Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender

Author's Note: I don't usually answer questions about where I'm going with the story, but I've decided to tell everyone that Katara will not be getting sick. It was an idea I tossed around when I first came up with the idea of Katara healing a sick child, but I've discarded it. Part of this chapter is history you'll all be familiar with, but, like Zuko's tale before, I wanted to see how Katara would tell it and have some fun with the boys' interjections.

Acquainting and Reacquainting

While Katara was resting, Zuko and Iroh were getting reacquainted with Ursa, and Zuko was officially meeting his brother for the first time.

"Kenzo, this is, um…" Ursa was clearly uncertain how to proceed with this introduction.

"You may call me Uncle Mushi," Iroh broke in smoothly. "This is my nephew, Li. I was a friend of your mother's a long time ago."

"Yes, I knew Li when he was a little boy," Ursa added.

"Like me?" Kenzo asked.

"Just like you," Ursa agreed, with a sad, tight aspect to her voice.

"Nice to meet you," Zuko offered formally. "Have you always lived here in Ba Sing Se?"

"Ever since I can remember," the boy shrugged. He turned to his mother. "Mama, can I go play with Han-Ga now?" The older boy was outside, under the watchful eye of his mother.

"Yes, dear. Stay close."

"Was I ever that carefree?" Zuko asked wistfully as he watched the door close behind Kenzo.

"Not exactly," his mother informed him. "All of my children are quite different. And a modest house in the Earth Kingdom capital is certainly a far cry from palace life in the Fire Nation."

"You'll have to tell him the truth eventually," Iroh pointed out gently.

"I suppose," Ursa sighed.

"Has he displayed any bending ability yet?"

"A little," she admitted. "Sometimes things heat up around him when he gets angry. I've been able to talk it away so far. Fortunately, he's generally a very happy child."

"You can't let that go unchecked much longer," Iroh warned.

"I know, but how can I tell him he's a firebender?" wondered Ursa, wringing her hands in her lap anxiously. "Like every other child in the Earth Kingdom, he's been taught to hate the Fire Nation. Ba Sing Se is somewhat insulated from the war, but we still know about it. Ling's husband died in battle! How am I supposed to tell Kenzo that he's one of the enemy? Besides, to train him, I would have to reveal myself to at least Ling and Han-Ga, and possibly some of our neighbors."

"You could say that you had to flee the Fire Nation or one of the occupied cities because you opposed the war," mused Iroh. "People would believe that."

"If Avatar Aang succeeds in…ending the war, you both could come back to the Fire Nation," Zuko suggested. He hadn't quite been able to say "defeat my father." Although he understood that this would be necessary, and it might even mean Ozai's death, Zuko hadn't fully accepted all of the implications of that yet. "Then you could tell Kenzo the truth. The whole truth."

"How he is going to end the war?" Ursa demanded. The two men were silent for a while.

"I'm afraid we can't tell you any more," Zuko demurred.

"Well, when is it supposed to happen?" inquired Ursa.

"If it happens, it will be by the end of the summer," Iroh replied. Ursa nodded.

"I can wait until then to make a decision," she decided.

The following day, Katara returned to Ling's house while Toph and Aang were practicing. She performed a brief analysis of Han-Ga's condition and was quite pleased at the progress he was making. Once this business was conducted, she sat down cross-legged on one of the floor cushions, and Kenzo and Han-Ga knelt before her. Ling and Ursa also sat nearby.

"I believe I promised you a story about the Avatar," Katara addressed the two boys. They nodded vigorously, and Katara organized her thoughts. She tried to remember her grandmother's storytelling style, the one that had so captivated Katara through her childhood. "I need to go back about 113 years, when, on the first day of summer, a baby boy was born to the Air Nomads. He wasn't too different from you or you." She pointed to each of the boys in turn.

"Really?" Han-Ga asked.

"Was he a bender?" Kenzo demanded.

"He was a very gifted airbender," Katara answered the last question. "In fact, he was the youngest person ever to be declared a master."

"How old was he?" Han-Ga pursued.

"Twelve. Besides that, though, he appeared very ordinary as he grew up. He enjoyed playing with his friends, practicing his bending, and flying on his bison."

"Bison don't fly!" Kenzo objected.

"They used to," contradicted Katara. "There's still one that does, but I'll get to that later. Not long after this boy's twelfth birthday, everything changed. He got some terrible news."

"What?" Han-Ga whispered, leaning forward eagerly. Katara decided that she must be doing a pretty good job of spinning the tale.

"The elder air monks told him that he was the Avatar."

"Why would that be bad?" Kenzo sounded confused. "That sounds great to me."

"Maybe, but really think about it. How would you feel if you were told that you were supposed to bring balance to the world, all by yourself?" Katara let them chew on that for a moment before continuing. "There was an old tradition that the Avatar was not told of his or her identity until their sixteenth birthday. The monks had decided to tell this boy early because they sensed a war was coming."

"With the Fire Nation?" Han-Ga guessed.

"Exactly. So the young airbender also had to worry about stopping a war. Besides that, none of his friends would play with him anymore. They thought he would have an unfair advantage."

"That doesn't make any sense," Kenzo objected. "He already was a master, and they weren't, right? Why wasn't that an advantage?"

"I don't know," Katara sighed. She was thinking that sometimes children just didn't make sense, but, given her audience, it didn't seem like a good idea to say that aloud. "But the worst was yet to come. The monks wanted to send him away from his home, his guardian, and the only life he had ever known."

"That is awful," commented Han-Ga.

"So, afraid of being taken away from everything he loved to spend the rest of his childhood in constant training, the boy ran away. There were parts of the world he still wanted to see, and the Air Nomads didn't much like to be tied down anyway. So he took his flying bison and flew away."

"Where did he go?" wondered Kenzo. Naturally, that was what everyone had been asking for 100 years.

"He was heading toward the South Pole to go penguin sledding." Katara smiled at the memory of the first thing Aang had said after she found him. In a way, she suddenly realized, he was asking her on a date even then.

"Penguin sledding?" said Han-Ga blankly. "When there was a war about to start?"

"In all fairness, he didn't know how soon the war was going to start. No one did. In fact, it began so soon after he left that he probably would not have been able to do much about it. Anyway, I'm sure he would have returned to fulfill his duties eventually. There were just a few things he wanted to do first.

"In any case, a big storm came up while he was on his way south. He and his bison plunged into the raging ocean, nearly drowning. However, his Avatar spirit took over for the first time in his life, encasing both of them in a cocoon of water and then freezing it."

"Avatar spirit?" That came from Ursa, surprisingly enough.

"That's the part that gets reborn into each new Avatar," Katara elaborated. "It connects him with the spirit world and with his past lives. When he is in danger, it takes over and puts him into something called the Avatar State, allowing him to use the knowledge and abilities of all prior Avatars."

"So that's where he was for so long?" Kenzo requested clarification. "In the ice?"

"Yes," Katara confirmed. "Very soon after he left, possibly only a few days, the Fire Nation began the war. The first thing they did was kill all of the Air Nomads, trying to find the Avatar. They may have been trying to break the Avatar cycle. I'm not sure if anyone knows anymore."

"Oh, I hate the Fire Nation!" Kenzo exclaimed.

"Me too," Han-Ga agreed. "How could they wipe out a whole race?"

"So, you see, it was probably a good thing that the Avatar left when he did," Katara concluded her tale. "If he had been there, he would most likely have been killed as well. I don't think even the Avatar State could stand against an army of firebenders at their peak." She decided not to mention that they were at their peak because of a comet.

"How did he survive in ice for 100 years?" Han-Ga frowned doubtfully. "I don't think that's possible."

"Probably not, for anyone except the Avatar," Katara acknowledged.

"How did he get out?" asked Kenzo. Katara smiled again, trying to determine how to tell this part. She decided to be somewhat vague.

"My brother and I found him by accident," she said. "We were out fishing when this iceberg broke apart. Out came Avatar Aang and his bison, Appa."

"So they were both all right?" inquired Han-Ga.

"Yes, they were fine, and neither of them had aged at all. When we found out who he was, my brother Sokka and I decided to help Aang get training in all the elements. We've been flying around the world ever since."

"Could we see this flying bison?" pleaded Kenzo eagerly.

"I think I could arrange that, if it's okay with your mothers," Katara looked to the two women and received nods. "You could even take a ride on him. He's been in the city for a few days, so I bet he'd be happy to get out and fly a little."

"Have you fought firebenders?" Han-Ga wanted to know.

"More than I'd like," Katara admitted. Thinking about the conversation from the previous morning, as well as what Iroh and Zuko had related to her, she thought maybe she could help Ursa out a little. "You know, not all firebenders are bad."

"Really?" Kenzo seemed doubtful.

"Really. There was one who taught Aang firebending for a little while. He'd been a general, but he deserted the Fire Nation army. Some others came to join him. Avatar Roku was born a firebender, too. He was the Avatar right before Aang and definitely a good man."

He had to be, if he was a past life of Aang's, Katara thought. Immediately on the heels of that, though, she added, Geeze, how lovesick do I sound?

Oh, you know you enjoy it, whispered that small voice that had mostly been silent since she had admitted her feelings for Aang. She barely managed to fight back a dreamy smile.

Yes, I do.

Katara decided to leave the boys to think about what she had said, but not before promising that she would bring them to meet Appa the next day. As she went out the door, Ursa mouthed the words "thank you" to her.

Over the next several days, Zuko and Iroh divided their time between Ursa and Song and Yun, while Aang and Toph did a lot of earthbending. Katara often observed the lessons, but she also visited Han-Ga a couple of times. Sokka watched the earthbending sometimes or took off through the city on his own. No one was really sure what he did on these excursions, but Aang privately suspected that he was making frequent visits to the Meat Cookie Man near the outer wall.

Aang had been fortunate enough to be at home when Katara had brought Kenzo and Han-Ga over to ride on Appa, and he was only too happy to act as their guide. Katara sat beside him on the bison's head, and Aang thoroughly enjoyed himself. It had been quite a while since he'd been able to ride Appa with nowhere in particular to go, especially with Katara at his side.

Aang had also cheerfully endured the many questions with which the boys had bombarded him. These ranged from inquiries about airbending to what it was like to be frozen for 100 years.

Aang had also been using the opportunity afforded by Katara's occasional absences to work on his special project. One day, when she was checking on Han-Ga again and Aang and Toph had just finished their practicing for the day, he told Toph that she should go on ahead because he had an errand or two to take care of. Safely alone at last, Aang made his way to the woman who sold stones and gems.

"Welcome back," she greeted him pleasantly.

"Hi," he said. "This is kind of a long story, but I, uh, found some gems outside the city after the last time I talked to you."

"Found?" she raised her eyebrows curiously.

"Yeah, they were in the walls of this cave high in a mountain over that way," Aang pointed in the general direction. Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to him. "That cave doesn't belong to anyone, does it?"

"Not if there were no signs or guards," the woman assured him. "In fact, if you're talking about the cave I think you are, it was believed to be mined out years ago."

"Well, there probably aren't enough gemstones there for anyone to make a big trip or anything, but it was perfect for what I needed." Aang took a pouch out of his shirt and emptied the contents onto the table. "Anyway, I cut them myself, but it seemed like such a waste to toss out the pieces that were left over. I thought you might be able to use them. They're pretty small, but you might be able to sell them to a jeweler or something."

The vendor's jaw dropped as she looked at the ruby and sapphire chips spread before her. She took out a short cylinder with glass in it. Squeezing it into one eye, she examined everything more closely.

"You must be an incredible earthbender," she remarked, removing the eyepiece to regard him.

"Not according to my teacher," he joked about Toph's difficulty in paying him compliments on his progress. He pointed to some of the pieces. "I actually cut that one with airbending, and that one and that one with waterbending. Those are really better for bigger things, though, so I used earthbending for everything else."

"You're the Avatar!" the woman exclaimed.

"Guilty," he acknowledged.

"Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have made you pay!"

"That's okay," Aang held out his hands in refusal. "You work hard for your living. I don't want to take that away from you."

"At least let me give you something for these," she pressed, sweeping the red and blue shards carefully into a small box.

"You were really helpful before," Aang began, but something caught his attention. "Wait, what is this?" He picked up a smooth, gray stone, relatively flat on two sides and about the size of his fist.

"Slate," answered the vendor. "It's so tough that it's often used for building, but it can also be decorative."

Aang turned the stone around in his hands. He still needed something to set the gems in, since he didn't know how to work metal. This stone seemed perfect. It was sturdy and durable yet, if his senses were correct, still workable. Unlike the crystal harmonies projected by the gems, this rock gave off a sort of rhythmic humming, like the buzzing of insects on a summer day.

"I'll take this," he announced.

"All right then, it's yours," she said. "It's worth far less than what you've given me, though. Are you sure you don't want anything else?"

"No, that should be all," Aang replied, bowing slightly to her. "Thank you."

"No, thank you, Avatar…"

"Aang," he supplied. "Just call me Aang."

"Best of luck to you!" the woman called after him as he left. Aang raised his hand in a friendly wave, happy with his accomplishments for the day.

--

Member of the Boomeraang Squad: charleegirl, Jesus.Lives, Liselle129, Strix Moonwing, Avatarwolf, MormonMaiden, libowiekitty, Snows of Yester-Year, and honorary member SnakeEyes16

Author's Note: You know, I knew those geology classes would come in handy. I don't really have anything else to say, so I hope you enjoyed this installment.

Review responses:

Thank you to Billeh, chocolatecoveredbananacheese, Chocolatecoveredespressobean, and jessica yumi for reviewing Chapter 20.

kataangfan22: Well, you got a little more of the two boys here.

libowiekitty: Thanks. We so often see Katara mothering people that I wanted to sort of turn the tables on her. I believe Aang has that capacity in him; we saw hints of it in The Blue Spirit and arguably in The Deserter.

Tech-Man: Yeah, thanks, it was time for some comic relief.

TTAvatarfan: Wow, thank you for being so excited. My university courses end in April, so that's why Spring Break is in early March.

frozenheat: I never thought of pneumonia as being very contagious, but when I was researching it for that chapter, I found that you could get it from inhaling water droplets from the breath of an infected person, so I decided to address that.

Kimbalynn616: Yeah, healing water would be cool. I'm glad you laughed last chapter. It occurred to me that I hadn't been doing much humor lately, so I wanted to throw something in that struck me as funny. I love irony!

MyOtherName: That's okay. I like that people notice those details I put in from time to time. I figured that, just because Katara loves Aang, it doesn't mean she won't occasionally lose her temper with him, so I wanted to hint at that possibility.

TheKataangKing: I don't know; I can imagine some pretty weird dancing.

Durins Bane: I've heard a rumor that Season 3 might not air until July, but I don't know any more than that, other than the first episode will be called The Awakening. That could mean a lot of things.

Semper-Fidelis-To-Kataang: I absolutely love your name! And I am very honored to be your first favorite author.

Aangs fangirl1214: No problem, I'm just glad you're still reviewing after the Doughnut debacle. Thank goodness it's worked out now. I found it sort of funny that she didn't seem to mind you and others saying you hated Zutara, but she objected to my attempts at constructive criticism, poorly worded though they may have been. Not criticizing you, just pointing out the double standard.