[Whenever Aang gets back from flying around on Appa, Toph will be waiting outside their house. No, she isn't bending or building sculptures or playing with Momo like she sometimes used to on idle afternoons around here. The idea seems far-off and flippant. She's just sitting, not-quite-meditating but uncharacteristically quiet for hours, waiting. Reminding herself she needs to do this. She needs to be out there for when he gets back.She needs to...be strong. And take this one day at a time.
No matter how painful those days might be.
Lin had gone a couple weeks earlier, so she has an idea of the inestimable pain Aang must be feeling. It had bludgeoned her, made her felt cold for days like a wind that wouldn't stop blowing. She hadn't been able to say half the things she wanted to, she hadn't been able to do half the things she wanted to. But she'd know Lin, someday, when she went back home and grew up. And that distant truth, no matter how unobtainable it seemed at the moment, was a comfort. Aang would see Tenzin again, too, but Ikki...well, she knows what her departure implies. He may never see his youngest granddaughter again. She'd lit up their lives and made their strange predicament almost laughable with her sheer, and now she was gone. Toph is still angry--she's still furious at him, for telling her not to believe in him and seeming scared when she'd needed him to be strong the most. Things hadn't been the same since then, but the resolve of her anger was chipped away by these departures. They'd made her heart vulnerable in a new way.
And after all the anguish they've been through recently, maybe a little healing in the heart could help.
She can do this. She had to do this. So she will wait.]
action;
No matter how painful those days might be.
Lin had gone a couple weeks earlier, so she has an idea of the inestimable pain Aang must be feeling. It had bludgeoned her, made her felt cold for days like a wind that wouldn't stop blowing. She hadn't been able to say half the things she wanted to, she hadn't been able to do half the things she wanted to. But she'd know Lin, someday, when she went back home and grew up. And that distant truth, no matter how unobtainable it seemed at the moment, was a comfort. Aang would see Tenzin again, too, but Ikki...well, she knows what her departure implies. He may never see his youngest granddaughter again. She'd lit up their lives and made their strange predicament almost laughable with her sheer, and now she was gone. Toph is still angry--she's still furious at him, for telling her not to believe in him and seeming scared when she'd needed him to be strong the most. Things hadn't been the same since then, but the resolve of her anger was chipped away by these departures. They'd made her heart vulnerable in a new way.
And after all the anguish they've been through recently, maybe a little healing in the heart could help.
She can do this. She had to do this. So she will wait.]