Beginnings



It was cold. So goddamn cold. The wind was blowing, harsh and fierce. It was hard wind, the type that made your hair whip your face, the type that felt like it was peeling the skin off of you. There wasn’t even snow on the ground, no, it was too cold for snow. Every time the world tried to make it snow, in came down tentatively, in sandy powder that couldn’t stand up to the wind. It never snowed more than a few centimeters.

The cold bit into me, and I shivered violently. I could see people, in their apartments, laughing together, drinking hot chocolate together, having a buffer between them and that bitter cold. I didn’t have that. I never did.

I was in the alleyway between Green Building 57 and Green Building 58. The Green Buildings were residential, and many people had their blinds open so they could watch the wind whip through the trees, and so they could be grateful that they weren’t out here. I had huddled myself up into a ball, so that I could conserve body heat, but it wasn’t working very well. It would be better if I had a coat, or a blanket or something, but I only had the clothes on my back, the same clothes that I had been wearing for a month. They were all ripped and ragged by now, and I could no longer understand why people would buy ripped jeans. What wouldn’t I give for patched up ones?

The wind blew through the alley again and I curled up tighter. I could barely open my eyes and all I could think was to go to sleep, even though I knew that if I did, there was a good chance I would never wake up again. The pain in my stomach that told me I was hungry, but that was nothing new. That pain had been there for a very long time already. My eyelids drooped further and I could feel myself sinking into nothingness.

It was so unfair. I had survived so much in the ten years of my life, I had endured so much pain, and now I was dying from the cold. The cold of all things! I always thought that if I were to die prematurely I would die by someone killing me. I would die begging for my life, or I would go down in a blaze of glory. It seemed rather pathetic that in the end, it was the cold that would eventually do me in. I sighed, for what I was certain would be the last time, and closed my eyes.

Suddenly, I felt something on me. It wasn’t a sudden rush of warmth, no, I was too cold for that, but it made things a little better. I cracked open my eyes, just a little bit, and see a face peering down at me. He seemed a little older than me, with blonde hair and green eyes. He had wrapped a blanket around me, and worry filled his eyes,

Hey, he asked Are you's okay?

I tried to shake my head, but I was too numb, to frozen to do it. He sighed and picked me up. I’m going to bring you to my home, alright? You’ll like it there. It’s warm. I tried to nod, but still, I couldn’t move. The boy walked. He walked for a long, time, past all the Green Buildings, and stopped at a hole in the ground. I live down there, he told me, and carefully climbed down the ladder, somehow carrying me with one arm. He laid me on a bed that had somehow made it into the ground and covered me with a thicker blanket

Hi, he said I’m Toph. You can live now.

I smiled, a small, tight smile and tried to nod. Toph laughed, and after that, I truly started living. Until, of course, I was captured by the king, but this was the beginning, and I suppose you will want to know the ending. I will begin my story.