I knocked on the door, then stepped back, feeling a little apprehensive. It was weird, looking up family I’d never met before. Okay, I’d done it once before, but I hadn’t known she was family at the time. Besides, Diana had told me he would help and seemed happy to, so hopefully this wouldn’t be too bad.
The door was pulled inward and a cheerful face greeted me. “Hi! You must be Winter. Come in, come in!” He ushered me into the entryway before I could get a word out. “I’m Toph, you must have figured that out, and here, this is my girl, Effie.”
She was sitting at the barstools by the kitchen counter, which seemed to double as their dining table. “Hey there! Nice to meet you.”
Toph took my bag and set it down, then handed me some iced tea and cookies while I was still trying to process all of this. He lived in a bigger town than I’d ever visited before, so this trip had been stressful in its own way, dealing with plane flights – instead of flying in my dragon form – taxis, and everything, and now I was just trying to process the cheerfulness that was my cousin.
“Mom explained everything, and yeah, I get it, got to be tough going back under the circumstances.” His eyes seemed genuinely sympathetic. “So I’ve got your back. I’ll take your lead for handling stuff – you know these people best – but I’ll try to step in if it seems like it’s getting too heated or if you signal me to, okay? That sound good?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, that…that sounds like it would be good.” I almost wished he could just take the lead, but I knew that wouldn’t work here. They’d expect me to confront them, or try to talk to me, or whatever, and Toph was right about one thing. I knew the town, I knew the people. He didn’t. I could tell better if things had truly changed and if people were genuine or not.
“You’re not really what I was picturing,” I admitted. “I mean, I sort of figured you’d be more like Diana.”
“Ah, poor Mom.” Toph smiled affectionately. “She’s so steady and graceful and just, you know, Mom. And we’re all crazy in our own way. Look at Rebecca – dragon sister. Fire dragon, in case you were wondering. Anyway, she’s off on this venture to go around the world and visit every single town and learn every single recipe in existence.” He shook his head, an affectionate smile on his face. “She keeps complaining that new towns pop up and new recipes are created almost faster than she can learn existing ones. I’m waiting to see how long it takes her to figure out that her goal is impossible.”
“At least she has a goal,” I muttered without thinking it through.
Toph tilted his head to one side, reminding me a bit of a curious bird. “Mom mentioned you were struggling to find what you wanted to do,” he said at last. “I wouldn’t worry about it so much. I mean, I get it, I do. I had no idea, either. You think hostage negotiator is something included on the regular job lists or whatever? I had nothing really to go on. We all grew up at Rosen Library, you know – some of us, centuries apart, but all of Mom’s kids grew up there. There’s not a ton of conflict there. Obviously, it’s not a paradise or anything, and there are squabbles and disagreements and whatnot, but nothing like what you grew up with. I didn’t have reason to know that I was good at resolving conflicts or talking someone off a ledge, as it were. I actually came across the description in a fiction mystery book I was reading, got curious, and did some research to find out if it was a real thing. And it sort of led from there.” He gave me a smile. “It might not be the same thing for you, but point is, sometimes the randomest thing can lead you to find what you’re meant to do.”
“But at least you had other interests, right?” I didn’t even know why I was discussing this with a perfect stranger, but this had been bugging me for years now and I felt almost desperate to figure out what was wrong with me and fix it. “You had hobbies, right? Something you enjoyed doing? I don’t even have that. Everything is just…bland to me.”
Toph thought about that. “I mean, sure, I did, but you’re different. Not just because people are different, but you’re a dragon, and a storm dragon on top of that. Storm dragons have more trouble controlling their magic if they get really upset, right? So you’ve spent most of your life stuffing down your feelings on things. I wonder if maybe you’ve confused controlling your emotions with lack of emotions? I don’t know, obviously,” he added hurriedly, “it’s just from what Mom was saying about the town where you grew up and all, it seems like it would be hard for a storm dragon, in particular. Because you kind of weren’t allowed to feel most things too deeply or it might reveal what you are.”
I hadn’t thought about that. It had been several years since I left, but was I still bottling up emotions because of how I grew up? And was that influencing me now, because I wasn’t letting myself feel interested in things and was basically blocking myself from enjoying things? Not consciously, of course, but based on years of training myself to do that.
Effie took in my troubled expression and reached over to squeeze my hand. “Toph told me some about what you went through, it sounds awful, and I know it’s a bit late, but I’m sorry about your mom, too. I didn’t meet her, but Toph did.”
She looked at Toph, who nodded immediately.
“Yeah, once – I meet her about a hundred years ago, I guess? She was already getting tired, you could tell, and Mom wanted to make sure she got to meet all of us and we got to know her a bit before, well, you know. She was gorgeous in dragon form. Her wings looked almost like water themselves, I’d never seen anything like that. Mom’s stunning in her own way, but I really liked Daphne. I’m sorry for your loss. I wish we could have spent more time together as family.”
I looked down at my hands, feeling a little choked up. Diana had comforted me after I’d arrived there, and this might be years later, but it still meant a lot to me that they were offering their condolences for the death of my mother, one of the only people I’d really had in my life growing up.
“I have a suggestion,” Effie stated in a kind voice. “Why don’t we spend the evening getting to know each other a bit? I’m sure Toph has some fun stories about his mom, and you can tell us what the library is like these days.” She smiled at me when I met her eyes. “I studied there for a few years, that’s how I met Toph. It’s a gorgeous place, I can understand why someone would want to stay there permanently, but we both had callings that lead elsewhere. I’m a special education teacher,” she added. “There were times that was needed at Rosen Library, but they really already have tutors to help people who need it, so I didn’t feel like it was the best place for my skills. Toph and I settled here instead, and we’ve both enjoyed the town tremendously. South Falls is honestly a great town, once you get used to the size.”
“South Falls?” I asked, deciding to accept her offered distraction. It might be nice to just get to know Toph and his girlfriend before traveling back to Terium. “Is there a North Falls?”
That got Toph to launch into a fairly intense explanation of the history of the area, which was interesting, though by the end of it I realized I still had no idea if there was another falls – or even a specific falls the town itself was named after. However, I was pretty unbothered by my question being unanswered, finding myself just relaxing instead with the cheerful Toph and his quieter girlfriend who would interject every now and then with her own insights. I didn’t even have to talk much, though I wasn’t sure if that was because they were deliberately trying to allow me time to process or what. Maybe they realized that this was the first time I’d really traveled, apart from when I flew from Terium to Rosen Library, and everything was a little overwhelming, to be honest.
I stayed at their house that night, and in the morning we got ready to head to Terium. Well, head close to Terium.
Effie wasn’t coming with us because she had classes and we weren’t sure how long it would take, but she drove us to the airport where we caught our flight.
Toph and I talked about random things during the flight. He told me some about his work, which turned out to be for a national agency rather than one individual police department, meaning he sometimes had to travel a bit for work.
“It can be really abrupt,” he admitted. “I always have a go-bag ready, because I can get called out for an emergency situation and need to get there ASAP. My agency actually has a couple of planes they own and pilots they charter, and if one of those isn’t available, they’ll hire someone else, but it’s usually a quick thing, you know? A hostage situation or something where they need me on site yesterday, basically.”
I frowned a bit as I thought about that. “It doesn’t seem like it makes much sense to bring someone in from another place, in that situation. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone locally, or just have you talk over the phone or something?”
“You’re not wrong,” he agreed. “It would be better. Reality is, though, a lot of departments don’t have someone who is specifically a negotiator and even if they do, they probably don’t have the training – or success rate – I do. They don’t call me in for cases they think they can handle, either, it’s usually the bigger ones that are going to be on the news, basically – something like someone holding kids hostage at a school, that sort of situation. They know they need to get this right or it’s going to turn into a nasty situation.”
I was kind of relieved, listening to him, that I would have him helping me with this trip. Someone with as much experience as him should be able to help make this go smoothly, right?
When our plane landed, Toph picked up the rental car he had already taken care of so we could drive around the lake to Terium.
Once we were in the car without any potential eavesdroppers, he got more serious.
“You need to think about what you want to see from these people,” he told me. “Try to consider what you would see as success. Do you want to see the entire town more integrated? Want to just see them getting along? What exactly are you looking for to prove the feud has ended? And keep in mind, it’s got to be something more permanent that can’t just be erased in a couple of years. You don’t want to forgive them, lift the curse, and have everything revert back to normal in a year or two. You want to see something permanent, but exactly how that looks is going to depend on the situation – I can’t tell that, but you can. You know these people, this town. I’ll follow your lead and back you up, but you need to be the one leading these conversations. I’m not going to pretend it’s not likely that some of them will be really angry at you,” he allowed, “though in reality it’s not your fault, it’s theirs for hurting you. But some people aren’t willing to accept responsibility. I’ll step in if you signal me to or I feel like it’s necessary, but remember – they can’t physically hurt you. Daphne’s curse means they don’t have magic and that physical violence will be punished, so to speak. That isn’t to say they can’t emotionally hurt you, but if things do get intense, just remember about the physical violence.”
“I’ve never actually used magic against anyone.” I sighed deeply. “Until the moment I snapped at Marilyn, I didn’t want to, growing up, partially because I was afraid they’d realize my magic was different from theirs, and I was trying to hide so they wouldn’t know what I was. But also, I just…I didn’t want to. I never really wanted to. I saw physical violence pretty much every week, at least, and I just didn’t want to be a part of it. Plus, I kind of thought Mother wouldn’t like it. She never told me not to, but I really wanted to make her proud of me, and she wouldn’t have liked it.”
“It’s probably a good philosophy, not wanting to hurt people.” Toph gave me an encouraging smile. “I’ve seen people way too willing to jump to violence. Given that you’re a dragon and you’re able to do some serious damage to people, you being hesitant to actually try to hurt someone is a good thing.”
I kind of felt relieved that he approved of that. It wasn’t like I needed anyone’s approval, but Toph was my cousin and seemed like a nice person, so it just kind of felt reassuring.
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