May catch-all

[seismometrics]

Characters: Open to all!
Date: May
Location: Keelai
Warnings/Rating: N/A -- will change if necessary. Shenanigans?

A. OTA - No matter the day, even if it's raining, Toph can likely be found somewhere on the Turtle, training in one of the disciplines: earthbending, metalbending, sandbending, or blind combat. Interruptions or onlookers are not a problem; she's more than happy to have an audience -- and will even have the tendency to show off if she discovers someone watching.

B. OTA - During her previous visit to the Turtle, the kedan gang activity was of interest to Toph -- something to keep at least a halfway decent idea of during her tenure, if only for her own interests. The new Keelai is different, though . . . and something that needs to be re-explored and understood, especially in light of people running around stealing soul gems. Feel free to run into Toph at nearly any hour (even wee hours of the morning) in some of the more dangerous sections of the city, poking around and possibly getting herself into shenanigans. (Hey, I did promise shenanigans up above.)


C. Closed to Katara - The shopping had been Katara's idea. It certainly hadn't been Toph's -- would never have been Toph's, who didn't put nearly as much stock in her appearance, and for whom window shopping was a meaningless term.

But even so, Katara had gotten her out with only a minor amount of whining and sarcasm. Partly this might have been because they really hadn't spent much time together outside of Toph's re-arrival, and though fractious as the two could be sometimes, Katara was still family -- something Toph had had precious little of in previous months. Connection was still something Toph craved, even if shopping wasn't the most ideal of circumstances. Additionally, there were still things she wanted to understand -- still holes in her piecing together of the last couple of years.

So Toph went shopping, contenting herself with drifting her hands across fabrics for the varying textures, doing her best to resist any goads into trying something new (not always winning), and getting in wisecracks when she could.

Maybe Katara had taken pity on her, because the next suggestion the older girl made was far more appealing:

Mud.

With the influx of spring rains, some enterprising kedan had set up their own miniature day spa, inviting all to enjoy a mud bath with mud "carted from the far side of the turtle, in a location left pristine and untouched."

That might have been true, or it might have been hogwash (literally), but mud was mud as far as Toph was concerned, and you couldn't go wrong with a good wallowing. So it was with great aplomb that Toph squished into the mud pool -- a large, open bath of it occupied only by a couple of other kedan on the far side. The muck squished upward between her toes, prompting a full-fledged grin.

D. Closed to Mike - Just because she'd agreed to this didn't mean she was happy about it.

In fact, one could probably count Toph as full-blown wary as she made her way to the alleyway that had been described.

. . . After all, the request had come from the one turtle ninja she had beef with.

She wasn't looking forward to the meeting with Mike, but the request also wasn't one she could easily refuse -- a request to help find Leonardo's sword . . . a sword that had disappeared during the year that everyone apparently had gotten stuck in the Dreaming, commandeered by the kedan in their game of "finders-keepers." She owed Leo this, as far as she was concerned; the sword belonged in the hands of people who knew him, not some priss-nosed little kedan with a stick up his butt.

For that reason, Toph had agreed to circumvent her misgivings and meet Mike in the alley. Arms sliding into a cross, she leaned up against the stone of the nearby wall. Waiting.

E. Closed to Jackie - "Heads up!" The voice came as a snap not far from Jackie's elbow as its owner barreled past -- near enough to brush Jackie's clothing on the way by. The owner, from the glimpse he might catch, was a tiny girl with a mass of thick, dark hair, bare feet nearly soundless on the earth in spite of her speed. "Move it."

Just barely avoiding Jackie, she sprinted off towards the alley on the opposite side of the street, heading towards its shadows.

Jackie might have avoided collision once, but he or anyone with him might not be so lucky with what came after her. With little more than a breath, two kedan tore after her, so intent on their prize that they couldn't quite manage the tight twist it took to avoid, heading for impact.


F. Want to rp something else? Come to me! PM or find me on Plurk -- I'm glad to talk and set something up. <3

Comments

[seismometrics]

"What've you got?" Honestly, mostly she's interested in information. That's the primary role of all of this. People tend to let their guard down around a little girl, especially one who's blind -- as though she can't hear any more than she can see. Even kedan, who have a natural suspicion about Foreigners, tend to be a little more loose-tongued under those circumstances.

She's not adverse to collecting juulan or trinkets or other bits, though. She can always find a use for those. And this guy, she's not sure if he's kedan or Foreigner yet, but she'll work it out. Meanwhile, she's winging it -- and enjoying it.

Her palm opens, revealing three pebbles. "The game is pretty simple. I'm blind, but I'll bet you I can find any one of these if you hide it somewhere on yourself." Her eyebrows shift up. "Nowhere you wouldn't want your grandma to find it, though."

[stubbornlittleshit]

Arno considers the last few weeks and the stash of things he's managed to amass through barter and some underhanded means using skills from home and a knowledge of when kedan who were especially rude to foreigners were out of their homes. It's helped...a bit anyway.

"Not much. I don't suppose you're all that interested in fans or some small pretties? I've been working at a project if you're interested in weapons that are more than meet the eye."

Was that an unfortunate thing that he could say there? Probably. Then again, with her challenge, she seemed more than met the eye herself.

"I'd quite like to try it, all the same." To see her in action compared to his abilities and what they granted most assassins anyway.

[seismometrics]

There's a shift of eyebrow upward as Arno offers up the fans and "pretties." "The weapons thing sounds interesting enough. As long as I don't have to actually see it. Because, you know. Blind."

The last part was less a reminder and more a response to the blind joke he'd fallen into. Couldn't just let those things go, after all.

She holds out the pebbles for him to choose one. "Whenever you're ready, then."

[stubbornlittleshit]

"I wouldn't think you had to, actually." He admits. "Bladed fans, particularly. They seem...reasonable enough I think." After all, she could easily be able to tell which way the blades WERE and such.

And hey, of course she couldn't. Arno wouldn't expect that of her.

"Right." He agrees, setting to work with the pebbles. Let's see. One in the cuff of his sleeve. another tucked under a loose seam on his gauntlet, the third tucked into the top of his stocking there. "All set, I do believe. Show me what you can do!"

[seismometrics]

Oh, so he'd gone for all three. Toph grins internally, though manages to keep her poker face. "I've held fans before -- just a forewarning. So if I get the third, tell me something I don't know. Something you've heard on the streets down here -- about the gangs or the Snakes."

The mere question kind of takes away the guise that she's just an innocent little girl . . . but she suspects he knows that anyway, offering her bladed fans.

She'll still play.

[stubbornlittleshit]

There's not much Arno knows about them at the moment, to be honest. Whispered rumors of locations, some of the hobbies and haunts of gang members, some he thinks that he's witnessed in certain curtained off areas, so...fair enough.

"Agreeable." he says, and yes, the guise IS slipping away a bit, but then, it IS still workable in other circumstances, he thinks. After all, the bladed fan WOULD allow for her to maintain the image for a while.

"Game on."

[seismometrics]

Toph tilts her head, closing her eyes, considering. . . . She doesn't have to actually do either of the last two; she knows where Arno put the stones from the beginning, able to trace their movements through seismic sense. What's important right now is the show. People like their mysticism with a bit of smoke and mirrors; they like it to look challenging, even when the actual trick makes it all too simple.

They pay for the show, not the reality. It's her responsibility to make one.

One hand rises, drifts -- first here, then there, as though she's still determining the direction -- then rests. First his sleeve. Then his stocking. Then, at last, finally, as though the cloth made it all the more difficult . . . the gauntlet.

[stubbornlittleshit]

The show, yes! Arno is no stranger to enjoying things like that. Smoke and mirrors may be something he's a BIT aware of. The Parisian Brotherhood did have some special tricks in their employ and those had worked out for everyone. Toph using them now had the same sort of awed effect on Arno.

She looks so...something. Arno can settle on 'impressive' being a good word for it as he watches her at work. Resetting, working at it, and then...

"Madmoiselle." he says, his voice actually fairly awed. I AM impressed. I'd ask where you learned to make it look so flashy, but first I owe you information." His smile grows a bit wider as he considers the story to tell.

"The basement of the Blue Starfish..." He says the translation of the name, instead of the local languages, "Has a bit of a backroom. Complete with meeting area for lower ranking individuals to plot to get ahead..."