The Last
"Look out!"
The childlike shout came at the same time as the cold jet of water. She had no time to move or react as she looked sharply at the source of the sound and saw the danger in a split second. In that same second the water froze, inches from her face. Katara gasped in delayed reaction as she felt hot relief flood through and her hand moved instinctively to protect her stomach. The ice shimmered, turned back to water and splashed harmlessly to the floor.
"Kya!"
Katara flinched at the anger and looked for its source, seeing what she expected.
Aang stood not too far away – his hand still outstretched from halting the water. His eyes were hard as rock, face tight with anger. The gaze was locked on their children, standing a little distance further, and they looked terrified. Rightly so.
Kya was on the brink of tears, hands clasped to her mouth. Bumi, who had clearly been the intended target lay on the ground, where he'd landed from his dodge and cowered, knowing he was as much to blame.
"Do you have any idea what you could have done?"
Aang stayed stationary and neither child moved. It was Katara that broke the stalemate. She took the few steps to her husband and laid a soothing hand on his arm.
"How could they possibly?" she whispered, trying to calm him down.
"They could have hurt you. They could have hurt the baby!" He snapped, eyes still on the culprits, and at his words Kya burst into tears.
"I'm sorry Mom," she sobbed, still unmoving, pinned to the floor under Dad's fury.
"Aang," Katara said gently, turning his face to her. "It's all right. I'm all right. It was an accident."
She felt the fear leave him as much as she saw it drain from his eyes, before she turned to look at her children with a soft smile. The spell broken Kya ran to her mother and wrapped her arms around, sobbing into her dress. Bumi followed a few feet behind, looking at the ground as he mumbled a sorry.
Aang shut his eyes and let out his breath in a sigh, dropping a comforting hand onto Kya's head.
"Come here Kya," and she turned eagerly into a forgiving embrace, as much his, for his anger, as hers.
They couldn't understand why Daddy got so angry, when he was normally so calm, but Katara did. She had always understood him. Her hand passed again over her pregnant belly.
Most little girls think about their future babies, maybe consider how many and what gender in what order. Katara had always wanted a little girl. Growing up with an older brother she had very quickly come to the conclusion that boys were disgusting and stupid, and after she lost her mother she longed to be able to have that relationship again. She dreamed of doing all the wonderful things her mother had done with her...and of having a daughter to pass on her necklace to.
When she married Aang that priority took a back-seat, because for the last Airbender whether the child was a boy or a girl was irrelevant. He only had one thing on his mind.
Katara had watched as he had held their baby girl in his arms and she had smiled in delight that she had got her wish. They had never even needed to discuss a name. She was Kya, after Katara's mother.
"How long before you think we'll know?" she had asked.
Aang had lifted his head and looked at her a long moment before coming over to embrace her. His beautiful wife who had asked the question so he didn't have to. To spare him, like she always had.
"I don't know," he had whispered into her hair and looked down at the tiny sleeping bundle. "I could air-bend before I could walk but...everyone's different."
She knew that back then he had still held onto the hope that their first child was just a late-developer, that one day soon Bumi would start to bend something. She had known though. She had known, although she still didn't understand, that the first child of the most powerful bender in the world was just a normal child.
Aang had held the baby in his arms and gazed down at it lovingly, but the question in his eyes pained Katara. It made her heart ache that she couldn't give him an answer to the thing that kept him awake at night.
It turned out that their daughter was no late developer. Like her father before her she could bend before she could walk, because like her mother she was stubborn. Katara looked over at her again now, hugging her father. Her beautiful little waterbender. She felt again that pang of guilt, guilt over her joy that her daughter took after her. The baby inside kicked against her and she shut her eyes. She loved both her children and she knew Aang did too, their waterbender and their non-bender, but she prayed that this one would be an airbender. That the child inside her, almost ready for the outside world, would mean that Aang was no longer alone.
As Katara took her hand from Pema's belly the memory faded. She was no longer young, but old. Her hair was now grey and her back stooped, and no amount of healing could stop the relentless march of nature against her joints and muscles. Yet it had kept her until now. It had kept her so that she could see her three wonderful, airbending grandchildren. Sadness filled her heart that Aang had died before seeing their faces, but as she turned and saw Korra standing behind it lifted again. He hadn't gone far and she knew that he now knew he was no longer the last.