[open] Day 215 - outside the Forge

[tophgirl]

Who: Toph & you!
Open: Open
When: 215, afternoon
Where: Outside the Forge
What: With her bending limited, Toph is looking for another way to fight.
Format: Will match!
Warnings: Excessive levels of awesome from Toph...err...I mean... none.


It's taken Toph a few days to come to terms with the fact that there are ridiculous limitations on her bending. She's tested and retested them, trying to see where she can push it, but everything leads to the same inevitable conclusion. Her bending is limited.

So what's she going to do about it? No way is she going to accept just sitting around and helping out with little odds and ends in this place. She wants to be out on that Skyway, kicking ass and maybe finding Aang, Katara, and Sokka. She needs to find some way of fighting that plays to her strengths without relying on her bending...which probably means learning to fight with a weapon. If Sokka could do it, it can't be that hard.

The question then is — what kind of weapon should she get? Which is how she ends up outside the Forge that afternoon, examining weapons and trying to determine what would work best for her.

Comments

[freedom_engineer]

"Sadly, it's much more complex than that," Colin says, shaking his head. "Just... there are more versions of all of us than there are grains of sand in a desert."

Again, an over-simplification, but it seemed the best way to get the point across. "If we're still here, it's almost impossible to say what kind of damage the calamity actually inflicted," he adds.

[tophgirl]

Toph isn't sure whether she's relieved or not to know there isn't another Toph up in the stars. This whole conversation has gone in a distinctly unsettling and unhelpful direction.

"So your sister's the fighter and you're, what, the family creeper?" she asks, both to change the subject and to disguise her ill-ease in her habitual gruffness.

[freedom_engineer]

"Black sheep," Colin says, laughing quietly. "Name's Colin Starfury. I'm the Starfury that builds stuff better than anyone in the galaxy, but causes diplomatic incidents because I can't keep my mouth shut. You'll learn that well enough with time, I've kept it up here."

He's not the least put off by her. The fact that she seems to be willing to listen is refreshing, and her wicked banter is amusing. "You got a name?" he asks. "Or should I just call you 'Sentinel'? You seem to be taking in quite a bit."

[tophgirl]

And congratulations, Colin, you have inadvertently distracted Toph yet again. "Wait a minute," she says, holding up her hands. "You're Colin Starfury? Your name is seriously Colin Starfury?" A part of her hadn't actually believed that kid from before when he'd told her about this Starfury guy. What self-respecting person would publicly admit to the name "Starfury"?

Other than Sokka.

[freedom_engineer]

Many people might be offended by such an observation. Many people aren't Colin. "Elerian naming conventions are weird, I know," he says, sounding amused. "But I'm willing to bet there's plenty of people with funny sounding names. Speaking of which... You got a name, Sentinel Chuckles?"

[tophgirl]

A funny sounding name is like Bi Gudong — Starfury is another level entirely. A fact which Toph would have pointed out to him, if he hadn't pulled that "Sentinel Chuckles" crap on her.

"You can call me the Melon Lord," she tells him haughtily.

[freedom_engineer]

"And you're getting on me for 'Starfury'?" Colin asks, his tone both incredulous and amused. "Ah well, no accounting for taste, Melon. You want the 'Lord' part, you're gonna have to earn that. I don't even call my allies by their titles most of the time."

[tophgirl]

"I earned that name in combat!" Toph says haughtily, fully aware of the ridiculousness but come on, that was part of the fun. "All who heard that name fell to the ground trembling for their lives! Like this!" And, even though it's stupid to waste one of her chances to bend on something like this, she can't resist bending the earth under his feet to knock him over.

[freedom_engineer]

It hadn't been his intention, and it definitely caught him by surprise, but at least Toph had shown him what he'd hoped to see. And just as Toph seemed to have been aiming, Colin gives a yelp and goes tumbling to the ground.

To his credit though, he rolls to a crouch, eyes wide in surprise and he stares at her. "Damn! Nice moves, fruit punch!" he tells her. "Put that to work for all of us, and I might acknowledge the Baroness of Brunch."

She wasn't the only one who enjoyed making things fun for herself...

[tophgirl]

Toph snorts, and crosses her arms.. "I'm sure that baroness lady will be delighted to hear that, Twinkle Tantrum."

[freedom_engineer]

Colin laughs and gets back up to his feet, smiling and not the least bit put off by her words. "You ain't half bad, Melon," he tells her, smiling. "Seriously though, you got a name, or do you really want me to keep calling you some variation of foodstuffs?"

[tophgirl]

Ability to take a verbal punch — Toph likes that in a person. "If my title is too much for you, I guess you can call me Toph," she tells him.

[freedom_engineer]

"Toph, good name," Colin confirms. "I'll bother you about whether or not it's got a meaning later. At least until I decide on a good nickname for you."

He sounds plenty amused by their exchange thus far, and he gives the ground a good stomp as if to represent her earth bending. "Interesting technique, I could almost feel the earth deciding to move to your whim. Similar to some of the things I've seen, but just different enough that I can't figure out how it works."

"Whatever the case, the motions show me that you've got the potential for martial... ah, fighting ability," he adds. "Just gotta reshape your thinking a little bit."

[tophgirl]

Did he seriously just switch from saying 'martial arts' to 'fighting ability'? "I know what martial arts are," she snaps. "I'm a girl, not an idiot. And I could kick your butt into next week without breaking a sweat."

She may enjoy being underestimated in a fight, but Toph is still very sensitive to how people perceive her intelligence and competence. The quickest way to piss her off is to make her feel like she's being coddled or that things are being dumbed down for her.

[freedom_engineer]

"And if I said "Kuret", do you know what it means?" Colin says, arching his eyebrow at her. "I don't want to assume a fancier term will be understood when a basic term can get it across just as well."

He looks her up and down, then he starts to snicker, before breaking out into deep laughter. "Wait, wait," he gasps. "Do you REALLY think that I think women can't fight? I'm the worst fighter out of all my siblings, and I'm the only guy!"

[tophgirl]

"No, but I know how to say 'Hey, what does that mean?'" The laughter isn't making Toph feel any better about this. He can dress it up however he wants, but it still feels like he's condescending to her and she will not tolerate that.

[freedom_engineer]

"Where I went to school for forty years, 'What does that mean?' is an insult to both the questioner and the questionee," he say, covering his mouth and trying to rein in his amusement. "It implies that the listener doesn't care enough to pay attention, and the speaker isn't smart enough to explain something properly in the first place."

[tophgirl]

"Where you're from is stupid," Toph says. "Expecting everyone to get everything the first time through is ridiculous. What kind of backwards school did you go to?"

Aang would probably be very confused to hear her expound upon the importance of questions, considering how she beat him up for questioning her teachings, but beating people up for asking stupid questions is also an important part of the learning process.

[freedom_engineer]

"Psilons do not expect people to get everything the first time, but they do expect people to take their knowledge seriously, and to listen well," he tells her. "Saying 'I don't understand,' is far different from saying 'What does that mean?' Psilons do not explain things with any ambiguity. Their explanations are always lengthy, and always complete, so long as you don't rush them."

There's a reason that Psilon education is among the hardest to follow in the galaxy. But likewise, there's also a reason that the Psilons are the galactic leaders in every single scientific field.

"Knowledge is the basis of their society. Your worth as a person is determined by how much you know, and how much you're WILLING to know," he says, smirking. "And they let everyone know it. They're an arrogant people, hard to like if they aren't students of social norms, but you'll never find someone with a better grasp on how anything works."