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In Metropolis, there is a man in a dark suit. He's of a sort of non-descript middle age, not specifically young but nowhere near old.

As for what he's doing?

He's looking around. Learning. Absorbing local color. Picking up the lingo (which isn't as hard as it should be) and the customs. Occasionally having a meal somewhere and libating to that ever so beneficent monarch of the dead, Hades, just so he can explain the custom to curious onlookers. Carefully working minor miracles wherever it'll do the most good-- and once again, advertizing for the once and future Lord of the Underworld. Looking at maps, trying to figure out where he can start an underworld on this continent.

It's not his world. There's a lot to learn.

Good thing he got the brains in the family.

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Schmoozy, Toph can't do very well. It's doesn't ingratiate him to her very well, but she's got no reason to distrust him, so it works.

"They'll be back when they need something done, you'll see. I'm Toph."

"Ahh." The tone is of one who knows it well. "The useful one."

Youngest of three brothers, the only one who didn't have 'peplos-chasing' listed under 'hobbies' (well, there was Minthe, but that was different) and also the only one who actually ran a particularly tight ship without a lot of other gods running around underfoot.

(Some Lord of the Heavens, when you've got a Goddess of the Dawn and a Goddess of the Moon (two, actually) and a God of the Sun and a God of Night and the list went on.)

Long-suffering sigh.

"Yeah, but it's not their fault they're not as awesome as me."

Who is, really?

Okay, that gets a chuckle. "Now that's a good attitude. I like that."

Toph smirks.

"So you're not native, are you?"

Native people dont' come up to small blind girls just to start a conversation.

Some might! It's just that most of them are ~~NPCs~~ wary, anymore.

"Well, neither are you."

"No,"

This world is just not good enough to produce a Toph on its own.

"So?"

Perhaps not, but it's really good at imports.

Hades shrugged. "Hey, you're the one who brought it up," he pointed out. "Going somewhere with that line of thought?"

"Just who you are and where you come from?" Toph says. "Y'know, if you wanna talk about yourself."

"Aiden," he repeats, having not managed to think of a last name. "And I'm Greek.

"Which, you know, basically means I think the weather here kind of blows, but hey, what can you do?" Besides find a weather god to bitch him-or-her out, but Hades hasn't quite started looking to the sky yet.

That's OK. Last names are pretty much optional where Toph comes from.

"What's 'Greek' mean and what does it have to do with the weather?"

Toph doesn't so much mind the weather. At least it's not baking hot like the Fire Nation. And it's not snowing any more.

"Greece is a country," Hades explains, bordering on amused-- nobody else has asked what 'Greek' meant. (A couple of people had assumed some things that were not technically what it meant, but hey, that's what you get when your culture doesn't glower at same-sex romances.) "Used to be a loose configuration of city-states, but hey, ancient history. Anyway. Someone from Greece is Greek.

"And the weather's just... better. Doesn't change as much, for one thing." Okay, so summer was hot, but summer was supposed to be hot.

"At least it hasn't snowed as much recently," Toph points out.

"My feet were hurting then."

"Your feet?"

Hey, she's puzzled him! That's new.

Toph lifts a foot in front of her, so he can see that it's bare.

"Snow makes them cold and sore," she points out. "Claire said it was 'frostbite'. Whatever it was, it sucked."

"Yeeesh. Kid, you're lucky you didn't lose a toe," he informs her. "So why were you running around barefoot in the snow?"

He's got a sneaking suspicion. You don't end up with titles like 'Cthoneus, Zeus Beneath the Earth' if you can't pick up on a few things-- it's just he's not exactly in perfect tune with the world yet. Or its recent immigrants.

"I need my feet to see," Toph tells him, getting a little bored of repeating this to everyone now.

Usually you only have to exposit once!

Fresh audience. But at least one who gets the trick once it's pointed out.

"Is that how it works? I wondered.

"... Normal for your world?" he adds, a little too quickly.

"No," Toph says.

"I'm the best."

Well, she is.

"Course you are. Toph the Awesome and everything, right. At... what?"

She sees through her feet. Through the ground, he suspects. She is most definitely not a devotee of Gaia, that'd be all over her like a cheap stolla, but the... thought is there.

"Earthbending."

The closest analogy would be that Toph is more of a personal friend, not a devotee.

"You wanna see?"

"Thrill me." There's definite challenge in his tone. He gets the concept, but...

Well, this promises to be interesting.

Toph doesn't need to look around to know that there's no one around who could be particularly hurt by this. She does take a second to decide what to do.

Then she breathes in, raises her hands, shifts a foot...

...and the concrete under their feet thunders up in the formation of a very small seismic platform.

... That was definitely a thrill-- Hades was expecting something in the near distance. A performance. Being a volunteer, now, that was something he hadn't been looking for.

Hey, where he's from, even the gods can't predict everything.

He looks over the edge, checking to see how high they are. "That would get you a long way towards hero status, back where I'm from," he tells her.

Despite the whole 'girl' thing. Who's going to tell her she's not supposed to get all up in the heroics when she can throw rocks like that at you?

Toph smirks proudly.

"Yeah, I'm a hero at home," she says. "Sort of."