expiationlogs | one way or another

[ With the state of utter state of things outside and the communicators on the fritz, Miller's priorities have quickly become very simple ones this go around: he needs to find his friends. Whoever is unaccounted for, assuming they can gather together enough to come up with a reliable count. Although the clinic is an obvious safehouse, he had been relieved to see the lights were on.

He's even more relieved when he enters to sees Toph curled up in one of the beds. ]

Toph! There you are!

[ Miller rushes towards where she's resting, too quick to act with the care he probably should, that he might normally employ, at the sight of her so uncharacteristically small. He only recognizes it once he's close, and after taking a breath, squats down beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder. ]

Hey. What happened?

[ Usually Toph's personality takes up the whole room, but right now she's curled in on herself, distraught. At least until she hears Miller, feels the hand on her shoulder. She can't stand for him to see her like this; she shoots upright, jostling his hand away, angrily swiping at her face to clear the tears. ]

Have you run into the copies of us yet? Because they suck, [ she bursts out with, eloquently. ]

[ The fact that she rejects the gesture of concern doesn't come as a complete surprise. Miller doesn't try to replace his hand after she brushes it off, but does remain bent down by the side of the bed. He looks down, instinctively away from her tear-stained face for a moment, but is quickly brought back to focus again by her outburst. ]

What? What do you mean "copies?"

[ There are monsters out there. All kinds of them. Maybe she'd seen something even worse. ]

[ She's both rejecting the gesture and also latching onto her most trusted adult, eager to spill her feelings and process them and get it over with. Toph always faces things head on, and this is no different, she just-- doesn't know what this is yet. ]

There's another one of me. She showed up and attacked me and Ange, and-- and I lost.

[ Her pride is obviously taking that hard. ]

[ He doesn't know either. Another punishment, another challenge, another nightmare ripped out of another Chosen's world, or any or all of the above. Miller has difficulty fathoming it exactly, but what he can tell is that it shook Toph. Maybe more than she wants to admit. ]

That's not you. That's some kind of Council-orchestrated mind trick. I bet you they're trying to make you learn some sort of ham-fisted lesson out of all of this. [ And the timing could not be worse?! Or is this happening to everyone else, too? First things first. ] Are you injured? Where is Ange?

Well, it's a trick that worked, [ she retorts, boiling over with frustration. But Toph still answers his questions. ]

Ethlyn healed me, she just said I had to stay here for a while to make sure it takes. Ange is probably around here somewhere.

[ Toph had made sure she got to Ethlyn and then been wrapped up in her own feelings in a way that frankly rarely ever happens to her. She doesn't like it; it's mildly mortifying, having all these emotions, having other people she respects witnessing her having said emotions... ]

OK...

[ As long as he can be sure they're relatively safe, that's good enough for him. With that obvious concern out of the way though, it is clear that addressing the problem for Toph is going to mean doing something concrete about it. Giving her anything less would ring entirely hollow right now.

Miller sighs, resting his hands on his knees as he stands up straight again. ]

So, what do you plan to do? If you're going to confront her again, then we need to figure out what went wrong.

[ Is confronting this... figment really something worth doing? Miller isn't sure. But screw it. If it will help support her, then he's sure they could pull it off. ]

Yeah. I can't stop thinking about that, actually.

[ Toph slumps back against the pillows in her clinic bed again, frustrated and morose. She's barely slept because she's been turning the fight over and over again in her mind. She hates self-pity, in herself and in others, but she's getting stuck on facing just what she's capable of when she really lets loose. It's a problem that's come up with Miller before.

Face turned down toward her lap, mussed unpinned hair falling forward in a curtain, she asks, ] You remember that time with the snakes? I don't do things like that. [ Toph has a sense of proportion and appropriateness beneath all her bluster that is pretty evident once you start paying attention. ]

But that's how she fights -- vicious, no holding back. I don't know how to match that without, well, matching it. I'm fighting myself and she knows exactly what I can do.

[ Maybe she's gotten too used to being the only bender, being able to take people by surprise. But even at home, Toph holds back. The last thing she wants is to intentionally push herself toward a more vicious fighting style. Even if it is just to face her doppelganger, would it really be that simple? Duplicate Toph was flesh and blood. She felt like a human being to her senses. She doesn't think she could forget it so easily if she faced her that way.

Suddenly she has a heck of a lot of sympathy for Aang knowing he'd have to face down Ozai. ]

Edited 2024-12-12 20:36 (UTC)

[ Suddenly this unexpected behavior for her is starting to make sense. While it didn't much impact his want to help her, it had really struck him how odd it was to see her so distraught over losing a fight. If anything, he'd expect her to be mad, to be raring to go with a new plan of action. Maybe that's why it had felt so inappropriate to let his gaze linger.

This is different though. Her fight is not with an enemy, but both literally and figuratively with herself. Back then when the miasma had gotten to her, he had felt this vulnerable, doubtful side of her as she was forced to question her own principles, and thereafter, she was clearly going to lengths to prevent that feeling from ever happening again.

So it's really no wonder, and now Miller feels like he understands the situation. The careful tiptoeing he was doing is gone in an instant. ]

So show her that nobody else can do it better. You know who you are. That's not going to fall apart just because you have to defend yourself. No one is going to win in a war of escalation. You have to think differently. If this is really you, then her fears are the same as yours.

[ Miller's right about that; Toph's natural reaction is to be boiling mad and lurch out there for a round two, but Ethlyn keeping her here for a while is forcing her to be introspective. She hasn't been enjoying it, and people handling her carefully grates on her nerves besides. His abrupt turn to telling her to get it together works perfectly on Toph. ]

You're right! I'm not going to figure anything out by moping, and I don't need to stoop to that level. I just need to be smart.

[ She would hug him in appreciation, except she doesn't want to get even more sentimental, so she reaches out to give him a healthy punch on the arm instead. ]

Thanks, Miller. Will you brainstorm some ideas with me?

[ Thank goodness for Ethlyn, in that case. But he's relieved to see he managed to knock some of her regular sense back into her. That's the Toph he knows. He smiles at the friendly punch and leans down to settle onto the edge of her bed. ]

Of course. Let's see...

[ What he wants to suggest may depend quite a bit on the circumstances. Like how much can they actually interact with this double? Is she flesh and blood? Some shadowy figment that needs to be disarmed through some kind of Council-imposed lesson? Well, maybe there's no real way to know that. But they need to start somewhere. ]

So first of all, what exactly happened? She was just fully wreaking havoc and risking locals lives in the process?

[ This is exactly what she needs. Toph levers herself fully upright, folding her arms loosely as she thinks it through. ]

She wasn't out of control or anything-- she came after me. It was like she didn't care about Ange at all. We knocked over a building but I made sure we didn't hurt anyone this time.

[ There's that echo of that time with the miasma again... Toph pushes past it. ]

I haven't fought another bender in like a year now, [ Toph grumps, admitting to this unhappily, ] so she caught me off guard. That won't happen again.

[ His eyes widen when she says they knocked over a building. Holy shit. But okay, it does sound like she can work with that. It's not like she can be outclassed by herself, right? ]

Right. Okay, so you need to plan your attack with simply that in mind. What is the best way to take on an earthbender?

[ Not to mention something else rather important. ]

You also have one major thing to your advantage. Backup. Use it wisely and she won't stand a chance.

[ Major fights between benders, especially earthbenders, can really result in some hefty property damage. Toph hasn't had an occasion to go all out in quite a while now, and she's annoyed to find she's fallen out of the habit. In that context, this is a fun opportunity... ]

You're right, [ she agrees, ] I'm used to fighting with my friends. I don't mind taking backup.

[ She's not stupidly prideful, okay. Toph knows she contributes to whatever team she's on; she doesn't need to do things alone. And she doesn't hesitate to list out what her real weaknesses are to Miller, who she trusts completely. ]

I'm an unusual earthbender. [ She's just clarifying that to say she's answering the spirit and not the letter of his question. ] The best way to take me on is something from the air, flying or projectiles. Air and earth are opposite elements. Or one time I burned my feet -- that really sucked.

Edited 2024-12-27 14:28 (UTC)

[ Right, he didn't expect her to take offense to it. It's just the practical thing to do, even if backup in this case doesn't end up needing to do more than stand in as a distraction. And the need to accept help really didn't appear to be the problem.

Their communication may be rather limited right now, but surely there will be others at the safehouses who would extend a hand. And of course there's him. There's no question of that.

He's learning more about this elemental business in the process, bringing a hand to his chin as she talks about it. ]

You mean, it really works like that? [ Like earth is weak to air and air is weak to fire and so on... ]

Alright then. An aerial assault could do the trick... but get her to burn her feet somehow and you've handicapped her without having to inflict violence in return.

[ He likes that idea. ]

[ She doesn't have a background with video games or fantasy novels to understand something like type match ups, so she doesn't totally get what Miller is asking; she takes her best guess. But Toph did legitimately earn her mastery, and it being almost wholly self-taught means she has an intuitive rather than academic understanding of the elements. She's used to being a teacher enough that she tries to give a fuller explanation. ]

With bending? Uh, kind of. It has more to do with the style and the mindset than the elements. Earth is about facing things head on, air is about agility and avoidance. It just doesn't make as much sense to me, like it's not my native language. Understanding your opposing element can really fill in weaknesses and make you a lot stronger, but since I'm blind, that's a little bit tough for me with air.

[ Aang really struggled to learn earthbending, but simultaneously, Iroh invented lightning redirection from studying waterbenders. So there's two sides to that coin. Toph would absolutely be pursuing the other side if she could. ]

Maybe I could get Kakashi to make some kind of fire trap for me... Distract her with projectiles, lure her into a fire trap?

[ That sounds really plausible. Toph agrees going for her feet, which keep bothering her in winter anyway, might be the best idea. ]

[ For as much as he doesn't understand it, it's a very interesting topic, actually. Clearly there is a strong martial arts connection imbued in the skill; it simply surpasses any normal description of a hand to hand technique that one might normally attribute to esoteric things like the concepts of earth and air. But even if he weren't inclined to, Miller must accept the logic because he's seen it in action.

He hums a thoughtful sound at her explanation. ]

I can see why it requires such a deep level of intuition to be successful at.

[ All the more reason she is noteworthy for overcoming the obstacles she has. Back to the plan though, before he gets too lost in the weeds. ]

Now we're talking. I could offer you some help in the projectiles department, but in this case, something a bit more... traditional might be a better fit.

[ Guns are useful and all, but not so much if you're trying to avoid doing major damage. ]

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