Katara opened her eyes to find Aang leaning over her, wide eyed. "Katara!"
Katara rose to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around Aang. He had brought her and Toph to rest at the nearest upper ring hotel while they called for anyone with some healing knowledge. Her dirty robe had been removed, leaving her clad in her white skirt and tank-top that were layered over the wrappings that served as her undergarments.

Katara felt a pang of guilt; clearly that strange technique made it look like she was killed, at least for a few seconds. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I'm not in pain...Azula just knocked me out. I feel fine." The sound of Katara's stomach suddenly became audible; it was growling loudly. "Well, maybe I am hungry, I guess I was out for a while, huh?" she put a hand behind her head, blushing a little. She had the strongest urge to eat her weight in chocolate; she wondered if she had been unconscious for more than a day to work up such a ravenous appetite. Her stomach gave another roar as she slipped on a clean blue robe.

Aang raised an eyebrow. "Actually Katara....its only been ten minutes."
Katara double-taked. "Really?!"
"Well, that's the thing Katara..."
Aang took a glass of water off a stone night table next to the bed. "Try bending this water."
Katara extended a hand and scooped upward, trying to get the water to mimic the movement. Nothing. Katara gasped. "Oh no....that technique takes away bending!"
Her mind settled on the feeling of helplessness that had washed over her when Ty Lee had blocked her chi, disabling her waterbending.

Aang scratched his head. "Well...not exactly!" He grinned, trying to cheer Katara up.

-------
"I would have paid that nutjob to mess with my bending like this!" Toph was effortlessly terraforming miniature mountains and sending baseball-sized chunks of earth zipping around her head in the middle of the street of Ba Sing Se. Being a sprawling cityscape, the inhabitants of the bustling capital were very used to roadblocks, and the slightly jaded populace quickly re-routed around the street Toph was practicing on. Every few moments or so, she would earth-surf back to a table filled with various sweets and shove a slice of cake or a roll into her mouth.

"So Toph got her bending back after she ate?" Aang had brought Katara down to street level to observe Toph, who had woken up before her and immediately demanded some food. "Yeah!" Aang replied, glad to see hope back in Katara's voice. Katara stepped outside, which Toph immediately noticed. With good cheer and energy, Toph called out to her friend. "Hey sweetness, go scarf down something to eat, your bending'll come back with a vengeance!" Toph made her flying rocks do a fighter-jet style formation to emphasize.
"That's great!" Katara rushed off to the Inn's dining room before Aang could stress one very troubling point; Toph had cleared her steak dinner in the five minutes longer Katara was unconscious for, and clearly she was still hungry enough to have a table loaded with pastries brought out to her.....

Katara walked up to the person talking orders at the Inn and smiled. "I would like some fried roosterpig....oooh with a side of potatoes....extra butter...oh! and for dessert , some chocolate mousse!" Katara giggled a little to herself and put a hand to her thigh, her way of expressing that vague "I shouldn't, this will go right to my thighs, but what the heck!" feeling that many image-conscious young ladies grapple with after yielding to some calorie-laden temptation.

---
As her food was brought over to her, Katara felt fantastic, downright elated. The smell was almost maddeningly attractive, and before she knew it she was snatching the slices of rich, juicy meat from the plate with her bare fingers and gulping them down two at a time. She began shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth with a spoon, but in a hurry to pack more flavor and more food into each bite, she had dumped her chocolate mousse into her potatoes and began eating the combination. It didn't matter if the butter and chocolate tasted strange with each other, what mattered was that she was eating !

Not bothering to wipe her hands or mouth, she dashed up to the counter and ordered a duplicate meal. She tapped her foot anxiously; her first meal only seemed to intensify her appetite...

After her sixth meal Katara realized she could waterbend the milkshakes she ordered, but she wasn't content. Not only was she fairly certain her bending would disappear again if she was on an empty stomach, but she was also sure she was physically incapable of feeling totally full. Sure, she felt a little better, but her hunger pangs were still an itch; the pounds of greasy food she had consumed had only served to dull the pangs from a scratch. The armpits of her robes had grown damp, and sweat dotted her forehead from her ravenous eating. Grease stains dotted her robe, and her fingers were absolutely covered in food and oil. Her stomach was round and bloated, but still she felt like she could go for another meal. In fact, the thought of another round of fried meat set her mouth watering. "What did Azula do to us...Toph?!"

Toph had entered the inn's restaurant again and was at the counter ordering more food, her stuffed belly extremely noticeable on her tiny frame, even through her robes. She simply held up four fingers on one hand, and within a few minutes four whole cowhippo steaks, each one the size of Toph's head (hairdo included!), were being brought out from the kitchen. "Freshly imported from the fire nation, miss Bei Fong!" the staff member placing the food before Toph remarked.

Katara realized Toph must be going through the exact same thing as her. Katara got to her feet, wobbling a little at the extra weight now centered in her gut, and ran over to her. She approached Toph as close as she could without hitting her in the face with her distended gut. "Toph! Whatever Azula's done to us has made us food addicts! I can't get full, and I think we'll lose our bending if we don't pig out all the time!"

Toph had grabbed a steak with both hands and was slowly wrenching a chunk of dripping meat off the bone. With her mouth absolutely full, she turned to Katara and shrugged. "So?" she said in an offhand tone, grease spraying from her lips and into her friend's face.