cyclicality | Open to all! Dated before the barrier goes funny.

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Open to all! Dated before the barrier goes funny.

The girl making her way through the city probably wasn't anyone's image of Toph Bei Fong, and certainly not the image of the statue standing near the police station. She was small, verging on scrawny (an effect compounded by oversized clothing), face marked with at least a couple of layers of dirt. In that clothing, her features obscured, she might even have been taken for a boy -- were it not for the heavy braid trailing down her back.

Frankly, Toph didn't mind the whole arrangement. The makeshift disguise let her explore the city pretty much as she pleased -- or at least the parts she was currently interested in seeing. No one paid much attention to a street urchin, and there were some benefits to being blind; it tended to make others look away, and by the time they thought something of a blind girl wandering around the city by herself, Toph was gone.

So far, she had a good thing going, except for the lack of idol worship.

((ooc: Pick a setting option. Feel free to pose in with whatever your character is doing in that area, and I'll pose back off of you with whatever Toph is up to. Glad to work out anything in advance -- just PM me or poke me on Plurk!))

A. Toph is in the less well-off parts of town, taking stock of the area and probably noting the triads with interest. You might even catch her at a scam. (Hey, new place, money is necessary, and she has to test the limits.)

B. Up near the bending arena. Maybe it's just a practice day; maybe there's a game going on. She's just as likely to come either time. It's enough like Earth Rumble that she'll be interested.

C. Taking a break somewhere in the city (though likely not in the upper class districts). The satomobile vibrations are still a little rough on her, and a girl's gotta eat.

D. Wildcard -- have an idea? Poke me on PM or Plurk!

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This particular stall is one of the last stops he has before heading back to the Island, and so he's balancing more than the usual amount of goods in one arm even as he's shopping with the other.

"Depends," he says to the voice without turning to look for its source. "What kind of bet are we talking about?"

"A pretty simple one." Toph can tell he's not looking at her by the sound of his voice, but he's still answering, and that's all that matters. "See, I'm blind. But I'll bet you I can still find this piece of wood on you, no matter where you put it. No bending, no tricks involved."

Okay, that part is a lie. But Bumi doesn't have to know that.

Bumi blinks. There's something about that particular bet that makes his brain...itchy. He blinks a few more times, rolling the words over in his mind and then turns towards the child.

"No bending and no tricks, huh?"

She's just a little thing, and as ragamuffin as they come on the mean streets of Republic City. His will always be a soft heart when it comes to children.

"What're we betting?"

She's not going to answer that first question again if she can help it. Let it hang in the air, rhetoric. He's asked another one, anyway.

There's a flash of teeth as her lips part in a grin. "Depends on how much you're willing to bet I can't."

Just a charming ragamuffin here, Bumi. No reason to suspect you'll lose your shirt.

No. No reason what so ever...except for that smirk.
A smile like that is either entirely sincere, or entirely the opposite of that.

Bumi, being a gambling man by nature, knows in that moment he's likely to lose...but sallies forth anyways.

"I'm willing to bet the contents of one of my pockets if I'm wrong. What do I get if I stump you?"

Her arms slide into a cross, plainly skeptical. "Fine by me, but it'd better be a pocket with something actually in it, or it's not an actual bet."

All right, the attitude was a bit of a departure from the innocent girl bit, but she knows that trick, and she's not about to let some old guy get the better of her. Give her the contents of his pocket, sure . . . and then there's nothing in there. Right. She's not doing this for free.

Her eyebrows rise in turn at his question. There's some smartness to this one; most people haven't bothered to ask what she'll put up in return. "Since I'm doing this as a bet for money in the first place, it's not like I've got a lot to give. What do you want?"

And it had better not be anything creepy, or she's leaving.

"Of course it'll be a pocket with stuff in it. What kind of monster doesn't keep stuff in their pockets? That's a waste of a perfectly good pocket. Pocket abuse, that's what that is."

Bumi has opinions about pockets.
Before he knows it his stance mirrors hers as much as it can with the things he's carrying.

"What do I want....that's a good question." And then, as if on cue, his stomach rumbles. "Lunch. I want Lunch. I win you get me lunch. You win you get what ever's in the pocket of your choice."

Okay, he had a sense of humor too. That made the lunch idea palatable. Toph smirked again, but this time it was far more appreciative. "Then you'd better hope it's a pocket with some money in it. Deal."

She poised the bit of wood in her fingers for him to take. "Ready when you are."

She might normally have made a comment about how he should probably put his stuff down, but. There was an act to keep up.

"Can I put this here?" Bumi asks the owner of the nearest cart as he places his stuff on an open section before the seller can say one way or the other. He gives his arms a good solid shake before he deftly plucks the piece of wood from her hand.

"Do I get a count down from five or anything?"

"You can have ten if you want." It hardly mattered to her how long he took, as long as it wasn't forever. Her arms folded over her chest, waiting, as she began to count. "One . . . two . . ."

Edited 2014-11-10 03:39 (UTC)

He looks left.
He looks right.

If he hunches his shoulders just so no one should be able to see what he's attempting to do next. No one except maybe...

"Could you turn around?"

That makes her pause, delivering him the flattest of flat looks. "Do you not believe I'm blind, or what?"

"No no, I believe you, but could you do it anyway?"

His face is screwed up in thought, as he tries his best to remember exactly how he felt the last time he managed to airbend.

Seriously? No, seriously?

She lingers for a long moment on that absolutely flat expression before she turns. Slowly. One foot. Then the other. She'll make sure he knows that this is stupid at a high level.

If Bumi stopped doing something based solely on the fact that someone else thought what he was doing was stupid, he'd never get anything done.

Even if she can't "see" he can't have her watching while he does this. It's too much pressure.

He keeps his focus on the piece of wood in his hand, shifts his stance until he finds what he thinks is the right position.

And then, when she gets to 10, forces everything in his reservoir of willpower to make a small ball of air to lift and spin the wood between the palms of his hands.

Rutting badgermoles, it worked!

Careful what you say about badgermoles over there, Bumi.

At the count of ten, Toph turns with that same exaggerated exasperation that she gave him initially. One foot. Two.

Before her eyes widen. And her brow furrows. Because he's not holding it. It's like it disappeared.

How . . . ?

Normally she'd say he put it down, accuse him of cheating. But she should be able to pick it up somewhere. She can pick up an ant walking up a tree 50 feet away; she should be able to pick up a tiny bit of wood even if he has hidden it.

But . . . it's gone.

How?

This trick is a whole lot harder than his father let on. A small bead of sweat forms at Bumi's brow as he concentrates with what feels like every fiber of his being to keep the small piece of wood not only aloft, but...away from prying eyes.

So focused is he that he's not even paying the slightest bit of attention to the girl.

[Under normal circumstances, she would have brought her hands up, moving them near him until his own body betrayed him, telling her the location of the wood. Now startled, even stymied, she wrestled with possibilities.]

[Until.]

[That stance . . . Absolutely familiar . . .]

[Almost without thinking, her hand reached up, skirting the edges of his -- to the current of air like breath between his fingers.]

You're . . . an airbender.

[Her eyes are wide; her voice is absolute wonder.]

Her words are all it takes to break his concentration. Instantly the ball of air dissipates and the small piece of wood slips between his fingers, dropping to the ground.

It takes a second for Bumi to catch his breath after that level of exertion.

"Not a very good one," he says finally. "But...you didn't say I couldn't bend."

There's a fine line for Toph between appreciation for and rejection of being tricked. She can appreciate the ones who earn it -- the ones who fish outside the box and succeed. To her that shows intelligence . . . and frankly, some guts.

Toph appreciates both intelligence and guts.

A small smirk emerges, and as the wood chip strikes the ground, she reaches to gather it back up, easily picking it out of the dirt.

"You're right; I didn't."

She'd heard there were other airbenders in the city, but it's still startling to her. She's lived in a world where airbenders have been extinct for a hundred years, where Aang is the only bender of the medium she's ever known.

And this one may be worth getting to know.

"I'll tell you what," she proffers, tucking the chip away, "I won, but I'll still buy you lunch."

Bumi wipes his brow with the back of one hand.

"Well that all kind of depends on which pocket you choose, doesn't it."

That smirk. He knows that smirk. Where does he know that smirk from?!

Her eyebrow rises as though he's leveraged a challenge at her. "Well, then, like I said, I guess you'd better hope I pick one with money, or you're eating dirt."

Hand stretching outward, palm exposed, she's still for a moment. If Bumi is extremely attentive, he may feel small bits of metal in his pockets quiver in response, barely enough to register. Under normal circumstances, she would have asked him where they were -- but she's showing off, just a little. Besides, she's already given him at least one strong hint that she's more than she appears . . . and that was not by accident.

"There." Her fingers reach forward, stretch up (how do these people get so tall, anyway?) to a pocket hidden to the side, under his jacket. "That one."

She already knows it's a good choice.

Bumi's pockets are a treasure trove of random bits and bobs, a side effect of many things including, but not limited to: living among four small children, his own short and excitable attention span, and a history of finding use for random things at equally random times.

Having said that, there are some items he has on him at all times:

- A pocket sized leather folio containing photographs of his family
- A Fire Nation dagger
- A small metal flute given to him by his father
- A metal money clip commemorating his 45th year of service in the UF.

It's the last three of these that react the most strongly when the girl in question is making her choice of pocket.

His eyes follow the path from her finger to his pocket, and then reaches in for the moneyclip.

"Good choice." Which it is, because Bumi does not travel light. There's not a whole lot to spend money on when one's room, board, and clothing budget is covered. It's one of the reasons that Bumi doesn't feel a whole lot of loss as he tosses the large wad of bills over to the girl. And he does toss it, just to put the last nail in the coffin of her being a metalbender.

"So, where are you taking me? Or should I make a suggestion, as I'm willing to also wager you're new in town."

The catch is . . . not the most graceful catch in the history of ever, because she's not used to catching anything. It takes some hand-to-eye coordination she never developed. But it is a catch, and her fingers run approvingly over the stack of yuan. (Though why did the monetary system have to go to paper? She's going to have to make Zuko count it later.)

At his statement, her shoulders lift. "Actually, I don't have a preference. Food is food, as long as it's not tofu."

Added as an afterthought, tucking the bills away after the chip, "Yin, by the way."

Because while he's interesting, she's not ready to give him who she is. Yet.

"Nice to meet you, Yin. The name's Bumi," he says as he once again takes up his packages. "Eelhound's not far from here, and what they lack in decor they more than make up for in atmosphere. Plus Jin's wife makes some of the best Artic Hen stew this side of the Southern Water Tribe."

As he's leaving he tosses a coin from another pocket onto the counter of the stall that was nice enough to hold his stuff for him.

"For your troubles," he adds as he turns and walks away. He's kind of trusting Yin to follow him.

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