Katara's Daughter
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or any of the characters.
Author's Note: Well since I've gotten so many reviews since I uploaded the last chapter I thought I would reward you with another update in less than a day. I know it doesn't make up for the months I neglected this story, but enjoy.
Kiela was awoken in the middle of the night by a forceful shake. She attempted to swat away the annoying figure and snuggle deeper under the covers. "Geh away," she mumbled into her pillow.
"Kiela, you have to get up its important," Zoren pleaded with her pulling down her delightfully warm covers.
"No," she told her pillow and grabbed the blankets with all her might. After a brief game of tug-of-war Zoren had managed to yank the covers away and pull a very grumpy and awake Kiela onto the cold floor at the same time. "Get out of bed now, Kiela," Zoren shouted as she hit the hard surface.
"What's wrong with you?" she growled viciously tears of frustration welling in her eyes. She normally tried not to cry, but she was tired and mad at Zoren for knocking her out of bed. A girl could only take so much. She looked up at Zoren and noticed how nervous he was. His pale skin was nearly white, barely illuminated by the light from the hallway. His hair was a mess. It was loose and it looked like he had been running his hands through it repeatedly. He was currently pulling on his fingers in a worried fashion.
Kiela stood warily after Zoren didn't say anything for a minute. The way he was acting was starting to scare her. "What's the matter?" she tried to reach out and touch his arm, but he pulled out of her reach.
"Something's wrong with Grandpa Iroh," Zoren said after a moment.
Kiela tried to reassure Zoren. "He's just got a chest cold. He promised to have tea with us after he was feeling a little better. I'm sure he'll be fine in a couple of days." She tried to give him a hug, but he avoided her arms again.
He glared at her. It was a very odd feeling to be glared at by Zoren. He never had looked so mean before. Kiela took an unsteady step backwards and her back hit the bed. "That's what everyone says, but he got sick weeks ago." He suddenly lurched forward and grabbed her shoulders tightly. Kiela tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he was too strong. "He hasn't left his bedroom for a week, Kiela! He's not going to be alright in a couple of days!"
Kiela felt tears returning to her eyes, but she could do little to stop them. She was tired, confused, angry, and more than a little scared of Zoren and what he was saying. "What do you mean?" she said in a shaky breath.
Zoren shook her roughly. "Stop being a stupid baby," he practically shouted. Kiela just looked at him in shock. He had never treated her this way before. Zoren had never so much as raised his voice at her. This had to be some sort of trick, this couldn't be Zoren. She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She didn't want to see the way he was looking at her anymore. "Not everyone gets better Kiela…sometimes…sometimes they die," he said in a choked whisper clutching at her arms.
Kiela gasped and her eyes flew open. "Don't say that!"
"Why not! It's not like not saying it is going to stop it from happening." Tears were now in Zoren's eyes too.
"He's not going to die, Zoren." Her arms had started to ache where he was grasping them tightly.
"That's right," Zoren said triumphantly. There was a near fanatic gleam in his eye. "He's not going to die, because we won't let him."
"Zoren?" Kiela tried. She was so confused.
"Come on. We're going to go heal him." He let go of one of her arms but kept a tight hold on the other one and started to drag her towards the partially open door.
Kiela tried to protest, but couldn't find any words. Instead she settled for digging her heels into the ground and jerking out of his grasp. "What are you talking about? We're kids, we can't do anything. The royal doctors are looking after him; there's nothing we can do to help," she tried to explain. Though Kiela was pretty sure nothing would derail whatever Zoren had cooked up in his mind.
Zoren narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes you can. I saw you," He pointed an accusing finger at her chest.
She slapped his had down so it wasn't pointing at her anymore. "What are you talking about?" She hissed.
"You healed the baby turtle-duck in the pond the other day after Sparky got hold of it." A few days ago Sparky, the parakeet-cat, had gotten hold of one of the baby turtle-ducks. Kiela had rescued the turtle-duckling and chased Sparky away. Initially when she found it she thought it might die, there was so much blood; but when she lowered the duckling into the water to wash away the blood something strange happened. She thought she saw the water glow blue for a second, but it could have been a trick of the light. Well, once the turtle-duck was in the water it just swam away as if nothing had happened.
"I didn't do anything though," Kiela protested. "It was just stunned and then the water must have woken it up."
"But I saw the water glow blue!" He was almost shouting in his frustration. He had grabbed her hand and began pulling her out of the room. "You're a water bender and I know you can fix him." It sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her.
Kiela had begun to cry earnestly now. Salty tears were spilling down her cheeks leaving sticky trails and her nose had started to run. "But I'm not. I've tried and water just won't move for me." She tried to stop him as he dragged her out of the room and began pulling her down the hall towards Iroh's bedroom. She was starting to become frantic. He was pulling her so hard she thought he might pull her arm out of its socket. She tried to remove his hand using her nails to dig into his skin.
He let out a gasp of pain, but did not loosen his grip. He jerked her forward so she almost lost her balance and fell to the floor. She let out a muffled cry. After all she didn't want to wake up Uncle Zuko or Aunt Mai and get Zoren in trouble.
"Zoren, stop," she whispered desperately. He continued to ignore her pleas and drag her down the hall. "What if he's sleeping or there's a doctor?"
"He's always sleeping." Zoren said flatly refusing to slow his pace. Two right turns a left turn and four hallways later they were standing outside of the door to Iroh's room. They had spent many days playing and laughing in this room. Suddenly the familiar door with the carved dragons looked dark and forboding.
"Zoren," Kiela hissed desperately, but he was beyond being reasoned with at this point. H shouldered open the door as quietly as possible dragging a more subdued Kiela in behind him.
Kiela hadn't seen uncle Iroh in over a week, and as much as she thought this was a bad idea, there was part of her that wanted to make sure he was alright. As long as Zoren was forcing her to take part in his crazy plan, she could at least check up on Grandpa Iroh.
They snuck near his bed side. Iroh was so still. Normally he snored loudly in his sleep intermixed with talking. One night which felt like so long ago, Zoren and Kiela had snuck in and listened to him sleep talk for an hour and ended up giggling so loudly that he woke up. If it wasn't for the occasional wet rattling breath, Kiela wouldn't be able to tell if he was alive.
It frightened Kiela. He was so much more pale than usual. And his normally round pudgy face had a new hollowness around the cheekbones. Kiela looked over at Zoren, but he seemed unsurprised at Iroh's condition. Perhaps he had snuck in before and knew how bad it had become.
Kiela hesitantly lifted a hand to the old man's brow. The skin was wet and clammy. She restrained from jerking her hand away and tried to wipe his brow soothingly like her nurse maid did when she was sometimes sick.
Suddenly there was a sharp jab in her side and she felt wetness spread through her sleeping clothes. She looked down to find that Zoren had brought her the dragon painted china washbasin filled with water. She looked down at the basin and then up at Zoren. He had a desperate needy look in his eyes that Kiela didn't know what to do with.
Kiela swallowed the dryness in her throat and took the bowl from his shaking hands. She maneuvered it up onto the bed with Iroh and then didn't know what to do.
"Zoren, I don't know what to do," she said desperately.
"Well you're the waterbender," he said oh so helpfully.
Kiela nearly growled at him in her frustration, but took a calming breath. "Well even if I can water bend, it doesn't mean I know how," she pointed out. "It's not like you just knew how to fire bend."
Zoren's eyes flickered briefly to Kiela's arm and let out a heavy breath. "Well what did you do with the turtle-duck?"
"I don't know!" Kiela exclaimed in a whisper. She could feel the tears rising again, but she was sick of crying for tonight. "I just thought I'd wash the blood off and then see if I could fix it. I don't know what I did or if I did anything at all."
"Well, maybe you should wash him or something," Zoren said shrugging helplessly.
"Fine," Kiela snapped. She could never remember being so angry at Zoren before. What he was asking from her was completely unfair. She stomped over to the table the wash basin normally sat on and picked up a cloth. She then stomped back over as dramatically as possible.
She dipped the cloth into the water and ran it across Iroh's forehead. It washed off the sweat, but there was no glowing and he didn't look like he was getting better.
"You're doing it wrong," Zoren said exasperated. "You have to concentrate."
"I am concentrating," she scream whispered.
"No, you're not. If you were trying he would be getting better." Zoren accused.
That was the breaking point for Kiela. Here she was watching her Grandpa waste away and Zoren was acting like it was all her fault. She knocked the bowl off of the bed causing it to crash and shatter on the floor. She then jumped onto the bed and buried he face into Iroh's covered stomach and began balling.
She didn't know what Zoren did after that and she didn't care. She just wanted everything to go away and be like it was before Zoren shook her awake.
"What's going on here," she heard the angered voice of her Uncle Zuko. But she refused to look up or stop crying all over Iroh.
Zoren started to splutter out some sort of excuse, "We just wanted to help."
"What have you done," Zuko demanded in a harsh voice he rarely used with any of the children.
"We…I thought that Kiela could heal Grandpa Iroh. But she wouldn't do it," Zoren said bitterly.
When he said this Kiela just began to cry louder, she couldn't help but notice that Grandpa Iroh had failed to wake despite all of the noise. She heard the heavy footfalls of her uncle, before she felt the warm familiar arms pull her shaking form off of the bed. Zuko cradled her tightly in his arms so her legs were wrapped around his waste and her head was leaning on her shoulder. She still continued to cry her tears spilling all over his night shirt.
"How could you Zoren," Zuko hissed angrily at his son. "She's just a little girl."
"But I saw her…"
"I don't care what you saw. It was stupid and irresponsible."
"It wasn't stupid," Zoren tried to protest.
"Go to your room now," Zuko practically screamed. Zoren pushed past Zuko and marched to the door. Kiela watched him go from over Zuko's shoulder. Right before he left he turned around and looked at them with so much hatred; Kiela closed her eyes and buried her face once again in her Uncle's shoulder. This was awful everything had gone so wrong.
She must have fallen asleep in her uncle's arms, exhausted from all of the crying and fighting, because she awoke in her own bed. Zoren wouldn't talk to her anymore. She tried to catch his eye once or twice, but he made a point of it to ignore her. Three days after that horrible night her Grandpa died. Kiela felt as though she would never stop crying.
Author's Note: What a lame chapter. Iroh died and Zoren is acting like a pouty ten year old. I'm starting to shatter the vision Zoren has of perfect Kiela and his perfect father. It makes me sad to have an angry Zoren, but he is ten and just lost one of the people he loved most in the world.
Even if the contents of this chapter upset you, I hope that you liked the update. Thank you for all of the reviews; they make my day a little brighter.