ZKMonth22 Day 14: Steam Babies
When Zuko and Katara finally did make love, they found such enjoyment in each other that it became a regular occurrence, and eventually Lu Ten’s teasing came to fruition. Katara became pregnant with their first child about a year after they were married. Yue had given birth to their daughter, who because she was a girl had been given the Water Tribe name Lasuh, and learned she was pregnant again around the same time Katara realized she was pregnant.
Katara was glad to go through her pregnancy in tandem with Yue. They’d grown close over the past year, to the point that Yue had asked her to assist in Lasuh’s birth despite the Fire Nation healer’s protests. It was just as well that she had; Lasuh had been born with fluid in her lungs that Katara had carefully been able to draw out with waterbending, saving the child from early breathing trouble. Lu Ten had tried to gift Katara handsomely, but she’d refused. Instead he made Katara the child’s godmother, legally making her regent if something happened to the Fire Lord, his wife, and Lu Ten and Yue.
“Do you really think the Fire Nation would accept a female non-bender as Fire Lord?” Katara asked Zuko once the servant she’d given the signed paperwork to departed to have it filed.
“Anything’s possible,” Zuko said, shrugging. “They accepted a Water Tribe woman as Crown Princess and adore her. Who’s to say they wouldn’t accept her daughter?”
To complete Katara and Yue's tandem pregnancy, they went into labor on the same day, unfortunately keeping Katara from helping with delivering Yue’s second child. Because she’d already had a child, Yue’s baby was born first: a healthy boy they named Shuzok.
Katara’s labor took over a day, and was not without struggle. The baby had somehow flipped the wrong way, necessitating professional intervention, and when the child finally was born it had the same problem Lasuh had had, but was more severe. It took a combination of Katara’s exhausted bending and the healer’s efforts to remove the fluid and allow the child to breathe and give a strong, healthy cry. As soon as their baby cried Katara collapsed, completely exhausted, and fell asleep.
Zuko took the baby from the healers once it was washed and wrapped, and was told it was a boy before the healers returned to Katara. He went to the window of the room, showing his son the light and contemplating names for him.
It took Katara about ten hours to wake up. As soon as she did she was alert, asking for the baby. Zuko, who hadn’t left her side but had fallen asleep, jerked to awareness and turned to the bassinet he’d placed the baby in. He gently scooped up their child and put it into Katara’s arms. She unwrapped the infant’s upper half and laid him against her chest, whispering something about skin-to-skin contact into his lightly spattered hair.
“What do you want to name him?” Zuko asked, moving his chair to be closer to his family.
“We have to give him a Fire Nation name?”
He nodded.
“Do you have any ideas?”
“I thought of Chauzu and Ozuno,” he offered.
Katara repeated the names as though she were tasting them, and looked down at their child.
“Ozuno,” she said firmly.
“Ozuno,” Zuko agreed.
Katara gave birth to two more children in the next decade. Four years after Ozuno was born, she and Zuko had a baby girl that they named after Katara’s mother: Kya. Three years after that they had another son, to whom they gave the second name Zuko had chosen: Chauzu.
Zuko wasn’t surprised to find that Katara refused most of the royal family’s customs for raising children. They weren’t closely in line for the throne, so she was allowed to do as she pleased. This meant the children sleeping in their room with them until they became a certain age, as well as her breastfeeding them herself instead of giving them to a nurse. She also took charge of their early education, asking Zuko to help her teach them traditional Fire Nation and the country’s history. Every summer they visited the Southern Water Tribe for two months, and their children grew up knowing they weren’t just Fire Nation royalty, they were also Water Tribesmen.
“You get along so well with Sokka and the other men, you’d make a good member of the tribe,” Katara teased him after he and Ozuno returned from his first hunt with the men.
“Maybe in another life,” Zuko said, smiling and sending Ozuno to bed. “But for now I like this one just fine.”
