The room was already quite crowded when Toph arrived, with attendants and other nobles and bodyguards, and at the center of it all were the Lord and the Lady. Lady Mao had Lord Liang in her grip, with a knife at his throat, and Toph felt almost proud of her at the moment, knowing what she had gone through.

"Killing him will be the kindest thing I can do for my people!" Lady Mao was yelling. "Who will miss him? Who is he kind to?"

Someone asked her to calm down, and Lord Liang whimpered pitifully. Toph shook her head at his pathetic behavior. She was acting casually, moving slowly, but her nerves were on end, ready to move at the slightest provocation, the first indication of a fight.

"You can do something," Huang's soft voice in her ear. She tensed and spread her legs in a battle position, and he added, "With words."

"With words?" she asked, and with those words everyone suddenly noticed that the King's heir was in the room, and all eyes were on her. "With words! Yes, with words we will make things right!" she said loudly, advancing towards Lady Mao, making it up as she went. She hated Huang for putting her in the spotlight, mostly for making her use words. "I can help you," she told Lady Mao.

"But you said you didn't care," Lady Mao responded angrily. "Do I really have to hold someone at knife point to get any sympathy around here?"

Toph snorted. Apparently Lady Mao thought about as highly of the court as she did. "That sounds about right," she said, and then she realized that probably wasn't the right thing to say. "I mean, you've got my attention now anyway, and I… I know more about your situation now that it's been explained to me. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you before, but I was in a really bad mood, and stupid, and this really isn't the way to deal with your problems." She felt like a liar when she said that – she had always been one to deal with her problems with violence, but then, she had never murdered anyone, so it was a little different.

Still, she felt like a hypocrite, and she hated that.

"You will help me?" Lady Mao asked, her grip slackening. Toph nodded, and she released Lord Liang, who quickly ran to the other side of the room.

"However I can," Toph confirmed.

"What? This woman is insane!" Lord Liang piped up suddenly, convincing Toph in a moment of his stupidity.

"You just shut up you little toad," Toph replied curtly. "This woman may be insane, but is she dead?"

"Obviously not!" he replied indignantly.

"So how exactly did you inherit those lands?" she asked.

"I… That doesn't matter! She threatened my life! She should be locked up!"

"So should traitors," Toph answered calmly.

"What are you implying?" Lord Liang hissed.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Toph said. She looked around and smiled innocently, "But I'm not sure you want to talk about this here, in front of all these witnesses…"

"You don't know anything!" he spat at her. "You're just a fool, a tool, just like the Earth King himself!"

Toph found herself laughing in his face. "Wow. I was going to use your embezzlement of royal funds to incriminate you, but you just went ahead and incriminated yourself," she said. "Bao, will you take this toad away please? We'll talk later. The rest of you – get back to work, or lazing about, or whatever it is you do around here," she told the rest of the gathering. "Lady Mao, you stay here with me, we need to have a little chat. …Huang, you stay too."

Once they were alone, Toph sat down heavily and sighed. "What a mess this place is. Why would anyone want all this nonsense?"

"Some of us believe we are making the kingdom a better place," Lady Mao said softly.

Toph was silent for a moment, and then she snorted. "Well you're damn fools, wanting to go into this business, and that's that."

"You're fitting in rather well," Huang said. "What was that about Lord Liang's embezzlement? Did you just make that up?"

"Of course not!" Toph replied. "I had Suki go check in on his affairs while she was away. I figured a sleazy guy like that – he wouldn't be satisfied with just taking someone else's lands and sitting on them." She turned to Lady Mao. "You see now why it took so long for us to do anything."

Lady Mao nodded, and then bowed her head. "I am only ashamed that I debased myself by getting so worked up that I would act so shamelessly. I will take whatever punishment you will give me."

"Tell me Huang, how often do you hear those words around the court: 'making the kingdom a better place'?" Toph asked.

Huang rubbed his chin, and then shook his head. "Not very often. Not nearly enough."

"No. It seems to me that there are too few people here who really want to be helpful to others. It seems a shame to have to punish someone for trying to do the right thing, no matter the methods."

"Yes indeed."

"Still, I can't just let her go. She did threaten murder after all." Toph sighed and got to her feet. "Huang, you know more of these things than I do; I leave her in your care. You decide a fit punishment for a noble woman." She patted Huang on the shoulder and then left him before he or Lady Mao could argue with her choice.

She returned to her room, to be alone at last, but before she could get to her bed, she was stopped in the anteroom by Suki and Sokka. "Hey guys, how's it hanging?" she asked, trying for levity.

"You did well in there," Suki said.

"Thanks to your information," Toph told her. She didn't feel good about what had happened. She felt tired, and she felt like a hypocrite in too many ways. She felt dirty, but it wasn't proper dirt, and she didn't like it.

"Hey, hey, what about my input?" Sokka asked. "Where's my congratulations?"

"Yes, well done Sokka," Toph said, and she patted his head as she walked past to her bedroom. "Goodnight you two."

"But Toph, it's only four," Sokka said. "Going to bed early is for lay-a-bouts and-"

"Let her be Sokka," Suki said gently, and she pulled him to his feet. "Goodnight Toph!"

Toph stood by the door and listened to their footsteps moving away before crawling under her bed and burrowing down into the ground, hoping to cleanse herself with the earth.