Disclaimer: I'm not stealing Avatar: the Last Airbender from its owner, Nickelodeon. I'm just… borrowing without permission.

A/N: I've noticed that most of what I write is rather dark and/or depressing, so I decided to try something a little more lighthearted. I hope you like!

The Catbirds and the Scorpionbees

To Katara, it was straightforward.

She saw her first birth when she was only six, and soon grew to accept it as an uncomfortable, if necessary, part of life. Raised by her mother and then her grandmother, Katara knew, in theory, what to expect from her body and those of others. What she was not prepared for, however, were the feelings.

She was the only girl of her age group in her village, and the only boy was her brother. So perhaps it was not unusual how much she was thrown by her sudden introduction to a great many people around her age, starting with a boy in an iceberg, continuing with a fire nation prince, and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

So, understandably, she had few frames of reference for the handsome, roguishly smiling young man who had literally leapt out of the trees and saved their lives. Her heart skipped a beat and an odd tingling sensation scurried up her spine.

Oh. Oh my.

To Sokka, it was horrifying.

Unlike his sister, education with the men of the tribe had not included the intimate workings of the human body. Such things were in the jurisdiction of the women, and that was how it was. But still, the time must come at some point, and so one day Hakoda sat him down in front of the fire to explain the facts of life.

"Auggghh! Oh, Dad, that is GROSS." Sokka stuffed his mittens into his ears, as if by doing so he could unhear his most recent lesson. "Gross gross gross gross gross!"

A moment passed. The young tribesman stared up at his father in horror, then proclaimed solemnly, "I'm never having kids."

Hakoda laughed.

To Zuko, it was utterly incomprehensible.

"There comes a time in every boy's life," announced the Royal Tutor with an air of great importance, "When he must understand what it is to become a man."

Prince Zuko, who was ten, squirmed uncomfortably and glanced outside. This didn't sound good. Become a man?

"A man, of course, is different from a boy, as I am sure you are aware, my Prince." The tutor paused again and leaned forward to scrutinize his pupil, who shrank back slightly in response. He wondered if he should say something.

"Um, men are taller?" he ventured.

The tutor sighed and shook his head, tutting. "A man is different from a boy, for a man has the ability to sire children."

Zuko frowned. This wasn't something they had covered before. Was he supposed to be taking notes?

"Every child has within itself the essence of its mother and its father, and as such contains qualities of both. And in order to create such a being the man must place within the woman his essence…"

Zuko's mind started to wander, away from the stifling classroom and back to his firebending lesson that morning. He'd been working on kicks, and they weren't so bad, except it was hard for him to land on his feet and he'd twisted his ankle. He was trying really hard not to limp, because Azula liked to laugh at him when he landed wrong. It was always just a little giggle, hidden behind a modestly raised hand, but he still saw, and she knew he saw. He also knew if he went to his mom she would kiss him and tell him it was a great try, but she was off somewhere else and lessons were right after firebending so he wouldn't have much time anyway.

"… A man's seed may only grow when planted within the body of a woman, and thenceforth forms…"

Zuko's mind snapped back to his lesson. Huh? Seed? What was he talking about? How do you plant a seed in someone's body? Once, Azula had told him that if he swallowed a guavamelon seed, a tree would grow in his stomach. Was that what he was talking about?

"… the body of a child, which must grow within her ten months…"

"Wait…" Zuko interrupted, and the tutor glared reproachfully. "You mean babies grow from seeds?"

The tutor frowned. "Yes, my Prince," he said "From a man's seed."

Zuko was not left long to contemplate this disturbing information, as his tutor launched directly back into his speech.

"Now, at times, while growing from boyhood, a man is tempted to plant his seed widely, without thought as to what may occur from his actions." The tutor shook his finger in Zuko's direction. "But such desires must be curbed! One may only plant one's seed after a marriage, sanctified by Agni in the Fire Sages' temples, and only with one's lawful wife. Do you understand, Prince?"

Zuko nodded, bewildered.

"Very well. You are dismissed."

Zuko left the room, turning over what he had learned in his mind. Well, he thought, I suppose it's all right. I'm never going to be a farmer anyway.

To Azula, it was a means to an end.

So. Children resulted from adults slamming their privates together. Lovely.

It didn't matter (she didn't want children anyway and babies were disgusting), so she stored the information in the back of her mind along with everything else extraneous. If needed, she could recall it, but for the moment there were more important things to attend to. Anyway, why would anyone be interested in something so undignified, so banal?

But apparently, if the Royal Fire Academy for Girls was to be taken as any indication of the world at large, a great many people found the banal and undignified to be utterly engrossing. Despite the obvious fact that the Academy was all-female, there seemed to be hardly a single student who did not spend all her time not practicing and studying caught in the throes of obsession with the opposite sex. Girls huddled in their rooms over pilfered portraits of soldiers and nobles, whispered in hallways of practices forbidden in polite society, preening at the slightest glance from a handsome male. After the end of every holiday, Azula could expect to be barraged with tales of handsome strangers met and lost, of kisses and furtive glances and secret touches. How many of these were true and how many embellished was generally left up to the discretion of the listener. And all this, from the daughters of the nobility, the very cream of the crop of Fire Nation society!

It was enough to give Azula pause. If it was so important to her peers, how much more so must it be to the commoners? How much of the rest of the world operated by these urges? What did they expect to come of it? It was all so predictable…

Azula listened distractedly as Ty Lee prattled on about some handsome sword swallower she had seen, the gears turning in her mind. Yes, this could be useful, if she could only tease out the patterns… But even she couldn't deny, though she would rather eat her armor than admit it, that even she felt a certain… curiosity…

But oddly, when it was finally sated, when she felt the lips of the admiral's son touch her own, she felt nothing at all.

To Toph, it was still a mystery.

Such unsavory aspects of life were not fit for the delicate ears of the daughter of the Bei Fongs, so were never spoken of in her presence. Perhaps one day she would be educated, but certainly not yet! She was so young and innocent; it would be a crime to taint her pure mind with such adult concerns. No, no, not yet.

And as for The Blind Bandit, who associated with some of the dirtiest and most distasteful members of society, well, she fared little better.

It was during the pre-match, and The Blind Bandit was waiting in the locker room, along with Fire Nation Man and a new fighter calling himself The Tigersnake. She didn't have much to prepare, of course, not bothering with the elaborate costumes and makeup of some of the other fighters. As much as she appreciated showmanship, she didn't get the point of coating your face with layers of sticky, cloying paint. Unless, she supposed, the fighter was really ugly. She could never be sure.

The Tigersnake was new to the Earth Rumble, and The Blind Bandit could only imagine that he was very ugly indeed, because he was hunched over a flat plate of glass, touching his face again and again in a way that could only mean he was applying makeup. The Blind Bandit found him extremely unremarkable, with light bones and an earthbender's typically dense, coiled muscle. Except that he wouldn't stop talking.

"So this one time, I was in Qi Dai, great little town, great wine, you know? Ever been there? No? Great place. Anyway, there was this great inn, The Bedrock, I think, yeah, something like that, and they offered more than just food and a room, if you get what I'm saying."

Fire Nation Man sighed and shifted his weight, obviously disliking the conversation but reluctant to leave when he might be called onstage any moment. The Blind Bandit could empathize. The Tigersnake's voice was exceedingly grating.

"So anyway, I was talking with this girl that worked there, you know, and she was a real looker, if you know what I mean. And I was telling her what I do, you know, the fighting, and she was real impressed, yeah? So I say, 'Honey, I'm tired of moving earth.' And she's totally into it, you know? And she says, 'Wanna move me?' Yeah? Yeah? Anyway, I'm pretty sure she gave me a discount, you know, 'cause I showed her such a good time, if you know what I mean."

The Blind Bandit's patience broke. She growled and whirled around to face the yakking fighter, snapping, "No, I don't."

The Tigersnake frowned at The Blind Bandit as if he hadn't noticed she was there, although of course she didn't see. "What?"

"I said, no, I don't know what you mean." The Blind Bandit directed her best glare at the Tigersnake's head.

He snorted and, before Fire Nation Man could give a word of warning, scoffed, "Who asked you, short stuff?"

Then it was her call, and The Blind Bandit left The Tigersnake lying out cold on the floor where he was to face the crowd.

Idiot.

To Aang, it was a revelation.

"Where do babies come from?"

"Hmm?" Gyatso looked up from his half-eaten noodles with eyebrows raised. "Why do you ask, Aang?"

"Well," he started, "I thought that babies were brought by raccoon-storks, but when I was at the Eastern Air Temple, there was this lady, and she was so fat!" Aang leaned forward earnestly and spread his arms out wide, as if unable to contain the sheer enormity of her fatness in words alone. "And I was wondering how she could fly, since she was so fat, and they told me that there was a baby in her belly!"

Aang stared at Gyatso, who showed little response. "How did a baby get in her belly?" he finally demanded, before the silence stretched uncomfortably long.

The air nomads kept the sexes largely separate during their formative years for a reason, so that children could use their excess energy on their studies until they came of age and could make their own decisions. That said, Gyatso was rather more liberal in his interpretation of Air Nomad tradition than many of the other monks. After all, his young ward had only just returned from his trip to the Eastern Air Temple, new sky bison in tow and full of stories about his new experiences. Such widening of one's horizons, he reflected, could only do good in the long run.

Gyatso finished explaining, and Aang stared up at his face incredulously. "You're kidding."

Gyatso shook his head, and Aang wrinkled his nose. "Ew. That's so weird."

"It isn't weird. It has existed since the dawn of life." Gyatso gestured around them, at the beautiful mountain meadow they had been picnicking in together. "It is the source of all life, of all people, from every nation. Every animal, every lemur and bison and bird, had in their beginning this act."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Even the bison?"

"Even the bison."

"Even me?"

"Even you."

"But," Aang's nose wrinkled again. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

Gyatso chuckled softly. "It is one of life's mysteries. Perhaps you will understand when you are older."

"Oh." Aang gazed at the ground for a moment, then looked up at the sky. He shifted uncomfortably. "Can I go play with Appa now?"

Gyatso nodded and watched as the young airbender ran off to find his bison calf. Aang was really too young to fully understand. Ah, well. Let life come as it would. He was confident that Aang would be ready for it when it did.