Love in Danger chapter 7: Reunion at the Tea Shop

"Well, if it isn't my favorite softies" Toph greeted as she entered the room, holding a tray of porcelain cups. Toph often regarded Aang and Katara as such due to the fundamentally gentler nature of the elements Air and Water.

"Nice to see you too Toph" Katara returned, taking the affectionate tease lightly.

"Hi Toph" Aang said as he rose to his feet. Toph had been Aang's Earthbending teacher but they still retained a casual friendship.

"I hope being married hasn't softened you two up too much" Toph teased playfully. "I worked too hard to get your mushy bones into Earthbending shape for that to go to waste."

"Not a chance of that happening" Aang chuckled.

"Is that right?" Toph responded as she raised a mischievous eyebrow. "Think fast, Twinkletoes!"

Toph stomped the ground and launched a stone statue into the air, and with a punching motion sent it flying towards Aang's face.

Fast as lighting, Aang caught the statue in his hand and set it on the ground. "You'll have to get up pretty early in the morning to get me with that old…" Aang started before the ground shifted under his feet and he was thrown off balance and tossed to the floor.

"Sifu one: pupil zero" Toph boasted. She then walked over to Aang as he rubbed his sore bottom and offered him her hand. "Now get up here and give your teacher a hug before I smash you into the ground."

Rolling his eye Aang took Toph's hand and rose to his feet and did as he was told. After he did Katara walked over and embraced Toph as well.

"Now what's this good news Iroh was telling me about?" Toph asked after they all sat down and were given a cup of tea.

"Well it's pretty big" Aang said. "I told Iroh. Do you want to tell her Katara?"

"Sure" Katara agreed. "Well... (She took a deep nervous breath) …sorry I'm just really excited. I'm pregnant!"

"What?!" Toph shouted, flabbergasted as she stood up so fast that she knocked her chair aside.

"That's…holy…oh my…that's great!"

"I know!"

"You guys must be so happy" Toph said as she sat back down.

"We sure are" Aang replied, though the tone of nervousness that he had since the Spirits have told him of this had not totally disappeared.

"I remember when my beloved first became pregnant with my Lu Ten" Iroh said reminiscently. "Oh how I miss them both. There is nothing in this world that compares to becoming a parent."

"I'll bet" Toph responded. "But I don't think that's for me. I don't really see myself as having a crying sack of poop tied to me all day."

"Well that's not all…" Aang said hesitantly. "…We're uh…going to have four crying sacks of poop tied to us all day."

"What?"

"Katara's carrying quadruplets."

"What!?" Iroh said at the same time as Toph.

"Wow" Toph said after a few moments. "That's a lot of poop."

Having seen pregnant women before, having had a son, a niece and a nephew, Iroh noticed that Katara was not showing enough to be far along in her pregnancy. "How could you possibly know of this?" Iroh asked, stroking his beard. "I went to the Spirit World" Aang explained. "My past lives told me."

"I see," Iroh, said turning suddenly serious. "The Spirits must feel this is very important information if they told you this soon."

Aang had not thought of this. But now that Iroh had said it he realized how it made sense. Somehow there must have been something significant he was to draw from knowing this fact. As he could think of nothing he decided to tell Iroh more, feeling that he was much wiser than him and could figure it out.

"All four of them will be born Airbenders" Katara informed before Aang could, apparently figuring this out before him.

"How interesting…" Iroh said as he became lost deeply in thought.

"I guess that makes one for each of the temples" Toph stated simply. This struck everyone as a great revelation.

"This is true" Iroh said. "Perhaps your offspring are meant to become the leaders of the Air Temples. The Northern Temple was once the capital of your nation, correct?"

"It was" Aang confirmed, thinking he knew what Iroh was pondering.

"Then if my assumption is correct, you should make your firstborn leader of that temple. It would be the child's birthright." Iroh was of course basing his ideas on his knowledge of how Fire Nation hierarchy worked.

"Well it isn't exactly that simple" Aang replied. "The leader of the Northern and Southern Air temples would have to be a man and the leader of the Eastern and Western temples would have to be a woman."

"And there won't be a firstborn" Katara added. "They'll all be born on the same day."

"One of them will still be born before the others" Toph pointed out.

"True."

"But back to what Aang said" Iroh cut in. "He brought up a valid point. If there are more children of one gender then you may have to break tradition's rules if you wish to rebuild the Airbenders. It seems the ideal situation would be for you to have two boys and two girls."

Katara's curiosity was triggered by this comment so she asked, "Aang, the Spirits didn't happen to mention what genders our kids will be, did they?"

Aang felt stupid after she asked him this. This was easily a question he could have asked The Spirit of Balance or any of his past lives but he had been too preoccupied by his initial shock to even think of it. He figured that Keno would think that he having two boys and two girls would be best for keeping balance but he also did not know if the tiger controlled that at all, seeing as he never mentioned it.

"Uh…no…they didn't" Aang said as he quietly scolded himself. "The Spirit I spoke with made it so all of them will be Airbenders but he didn't say anything about that."

"Wait!" Iroh interrupted. "Do you mean Keno, the tiger Spirit of Balance? The Spirit believed to decide who is born a bender and who is not."

Aang nodded. "What do you know about him?" he asked. "He created Sozin's Comet." "What?"

"Like the Avatar he has command over all Four Elements. Except in some ways, he has even greater command, because he also controls the spiritual essence of the Elements, so he can bend in the Spirit World and in the Physical World. He is one of the few creatures with the ability to travel freely between the two worlds. He gave the powers of bending to the original sources; he gave Airbending to the sky bison, Waterbending to the Moon and Ocean Spirits, Earthbending to the badgermoles, and Firebending to the dragons. According to legend used Earth and Fire to create a force so mighty that it would cause the planet's balance to shift so dramatically that when it was equalized it would be perfectly balanced. The force was Sozin's Comet. He understands that evil must always counterbalance good for balance to exist because without evil there is no good. Because of this he has committed great acts of both evil and good to keep balance. He created Sozin's Comet and allowed the war to start, but he also helped it end. He created and distinguished between the chakras, allowing mankind to better control its physical, mental and spiritual energy and allowing the Avatar to gain control of the Avatar State. If not for that then you and your past lives would have killed my brother Ozai, Aang."

Aang gulped down his breath as he heard this revelation. He had known that Keno had power over bending and could control other things but he never imagined that the tiger spirit had this big of an impact on the entire world. It made it seem impossible that anything had happened without his influence.

Toph then asked a quite poignant question. "Wouldn't the war have ended even if Aang did kill him? Does it really make a difference other than what Aang wanted to do?"

"It does make a difference" Iroh said. "If Aang had killed Ozai it would have been seen as a divine act of harsh justice. The Fire Nation would have agreed to end the war out of fear of him, not out of true remorse. To many, Ozai would have died as a martyr, a hero. History would have seen it has more senseless violence; a leader killing a leader to enforce his will. Nothing would have changed; it would have been one power usurping another. But Aang's act of supreme kindness and mercy made the world view it from a different perspective; even though Ozai's ancestors had committed genocide against Aang's people and he himself had tried to kill him he still had the capacity to spare him. Aang was an example for the world; an example of peace and true justice. He wasn't going to peacefully end the war by striking Ozai down in rage; he would end it by making his influence shine brighter than his."

This made Aang feel better than he was before; this reassurance of his judgment was comforting.

"You're right" Katara agreed. "You did the right thing sparing Ozai Aang."

And just like that the sky turned orange as the sun began to vanish behind the clouds but the reunion catch-up had yet to Finnish.