Touched

Katara could deal with the questions:

"When are you due? Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Do you have a name picked out yet? How long did it take you to conceive? Have you had any morning sickness…?"

Katara could deal with the unwanted advice:

"You should stay off your feet so you don't jostle the baby too much. Eat lots of liver. Sing to yourself more. No, don't sit like that. Drink this tea, it's good for the baby…"

It was the hands she couldn't deal with. Reaching, grasping, long, alien, hot-dog fingers stretching out to caress her baby, to pat her round belly, to steal some of her glow, to touch her—

"STOP IT!" She screamed and slapped the hands away as yet another stranger—a palace servant, in fact—flattened a palm over her stomach and rubbed her for "good luck." As she glared at his retreating back, he muttered something about hormones, and it took Katara every ounce of patience she had left not to freeze-dry him on the spot and then drop-kick him into a billion little piece to stomp on.

By Agni, she was the Fire Lady! What happened to the respect and reverence due to her? And where was that jealous, possessive husband of hers when she seriously needed him to tear a few arms off? It was as if pregnancy had made her nothing more than a commodity to be used and enjoyed by everyone else. An oven for the bun. She was still a person, dammit!

"WHY? Why do people think they can just touch me because I'm like this?" she railed. "Do I have the words 'touch me, I'm preggers!' tattooed on my chest? How would they like it if I just randomly came up and put my hands all over their stomachs?"

"You're far too sweet with those offenders," Azula quipped, sounding more like the fire princess Katara used to know. She inspected her nails while still stroking Kisu, perched precariously on her shallow lap. "Me, I've been collecting the pinky fingers of every one who touches me without my permission."

"You… Pinkies?" The Waterbender paled.

"Well, of course. Mother said something about small children enjoying finger painting, so I'm making sure my little one will be well stocked for the activity."

Morning sickness revisited Katara with a vengeance.

Oh, no, wait, it was just regular sickness.

"Want to see the necklace I made of them?" Azula called after Katara as her sister-in-law ran out of the room.