1.
The first few nights are eaten up by noisy metal treads tearing through the ground like ragged teeth, leaving churned earth in their wake; endless, endless flying (ascent and descent are the worst parts) making her stomach flip-flop and her ears pop and her face sting from being constantly buffeted by the wind; and yelling, lots and lots of yelling, because the world has always been loud so Toph taught herself various methods of being louder.
For a while after that, the nights brought only sleep: the dreamless, motionless unconsciousness of the truly exhausted. So it's only after that that she has time to think. She doesn't want to so much as it can't be avoided.
The grass is soft beneath her and she's tightly (and comfortably) ensconced in her makeshift tent. It's nothing like sleeping at home on the floor of her room, and the difference isn't frightening, but it is jarring. Before Aang, before she left Gaoling, even before Earth Rumble, Toph wandered away from the carefully constructed world her parents had made for her because she knew it too well. Every crack in every stone, every pebble on the ground, every movement and every motion, from the featherlight steps of the birds that skittered along the rooftops to the hurried scurry of the critters deep beneath the dirt where no one could see them but her. It held no secrets, no nuance of which she was not fully aware. She'd wanted to know more; she wanted her world to extend beyond to all the things she could hear in the distance.
She hadn't really wanted the rest of the world to come at the cost of the one she'd already known, though. But it was done, and she'd tried living two lives once before and they hadn't meshed when they came crashing into each other.
So, Toph shifts in her tent, lies on her back, and digs her fingers into the ground. She clenchs her hands into fists and lets the moist soil work its way under her fingernails and the movements of the rabbitmoles lull her into slumber.
2.
She stands in the center, surrounded on all sides. Dozens and dozens of heartbeats echo each other, and she can hear them beating faster when she finally moves, shifts her stance and throws up cover, filling the air with dust.
It's easier, she finds, even after all of this time, to pretend. As though she is a child again, as though they are prizefighters and not soldiers, as though the thundering roar of their footsteps is the roar of an approving crowd.
She dispatches them like clockwork, just like always, her movements economical, strong, focused, and forceful. Xin Fu had loved that about her. She wasn't flashy, she didn't flourish, but she was breathtaking in her efficiency. It made for good entertainment. So good that the crowd never cared that she won every time. She'd lived for those moments of triumph.
It's been years now since Toph raised her hands in victory.
Nobody's really watching anymore and she only wishes that it was all for show.
3.
She has no idea how far out at sea they are and that's just one of her many problems.
The Fire Lord wanted to offer a boat of his own, of course, but everyone knew better than that; even he did with minimal convincing. It hasn't been nearly long enough for anyone to be comfortable with a Fire Nation vessel pulling into their port.
Toph has no conception of blood red sails and gleaming grey hulls and thick black smoke coloring the air (all she knows is the great smooth curves and flat planes of metal that absorb the vibrations from the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet over and over again until she can finally hear the earth singing back to her, muffled, but present), but she can understand the sentiment that drives their fear, and this is one of the few instances in her life where she won't push.
Water Tribe vessels don't frighten the masses. They're also made of wood and canvas and the dry bones of great sea creatures. Three things for which Toph has little use. She never did learn to swim, but she knows how it feels to drown. In various ways.
Toph spends much of her time with her arms wrapped around a smoothly sanded railing, tasting the salt on the wind, because she needs to be standing, no matter how unsteady the footing. It's like floating, senseless and dizzy, and lying down only makes it worse. She wishes that she'd never left before she can reword it in her own mind into a wish that they'd already arrived at their destination, and what that implies is an idea just ridiculous enough to make her smile.
It was the first thing Sokka asked when she came aboard and she denied it with a scoff. i It's the Fire Nation/i she said, and realized even as she gave the words voice that it doesn't mean the same thing to her as it does to everyone else. Of course, everyone else had somewhere to go and no time to babysit, so it fell to her, as unsuited as she might have been. But she'd adjusted to things that were far worse; grown to like things that were almost as unlikely. She found herself without much of a choice. Now her whole body's used to slippery marble and sun-warmed cobblestones and that's something she doesn't know how to undo.
So she just holds onto her railing more tightly and wants for things that are solid.
4.
There have been letters. Many. So many that Toph does not count. First transcribed by Katara, then later by Iroh. They began as halting apologies and turned into reports of her activities.
She keeps sending them long after she realizes that they'll never listen, that when she rejected their attempt to have her brought back to the life they deemed appropriate, hidden away from a world that needs her, they took it as a rejection of them. She keeps sending them even after she realizes that their minds are made up and will never change; they are as immoveable as mountains because that's where Toph gets it from.
She spends years dictating her accomplishments, the responsibilities that she took on, until it stops being about their approval and starts being about her own vindication. It's easier that way.
She taught the Avatar earthbending. She helped save the world. She is a war hero. She is an ambassador. She is the world's greatest earthbender. She is a legend.
As ever, the Bei Fongs have no daughter.