Chapter Three: Fixing It

Katara woke up grumbling, a slightly larger figure with a heavy arm over her.

She looked up beyond the arm and blinked, seeing a head full of messy, shaggy hair covering the eyes of the young fire nation prince—her playmate.

He was snoring lightly, or perhaps breathing deeply, and although his small arm was slung lazily over her, his face was directed in the other direction and he was seemingly oblivious to their disposition.

Katara grunted as she moved his uncomfortable arm and threw it to the side, before she crept away from the bed and went to the bathroom. She felt.. uncomfortably wet down there.

Once in the bathroom and kneeling down to see the messy dried blood in her underwear, Katara sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

Life sucked. She hated it when she got the monthly curse that Iroh so fondly called "the passage" of becoming a woman.

It wasn't so much of a gift as a nuisance.. cleaning the rags.

And although it didn't happen every month the way that Iroh had said (the ship doctor had said that it was because she wasn't "regular" yet), it was still annoying when it would suddenly happen.

This was her second time of it ever happening and the first time had been horrible, but it was already beginning to lose it's novelty. Now it was just annoying.

And it didn't change the fact that it still got her upset yesterday.

The words, "I'm disgusting," had tugged some strings in Prince Zuko's heart when she'd intonated them to him. She had been grumpy yesterday, having woken up after her after-breakfast nap and feeling wetness down below to find that she had soiled her mattress! As well as her clothes, her sheets, and part of the canopy that had lain on the bed!

She had been upset and embarrassed and after quietly running over to the ship cooking maid and whispering about what had happened with flushed cheeks, before sulking back to her room and laying down on the bare mattress to wait for clean sheets.

Depressed with herself, Zuko had suddenly come barging in after his morning practice, demanding to know why she hadn't been waiting in their study to play like they usually did, she grumped and crossed her arms and turned away, making sure to strategically hide the bloodstain on the bed.

"I don't feel like it today."

He frowned, that spoiled Prince.

"What do you mean you don't feel like it today?" he asked angrily, small sparks flying from the corners of his lips.

He had recently acquired and was currently learning to control his Dragon's Breath. There were little cuts and scabs and burn marks around and above his lips and Uncle had assured him that it was quite normal for all males of the royal line to have them around this age.

In the back of his mind, Zuko had always impatiently been waiting to finally get his Dragon's Breath. He had seen his older cousin, Lu Ten, with the scabs and burn marks around his mouth when he had been 12 and Zuko had been 6, and since then, had been enamored and squirming to finally get it himself. The stories of how the royal line was descended from Dragons was just downright cool. And the fact that only the males of the royal family could spew fire from their mouths qualified the actuality of the tale, enthralling him immensely.

However, when he had actually acquired his new skill—one night, five weeks ago, over dinner, when he had suddenly accidentally set his entire entree on fire during a fit of coughs—he realized what an annoying nuisance it was. Since then, he had accidentally been spewing flames from his mouth during random bouts speech and been consistently burning his lips and chin.

Katara would giggle and laugh whenever he'd do so and at all the frequent visits he was taking to the infirmary to bandage and disinfect his burns, allowing him to glare back at her. It was annoying him to no end.

But that moment last night, Katara couldn't even sum up the good will to giggle at the sparks receding from his mouth and burning his lips; she had been grumpy at him barging into her room and demanding him to go to his study with her. She didn't feel like playing—she felt like wallowing in her own self pity.

Katara glared up at him from where she had been sitting on her bed. If there was one person Zuko couldn't tell what to do and order around, it was her. And she knew it infuriated him.

"I thought I was a Lady now," she mocked irritably at him, finally looking away and directing her glare at the bedpost, "You're not supposed to boss me around."

Zuko's cheeks flamed. He hadn't realized that announcing Katara as a 'Lady' in front of his whole ship would make his entire crew think that he and the insufferable little girl had.. had a thing. He didn't like Katara. He didn't. 'Cause girls were crazy! Obviously!

He had just turned twelve a week before he had gotten his Dragon's Breath and Katara was still eleven, anyway.

When Lieutenant Jiro had kindly informed him of the implications of his decree two weeks later, after Katara had gotten her first period, his cheeks had flamed and he'd shouted loudly at him.

At him, and the rest of the crew.

Luckily, the whole "Lady" thing was now put behind them. And Katara had not seemed to be.. bleeding anytime soon after that.

So he had very quickly and tritely forgotten about the whole ordeal and they had gotten back to their normal routines (although her constantly laughing at whenever he'd burn himself or his lips was getting really annoying, really fast, that he'd almost even kicked her out of his study the other day).

So, he hadn't expected it when nearly three months after that ordeal with her first period had gone, she would be sitting on her bed giving him glares about not wanting to look at maps in his study in the time-space between when he would have to go to his tutoring lessons.

He glared at her and blushed thoroughly at the comment about being a Lady.

"I can boss whoever I want around!" Zuko said angrily, his nerves were on a grate after he had burned his bottom lip at breakfast today, "This is MY ship, Princess Katara."

Katara rolled her eyes at the sarcasm seceding from his mouth.

"Whatever," she dismissed, "I don't want to play today."

"Why not?"

"I'm.. sick."

Zuko frowned, looking at her. She didn't look sick. Just irritable.

"No you're not. Stop lying."

Katara looked up at him from the spot on her bed when she was hugging her knees and threw him a hateful glare.

"I am too, now leave me alone."

"Fine! Who would want to stick around with you anyway?" Zuko shot back.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Says the Prince, who comes barging in here, demanding me to keep him company."

Zuko growled in rage. Katara hadn't always been so antagonistic. But recently, both of them had been grinding and grating on an edge and getting on each other's nerves. He was getting irritable and demanding, and she was getting snarky and biting. Zuko paused, staring at her for a second, feeling his body temperature heat up in anger.

"What's WRONG with you?" he finally shouted.

Katara had always been so easy to get along with. So uncrazy like other girls he'd been around. Recently, she'd been getting really, really insufferable. He knew he had been too—but who could blame him? He was constantly walking around and burning his fingers and his entire mouth was covered in red, inflamed from all the heat it was taking.

"NOTHING!" Katara had the audacity to shout back, hugging her knees tighter. And then after a while, she had paused.

"I don't feel like it today. I got my period again."

Zuko paused and stilled once her words sunk into his brain. His incensing anger quickly flew out and was suddenly, quickly, rushedly replaced with embarrassment. He looked away.

And then coughed a little bit into his fist. (Luckily, no flames had come out).

"Oh."

Katara looked away, her eyes narrowed and refusing to look him directly in the eye.

"Yeah."

It was awkward for a moment longer, silent, before Katara finally sighed. She knew the Prince was feeling a lot more uncomfortable than she was, having just shouted at her for a reason he didn't know.

"Ugh," she groaned, "This sucks. I'm so disgusting."

Zuko looked up at her, not sure how he was supposed to make her feel better about herself. To be perfectly honest, to the twelve year old boy, it did seem disgusting. He felt bad for her.

"You're not disgusting," was all he could say. Sure the act, the thing itself (no matter how necessary), was disgusting. But she wasn't disgusting.

Katara sighed and looked down.

"Yes I am."

"No you're not," Zuko emphasized loudly, frowning and looking at her in the face again.

All this talk about her period and how gross it was, was making Katara more and more upset by the second. Here was another excuse she was different from Zuko and everyone else on the ship (except for, perhaps, the old kitchen maid, but according to Iroh, being old stops it).

So, somewhere along the way, during their conversation, Zuko had decided to reassure her that she wasn't repulsive and that he could still bear to touch her and to prove this point, had lain his arm around her and they had fallen asleep together.

Iroh had come in, searching for Zuko, wondering where he was and why he had not shown up for his lessons with his tutor, and had peeked into Katara's room, only to see the young prince laying down on her bed with his arm around her, sleeping.

It had turned into a habit, and Zuko had come in the next night to lay to sleep with her, just as proof that she in fact was not disgusting during her period.

Lieutenant Jee was nervous, he was approaching General Iroh was a .. rough issue. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate or not, but Zuko had been late to his morning practice that morning, just as he was every three quarter moons or so.

"My sir, your highness," Jee bowed low in greeting. General Iroh chuckled and brought him up to his full height above him with his hands on his shoulders.

"There is no need for that, please, sit down. What issue did you want to discuss with me," Iroh inquired as he placed a cup of tee in his most trust lieutenant's hand. His eyes were twinkling and he already had an inkling of a clue about what the man was worried about.

The Lieutenant saw Zuko has his own son, even if from a respective distance. He had been training the boy since a nine-year-old had timidly approached and asked him if he could have sparring instruction and had monitored the boy closely to the point where the timid and freshly scarred eight-year-old had turned into a self-assured young man, striving to reach his goals. In some ways, the boy was the same.

But he thought that General Iroh might want to know why Zuko had been coming late to his early morning practice.

"General Iroh.." the man said, shifting uncomfortably in the cushioned seat in the General's quarters, "Prince Zuko.. are you aware.." the Lieutenant coughed, unsure about how to phrase it without offending either royal Prince, "he has been sleeping in the same beds with young Miss Katara everytime she has.. has been... Every three quarter moons or so."

Iroh's eyes brightened up considerably, amused at the Lieutenant's discomfort. He had, of course, been aware of this. The Lieutenant, being worried, undoubtedly amused him about the matter.

Zuko was now twelve and a half, and Katara was breaching twelve. It had developed into a habit between the two—Zuko would come into her room at night and hug her closely against him to sleep on the days she would get her period.

At first it had just been to make her feel better. Now, it was simply habit on those nights.

Zuko had become immune to the strangeness he felt at first, having been slightly uncomfortable at knowing that the girl below him was bleeding, but slowly began to ignore it. Iroh thought it was a rather momentous growth, of course. It was beneficial to both Katara—as she was coming to accept this part of herself—and beneficial to his nephew—who was not becoming repulsed to this aspect of the human norm.

He had been slightly worried that Katara would come to feel ashamed of her monthly afflictions, without exposure to many females or a mother figure in growing up. But it seemed that, somehow, Zuko had fixed this slight worry of his. He had taken on the role of a mother quite well.

Jee had to keep himself from choking on his tea when the General responded.

"Yes! It's wonderful, isn't it?" Iroh said brightly to the Lieutenant.

A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying? These chapters are not going to be precisely in chronological order, but will indeed be about their growing up. Review for the next chapter!

Males of the royal family get the Dragon's Breath directly before they hit puberty ;)

Next chapter... waterbending. ;) Review please if you'd like more!