open | she had an earthquake on her mind

[seismos]

It's rare that Toph goes anywhere by herself. It's not too hard to tell that she's blind; considering she moves slowly and generally has a hand against whatever wall or rail is available.

What isn't immediately obvious is that she's normally relatively belligerent and combative. If Toph bumps into you, or winds up somewhere that's not near food or a lounge chair, she'll pipe up with a squeaked "Sorry! I'm having a little trouble, here," or a practiced "Gosh, guess I got kinda lost again!"

But she may not always show that she's almost always distressed: wisecracks in place of a sometimes stubborn pout set into her face. At least the rails and piecemeal parts of the ship that are metal provide some amount of comfort, though it's certainly not enough to calm her down completely.

"Stupid oceans. Stupid ships. Stupid kidnappings!" Where's her Zuko-shaped taxi when she needs him? Probably off stuttering somewhere...

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closed arrival ( zuko )

[seismos]

"Oof! Oww..."

Toph literally rolls out of the doorway and onto the cruiseship to land flat on her face. She groans, a tiny sound that's as angry as it is high. She rolls onto her back almost immediately, unsure of whether she needs to be on alert or not, but the reason she's not sure isn't apparent to her until she starts to climb to her feet.

"What the--?" One knee on the floor and a foot pushing her upward, Toph's other senses kick in and she gets a whiff of that salty air. She's on both feet, and she can hear them, sloshing against metal and back on each other: waves. "No, no, no-- come on!"

She stomps one foot out of frustrated habit, and the dull resonating thud of thick wood makes her groan again. Her hands reach out awkwardly in front of her, knees crouched to help her maintain some semblance of balance as she begins to slowly scooch forward, feet sliding firmly against the floor.

"This can't be happening! Not again!"

[banishment]

Always on the alert in spite of the otherwise calm, serene setting the ship seems to present — that time he was literally stuck in a dance not withstanding — Zuko keeps his ears and eyes peeled for anything. A sign of danger, a whisper from home, anything. Today, it's more of the latter. Zuko would know that voice anywhere.

He spots her, but doesn't say anything. Instead, he rushes forward and takes the blind earthbender by the wrist, dragging her over to the edge of the ship to place her hand on the railing. The metal railing that he makes sure to grab onto as well. Appearances could be deceiving and Zuko doesn't want to deceive her. He wants her to know that it really is him, and is quick enough on the uptake to know that in spite of being blond, she can see.

"Calm down. You're not alone here."

[seismos]

Everything happens so quickly, that even once her hands are on the metal, Toph is still spitting and protesting.

"I'm not alone here? What is that even supposed to mean!?" But she grips tight, hands moving over the cool material as if it's an oasis she's stumbled upon in the middle of a desert. It takes her a few beats to adjust and acclimate, to recognize that Fire Nation accent and then to see him with her own two hands.

"...Sparky? Is it really you?" And it's not too long before: "Did you go bad again and kidnap me?!"

Though that last part might not be serious, she does her best to make it sound good.

[banishment]

Zuko responds in kind with dripping sarcasm without missing a beat.

"Yes, that's exactly what happened. I decided burning down the Earth Kingdom sounded like a ton of fun and decided to rejoin my father, then kidnapped you hoping Aang and the others would come to your rescue."

[seismos]

Don't look now, Zuko: you have a tiny blind earthbender wrapped around you in a fierce hug (how is she that strong?)

"Oh, it is you!" And this reaction is the true one. For as prickly and guarded as Toph is, her positive emotional outbursts are just as strong as the negative ones. She's not afraid to let Zuko know how happy she is to see him.

And still holding on.

[banishment]

Oof. She's both strong and fast, something he senses her opponents often don't see coming, but it's easy to underestimate a blind girl when you're taught to view them as helpless and without any defenses. His bruised ribs can vouch for how untrue that is.

"Yeah, Champ," Zuko ruffles the girl's hair, making a mess of the bundle of dark locks she keeps bound to the top of her head, "it's me."

It's okay that she's still holding on, because he's content not to let go. As much as he wished people he knew weren't here, he'd be lying if he said it wasn't comforting to have Katara, and now Toph, around to keep him company and make him feel like less of a Neanderthal when it came to dealing with the overwhelming amount of technology present on the ship. Technology that was way beyond anything they presently had in their world.

[seismos]

Toph's groan of protest at the brotherly gesture is only half-hearted. She can't deny that any sort of bond, be it friendly or nigh-familial, is something she'll happily indulge in.

"Lucky for you, anyway," she says, lifting her face out of the fabric of his robes enough to keep the words from being muffled. "You probably haven't even figured out what's going on yet, huh, Noodlebrain?"

Not so subtle a shift away from her own helplessness, Toph displays her totally mastery of HEY LOOK OVER THERE for Zuko to enjoy personally.

[banishment]

"Not a thing." His honesty is immediate and without shame.

Zuko wasn't the only one who had no idea what was going on here. The majority of the people here hadn't the slightest clue, either — except for all those people from some place called Chicago. They spoke of rifts and having experienced being transported between worlds before, but what they spoke of didn't seem to match up entirely with whatever was going on here. The how, why, who, and what remained a mystery.

She's blind, but he looks. For the briefest fraction of a second, he looks, as if she's actually pointing to something she can see— But she was holding onto him, not the railing, so the seeing was not something he was believing. And even though she couldn't see it herself, he's made a point to glower down at her disapprovingly.

"You do realize I'm not Sokka, right?"

[seismos]

At that, she lets him go and then grabs at the railing again.

"Hey-- I'm blind, not stupid." To any onlookers, it might seem like Toph's gazing out over the water looking for a horizon the way most new arrivals probably do. She's watching something, but it's nothing anyone else can see.

Zuko's heartbeat, steady as ever. Something that has come as a small surprise to Toph, considering the assumptions she'd absorbed about him from the start (not to mention his generally awkward demeanor as she learned it personally). It's not earth, but it's comforting. Almost makes her feel safer. The moment's important, a rare spell of quiet in the wake of an overwhelming situation.

[banishment]

He reaches for the railing again as she does, not for fear of toppling over the side, but in a silent gesture of trust and reassurance. Zuko has nothing to hide, and he knows how unsettling it must be for her to be surrounded by this much water without any land in sight. Metal was likely a temporary comfort, an extension of your bending that didn't quite make you feel as at home in your element as rolling around in the dirt did. Like bending the heat off of lava when you couldn't make the lava itself do a damned thing.

"Katara's here, too. Somewhere. I, uh, think she's below deck doing... girl or waterbender things."

It's not like he's been keeping track of her. (He has. In a non-stalker-ish way. He may or may not have some abandonment issues he hasn't worked through yet and fears being left behind.)

And speaking of Zuko's heartbeat...

[seismos]

Times when Toph really sounds like a girl: when she's screaming or laughing. Right now, she's giggling quietly in a high pitched and very tickled manner.

"Oh, really? You think?" Her head tilts upward to where Zuko's voice has been coming from, and her eyebrows quirk to help show off her taunting. "So? Are you going to take me to see her, or what?"

[banishment]

"Like I know where she is right now! Do you know how many decks things thing has?"

His heartbeat jumps again as he reaches out to cover one of her hands with his own, like pressing her palm more firmly into the metal will give her a better 'view' of the ship.

It's a luxury liner, and it's massive. Even he's been having trouble keeping the layout of the place straight, having spent the better part of last Tuesday lost somewhere near the bow of the ship before he found his way back to a corridor he recognized.

[seismos]

Another taunt bubbles up but before Toph can get it out, the structure of the ship slowly begins to unfold beneath her palm. Thin strands of compartmentalized metal that dives down further than she's expected into the water below.

She whistles, all thoughts of teasing Zuko about Katara washed away with the the new information she's processing.

"Are we going to land any time soon? Me and boats don't exactly get along, you know. Plus the sooner we get on land, the sooner I can help figure out what's going on."

[banishment]

She can't see it, but Zuko's frowning. The way his grip goes slack against the back of her hand is likely a tell for how much she isn't going to like his answer to that.

"I don't think there's any land out there to land on."

[seismos]

For a moment, Toph is just silent.

Then, she starts to laugh -- because that's a pretty funny joke and she totally communicates via pranks and hazing and Zuko is definitely joking because why wouldn't he be joking that is a very bizarre truth!

Why isn't Zuko laughing? "Oh, that's a good joke..." But seriously why isn't Zuko laughing? "It's a joke, right? Right, Sparky?"

Her fingers are starting to dig into that railing. There's definitely going to be a pair of child-sized hand marks left in it, permanently.

[banishment]

Yes, but that's assuming Zuko is both cunning and bold enough to pull pranks on people. And while he may be both, he's also too insecure in his own skin to dare and do so against people he's worked so hard to earn the trust of. Nevermind so awkward in spite of his bender's grace that he'd likely fumble and ruin the entire attempt.

"I don't joke." It's said dead pan serious, Zuko's fingers curling around her palm in a dangerous gambit to worm the tips under her hand to pry it off the metal before she rips the railing clean from ship's side.

[seismos]

"Yeah. I forgot you have all the sense of humor of boar-q-pine."

If she was kind of cranky before, Toph is outright irritated now. She knows that it could be worse -- at least she has Zuko around to help her out. She moves to lean against the railing she'd just mangled, aggressively crossing her arms over her chest in what she would deny is any form of pouting at all.

"So what am I supposed to do? There's only so much I can see through a wooden skeleton." Still pouting. Toph thinks she would rather be riding Appa; at least he could land.

Then her eyes light up, blank but bright as her head swivels up to where she'd last heard Zuko's voice. This is a look many have seen, and few survive with their ego intact.

[banishment]

Were it anyone else sassing him about his lack of a sense of humor, he would've sassed right on back. But this is Toph, and he gets it. There's too much water, no land in sight. She's an earthbender who is literally out of her element with only the metal on this ship for her to peer through and see in that way she's learned to without the use of working eyes. She's mad, and she has a right to be. He doesn't blame her, and he'd rather have her snapping at him than biting someone else's head off.

...or looking at him like that. He knows that look.

"You're about to remind me about burning your feet, aren't you?"

He's about to become a living palanquin, isn't he?