Disclaimer: I do not nor have I ever had anything to do with AtLA or Nickelodeon.

Prologue

Only a few months had passed since the leaders of the Air Nomads took Anila's son from her. They refused to let her raise him because "He's the Avatar, and he needs to be raised in a structured environment to hone his power and learn of his duties." They had told her. Anila was so devastated that she had given up on life. Zakai and Karma had to take care of her, Zakai was so worried about losing not only her but their child she carried inside her. Anila had not made a single sound until she went into labor a month and a half later when she gave birth to a tiny and frail baby girl. Karma and Zakai watched as the grieving woman continued to slip away from them, bringing the baby girl with her.

"I know you're hurt that they took Aang!" Zakai told her. "I lost him too! I hurt too! But I refuse to lose you or our little girl! You need to feed her you need to eat! If you don't you will lose another child! When I burry her I don't even have a name to put on the marker! I can't do this anymore, and I don't know what to do!" He began to walk out of the room he heard the squeak of an unused voice.

"Minori."

"What?" Zakai asked as he turned back to her.

"Her name… Minori." Anila said softly.

"Please don't make me burry Minori." Zakai pleaded.

"I hurt so bad inside." Anila told him.

"Please come back to me! Please be my happy playful My Nila again." Zakai asked her. He wrapped his arms around her and to his surprise she closed hers around him. "I love you My Nila, I love you!"

"I love you too." Anila told him.

Chapter 1

"Hello beautiful there, Mini!" Zakai said as he bent over the rocking cradle he had made for his daughter, and picked up the silver-eyed beauty and cuddled her. "Mommy is coming right now."

Anila was wiping flour off of her hands with her apron as she came walking into the bedroom. "She sounds hungry."

"She's always hungry." Zakai laughed. The tiny frail little girl had grown fat and healthy. She was greedy when she nursed. "I heard her crying all the way outside."

"Yeah, she has an airbender's lungs for sure." Anila said as she sat down in the rocking chair next to the cradle, stretching her arms out for her daughter. Anila still missed her happy, playful little boy badly, she had to remind herself almost daily that Monk Gyatso promised to let her spend the day with him at every Yangchan Festival. She started keeping a journal, all of its entries would be addressed to him, there she could tell him everything she would not get to, she always put in how much she loves him and how badly she missed him. Monk Gyatso was to give the Journal to him on his sixteenth birthday. Anila hummed as she feed her baby girl.

"You both are so beautiful." Zakai said as he kissed each of them on their soft cheeks. "I'm going to go back outside, I want to finish the kitchen for you."

"It will be nice having a kitchen, a sink to wash the dishes, a counter to cut the vegetables." Anila told him as she imagined her new kitchen. When Anila was young she couldn't wait to travel all the time, to constantly be going to the next beautiful place, the next wonderful sight. It all changed when she realized how she felt for the street preforming firebender she had meet on Ember Island. At first she didn't like him because he used words that Amitaruci had to get her to think he really liked her when in fact he only cared about was taking her innocents. Thinking that all he and every other man out there wanted what Amitaruci did, she felt guarded. She felt she needed to protect her heart against getting torn from her again. But now she was more than happy to stay in one place, with the man she loved… with her family, most of it at least.

"I'm planning to make us a table too." He told her as he waited for Anila's reaction.

"Really?!" Anila asked excitedly. "I could make pillows for us to sit on, I could stuff them with the fur Chesa sheds!" Happy that she loved the idea he left the room then went outside to do some more work in the kitchen addition.

Minori looked just like her mother, silvery-grey eyes with long eyelashes, shiny black hair, and beautiful pink heart shaped lips. The little girl had the lungs of an airbender, and her mother already believed she was an airbender, that's why she chose an airbender's name for the tiny girl. After the baby had her fill she drifted back off to sleep with a full tummy.

After laying the baby back in her rocker Anila went back to baking the bread she was working on to go with tonight's dinner. Anila placed the flour coated balls of dough into a basket, Zakai had bought her a clay oven that he was now building the new kitchen around. As she came around the corner she came upon a sight that she did not expect to see and froze in place. "Zakai?" He hadn't noticed her until she said something.

"I… uh… I… I'm sorry," He said to her as he wrapped his hand around something gold and shiny wiped his face. "I didn't hear you walk up."

"Are… Are you okay?" She asked as she examined his puffy red eyes.

"I'm fine." He sniffled.

"Why are your eyes all red… you look like you've been crying." Anila said as she sat next to him.

"I have allergies, that's all." He forced a smile.

"What's that in your hand?" She let the lie be for now, changing the subject to what he had in his hand, a tiny gold chain hanging from his clenched fist.

Zakai had done his best to stay strong, to take care of the woman he loved while he died inside, he lost his son that day too. Now that he didn't have to worry about losing his wife and daughter he was finally able to grieve over losing his son; to him Aang was just as much his child as Mini is. He moved his clenched hand over Anila's lap, palm side up, and slowly revealing a small golden heart on a gold chain. "I had this made after we got back home." He opened the small heart revealing a picture of Aang inside. "It came out perfectly and I… I miss my son too My Nila, I miss him so bad that my heart broke too… and this little heart… I just wanted to keep it to myself for a little while longer."

"I understand." She simply said then wrapped her arms tightly around him. "We can get through this together."

"I was so scared that I was losing you and Mini too. You wouldn't even eat or drink anything, Mini was so small and weak when she was born, and she didn't want the milk from our hippo cow, she almost slipped away forever." Zakai told her. "I didn't want you to see me like this."

"The locket is beautiful Zak, thank you… you can hold on to it as long as you need too." She told him then turned her attention back to her basket. "I need to get these in the oven so that they will be ready when the rest of dinner is." Anila stood up and went to her clay oven, with the long handled paddle she placed each loaf deep inside when the temperature was just the right temperature for baking bread.

Zakai took hold of Anila's hand as she walked by, he pulled her down into his lap and wrapped his arms around her small frame and held her against him. "You are such a wonderful woman Anila, I am so happy we found each other."

"I am too." Anila laid her head against his chest and listened to the soothing sound of his heartbeat until the calmness was broken by the cries of their daughter. "You really can hear here all the way out here." Anila laughed as she stood up and went back into the house, she was followed closely by the child's father.

"I told you I could hear her." Zakai said to her.

"She's an airbender, I can tell already." Anila laughed.

"I'll be the only non-airbender here!" Zakai laughed as he followed her into their room to get Mini.

"She needs her diaper changed!" Anila said as she placed the baby on the bed in front of her and began working to get the soiled diaper off of the very angry little girl, Zakai brought her a clean diaper from the stack on the nearby dressing table. It didn't take long to complete the job, and as soon as they did they had a happy little wide-eyed baby girl that was cooing at her parents.

"She's as beautiful as her mother!" Zakai said as he brushed the baby's cheek with the back of his knuckles.

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