(no subject)
Title: Good, Night
Day/Theme: April 28th/11:59 pm.
Series: Avatar
Featured Characters: Toph, Aang
Rating: G
Word Count: 275
Back home, Toph had a strict bedtime an army of servants made certain she kept to. Before it was even fully dark out, she was tucked suffocatingly under sickly-soft sheets and blankets, her pajamas feeling too smooth and clean against her freshly bathed skin. It was difficult not to fall asleep in that bed; it felt as if it was sucking her down into snowy depths, unfeeling and freezing like her mother's lips on her forehead.
Now, she goes to bed when she wants and where she wants. She can joke with Sokka until the sun comes up, or she can listen to Zuko tell her the stories Iroh once told him, certain that something has been lost in the translation but something has also been gained. If Katara bothers her about getting to sleep, she's usually able to sway a few more hours by asking her about some made up problem, then letting her thoughts drift away while she receives the well-intentioned, hopelessly idealistic advice.
Her favorite nights, though (and this isn't something she ever suspected), are those with Aang. They don't really talk, both of them have found they have less to say to each other than they do to others, but they lie back under the stars as the cooling, crumbly earth sings Toph's sore muscles to rest and Aang gazes off into the distance at things only he still remembers.
When they are too tired, when it is too late, and before Aang crawls off to Appa and Katara and the others, Toph will whisper (voice feeling strangely dry with disuse for these small hours): "Good night, Twinkletoes."
And she means it.
Day/Theme: April 28th/11:59 pm.
Series: Avatar
Featured Characters: Toph, Aang
Rating: G
Word Count: 275
Back home, Toph had a strict bedtime an army of servants made certain she kept to. Before it was even fully dark out, she was tucked suffocatingly under sickly-soft sheets and blankets, her pajamas feeling too smooth and clean against her freshly bathed skin. It was difficult not to fall asleep in that bed; it felt as if it was sucking her down into snowy depths, unfeeling and freezing like her mother's lips on her forehead.
Now, she goes to bed when she wants and where she wants. She can joke with Sokka until the sun comes up, or she can listen to Zuko tell her the stories Iroh once told him, certain that something has been lost in the translation but something has also been gained. If Katara bothers her about getting to sleep, she's usually able to sway a few more hours by asking her about some made up problem, then letting her thoughts drift away while she receives the well-intentioned, hopelessly idealistic advice.
Her favorite nights, though (and this isn't something she ever suspected), are those with Aang. They don't really talk, both of them have found they have less to say to each other than they do to others, but they lie back under the stars as the cooling, crumbly earth sings Toph's sore muscles to rest and Aang gazes off into the distance at things only he still remembers.
When they are too tired, when it is too late, and before Aang crawls off to Appa and Katara and the others, Toph will whisper (voice feeling strangely dry with disuse for these small hours): "Good night, Twinkletoes."
And she means it.