Suyin: Did I ever tell you about the time the Dai Li tried to "recruit" my sister and I? I'd never seen my mother so angry.
Bataar: Sweetheart, your mother is always kind of angry
Suyin: Oh no... not like this... and pray you never do. I'm talking pure apocalyptic fury... She threatened to bury the entire upper ring.
^^ From the comic Halcyon and the Master Study by ssKuvira on Tumblr
Lin was eleven years old when her mother had her start sparring the grownups at the metal bending police academy. The first few times, Lin was tossed around by rather guilty looking young police candidates. She cried but Toph made her get back up and threw her back onto the sparring mats.
"TOUGHEN UP! I THOUGHT I GAVE BIRTH TO AN EARTH BENDER, NOT A TEARBENDER! THAT'S SUGAR QUEEN'S JOB!" Toph yelled. Lin roared with anger, frustration, irritation. The entire ground shook, quaking with her emotions. Toph's lips curled into a smile. It worked. She unleashed the monster she knew existed in her little Lin. She would NEVER sit still like Toph had to for the first twelve years of her life. Fuck breathing exercises. Fuck tea ceremonies. Let's see this girl kick some ass.
Lin's entire body was aching. The sooner she defeated these guys, the sooner she could leave right? Even they looked sorry for her.
"Rock on DingRan!" Toph yelled kicking up a pillar under Lin's opponent.
"Are you afraid to attack? She's JUST A LITTLE GIRL!" Toph said teasingly. "Or maybe you're the little girl! Last time I checked this class was all boys, but seeing as I can't see what you put down as your gender identity, ill leave it up for consideration!" Toph teased.
The student at the Metalbending Police Academy raised a boulder and chucked it at Lin who rolled forwards, not back to avoid it and launched herself into the air, grabbing the man's shoulders with her legs, flipping him over despite their incredible difference in body mass.
The eleven year old turned and pelted the student with rocks and pebbles while he raised a wall then tore up the ground. But she just jumped and did a double layup off of it bending some random piece of metal off the wall slapping it around Ding Ran's arms and torso so he couldn't bend. The student was wheezing when his classmates dragged him off the mat and removed the metal rope eleven year old Lin crafted.
"Can I leave now?" Lin asked her mother, her finger nails digging into the palms of her hands.
"Not yet. Round two. Five on one!" You Guys! I can hear you laying around, chit chatting! Get up! Lin come here," her mother said. Lin stood up reluctantly. Her mother grabbed her waist band and tied it over her eyes.
"There! Now my little badger mole is ready. Don't disappoint me out there." Toph said giving her a light shove.
Lin fought with tears staining her blindfold, her nose grimacing from the smell of sweat and salt it emitted she got hit in the back and the chest at the same time, losing air but recovered soon enough to retaliate she still had a habit of using earth before metal. She had more difficulty locating the metal in the room. She had an idea. While her mother's focus was solely on her, she wasn't bending. Not really bending other than using seismic sense.
Lin had an idea. She honed in on her mother's uniform then located the five students of the academy and with one motion, swung her mother across the room, knocking all of them over.
"LIN BEIFONG! HOW DARE YOU!" Now her mother's anger shook the building. Maybe even shook the city.
"You always tell me to be resourceful. I wasn't sure where the metal was, but I knew where you were so I-" Lin began to explain as she took off her blindfold.
WHACK!
Lin was on the ground. Her lip bleeding. She looked up at her mother with disbelief at first but then remembered. It was her mother. She was always pulling shit like that. Giving them a bruise on the arm as a sign of affection.
"That's for the disrespect and humiliation!" Toph said quietly.
"I'm through!" Lin yanked off her blindfold and tied it around her skinny waist and marched out.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"AIR TEMPLE ISLAND WHERE I WNT BE CHASTISED FOR TEARBENDING!"
"BEIFONGS DON'T CRY!"
"THEN MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO BE A BEIFONG! MAYBE I WANT TO BE A RUNAWAY LIKE YOU!" Lin yelled back
Toph took a deep breath and the ground stopped shaking. She was right. Maybe Toph was a little too controlling.
"It's not safe for an eleven year old to be out on the streets alone," a student said.
"I'm the chief of police. I know the kind of shit that roams the streets, but Lin is still my girl. She can handle anything," Toph replied.
"Excuse me, you are Toph Beifong, Master of the Beifong Metalbending Academy?" Two m'en in fancy robes asked appearing in the door of the dojo.
"I am also Chief Of Republic City, What do you want?"
"We heard that your daughter is an exceptional young bender and eleven years old?"
"So?"
"So, we have an opportunity for her. The Best Earthbenders in the world are hosting a summer camp in Ba Sing Se for gifted young benders between the ages of seven and twelve and would love for-"
"Sorry, bud but I don't think summer camp is necessary since I AM the GREATEST earth bender in the world and my kid is not going anywhere near that bottomless pit of lies and shit as long as I'm breathing! Now get out of my city!" Toph growled.
"As you wish," the two men in fancy robes bowed respectfully and and walked away.
Something wasn't right.
"Suyi, has Linny come home yet?" Toph asked around nine thirty that night? The five year old was in the living room playing with rocks and pebbles, bending them into castles and walls and then bombarding the fortifications.
"No,"
"Hm..." Toph called Katara. "Hey Sugar Queen, is Lin still over there tearbending with Baldy?" Toph asked.
"No, she didn't come by at all today, why?"
"SHIT!"
"Toph!"
"I need to find her!"
"Calm down! Where did she say she was going to go?"
"She walked out on training like she ALWAYS does and said she was going to Air Temple Island like she ALWAYS DOES then- oh FUCK!"
"What? Toph! Breathe and tell me what you're thinking so I can help you-"
"I need to get to Ba Sing Se!"
"Not alone you're not!— AANG! GET APPA! We need to get Su and Toph before Toph buries the Earth Kingdom!" Katara yelled.
Toph destroyed the phone in her anger and ran into her room bending on her armor in an instant and picked up Su. By the time they reached the roof of the building, Katara and Appa were waiting.
"Where's TwinkleToes?"
"Since he has to act as a neutral force moderation disagreements between nations, he couldn't come. We were worried the earth Queen might view him as playing favorites and doing favors for friends. Technically you should be following police procedure regarding a missing child that technically isn't considered missing until twenty four hours have passed and-"
"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF SOMEONE KIDNAPPED TWINKLETOES JUNIOR? WOULD YOU WAIT TWENTY FOUR HOURS?"
"Toph,"
"AND WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? BA SING SE IS INLAND! I CAN FEEL THE COLD OCEAN AIR BLOWING HARDER! I'M BLIND NOT SENSELESS!"
"We will drop Su off with Aang and then go find Lin, okay?" Katara explained. "I'm not going to let your five year old witness how you 'negotiate' with the earth queen."
"Hmph!" Toph grumbled Folsom her arms. Suyin held onto Katara's sleeve, afraid of her mother's anger. "If the Dai Li have her..." Toph stopped and wiped her face.
"Mommy, are you crying?" Suyin asked.
"No," Toph lied. "Beifongs don't cry."
"Is my sister okay?"
"She's fine. She will be fine. Don't worry, Little Suyi!" Katara said kissing Suyin on the head.
Suyin huffed Katara.
"So what exactly did they tell you?" Katara asked once they were on their way.
Toph repeated it verbatim, her responses and all.
"The way they just bowed like nothing was wrong, like they accepted it. Not even the slightest bit angry, as if they didn't even need to ask me. They knew what they were going to do before they did it,"
"Toph, dont you think you're overreacting? What if Lin was taken by a Triad?"
"I would have received a ransom note by now. They've tried before, but Little Linny bit a chunk of flesh out of one guy's shoulder and they never went near her again. She was already back home by the time I got the note and arrived at the place for negotiation. Only the Dai Li wouldn't take pride in snagging the daughter of Republic City's Chief Of Police."
"Well, try to get some sleep. It's a long ride and if you want to— be Toph, you'll need your energy."
"I don't sleep in the sky," Toph replied. stubbornly. Katara looked back. Her old friend no longer clutched Appa's saddle now that she could tether herself in with her cables.
Katara sighed. "Toph,"
"What?"
"Lin will be okay,"
"I hope so," Toph replied.
Katara could tell her old friend was frightened.
They flew right into the city to be warmly greeted by Queen Tsai-Yim.
"Master Katara Chief Beifong, What brings you to the Earth Kingdom Capital unannounced and without the proper visas?" The queen asked arriving at the Beifong Estate in the Upper Ring as soon as her councilors warned her of the sky bison approaching.
"Tell your Dai-Li agents to release my daughter Tsai-Yim!" Toph demanded standing over the young queen.
The twenty year old merely gazed back at Toph's unseeing eyes, unfazed.
"I have no idea what your taking about. What could possibly give you the notion that we would have the little prodigy, AND, how could someone so capable as you, lose your own offspring?" Tsai-Yim asked.
Toph swung her arm left in front of Tsai Yim creating a gorge in the ground dividing the two and destroying the house next door. This neighborhood was filled with mainly vacant vacation homes owned by earthKingdom nobility who lived elsewhere mostly. So Toph didn't worry about hurting anyone.
"I know you have her- a summer camp? Really? I feel sorry for those stupid enough to believe their children would only be gone for a summer. I've heard the rumors. And YOU cannot lie to me!" Toph ran her hand the other way and destroyed another building.
"Arrest her for destruction of property." The Earth Queen ordered her guards.
"I'm not going anywhere until I have my daughter back!" Toph yelled kicking the ground, sending the sixty guards thirty feet in the air, all screaming.
"Toph-" Katara tried to restrain her friend.
"Maybe you should go back to Republic City Sweetness. Let the Blind Bandit take care of this city," Toph suggested.
"Toph, breathe-" Katara said slowly and calmly.
"You should listen to your friend, Chief Beifong." the Earth Queen warned.
"I will bury the entire upper ring if you don't release my daughter!" Toph yelled.
"I'd like to see you attempt such a feat," the Earth Queen replied. Toph stepped forward and threw both fists to the sky as a dozen mansions were thrown sixty feet into the sky. She took off running. It was a challenge she happily accepted. She ran down the street dragging both arms behind her flipping houses cleanly upside down, flattening the formerly pristine upper ring.
People ran screaming as they saw the destruction from their windows.
She created a massive cloud of dust just to intentionally soil their silks and finery out of spite, then continued the flipping the mansions.
"Toph! STOP THIS!" Katara yelled, and suddenly, Toph found herself unable to move, but forced down onto her hands and knees.
"Bloodbending is illegal, Katara!"
"I know. I am the one who made it that way, but how do you suppose to stop me?" Katara asked as her friend remained on the ground.
"We'll find Lin without the Earth Queen's help,"
"I didn't ask for her help in the first place!" Toph replied through gritted teeth.
"I am going to release you, but you can't keep turning over mansions," Katara said firmly.
Toph stood up slowly, having not been bloodbent since Yakone attacked everyone during his trial.
She turned to the earth queen. "I won't turn over buildings, but I can turn over you!" She used her cables to hang the earth queen upside down. Several palace guards rushed forward. "I WILL DROP YOUR QUEEN IF YOU DON'T FIND MY DAUGHTER AND BRING HER TO ME!"
The palace guards informed the Dai Li and within an hour, of the earth queen dangling by her ankle, they presented the unconscious eleven year old to her mother.
"They KILLED HER!" Toph yelled.
"No! It is just shirshu poison to knock her out. She'll come too. Let's go, Toph, before they change their mind about imprisoning you."
"I am the greatest earth bender in the world. They can never hurt me." Toph lifted her daughter in her arms. and placed a hand on her chest, listening to the slow, relaxed heartbeat. "Or you, Little Linny."
I hope you enjoy this little piece. It is my first ever stand-alone scene/event of this length that isn't intended to be a novel.