They should have left her to die in a field. That’s what everybody whispered. It would be kinder than to let her grow up and be absolutely useless to their village. It was the kind of thing that made villages choose new leaders. It was the kind of thing that made villages kick out old leaders. No village could afford permanent dead weight, not anymore.
Gaoling used to be a city. Of course it did. All of the villages did. In the Earth Kingdom, people stayed rooted. They didn’t abandon their homes. Toph grew up without one. Every day, her parents tried to protect her from the sad, horrible fact that they had no one but each other because of her.
But Toph wasn’t dead weight. She could tell where every rabbit-pheasant, and every pigeon-mouse in every den was. She could catch any one of them and bring them home. She could keep her family fed every day. No one else had that.
And when she rode into Gaoling with her parents on the badger-moles, that everybody thought were gone from the world, no one called her dead weight. They called her a gift.
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branchandroot
Life Spirit: Toph Bei Fong
Date: 2010-10-05 08:57 pm (UTC)Gaoling used to be a city. Of course it did. All of the villages did. In the Earth Kingdom, people stayed rooted. They didn’t abandon their homes. Toph grew up without one. Every day, her parents tried to protect her from the sad, horrible fact that they had no one but each other because of her.
But Toph wasn’t dead weight. She could tell where every rabbit-pheasant, and every pigeon-mouse in every den was. She could catch any one of them and bring them home. She could keep her family fed every day. No one else had that.
And when she rode into Gaoling with her parents on the badger-moles, that everybody thought were gone from the world, no one called her dead weight. They called her a gift.