Helix

Chapter 6 - Toph

Watching her from afar was almost pitiful. With her eyebrows scrunched up and her lips pressed into a thin line, Elaena slowly heaved up her sword. She panted heavily for a few moments before steadying herself. Then, stepping out with her left foot, Elaena swung her sword. She was putting so much might into her swings that purple veins popped out from her lower arm. The blade sliced through the air aimlessly and smacked onto the ground.

I wanted to tell her that she was trying to use a one-handed sword like a two-handed one, and that a left-hander should step out with their right foot. Honestly, a rapier would take more advantage of her skinny build for speed. But what good would it do? Even without doing so, I knew Elaena would simply dismiss me. I knew because, just like her, I was like that too.

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My earliest memories were always of training with my sword under the scorching sun.

Hiya! In a rapid, fluid motion, I flattened my blade and brought it to the straw dummy in an uppercut. After hearing the anticipated crunch of the straw, I pulled my sword back and repeated the motion. Step, swing, follow through, repeat.

Sweat made my tunic plaster against my back like a second skin. My arms ached from a morning of practicing the same uppercut. They burned like someone smeared hot wax on my muscles and then tied me to a block of ice that I couldn't escape. But I gritted my teeth and swung at the dummy again. Just another hit. And then another.

My master came by occasionally to check on how I was doing, but like the unchanging sun that blazed in the sky, my master monitored me wordlessly from afar.

He mouthed something at me. Even without hearing him, his words rang in my head: "Too quick, Toph. The sword is meant to be taken slowly." He'd been repeating the same advice to me for years, but I was starting to think he did it to annoy me.

What did it mean, "slowly?" The single-handed sword was my main Combat, so I spent the most time on it.

Step, swing, follow through, repeat.

"Too quick, Toph, too quick." Get out of my head!

I knew what I was doing. The uppercut was the first motion I ever learned. I'd done it so many times I could flatten the side of my blade and twist my wrists in the perfect, graceful motion in my sleep.

I didn't need to learn the uppercut anymore. Picking up my pace, I stepped, swung, and followed through. I was so concentrated that I didn't notice my master leaving soon afterwards, shaking his head.

Years later, Master finally starting teaching me Skills and even other Combat arts. I thought that he would finally stop droning about my speed, but he never did.

Too quick, Toph, he'd say. In his eyes, I was always too quick, no matter how slowly I repeated my motions.

Once, I asked Master what exactly he meant by "too quick." His answer only made things more confusing: "You are concentrating too much on the Skill itself, but the essence of all Combat-related things is not merely what you do. Think about your attitude."

I kept learning under Master. I made progress as a swordsman and thought I could ignore all his reprimands about being too quick, because I was skilled anyway.

That day, though, I realized how ignorant I was all this time.

I was weak, too weak. The fire suffocated me mentally more than physically, giving me a guilty reminder of how stubborn I had been all this time. Watching everything burn into ashes....What good were my abilities if they didn't change the outcome at all? At the same time, I finally realized what Master meant by "quick."