This is an amateur, non-commercial story, which is not produced, approved of, or in any way sponsored by the holders of the trademarks/copyrights from which this work is derived, nor is it intended to infringe on the rights of these holders. And so it goes.
LORD OF THE LEMURS
"You see what I mean?" Baby Meelo lay blissfully asleep in his crib, snuggled securely in his sky bison fur blanket and utterly unaware of two sets of eyes peering down at him.
Ikki nodded solemnly. "He doesn't look like a baby at all." She wavered slightly atop her air bubble but quickly regained her balance.
"No, he doesn't," Jinora intoned from her own air bubble. "And I know what a baby looks like. I saw you when you were a baby." This last bit was said with a slight bit of regret and resentment; it had been rather nice being the sole recipient of Daddy's attention. Unfortunately Jinora hadn't been given a vote in the matter.
"He looks like a lemur," Ikki noted. "A baby lemur." An idea exploded in her brain. "Maybe Daddy brought him up here because Mommy wanted another baby?"
"Or Mommy wanted a baby that wasn't an airbender." Jinora had quickly learned that listening quietly while the grownups talked made one privy to all sorts of interesting information. "Lemurs aren't airbenders."
Ikki considered this and frowned. "Wouldn't his lemur mommy miss him?" Considering the fuss her mother had made when she'd fallen asleep in the clothes hamper during a game of hide and seek with Jinora, this was a valid point in her view.
"I think she'd be very sad," Jinora agreed. She turned toward her sister. "We should take him back to his mommy."
"Do we know which one is his mommy?" Ikki pointed out. "There's lots of lemurs down there."
"Mommies always know their own." Jinora hopped off of her air bubble. "You stay here. I'm going to get a basket we can put him in, and then we can take him down to the nests. His mommy will be so happy!"
"Yeah," Ikki nodded happily. And best of all, it meant one less obstruction to Daddy's attention. It was a win-win situation so far as she was concerned.
It hadn't been easy, sneaking a basketful of Meelo out of the house and down the hill without anyone noticing. Fortunately, two airbenders made it relatively light work, and with their parents occupied elsewhere, the task had been a breeze (no pun intended). Panting, the girls set their burden on the ground and reviewed their hard work.
"He's still asleep," Jinora commented. "And farting."
"Sleep is stupid," Ikki nodded. "You miss stuff when you sleep." She looked up at the trees. "The lemurs aren't here. How will his mommy know he's here?"
Jinora pondered this new problem. "We'll get some fruit and put it in the basket," she decided. "That way the lemurs will come around, and his mommy will be sure to recognize him!" A few minutes later Meelo was barely seen under the mountain of fruit. The girls smiled and congratulated themselves on a job well done and headed back to the house.
Mission accomplished.
"All right, Meelo, is my handsome little man hungry?" Pema called as she walked into the bedroom. "Mommy's here to fill that bottomless tummy of…yours…up…" She stared at the empty crib for a long moment. She'd wondered why he hadn't been up and screaming his lungs out like usual…
"TENNNNNZINNNNN!"
"I'm telling you, he was in there an hour ago when I put his clean clothes away!" Pema pleaded to her husband. "Surely someone couldn't just walk right in, pick him up, and run off with him without someone noticing!"
Tenzin stroked his beard thoughtfully before turning to the Abbess. "I want the island on lockdown," he declared. "If the ferry is out, contact them and order them back. Pema, call Lin and let her know what's happened. We'll have the acolytes spread out and search every inch of the island…" He abruptly noticed that his two daughters were quietly 'meditating', seemingly oblivious to the din around them. "Girls?"
"Yes, Daddy?" they said in unison, almost blinding him with their sheer radiance of innocence.
"Have you been playing up here for very long?" They nodded as one. "Did you happen to see anyone holding your little brother while you were playing?"
Jinora blinked. "Brother? What brother?"
"I didn't know we had a brother," Ikki said, confused.
Pema's face was growing redder by the second. "Girls…your little baby brother. Meelo? You were there when he was born!"
"Meelo…" Jinora pondered. She turned to her little sister. "Do you remember a Meelo, Ikki?"
"I'm not sure." Ikki's face brightened. "Do you mean the little lemur?"
Tenzin's eyes vanished under his narrowed eyebrows. "Lemur?"
"Well," Jinora said with a shrug, "we thought he should be back with his real mommy…"
"I'm going to kill them," Pema declared softly.
"Wait here," Tenzin said, leaping into action. "I'll be right back."
"Here he is." Tenzin presented his wife with a fruit-stained but relatively happy Meelo. "He was lying in a basket down by the nests. Someone…or a pair of girls who are in a great deal of trouble…" he added, glancing ominously at his disappointed daughters, "…had surrounded him with fruit. A great deal of fruit, I might add. Fortunately the lemurs had eaten most of it by the time I got down there."
Pema blessed her daughters with The Glare. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"
"We were just returning him to his people," Ikki protested. "We thought his mommy would be missing him."
"I'M HIS MOMMY!" Pema almost yelled before catching herself. "This is your sweet little baby brother. You should be ashamed of yourselves!"
"That's not a baby," Jinora grumbled. "He looks like a lemur."
"That will be quite enough of that," Tenzin said briskly, guiding his daughters out of the room. "We are going to sit down and have a long talk about your actions, and then we'll determine an appropriate punishment to go along with it. You two should be ashamed of yourselves, scaring us like that…"
Pema sighed and sat down in her nursing chair, quickly getting things prepped for the afternoon feeding. Meelo's good mood was rapidly fading, replaced by ravenous hunger. "Here we go, my handsome little man," she cooed, guiding him into position. "You're mommy's hungry little boy, aren't you? Yes you are…"
Although, she thought despite herself, when you looked at him…he did look a little like a lemur…