Asamiya – 5 (her birthday came about two months after Zuko got better.)
A Prince in the Family
XxX
Asamiya clung to her father's neck as Fire Lord Zuko held the five-year-old in his arms.
"Daddy," she asked, her voice trembling and worried, "is Mommy sick, like you were?"
"No, love," Zuko replied. "She's having a baby."
"You mean like me?"
"Sort of," Zuko explained, "only much smaller and younger."
The Fire Lord and his daughter sat outside the room in which Katara was giving birth that night. This time, things were going quite well for Katara, and it wasn't long before Zuko and Asamiya were called in to see the new baby prince.
Asamiya gasped. "He's so...tiny," she muttered.
"He's a baby, sweetheart," Katara told her. "You were this small once, too."
"Smaller, if I remember correctly," Zuko commented, as he held his son.
"Wow," Toph said, shifting her feet. "Fire Lord Sparky's really been busy, eh, Twinkle Toes?"
"TOPH!" five voices yelled at once.
"Not in front of Asamiya!" Zuko snapped, trying desperately to hide his blushing face, and protect his child's innocence. It was rather hard to do with his wife, uncle, and Toph all laughing hysterically.
"So," Suki asked, "What are you going to name him?"
Katara and Zuko shared a look, and smiled at each other.
"Iroh," they said together. And the princes' father suddenly found himself in one of his uncle's bone crushing bear-hugs (Katara managed to escape, because she was laying down with the baby in her arms, and Asamiya was safe, as she'd scampered over to her cousin, Sokka and Suki's daughter, Kyoshi the moment she'd seen Uncle's hug coming.).
"ACK! Uncle..." Zuko gasped. "I... c-can't...breathe...Need...air!"
Iroh let the Fire Lord go with a sheepish shrug.
And, as the group sat together, all of them smiling, no one but Zuko noticed when a sleepy Asamiya slipped away from her already sleeping cousin – eleven o'clock was late for little princesses – climbed into his lap, and curled into a ball to sleep...
XxX
Another chapter out. You know, I might stay with this one and just wait for it to be done before I get back to the others. It'd keep me on track, at least.