[ Toph had heard the warnings about the miasma from the monk they got the talismans from, and it wasn't that she didn't take them seriously, she just didn't let it stop her. Children are affected worse, pfft, she's not a child child. She can fight through some annoyances like her feet getting tingly and irritating. As for the rest, she can't see herself in despair, and she's never been prone to violent urges before. She loves fighting, but her violence is utterly measured and deliberate.
Then she crumples her talisman, and crushes a whole lot of snakes, and inhales a face full of concentrated miasma, and her adrenaline is up and she's fighting and she is, actually, a child in every way that counts. It felt so easy to slip right over a line she would normally never cross. Now there's blood and snake viscera and a dead, rotting person that she couldn't save. (None of this would've happened if Aang were here, two times over.)
Toph freezes, shock immobilizing her immediately after. Everything she'd been bending drops to the ground at once with a dull thunk or a rumbling echo, knife included. She closes her eyes to make sure the tears stay in. Her pride has been sorely tested lately by her loss of memories and abilities, and here, now, having her sense of herself not replaced like last month but warped, distorted --
It feels even worse. The anger twists and contorts and starts to approach the anguish she'd thought herself so above, but she'd been right about one thing: Toph Beifong does not despair. ]
I should be better than this, [ she says to herself in a low tone, wrestling with the impulses to keep going, lash out at whoever's nearby. Miller, and a man he's still trying to save, no thanks to her. Toph knows how dangerous she could be if she truly didn't care about morals, if her pride and integrity didn't matter to her. It could be terrifying.
But it does matter to her, a whole hell of a lot. ]
... I am better than this.
[ By now, Miller is staggering away and she's just been standing here, worse than useless. She breathes out, raises her arms again, and sinks the whole mess of snake corpses and dead woman into the ground with sharp, direct motions, burying it in feet of dirt so it can't release more miasma into the air. It's a massive rumbling shift, like the earth itself rises up and folds over all of the mess they-- she-- had made, and entombs it.
She can find the site later for a proper burial. Toph hurries over to Miller, expression tight with strain and distress, but focusing again on her self-appointed task. ] Wait, [ she says curtly, ] we should put our talismans on him.
[ She takes out hers and, much more respectfully than earlier, tries to slip it somehow close to his skin from where he's hanging over Miller's shoulder, maybe tucking it into a fold of clothing. She knows her lore, okay? But she will control herself without it. ]
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Then she crumples her talisman, and crushes a whole lot of snakes, and inhales a face full of concentrated miasma, and her adrenaline is up and she's fighting and she is, actually, a child in every way that counts. It felt so easy to slip right over a line she would normally never cross. Now there's blood and snake viscera and a dead, rotting person that she couldn't save. (None of this would've happened if Aang were here, two times over.)
Toph freezes, shock immobilizing her immediately after. Everything she'd been bending drops to the ground at once with a dull thunk or a rumbling echo, knife included. She closes her eyes to make sure the tears stay in. Her pride has been sorely tested lately by her loss of memories and abilities, and here, now, having her sense of herself not replaced like last month but warped, distorted --
It feels even worse. The anger twists and contorts and starts to approach the anguish she'd thought herself so above, but she'd been right about one thing: Toph Beifong does not despair. ]
I should be better than this, [ she says to herself in a low tone, wrestling with the impulses to keep going, lash out at whoever's nearby. Miller, and a man he's still trying to save, no thanks to her. Toph knows how dangerous she could be if she truly didn't care about morals, if her pride and integrity didn't matter to her. It could be terrifying.
But it does matter to her, a whole hell of a lot. ]
... I am better than this.
[ By now, Miller is staggering away and she's just been standing here, worse than useless. She breathes out, raises her arms again, and sinks the whole mess of snake corpses and dead woman into the ground with sharp, direct motions, burying it in feet of dirt so it can't release more miasma into the air. It's a massive rumbling shift, like the earth itself rises up and folds over all of the mess they-- she-- had made, and entombs it.
She can find the site later for a proper burial. Toph hurries over to Miller, expression tight with strain and distress, but focusing again on her self-appointed task. ] Wait, [ she says curtly, ] we should put our talismans on him.
[ She takes out hers and, much more respectfully than earlier, tries to slip it somehow close to his skin from where he's hanging over Miller's shoulder, maybe tucking it into a fold of clothing. She knows her lore, okay? But she will control herself without it. ]