Bridges: No. 2
"Breaking the Speed of the Sound of Loneliness"
I've been reading AJ Rayne's stuff, "Between the Lines", etc. and yeah, I like it. Her recent stuff, less Zuko-Katara specific, really unleashes her writing style from the Zutara-specific contraints - I truly think there are great writers within that continuum who are absurdly trapped by their OTP. Happily, AJ isn't one of them. Anyway, so totally happy with her "Gray into the Black" series I couldn't help but speculate on the intervening time period - it's ten years, damn it!
She insisted I keep to my own fics, but we all know how that goes. So here's my first bow to AJ's AU speculations...
________________
“I don’t get it. Hey, he’s one of my best friends. I love him like a brother - you know that. But I still don’t get it,” Aang didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes on the shifting hues of color in the sky as the sun edged ever closer to the purpling horizon. His heels dug in to the hard stone of the wall beneath them unconsciously as only an earth-bender could do.
Aware of this tiny shift in the structure they sat upon as another earth-bender, Toph was surprised at the vehemence of Aang’s concern.
“It’s no big deal, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just forget about it,” she said placidly, idly wondering how her long-time interest in their traveling companion had finally come to the Avatar’s attention, and just why he seemed to care.
“Yeah, well, whatever. I guess it’s none of my affair,” He said grumpily. “You’ll do what you want - you always have. But we’re friends, aren’t we? I mean, I’d just like to understand. After all, how’m I supposed to be the grand arbiter of the world’s disputes when I can’t even figure out what my own friends are doing and why?”
There was just the slightest edge of bitterness to Aang’s voice that reminded Toph how very isolating it must be to be the Avatar. For the first time she questioned the wisdom of accepting his status as a monk when they’d met as children, and closing her heart off to all thought of him as anything but her earth-bending student, the world’s savior, and her friend.
Too late now. Not that it would have mattered. Any idiot could have seen his devotion to Katara, monk be damned.
Toph shrugged, more aware of the sinking sun by the changing sounds in the environment than any change of heat or light on her blind eyes. The earth moved, birdsong changed and different insects made their presence known with the diurnal shift.
“Don’t sweat it, Twinkletoes. I’m flattered you care, truly I am. But it’s not something you need to worry about. And it’s not like Sokka’s gonna do anything. I mean, he’s as oblivious as ever, right?”
“He’s got no clue?” Aang’s tension relaxed a bit, although he wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Nope. I think it’s part of his charm. He honestly never seems to see it coming when someone actually cares about him. For all his posturing he’s absurdly innocent when it comes to actual come-ons from the opposite sex,” Toph pulled a peach from the bag at her side, offering it Aang to split for both of them, her face still turned to the setting sun. “Not that I’d ever come on to him, the smart-ass.”
Aang accepted the peach without thinking, air-bending it easily in half and popping the pit to disappear in the darkness below the wall. It was ripe and juicy in his hand, and he opted against dividing it any further as he handed her a half with a sideways glance.
“Not like he hasn’t had plenty of practice,” Aang muttered, his mind caught by the gross unfairness of it over the years. Here he was, master of all four elements, and the wise-ass non-bender seemed to catch the attention of the most interesting girls. If Katara hadn’t been his sister… Aang shuddered to think of the sheer unjustness of the world.
It didn’t help that Toph slung an arm across his shoulders in apparent sympathy. It didn’t help at all, especially considering his emergence into adolescence’s unruly emotional rampage over his admittedly not always clear thinking to begin with. Aang huddled to shrink his overgrown fifteen-year-old body back into the twelve-year-old’s dimensions that Toph had first become accustomed to.
He’d shot up in height to be able to meet Zuko in the eyes now, although he knew he’d never catch Sokka - who towered over them all now, even topping his father and Bato. Unfortunately, although Katara had not matched her brother in this race for height Toph seemed to have taken up the challenge, and just as he had barely managed to claim to overlook her as her student at twelve, at fifteen he found himself still too close to eye-to-eye with the matchless earth-bender.
The only solace he found in the thought of Toph’s height was to chortle at the many levels on which the young Fire Lord must have felt challenged: Toph was as great a bender - if not greater - and she was almost certainly wealthier; would she one day be taller as well? It tickled his sense of humor even as he registered acknowledgment of the importance of strength against strength as a component of balance and how easily strength could be shifted to weakness.
Aang hated it that he thought of life now in these terms.
Especially when Toph’s arm across his shoulders raised sensations he’d sworn to leave behind, even as he’d turned from Katara’s smile.
“Okay, so tell me, please. What do you, the greatest earth-bender ever - even Bumi agrees - see in Sokka? I mean, you could have anyone…” he paused. Had he gone too far? “What is it? Okay, he’s a good guy. He’s pretty clever and he pulled our butts out of trouble on more than one occasion, but he certainly did the opposite as well. Well yeah, you can count on him to steer you straight - Sokka may not always choose the best path, but he always knows who we should trust, and he never really loses direction. I guess he’s pretty reliable. Okay, fine. In some ways he’s a rock…” Aang paused, uncertain what to say next but oddly aware that he'd hit on something important, all without even trying.
Toph listened to the sounds of the gathering darkness, the heartbeat and more subtle shifting of chemical balances within her companion, abandoning herself to the broader perception of the world around them.
With a sigh that seemed to muffle the world in the Avatar’s sheer strength, Aang finally continued, “I get it now. That’s it, isn’t it? Sokka’s a lodestar for you, an unmoving rock.”
“I know he can be wrong. And he’s been an awful ass at times, hasn’t he? But at heart, he was always right, wasn’t he? Aang, didn’t you trust Sokka before you trusted yourself?” Toph implored him for understanding, and with an odd sense of peace, he found a recognition that he finally understood he’d been following without recognizing for some time.
“He is an awful ass sometimes, Toph. But, yeah, I don’t really know of a heart to trust more than Sokka’s when it comes to following the truth,” Aang swallowed hard, knowing he’d lost yet another heart’s desire to someone else.
The sun was buried deep within the horizon, and Aang looked over his shoulder at the climbing moon in the eastern sky. It was still too young to see any woman’s face upon it, and Aang knew full well that it was his imagination that stamped Yue’s visage upon its full face.
As bridge between the worlds he prayed for his friends.
I've been reading AJ Rayne's stuff, "Between the Lines", etc. and yeah, I like it. Her recent stuff, less Zuko-Katara specific, really unleashes her writing style from the Zutara-specific contraints - I truly think there are great writers within that continuum who are absurdly trapped by their OTP. Happily, AJ isn't one of them. Anyway, so totally happy with her "Gray into the Black" series I couldn't help but speculate on the intervening time period - it's ten years, damn it!
She insisted I keep to my own fics, but we all know how that goes. So here's my first bow to AJ's AU speculations...
________________
“I don’t get it. Hey, he’s one of my best friends. I love him like a brother - you know that. But I still don’t get it,” Aang didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes on the shifting hues of color in the sky as the sun edged ever closer to the purpling horizon. His heels dug in to the hard stone of the wall beneath them unconsciously as only an earth-bender could do.
Aware of this tiny shift in the structure they sat upon as another earth-bender, Toph was surprised at the vehemence of Aang’s concern.
“It’s no big deal, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just forget about it,” she said placidly, idly wondering how her long-time interest in their traveling companion had finally come to the Avatar’s attention, and just why he seemed to care.
“Yeah, well, whatever. I guess it’s none of my affair,” He said grumpily. “You’ll do what you want - you always have. But we’re friends, aren’t we? I mean, I’d just like to understand. After all, how’m I supposed to be the grand arbiter of the world’s disputes when I can’t even figure out what my own friends are doing and why?”
There was just the slightest edge of bitterness to Aang’s voice that reminded Toph how very isolating it must be to be the Avatar. For the first time she questioned the wisdom of accepting his status as a monk when they’d met as children, and closing her heart off to all thought of him as anything but her earth-bending student, the world’s savior, and her friend.
Too late now. Not that it would have mattered. Any idiot could have seen his devotion to Katara, monk be damned.
Toph shrugged, more aware of the sinking sun by the changing sounds in the environment than any change of heat or light on her blind eyes. The earth moved, birdsong changed and different insects made their presence known with the diurnal shift.
“Don’t sweat it, Twinkletoes. I’m flattered you care, truly I am. But it’s not something you need to worry about. And it’s not like Sokka’s gonna do anything. I mean, he’s as oblivious as ever, right?”
“He’s got no clue?” Aang’s tension relaxed a bit, although he wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Nope. I think it’s part of his charm. He honestly never seems to see it coming when someone actually cares about him. For all his posturing he’s absurdly innocent when it comes to actual come-ons from the opposite sex,” Toph pulled a peach from the bag at her side, offering it Aang to split for both of them, her face still turned to the setting sun. “Not that I’d ever come on to him, the smart-ass.”
Aang accepted the peach without thinking, air-bending it easily in half and popping the pit to disappear in the darkness below the wall. It was ripe and juicy in his hand, and he opted against dividing it any further as he handed her a half with a sideways glance.
“Not like he hasn’t had plenty of practice,” Aang muttered, his mind caught by the gross unfairness of it over the years. Here he was, master of all four elements, and the wise-ass non-bender seemed to catch the attention of the most interesting girls. If Katara hadn’t been his sister… Aang shuddered to think of the sheer unjustness of the world.
It didn’t help that Toph slung an arm across his shoulders in apparent sympathy. It didn’t help at all, especially considering his emergence into adolescence’s unruly emotional rampage over his admittedly not always clear thinking to begin with. Aang huddled to shrink his overgrown fifteen-year-old body back into the twelve-year-old’s dimensions that Toph had first become accustomed to.
He’d shot up in height to be able to meet Zuko in the eyes now, although he knew he’d never catch Sokka - who towered over them all now, even topping his father and Bato. Unfortunately, although Katara had not matched her brother in this race for height Toph seemed to have taken up the challenge, and just as he had barely managed to claim to overlook her as her student at twelve, at fifteen he found himself still too close to eye-to-eye with the matchless earth-bender.
The only solace he found in the thought of Toph’s height was to chortle at the many levels on which the young Fire Lord must have felt challenged: Toph was as great a bender - if not greater - and she was almost certainly wealthier; would she one day be taller as well? It tickled his sense of humor even as he registered acknowledgment of the importance of strength against strength as a component of balance and how easily strength could be shifted to weakness.
Aang hated it that he thought of life now in these terms.
Especially when Toph’s arm across his shoulders raised sensations he’d sworn to leave behind, even as he’d turned from Katara’s smile.
“Okay, so tell me, please. What do you, the greatest earth-bender ever - even Bumi agrees - see in Sokka? I mean, you could have anyone…” he paused. Had he gone too far? “What is it? Okay, he’s a good guy. He’s pretty clever and he pulled our butts out of trouble on more than one occasion, but he certainly did the opposite as well. Well yeah, you can count on him to steer you straight - Sokka may not always choose the best path, but he always knows who we should trust, and he never really loses direction. I guess he’s pretty reliable. Okay, fine. In some ways he’s a rock…” Aang paused, uncertain what to say next but oddly aware that he'd hit on something important, all without even trying.
Toph listened to the sounds of the gathering darkness, the heartbeat and more subtle shifting of chemical balances within her companion, abandoning herself to the broader perception of the world around them.
With a sigh that seemed to muffle the world in the Avatar’s sheer strength, Aang finally continued, “I get it now. That’s it, isn’t it? Sokka’s a lodestar for you, an unmoving rock.”
“I know he can be wrong. And he’s been an awful ass at times, hasn’t he? But at heart, he was always right, wasn’t he? Aang, didn’t you trust Sokka before you trusted yourself?” Toph implored him for understanding, and with an odd sense of peace, he found a recognition that he finally understood he’d been following without recognizing for some time.
“He is an awful ass sometimes, Toph. But, yeah, I don’t really know of a heart to trust more than Sokka’s when it comes to following the truth,” Aang swallowed hard, knowing he’d lost yet another heart’s desire to someone else.
The sun was buried deep within the horizon, and Aang looked over his shoulder at the climbing moon in the eastern sky. It was still too young to see any woman’s face upon it, and Aang knew full well that it was his imagination that stamped Yue’s visage upon its full face.
As bridge between the worlds he prayed for his friends.