"Your little Princess Snowflake is hungry, Suki... how can you not know that?"

"Because I don't have freakish hearing like a freak," Suki mumbled under her breath. "And it's 'Kara', Toph. Her name is... you know what? Nevermind."

"No need to get defensive."

"Then maybe there's no need to put me on the defensive." It was in that strange, calm tone of voice she'd adopted since becoming a mother. It was outwardly soothing, for the baby's sake, but a tremendous amount of pent-up fury seethed underneath. She used it most often with Sokka.

"I just can't imagine why Katara left." Toph grinned wickedly. She had a bet with herself that she could bring all of Suki's anger to the surface in one spectacular explosion, and the clock was ticking. "Where's Sokka gotten off to?"

"Sleeping." Suki was using that tone again. Toph was getting close.

"Aw... So he let you rest while he was up all night tending to his precious little Snowflake? That's surprisingly considerate of him." Toph tried to suppress a smirk. She knew that the little princess had kept both Suki and Sokka awake... and more the former than the latter.

Toph was aware of a little gurgling as Suki laid her daughter down, but had no time to react before Suki had pounced on her. Toph was unsurprised to find that she could not use her bending or, for that matter, move. In Toph's opinion, Suki had been frankly abusing that damned trick that she'd learned.

"Toph," Suki growled. "I like you. I do. But this is hard enough. I can't do this on my own." Suki's mom voice broke for a moment, and Toph could do nothing but steep in her guilt. "If you're not planning on helping, I'd rather that you just left until you're ready to grow up."

With that, Suki picked up her daughter and walked away.

"You're just going to leave me here?" Toph called. She could still do that. "What if... What if it rains or something?"

"You'd get wet, I'd imagine," Suki called back cheerfully. Her daughter giggled.

"You take the princess, I'll take Toph," Sokka was saying. Toph overheard Suki give a weary consent. Sokka joined Toph outside as the baby's cries subsided.

"What the hell, Toph?" Sokka asked. Despite his daytime napping, he sounded pretty ragged.

"She left me."

"So? You got better. There was no need for the tantrum."

"It was an earthquake. Not a tantrum." Toph had been pretty proud of it, too. The old Sokka would have appreciated it, she thought.

"That was a tantrum in the form of an earthquake." Sokka sighed. "We have the one baby already, Toph... we really can't handle another one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Toph jumped up angrily. She could feel the burn of oncoming tears, and furiously blinked them back. "It's not like I told you to go and have a stupid kid! Or to send Katara away so you could just stop being fun!"

"We're not kids anymore, Toph." He was using his dad voice. On her. Toph thought it was the most infuriating thing he could have possibly done, until he successfully dodged her punch. At least he knew better than to say anything more.

Toph had rarely felt more immature. And she knew, for her, that was significant. She would have apologized or made some attempt to explain herself, but she figured there was no need. Sokka understood her pretty well.

"Well," Sokka said after a few minutes, "I should probably go help Suki."

Toph sighed. "She's getting sick. A cold. Your daughter."

"What?" Sokka was using his mature dad voice again.

"It's her breathing... It doesn't sound serious, but she might be upset about it. Just thought you might want to know."

"Yeah... Thanks, Toph."

"Yeah, yeah, hold on a minute," Toph called to the little princess, who was, as yet, still silent. But Toph had heard all the indications that a post-nap, hunger-related crying fit was gearing up, and she'd just as soon avoid that. She preferred to keep the kid from crying whenever she could, which was most of the time. Toph had tried to convince Suki that it was only because she didn't like the noise, but Toph wasn't fooling anyone. She spoiled the girl nearly as bad as Sokka did.

"I don't see the harm," Toph confided in the kid. "I mean, as long as you don't make any unreasonable demands, it's no big deal. It's that simple. But if you start down that road and wind up a spoiled brat, well... that's on you. Understood?"

The girl giggled and sputtered some gibberish. Toph pretended she didn't understand.

"Sorry, Snowflake. Your mom's worried I'm messing with your development. You gotta use real words or I gotta act like I don't understand you."

The kid repeated herself.

"It isn't even your mom, really. I shouldn't blame her. It's your aunt. She's got a bunch of crazy ideas. One day I'll tell you about the time she found out your parents were letting a blind girl babysit her niece. You were there for parts of it, but I think a lot of the humor may have gone over your head at the time."

Possibly just to get her attention, the girl proudly emitted a semi-mangled version of Toph's name.

Toph turned to her seriously. "Hold up there, Princess. I'm gonna let that one slide, because you're still pretty new here, and you don't exactly know how things work. You don't seem to realize, but your first word absolutely will not be my name. You've got a couple choices... we'd all accept 'dada' or 'papa' or even 'Sokka'... but that's it. You'll have a lot of time for freestyling beyond that, but-and this is important-we gotta hear one of those first."

The gravity of Toph's tone seemed to sink in, and with a little training, Sokka's little Snowflake was performing admirably.

"What did you do to my daughter?" Suki asked, not for the first time. Toph shrugged.

"She's my daughter, too," Sokka replied defensively.

"No one's debating that."

"I don't see how you think I had anything to do with this," Toph said, almost as defensively. The other two were absorbed in watching their daughter, but Toph didn't need to ask what they were looking at. The princess's little solo tea parties were nothing that Toph was unfamiliar with. "I mean, if she were still playing in the mud and stuff, I'd happily accept responsibility. But this..."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed, "I mean, if I had my way, she'd be running around and hunting and fighting and stuff. I mean, really Suki, you're the only real girl here."

"And yet I wasn't the one who bought her the dresses. And the teas. And the tea sets. And the jewelry. And the makeup."

"Yeah, well... I got her a bunch of weapons, too," Sokka mumbled. "And it's not like Toph can say 'no' to her either."

"Don't drag me into this." Toph knew she was guilty of making gifts of a lot of the Bei Fong finer things her parents still gave her, and she knew where most of them were currently residing. But she had also sort of hoped no one would really notice.

"I don't think my daughter just randomly developed a liking for stuff covered in winged boars, Toph," Suki replied cooly.

Damn. "Yeah, well..." Toph couldn't think of any good way to defend herself, so she deflected. "Ask Sokka what he's got in his pocket."

"Oh, not cool, Toph. Not cool."

"Well, let's see it," Suki demanded.

Sokka pulled out the contents he had proudly shown off to Toph earlier, after making her promise not to tell Suki. But in Toph's defense, he had turned on her first.

"How many hair combs does she need?"

"At least three more, obviously," Toph said, grinning.

"You two..." Suki groaned.

"It's not like it's just us, Suki. That's new tea she's brewing."

"I give up," Suki groaned. Not for the first time.

"Sorry," the girl said. "I thought you were going to use your bending on my sword."

"Well, I wasn't. Since when did you learn that stupid trick, anyway?" Toph asked, as Snowflake propped her up against a rock.

"Since the last time I saw you, I guess. I like the sword and all, but I thought this would definitely be useful to master for combat against benders."

"You're lying. You just want to use it on your cousins."

"Well, that too. Don't tell Aunt Katara."

"Did you really have to paralyze me, too? That seems a bit like cheating."

"Well, I think bending my sword would be a bit like cheating," she responded cooly.

"I told you I wasn't going to bend your sword."

"Well, I didn't know that at the time, did I? Besides, isn't it always best to assume your opponent will do their worst?" She was always a sponge for that sort of comment.

"Yeah, yeah. But if you think I'm going to give you half a chance to do this ever again..."

"I won't."

"So can you fix me or something?" Toph asked after a long pause.

"I didn't master that part yet."

"Right. I'm sure you tried your hardest," Toph said sarcastically. "Wanna go get your mom or something?"

"I'd rather not leave you alone like this."

Toph sighed. "Thanks, kid."