paixaorpg | Night Discussions

Entry tags:

Night Discussions

Character(s): Toph, Terra
Content: Resting for the night
Setting: Lady of Lords Soup Kitchen [F5]
Time: night
Warnings: Doubt it

Toph was tired by the time this had all come to a close. Yes, she had talked to this "Raven" girl a bit more, but they still barely knew where they were going and what they might see later. Getting back, the room had looked a lot smaller than she'd remembered, but that was OK. They only had one bed for some stupid reason, although it was big enough that the two wouldn't be on top of each other. The place had come with nightgowns, but they were terribly dressy and girlish. It was one of the rare times Toph was happy she couldn't see.

Toph's attention was immersed in the journal. Once she'd figured out how to turn people's entries to audio, she could understand a lot more. After reading

dark_dealer's post, now she knew a lot more about Paixao. Toph shifted her attention over to Terra. The blond girl had been rather silent after her outing with Raven.

"Were you OK with her being there?" Toph broke the silence. "Did she scare you at all? You guys seemed pretty tight lipped."

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Terra didn't mind the frilly nightgowns so much; she would have preferred a different outfit to wear for bed, but she was paying more attention to her new device. She was typing away a private, journal entry, summing up all of her mixed feelings from today.

She heard Toph ask her something, and she glanced over at her new friend. "Well... it was a lot better than the last time, but... yeah, she did kinda scare me," she finished with a nervous chuckle. "She always did. But when I left, we didn't exactly part on good terms."

Terra got the feeling that Raven wasn't the same Raven she was familiar with -- which was a little creepy and she couldn't grasp the idea of 'alternates.' She couldn't help but feel that it was the same for the other Terra and this Raven, though.

"Yeah," Toph stretched her arms and fell to the bed, "I kinda thought you guys seemed to be on odd terms. I swear, I had to actually entertain myself with this journal thing! Plus, there was some guy I wound up talking to out of the blue! But he was ok...liked smoking and drinking, he's my kinda guy."

Toph shrugged. "Anyway, I found out a lot more about this place. It seems like people here don't really take money, but shiny stuff, and if you see anybody blond and blue eyes dressed like weirdos, they actually like living here. Goof info too...compiled by this weird guy, bug boy and Raven too. I guess she has been here longer than the two of us."

Toph stopped and looked over to Terra. "What are you writing anyway?"

"Well, it's good we're starting to meet more people. Familiar or not," she said grinning.

"I hope I'm not dressed weird, or else I'm going to match with that description," Terra joked, and then listened to what else she gathered. "Shiny stuff? That's perfect! This whole place is... uhm, shiny. It wouldn't be too hard to scrape up some cash to get a new place and some new clothes."

She stopped typing and glanced at Toph again. "Oh. Just a private entry. To keep track of what I've been doing and all."

Toph laughed.

"I doubt anyone is going to confuse you with the deadbeats in this town. From what I hear, they're pretty much stick in the muds and have a problem talking about anything that isn't completely boring. You're too much of a firecracker like me to confused with them. But yeah, we'll gather some of this shiny stuff and be able to really explore this place. Besides, it'd be neat to actually meet some of these people, right? If we get new clothes, I think I'll let you pick them out, seeing as how I lack my own 'aesthetic value.'"

She said the last two words like a snotty noblewoman, and grinned. "A private entry huh? Neat. I think I'll do that my own. Oh, and I'll try to not hog too much room on the bed, k?"

"Well, you can trust me on that. I'm not gonna dress you up in anything too odd," she laughs. "I really don't know how the rest of the clothes look around here, but they should be better than some of the ones I've seen on the street.

"Awesome. I'll try not to do the same for you," Terra said, closing up her journal and putting it to the side. "I've been told that I snore sometimes, so... y'know, if you wanna punch me in the face in the middle of the night, I wouldn't blame you."

"Good to know I won't look any freakier than I look now!" Toph laughed. "at least, I'm pretty sure that what my parents might think. Don't worry about the snoring thing though. Once I'm out like a light, I won't hear anything until its time to wake up."

Toph allowed her hands to rest on the electric journal and sighed. "Still, it would kinda be nice to see what this stupid place looks like. I'll be honest with you: not being able to see stinks, but not being able to see and not having anyone to talk to is even worse. Until recently, the only thing that made life worth living was Earth bending. That's why I'm so good at it. Once I'm alone, I can practice until forever, and when I did that, it was the first time I felt like I was totally in control, you know? Eventually I found out that once I shut up and listened, earthbending was easy. I think its because once you actually pay attention to the things around you, not just living in it, being one with earth is more important than anything."

Toph stared out in the distance, and shrugged. "Not that I'm Miss-know-it-all, though. I still got a long way to go before I can really become a master. I think that comes with inexperience: you know you can do better, but when you can't actually experience earth, it's a lot harder."

"Good to hear. Then you're spared from my habit!"

Terra listened to Toph, and frowned a little. She glanced down into her lap, and said, "Y'know, I always wondered what it must be like, to not be able to see, hear, or say anything. I only saw a couple o'people like that, and it really made me wonder. It's good to see that you've adapted so well to it. I mean, if it were me, I think I would've fell apart." She rubbed the back of her head as she said the last part.

She nodded. "It is... it's. It's hard, depending on what and when I guess." She gulped a bit. Just a little nervous, maybe?

"Fallen apart? Heh," Toph smiled a little, but it was a sad smile.

"I came close, don't get me wrong. Between having to be raised like a spoiled little girl isolated from everyone and not seeing, it was hard. Sometimes you have to find a way, you know? Otherwise you go a little crazy. I had my moonlighting at bending, and for awhile, that was OK. What changed everything was meeting these friends. They wanted me to come with them and train. It was amazing to think of a life where I was protected all the time and could actually do what I wanted. My parents found out about my bending. They actually wanted me to stay with them so they could take that away too."

Toph shook her head. "Parents are good at heart, but they do stupid thing sometimes to try to protect you. They don't bother to realize you do things they don't know about and those things make you sane."

Toph snickered. "But enough about me. How were things with you growing up? I'm sure your story is much more interesting."

Terra frowned a little bit. "Yeah, sure sounds like it. But it must feel good to be out of that and be able to do what you want," Terra smiled as she said this.

She shrugged at the question of her growing up, and sits back on her bed. "It was... interesting. A little dull. Your story's actually more interesting than anything I can tell," she said.

She thought about anything she can tell Toph to interest her. "... I, uh. I destroyed a huge scorpion once?" Pause. "It was the size of a house!" Another pause as Terra mentally listed what she did that was 'totally rad' in her head. "I almost joined a super hero team," she said. Haha. Yeah. Almost.

"Really? That sounds neat! Taking down big animals is no joke, although some people seem to believe anything involving animals is childish. So you almost joined a super hero team huh?"

Toph smiled, because it reminded her immediately of the friends she left behind.

"I almost did too, but I was brought here before I could really show them what I was made of. It stunk...I had training I was going to do, and I was going to show a certain 'twinkle toes' how to earthbend. It sucks that I never got the chance. So why didn't you get to be a part of the team? Were you taken away before you could show your abilities too?"

"Man, you have no idea how close it got to me! It was right there and ready to strike me. But then, WHAM! I hit him on the head with a huge piece of earth," she said, her hands moving as if to show how it happened, and then rubbed the back of her head. "And that was how my almost-teammates found me. It was pretty cool.

"Er... actually, they were able to see my abilities quite a bit. They took me into their home and I was able to train with them. It was everything from lasers being shot at you and the ground opening below your feet," she described. She rubbed her hands together as she brought this up. She was being careful. She didn't want to reveal everything in one sitting. Toph was friendly enough, and she knew the both of them were going to be good friends, but Terra couldn't tell Toph everything yet.

"Cool! Man, I wish I had adventures like that! All I've been able to do so far is beat the tar out of weaker earthbenders. Not that they would be regarded as pushovers to most, though. There was this one guy who called himself 'THE BOULDER." Thought he was real hot stuff until I got him to his knees. Thought it was wrong to fight a little girl too, but he found out why I was called The Blind Bandit!"

Toph grinned in spite of herself. Sure, they had been easy for her, but no one had thought she could do it, did they? It was a private victory for her, and if she got the chance, she'd actually do something besides taking down a bunch of dimwitted, over muscled men who thought moving pebbles made them champions!

"Lasers? Ground opening at your feet? That sounds like fun! I bet you might have had trouble though. If those guys were superheroes, they probably train like that all the time. I'm sure they didn't expect you to know everything off the bat. Heck, I wonder if I could master everything they threw at me then and there. I'm really lousy at detecting aerial attacks, y'know." She whispered this last part.

"But don't tell anybody, OK?"

"Oh, jeez. One of those guys, huh? You're always gonna have to beat one guy's butt to get the point across.

"I won't tell," Terra said, nodding. "I mean. I got nobody else to tell around here. And yeah, they train like that every day. They were seriously better than anything I could do, but they were cool enough to make it comfortable."

Quite honestly, talking about the Titans wasn't her favorite topic. But she did have to hand it to them: her time spent at the Tower were some of the happier times of her life.

"One of those guys, yeah," Toph said, laughing. "You couldn't stop him from talking about himself in the third person! He kept saying 'THE BOULDER will do this' or 'THE BOULDER takes offense to that!' I think beating him was just making sure everyone else didn't have to suffer listening to him anymore!"

Toph nodded when she heard about how she was treated by the super team. "Yeah, I was wondering how they went about it. I told you I was going to train someone before I got whisked away here, and I wasn't gonna be nice. That kid ha a whole lot of pressure ahead of him, he's the Avatar. You, on the other hand, need someone to make sure you improve before you hurt anyone. I don't have to be hard on you because you at least know how to earthbend. To be honest, I find it easier to bully boys a little anyway. I wasn't going to break him or anything, but I was going to be tough."

Toph added that last part so Terra wouldn't think she would go real hard on her. Much as she hated to admit it, Toph felt a little biased anyway: she could sense that whatever went down with Terra and the team she trained with, she didn't like talking about it. One of the good things about being blind was how your other senses got more enhanced, and you noticed things like rapid heartbeat.

Terra didn't notice her rapid heart beat, but maybe now it wasn't as rapid when she heard what Toph was going to say. Although, she wondered if Toph knew just how bad she was. She knew that Terra needed training to keep her from hurting anyone, so what if...?

She let out a sigh, and said, "That's a relief to hear. I'm glad I was a born a girl," she said jokingly. "I can only imagine what you'd do to me if I was a boy."

Terra felt prompted to grab her device again. She opened it up, and was typing away again -- this time, in response to something. "You know, decorating it probably doesn't matter, but we definitely should identify it as ours only. I'd hate to have someone come along and mistake my device for theirs," she said.

Of course, she was making idle chit chat. It was taking her mind off of something else.

"You're right, but I don't have the slightest idea what to do to mine, unless you want to write 'hands off or I'll kill you' on the front panel of this thing. I bet that'll get people's attention. Maybe we should, I don't know, paint it or something. Mine can be a dark green with black, and yours can be...well, whatever color you want, I guess."

Toph heard Terra clicking onto her computer, so she decided to go back to converting things into an audio format. She was glad to have that option...it made things easier, and she didn't feel so cut off from the people on the island.

"I wouldn't worry about the training Terra. I promise I'll go light on you."

This last comment was followed by a string of muttered threats by Toph. "Oh, its ON now!"

"I think I'll paint mine red. Red is my favorite color. Maybe we can find some small things to put on 'em so people around here can identify it as ours. I'm sure they have stuff you can stick on here." Well, it would be simple for Toph to identify the small stickers on her device, Terra figured, and it would make nice decoration.

"Ehehe. 'Right, Toph. Just as long as I don't get smashed, I'll be fine." She raised an eyebrow at Toph's mutter threats. "Uh, what's up?" she asked.

"Oh, just some jerk," Toph replied. "But I'm taking care of him. But yeah, stickers would be neat. I can totally get into that."

Toph grinned. "You ever notice how sometimes you make a thread, and people in it get carried away and start taking to each other? That's happening now. Somebody named 'aensland' and a girl who calls herself 'Alice.' Ah well. Maybe they're more interesting people than me anyway."

Toph shut off her laptop, and "looked" over at Terra. "Not that you need me to feel sorry for you, but don't be too hard on yourself when it comes to training. I'm sure you'll do great. Not too many earthbenders I know could take down scorpion, or actually get invited to join a super hero team. Just remember you've got the right stuff, and you'll do OK."

"I'm sure they're not more interesting than you. But yeah, I know what you mean. I haven't got into making 'threads' and stuff yet. I'm still getting used to look around and getting used to this device."

She nodded -- that did make her feel better. "Thanks, Toph. For, y'know, everything. I really need help with all of this." Believe it. She needs more help than anyone else may realize.

Toph blushed a little at being called interesting. She definitely wasn't used to compliments, having gotten so precious few.

"Thanks," Toph said. "And don't even worry about it. We're friends, right? I want to help you, you want to help me. We're even par."

Toph yawned and stretched out on her back, her arms folded behind her head. "Anywhere you go, you need people you can count on. Once you get real good, we'll team up and
really give this place something to talk about!"

"A team-up, huh?" She closed her device and lied back on the bed, saying, "Yeah, we're definitely gonna rock everyone." Terra laughed at her own pun. C'mon, it's funny! She yawned. "But we're not gonna be able to show everyone what we're made of if we're too tired to do so."

"Good point," Toph said, winking. "Even girls who can move the earth under their feet need a bit of shut eye."

She stretched her legs, and closed her eyes. "I'll make this pact: if one person snores, they gotta sleep on the floor!"

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Night Discussions

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