Author's Note: I'm probably not the only one who's sad enough to write a commemorative fanfic for the end of Episode 10 in Legend of Korra. But it upset me enough to bring me back to for the first time in ten years. My writing isn't what it used to be (I'm a science graduate student now) but I hope that I did her justice.

There were still two air ships following them. A net flew toward them, and she whipped it to shreds with a sharp metal cord. She felt it catch on the rope, pliable but strong, unbendable. She stared at those airships, and she could not only hear in her head but feel in her veins the stories that her mother told her, the legends that she had never fully believed. Images flashed in her mind, of another life, of someone else's life.

"Toph! Metal bend the rudder so it's jammed in a turning position!" Flames. Hands grasped tightly, in the fiercest of love, that of absolute devotion and loyalty and an absolute desperation to survive. Running, short legs struggling to keep up with lankier ones, clinging desperately to the hand. Falling, feeling the grating of a sword against the side of the zeppelin, a jerky ending, a sensation of absolute nothingness, the sickening feeling of nothing but air beneath her feet and a hand grasped tightly around hers. A hand whose pulse was throbbing in desperation and fear and pain, the sweat of terror between them and the sensation of the slick weakening of their grasp.

There was a time when airships were new, when a sky bison might outrun them and escape to refuge unpursued. She never fully believed her mother's stories, but she thought, as she stared at those airships, that though her mother was always one to boast, her confidence was never unfounded, that she was truly the greatest earthbender there ever was. She remembered the day her mother said, "Awesome, Lin! You're as good as I ever was," she never truly believed it, always felt a small sliver of doubt. Always wondered if she could ever live up to being the daughter of Toph Bei Fong.

She turned back and looked at the family she had sworn to protect. The last of the Airbenders . . . she remembered the stories that Avatar Aang would tell her when she was a little child, when she and Tenzin would run around and pretend that they were the heroes that their parents were. Pretended to be from a different time, when a child of the age of twelve could when called upon become a hero.

She looked at them. Jinorra, almost the age her mother was when she ran away to join the Avatar, but with a face so very much like her grandfather and a quiet personality that seemed to speak of the calmness of the airbending culture she had inherited. Ikki, for the first time ever to scared to speak. Meelo, who briefly reminded her of all the things that had scared her about becoming a mother but who now seemed like a boy that she would have been proud to call her own. The newborn baby, with an innocence she had not thought possible for her to witness at her age, in her occupation. And Pema, who for so many years she had refused to talk to, whom she'd held responsible for all of her bitterness and loneliness. She thought of all the memories of she and Tenzin had shared, how she had once thought and still did think the world of him. And how Pema must be someone truly incredible to raise these children, to earn the absolute devotion of the man whom she still considered her hero, her first and really only love, her closest friend. They could have been friends, she realized, she and Pema, had she only let go of the bitterness that lingered from so many years ago. But no time for that now. No time for regrets about a life she'd never have.

"Whatever happens to me, don't turn back!"

She heard over the wind whipping across her face, "Lin, what are you doing?" as she ran across the sky bison's large, flat tail. Honoring the legacy of our parents, she thought to him. She jumped off, swung through the air, feeling her weight taut against the metal cord and the exhilaration of flight. Her mother had always feared it, but she'd learned it out of both competition with Tenzin and admiration for Avatar Aang, and perfected it until she could swing to heights that even Tenzin with his mastery of airbending could not follow. She landed on the roof of the air ship, rolled herself upright, and stamped once with her left foot, seeing the way her mother taught her the minute flecks of dirt scattered throughout its hull.

She paused for a moment, her hands in ready, took a deep calming breath. "And I shouted at them, 'I am the greatest earthbender there ever was! And don't you two dunderheads ever forget it.' " She thought to herself, "This is for you, Mother. I hope I'll make you proud."

She tore a metal upright with all her strength and focus. Then, knowing there was nothing left to lose, ran across the length of the ship, feeling the explosive heat against her face as she wrenched its engines apart. She turned sharply, dug her foot into the side of the ship for purchase, then flung herself to the remaining ship. She wrenched the hull apart, and as she did –

Excruciating pain.

"I'm sorry, Toph, this looks like the end."

She was unconscious before she hit the ground.