//------------------------------// // Group Dynamics // Story: Toph goes to Equestria // by MichelleTwistaloo //------------------------------// They probably thought she couldn’t hear them. But she was blind not deaf. The girl had been trying to get information out of the ones she was traveling with, by listening, she wasn’t held down and pressed to the floor as they flew, but that was a small comfort, she wanted to travel by ground, but that would apparently take too much time, on that the creatures had agreed, so they flew. And getting information could at-least distract her from the sound of the wind and the total blindness. For the most part. From what she had gathered Lyra was crazy about humans, that is, about her, even if none of her stories had been about magical element controlling. Everyone had thought she was crazy, until she had shown up. The fact that they wanted to put her with someone they thought was crazy until almost that moment wasn’t particularly encouraging, but she didn’t complain, not while flying. The ponies (the name still sounded weird to her) ignored her for the most part, talking among themselves, a large portion of their communication Toph couldn’t see, for it was facial. While she could detect wide, large motions, emoting with the eyes wasn’t that easy to detect, even more so on this ponies things. But the voices she could hear. She couldn’t see but she imagined her knuckles to be white, so tightly she grabbed the risen hedge, the princess had provided them with a larger chariot, so they could all travel together, but bigger wasn’t necessarily always better.´ She had started to pick up names “Fluttershy”, “Rainbow Dash”, “Applejack”, among others, and, of course, “Twilight”, she still didn’t trust her, and it was, among the voices, the one who was chattier, or, the one Toph focused more on, at least, she was inherently the leader, that she could detect. If she weren’t focused on the grabbing the hedge, she would have retched, or faked it, at least, while Twilight had been ordered to be nice with her, that reminded Toph on how her parents made sure that the few people who knew of her existence, did the same, because, since she was blind, she was a delicate little flower. She hated that feeling, relationships didn’t develop out of orders or suspicions, sure, everyone would treat her fairly, but it would lead to resentment. Resentment had been one of the reasons she left home, to prove herself. The point was, it wouldn’t lead to good things. That she knew. “And then when she’s over with Lyra...” – Twilight seemed to hesitate, a first for her, normally, as far as Toph could tell, while she could detect her nervousness (and her falling apart when criticized), she did her best to sound confident, for her friends or for herself, probably (Toph wasn’t sure), but this time Twilight let her doubts shine through. She couldn’t blame her, if a totally strange and weird thing showed up next to her, like a turtle the size of an island with a lion face who came to her and told her “Here’s a power that’s been lost for ages”, she’d react the same way, not like Aang, a friend who had actually seen that happen. Toph waited, the doubt making the tidbit of conversation particularly interesting to her, but Twilight, who had faltered, didn’t say much of interest. – “...We’ll see” She seemed unsure of herself, but that wasn’t new, Toph had picked that up ages ago. The winds just kept coming messing up her hair, she didn’t even feel herself, but the lump in her throat, the same that no matter how many times she tried to get rid of, would come when she wasn’t in solid ground, was still present. There didn’t seem to be a point to the conversation, after a while it had delved into many other smaller ones. The ponies had an interesting dynamic. She had come to realize, they were split into groups of two, or three. One of the flying ones and one of the ones with the horn talked girly stuff, things that’d normally make her want to tone the conversation off. They talked clothes, and spas (which reminded Toph of the one spa trip she had made, that hadn’t ended that well for the handlers, long story), and though they didn’t mention them, she was expecting them to talk about boys (stallions? She wasn’t sure) any moment now. One of the plain ones, no horn, no wings, and another winged talked about some more actioney things. If she had any idea of who those “Wonderbolts” were she’d probably enjoy the conversation a tad more, but she didn’t, and one of the voices belonged to Rainbow, which she still resented. One of the other ones behaved much like Sokka, and she had an interesting relationship to “Twilight”, much like Katara and Sokka. She kept mumbling and cracking random jokes, which weren’t all that funny (though some hit the mark, and at least unraveled some of that tension in Toph’s body), and the other just groaned. Twilight seemed to be the straight man (mare? Toph still wasn’t sure) in all of them, but she certainly hadn’t acted straight with her...She wasn’t sure of what to think of. At first she thought it was just her impression, but then it was confirmed by the wind, they were really coming down, the angle wasn’t too close to the vertical ones she sensed in inclines sometimes, but she still grabbed harder, if that were even possible. Then, they landed. She had the urge to throw herself down to the ground, and roll herself in dirt, she liked to have a fresh layer on her at any given point, a healthy coating, something she had griped on about with Katara. Her mind jumped to her friends again, she hoped they were alright... She could feel several hearbeats approaching, through her vibrations. One of those ponies, a girl one, asked Twilight what she needed. “Bring me” – And she groaned, almost as if the mere thought of talking with the other girl-mare-whatever (Toph would learn the noun later) gave her a headache. – “Bring me Lyra” Some ponies moved aside and she felt the bouncy energy of extreme excitement she had only felt from one of the plain ones who traveled with her in the chariot up to that point (and whose jumping made Toph nervous). “Present!” Toph didn’t know anything about her other than she was excited, which was confirmed by her voice, but she felt grumpy already.