Open to all! Dated before the barrier goes funny.

[dustonmyfeet]

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!

Comments

[lavamylife]

Well, it still comes across as a slap on the wrist despite the fact that Toph is actually giving him a sincere offer. "I can't help it if I've been fighting for my life the past few months what with Zaheer and his crazy goons after us," he says, but he immediately knows it as an excuse. "Besides, ever since I found out that I was a lav—" He almost says the word before thinking twice of it. He's not the best at secrets, but he's not entirely sure he wants that story getting out given how much it's currently associated with Zaheer's friend. Besides, at this point, he's the world's only lavabender.

"I mean, I've had to adapt my fighting style of late, and it's hard falling back to my pro-bending stances. But..." He ponders the offer for a moment before ultimately replying. "I guess I could use some pointers to get me back into the business?" It's almost a question, but not entirely. He's definitely asking for her help in a roundabout way.

[dustonmyfeet]

Toph's eyebrows shift upward at the first couple of comments; he says them like she should know exactly what she's talking about. (And possibly she should; she'll have to file the name away for later to poke the elder Zuko with, just in case.) For the moment, though, it's just blah, blah, blah, something about goons, blah, blah, whine.

But he's agreed -- and that she can do something with. This may not be a loss yet.

"Well, for starters, your stance is too high." Her knees bend. "You're not doing a ballet dance; you're earthbending. If you leave that out, you might as well be tying one hand behind your back."

She leans into a low stance, going still -- and then suddenly moves, yanking several clay disks forward through the air. They're impossibly fast, and they shatter in a rain of dust against the opposite wall.

[lavamylife]

He doesn't even know who this young girl is, and yet still she's managed to impress the heck out of him in one stroke. So much so that her harsh criticism is temporarily forgotten. Those are some amazingly fast clay disks. "I've never seen anyone fling those that fast before!" he says with a little bit of shock. His jaw is hanging almost wide open as he points hesitantly towards the clay rubble at the wall.

Still, Bolin tries it out. He leans low, which is a little familiar, even if he hasn't really been fighting this way in almost two years. He looks seriously at the stack of clay disks and then does his action. It's still a little clumsy from what he was used to back in his prime pro-bending days, but certainly he sends a disk off; it's not as fast as Toph's but it's still close.

"You're right, that is better. Hmmm." He then takes a few steps back and settles back into his stance. And then he leaps upward in a backflip. One of the earthen disks rises before he does a kick in the middle of the air; though his leg doesn't connect with the disk, it still gets hurdled onward. But ultimately when he lands, he returns to the lower stance. "Yeah, that does have a bit more power to it!"