Toph could tell something was wrong with Sugarqueen.
Toph, Suki and Katara were having their breakfast together, as was the tradition whenever the girls had the chance to skip their job of saving the world and relax. The venue was Zuko's palace this time, because they'd been invited to attend the festival thrown in favor of his birthday. Toph had woken up quite late, thanks to the person who kept her bed reasonably warm. . .
Her unusually fluffy mood was interrupted by Sugarqueen's panicy rant and Toph gave up trying to drown out her voice by chewing on her food loudly. After listening for half an hour of gibberish, she decided that katara was talking about a female's ring hidden in Zuko's room. And according to Katara, it was very, very suspicious.
Toph couldn't see much suspiciousness in it. But that's probably because she already knew what the ring was about. Oh yeah, nothing was a secret to Toph off course. Even when . . .
Toph furrowed her brows. Katara shouldn't know about this, nope. She would make a big fuss about it and Zuko will bang his head on an ornamental pillar till they both crack. Now Toph couldn't have it. If Zuko dies then uncle will be sad, Katara will be sad, Aang will be sad, Suki and Sokka will be sad. And maybe Toph will be a tiny li'l bit sad too. Oh, and there will be a war between the nations again.
That being said, Toph had no other choice than to distract Katara, which wasn't too hard, actually.
Toph cleared her throat loudly. "Hey Sugarqueen, let's go have a bending match in Zuko's garden!"
The "bending match" turned into a full fledged mud throwing party withing ten minutes. Good thing Zuko was busy doing whatever Firelording he was busy with because he'd have eaten his own limbs if he saw what a mess his precious pond had become. A couple of hours later Toph couldn't stand up straight from all the mud in her hair and so Katara proposed to finish up for the day. Her offer to clean up Toph with bending water was turned down rudely as Toph herself bent the mud out of her hair and a sizable portion landed on Katara's face with a wet SPLAT. Cursing under her breath, Katara stalked towards the cleaner end of the pond to clean up, Toph's annoying laughter trailing after her.
Slipping into to clear water, Katara swept off the mud from her skin and hair in a few quick moves. She dried off the excessive water with another lazy hand movement, idly watching as the droplets dissipated in air. The morning clouds were gone and the sunshine felt like liquid bliss on her skin. She lent back against a tree and closed her tired eyes, letting her mind wonder. Which was actually a bad idea. A very bad idea, thought her frantic brain as a strong arm shot out of the bush next to the tree and yanked her in.