Gods and Magnolias
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After Earth Rumble, she buried the last pouch of gold coins. It was flimsy beside the others hidden there years before, their worn fabric stretched tight and overflowing; the majority of her payment had gone to the new Champion. She covered the hole, and sat quietly upon the Blind Bandit's grave until the birds began their dawn fanfare, high in the magnolia's fragrant branches.
The next day she absorbed herself in the mundane and menial. Dressing herself in soft robes, her parents' dribbling chitchat at breakfast, reciting poetry for Mommy, beginner's lessons with Master Yu. Yesterday she had laughed to herself as Master Yu, in his nasally voice, guided her in breathing exercises she could do in her sleep. Now the joke was on her.
How stupid to think it would last forever, to think she'd found her secret salvation. One mistake—one dumb mistake—and her fantasies and hopes were rotting away underground with leaves, worms, and roots. And that's where they'll stay, she told herself.
But he had other plans.
She wasn't one to put faith in the workings of destiny, the mysteries of fate, but even she couldn't deny the strange power caught in the wake of those birdlike footsteps, that smiling voice that rambled on about swamps and kings. Was it something unique to the Avatar, or some higher force at work? She didn't know, but she couldn't ignore it. Part of her never doubted that she would help him; the other part wasn't quite ready to forgive.
He needed a teacher. More precisely, he needed her. But what could she do? Maybe the Blind Bandit had possessed the power to escape her parents' coddling embrace, but the Blind Bandit was gone now. That game had ended. The frenzy and melodrama and passion, so foreign to the somnolent lifestyle that confined her, were memories that she kept greedily locked away with dreams of battling gods and crying magnolias.
She thought she'd never again feel that reverent hollowing of her chest as she stepped down into Xin Fu's stadium, and she was right. As she tramped over the rough stone, her father's hand jealously shielding her own, it was impotence and anger that carved a pit inside her. She droned out their pleas with the sounds of her own footsteps, but what she could not silence was her father's ardent defense, She cannot help you!
Two years ago, it was a spark of defiance and perception that gave life to the Blind Bandit, and it was that same spark that would ressurect her now.
Her voice, quietly determined, unmasked and undaunted; her voice filled the the tunnel, I can. As she slipped her hand from her father's grasp, she could sense his astonishment. She wondered if she ought to warn him, but what mere words could do the Blind Bandit justice? She would let him see, and that would be her confession.
Cottony pajamas replaced her golden fighter's uniform. Her audience was tiny and skeptic. Her opponents were vengeful. So was she.
It was her finest performance.
The night Toph Bei Fong was kidnapped, the Blind Bandit leaped unseen from her bedroom window, softened the earth to ease her landing, and slipped into the fresh night.
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A/N: ...The end. Thanks so much to everyone who made it this far! Toph definitely rawks (pardon the pun) and I have seen the error of my ways.