3.
Teaching Lin to earthbend is one of Toph's favourite things to do, following her progress, guiding her movements, teaching her to stand her ground and anchor herself to the ground, to feel it and know it.
Most of all she loves that Lin loves it, that she pesters Toph for more lessons and shows her things she's worked out. They train in the mountains, high above the city. Spring has come now, even all the way up here, and they stand barefoot on cold rock, pushing and pulling and forming. Lin has impressive raw power. Eventually she'll get the hang of refining it. Then she'll be able to move mountains, Toph is pretty sure. Just like her mamma.
"But how do you metalbend?" Lin asks.
"Learn to earthbend first," Toph tells her. "Master it. Then I'll show you."
But Lin doesn't really seem satisfied. Toph pushes her harder in response, and wonders if it's the right thing to do.
Lin learns Republic City from Toph's shoulders, and from Sokka's - and sometimes from Suki's. Katara holds her hand instead, or sits Lin in a pouch on her back, even though she's really too big now. Everyone shows her their own favourite places, and she watches it all, curious.
They're building new houses by the harbour, and Lin insists on going back to see what's happening, over and over again.
She tries to build houses of her own in the street outside their home, little misformed pillars of earth sprouting up in a rough grid, an attempt at streets.
"OK," Toph says, "cool, but what kind of house is that?"
Lin stares at it. "Market."
Toph can never resist, she has to fix it; twists the earth, compacts it, pulls it into place until every one of the fishmarket's pillars are in place, in perfect miniature. "There," she says. "Like that!"
Lin looks at it, and up at Toph, who's grinning, impressed with herself. "How do you even know?" she demands. "You've never even seen it!"
She's raising her voice a bit, but Toph doesn't even react to that, just shrugs. "Your mamma just knows stuff."
It doesn't do the trick. Lin jumps up, stamps her feet. "It's not fair," she shouts; sweeps the whole dirt town away with a gesture and runs up into the house. Toph sits, unmoving, on the edge of the road.
"Huh," she says.
After a moment she lets the earth kick her back onto her feet and walks deliberately after her daughter.
"Hey," Toph says. "Hey, Lin, can I come in?"
"No," Lin says, voice muffled. "I'm going to wait until you're at work and then I'm going to run away and live with Tenzin."
"It's not such a great plan if you tell me, little badgermole," Toph says. "Hey, I'm sorry."
"No you're not," Lin says. "Go away."
Sokka comes over once he's done with meetings. "I hear you've been having a little trouble here," he says.
Lin lets him in without protest, and it only takes about ten minutes before he's got her to agree to come out. "To hear your mum's apology properly."
Under Lin's full attention she feels like she does a really bad job. But Lin lets her hug her anyway, snuggles up to her and says, as though Toph was the one who needed comforting, "I wasn't really going to run away."
Sokka cooks them dinner, which Toph has a sneaking suspicion was probably a part of the bargain. She doesn't really care. It's good to know that her daughter has her negotiation priorities straight.
It doesn't take her long after that to decide. There are other teachers that are better than her, after all. Not many. But a few.
She learnt from the best.
"We're going on holiday," Toph says. "Or like, training camp. It's going to be the best."
Lin looks up at her. She's sleep-ruffled and still kind of suspicious. "Training camp. But we train all the time, mum. And," she adds, a sour little mutter that's really the heart of the recent tension, "I still can't metalbend."
"We don't train like this," Toph says. "I'm not going to be the one training you. And I have some new tricks to show some friends. I bet they have a bunch of things to show you."
The badgermoles still know her, open the mountain for her. Beside her, Lin makes a little squeaking noise. Toph squeezes her hand encouragingly.
"This is my daughter, Lin," she says. "If I show you my metalbending, will you help her earthbend?"
"Mum," Lin says in a tiny voice. "Mum, did you just lick its nose?"