ii. reincarnation
.
.
.
"Throw me up in the air again, Uncle Aang!"
From where she sits in the shade of a tree in the garden, Katara holds her newest baby in her arms and watches as Aang plays with her older children, who squeal and ask to be thrown into the air again and again and again.
"He's really got the advantage in that game, doesn't he?" Zuko asks, slipping down to a sit next to her.
Katara smiles fondly. "Mmhm. I think he might be their favorite uncle right now, although I'm sure they'll appreciate Sokka more once they're old enough to actually throw a boomerang with any measure of coordination."
"Or when they decide they like jerky."
Katara settles against him, and they watch in silence for a while. It's comfortable in a way she couldn't have imagined years ago, when the war was freshly ended and she and Aang ended their relationship. And here she is with Zuko for a husband, watching the Avatar play with the Fire Lord's kids with as much enthusiasm as he ever approaches anything.
If Aang still hurts, still holds any lingering resentment that she is married with a growing family while he, the Avatar on whom the fate of the Air Nomads rests, remains single, he doesn't let on. Really, she thinks, he seems most comfortable in this role—he can put on his serious face and command nations to cooperate, but he probably won't ever lose his spirit of play. Even when he's old, he'll still be young.
She and Zuko, on the other hand—she feels like they've been old forever, even though they're still young enough by most standards.
The baby in her arms coos and she shifts her gently, cradling her head and smiling, only to see a gratifying, toothless smile beam from rounded cheeks in return. Eyes on their daughter, she says to Zuko, "Did I ever tell you my parents wondered if I was the next reincarnation of the Avatar when I was younger?"
She feels Zuko shift beside her. "No, you didn't."
"Yeah," she says. "I think it was because there was such a sense of finality about the position we were in. All of the other waterbenders were gone, and here I was, the only waterbender in the new generation." She glances toward Aang. "No one knew whether Aang was still alive or not. Water is next in the cycle, so they wondered." She shakes her head. "I'm sure many parents in the Northern Water Tribe wondered the same thing."
"I'm glad you weren't the Avatar," Zuko says, kissing her shoulder and reaching to smooth their daughter's barely-there head of hair.
"Why's that?"
"You'd have been much more distracting to chase."
Katara bursts out laughing and Zuko looks offended, insisting, "You're much prettier than Aang is."
"I'd better be," Katara says, kissing him gently and then staring him down until the affronted look on his face softens. "But I'm glad, too. I'm happy I was able to help end the war, to teach Aang waterbending, but...I like what I have now, too. I'm not like Aang—he's restless. He always will be. He has to travel the world and keep peace. And I just...want what we have. I want a home and a family and I have that here, with you. As a waterbending master and an unofficial ambassador and a wife and a mother."
"Sometimes I'm pretty sure you just married me so you'd have councilmen to boss around," Zuko deadpans.
"I do like bossing people around," Katara agrees with feigned superciliousness, and it almost feels like they're teenagers again, and she's telling their friends to clean up after themselves when they've left a mess of porridge and bowls around the breakfast-fire.
But then one of their children's exuberant shouts breaks through the air, and the moment is broken.
Katara laughs, and Zuko does, too. The baby in her arms gurgles in response, and soon after, their other children come tumbling over with Aang in tow. The entire group heads to the kitchens in search of custard, and Katara lingers behind with Zuko, watching.
It's what she seems to do best in this phase of her life, with her growing family to oversee.
She smiles and accepts when Zuko offers to share his custard with her. "None for you, little one," he says to the baby in her arms. "Not yet."
And Katara is glad she's not the Avatar, because then she wouldn't have all of this.
.
.
.
tbc.
