200 word drabble: Marking Boundaries

[attackfish]

Written for avatar_500 prompt #65, Air.

Summary: She feels it around her when she walks in its emptiness.

Marking Boundaries

Toph remembered when she was very young, before she met the badger-moles or became the Blind Bandit, sitting in her window and listening to the wind blow through the trees.  She remembered hanging her feet out the window, with the ground only a few feet below her, and feeling like it was miles below instead.  She remembered the way she used to crawl, or cling to walls when she thought her mother wouldn't catch her, and she remembered feeling like nothing in the world existed except the ground underneath her feet. 

Once, after a party, where a bunch of her father's friends had all sat around and talked about the way the moon looked reflected in a pond, someone told her it was a shame she was never going to see the sky.

Aang and Katara told her that when they were on Appa, they were flying through the sky.  Aang talked about being in the temples, high up in the mountains that touched the sky, but Toph had been in the temples.  They didn't feel any different.  They all talked about the sky and how far away it was, and only Toph remembered that they all touched it, always.

Comments

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

Toph is amazing. I particularly liked the image of her sitting on a windowsill unable to know how far away the ground is. Makes you remember how terrifying it must have been when she was riding Appa bareback.

ps I'm sorry I don't comment on these more often. I really like them and in future I'll put more effort into commenting as well as reading.

[lalunatique.livejournal.com]

Love the idea of Toph feeling the air and sky through absence. What isn't there is as important as what is. It's always a bit of a thrill to think that different people perceive the world differently, as though there were as many different worlds as there are people--and really, there are.

This also reminded me of Touch the Sky (http://archiveofourown.org/works/347198) by amyraine, an Avatar Toph AU where she learns to airbend.

[c3childs.livejournal.com]

I like that, that she had a connection to Air before she did to Earth. People see her as poor, blind Toph, but she honestly fails to see her disadvantage.

[somariel]

I like this.

[grandiose666.livejournal.com]

I really like this! I love how you explored Toph's experience of the world.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

I think it's very interesting that Toph here is the character who remembers the sky. Toph is, well, grounded, pardon the pun.

I feel a little odd about the ending here. "They didn't feel any different. They all talked about the sky and how far away it was" is very... Toph. But "only Toph remembered that they all touched it, always" is poetic in a way I don't recall Toph ever being.

[lavanyasix.livejournal.com]

The frame of reference makes sense for Toph, and does a good job of presenting her worldview as one that treats visual cues as a seeing might treat, say, telepathic ones. People can talk to Toph about the things she can't experiences, but she's still not experiencing them.

I imagine Aang must have the same experience, to a lesser degree, with everyone else's concept of stuff like "falling" and "height." The Western Air Temple best showed the different frame of reference for airbenders.