Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to Avatar: the Last Airbender. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.

This is set at some point several years after the finale. It's kidfic, in case you missed that, so consider yourself duly warned.

The How and the Why of It

Uncle Sokka says Haibo has a natural curiosity. "You get that from me," he says, stroking his beard, which grows in patches and isn't half as much fun to play with as Grandpa Iroh's. "Nourish this talent, young Haibo. Treasure it always."

"Ask lots of questions," Auntie Toph advises. "'Why' is a good one. Make sure you ask that one a lot."

"Why?" says Haibo.

"Smart kid," says Auntie Toph.

*

So Haibo asks questions all the time, mostly because she likes learning new things, but also because it's funny how cranky Uncle Zuko gets when he doesn't know the answer. Sometimes he lies, but Uncle Zuko isn't a very good liar. His face turns red and he stumbles over his words and half the stuff he says doesn't even make sense, which is why she asks him things like, "Why is the sky blue instead of green? I think green is a lot prettier," and "You can't even eat a hundred sea prunes, can you? My dad can eat a hundred sea prunes and he doesn't even like 'em."

Grandpa Iroh is the absolute best, though, better even than Uncle Zuko, because he knows the answer to every question and he always tells her, always, no matter how dumb Meiko says the question is, like Meiko knows everything, which she doesn't, because Grandpa Iroh does.

"Fine!" Meiko says. "Then why don't you ask Uncle Iroh! Because I'm not playing with you anymore."

"Meiko," says Aunt Mai. She raises her eyebrow in a perfect arc, so majestic and so terrifying Haibo is wracked with awe.

"You can still play with me," Meiko mumbles.

*

Haibo asks Grandpa Iroh.

"And Meiko said it was a dumb question," Haibo finishes. "But I think she just didn't know the answer. She doesn't know anything."

Grandpa Iroh shakes his head. "Sadly," he says, "I cannot answer your question. Perhaps you should ask your parents. They would know."

This is a blow like no other Haibo has known: Grandpa Iroh cannot answer her question.

"Why?" Haibo shouts.

"No one man can know all things," Grandpa Iroh tells her.

A blow! A foul blow. Haibo is betrayed. Betrayed!

Her world realigns itself in the aftermath of a cataclysmic event the likes of which she cannot bring herself to contemplate. Haibo has learned a lesson more bitter even than the most bitter of teas. Even Grandpa Iroh cannot be trusted.

*

Haibo is so wretched she almost forgets to ask Mama and Dad that evening.

She mopes. She droops. She drapes herself pathetically on chairs conveniently placed near doors, where anyone who walks by must see her and think to themselves, "That poor girl! How tragic she is." She finds comfort in their pity and satisfaction in her own tragedy.

"What's wrong?" Mama says at dinner. "You haven't touched your boiled sea prunes."

"She's a smart girl," Dad says.

"Eat your sea prunes," Mama says and Dad sighs real big.

Haibo doesn't even know why they come all the way to the Fire Nation and still eat sea prunes. She frowns down at her plate.

"Did you fight with Meiko?" says Dad. He pauses. "Again?"

"Maaaaaaybe," Haibo hedges.

Dad looks at her. Haibo squirms in her seat and fiddles with her chopsticks. She hates it when Dad looks like that, all sad. Not even disappointed, just sad. Haibo holds her breath, but she can't help it, she has to, she--

"Meiko started it!" Haibo bursts. "I asked her a question 'cause she said she knew everything, but she doesn't, and she said it was a dumb question and I told her she doesn't know everything and she said I should ask Grandpa Iroh so I did and he didn't know the answer." She widens her eyes dramatically.

"What was the question?" asks Mama.

Haibo deflates. She pokes at her sea prunes and says, "I just wanted to know where babies come from is all."

"Oh, is that all?" says Dad. "I can answer that. You came out of your mama's belly."

Haibo looks at Dad, who chews delicately at the corner of a sea prune, and then she looks at Mama, who raises her eyebrows as if to say, You see?

"Liar," Haibo says. "I couldn't fit in there."

Dad chokes on the sea prune. Mama laughs, her cheeks folding up like so. "You were a lot smaller then," she says as Dad coughs into his hands. "And I was a lot bigger, too."

"But how did I get in there?" says Haibo.

Dad clears his throat. "Ah," he says and his voice rasps a little. "Well. I put you in there." Mama and Dad smile at each other, a private grown-up smile.

Haibo tries to imagine this. Dad picking up a tiny Haibo. Giving her to Mama. Mama swallowing her whole like a penguin choking down a lionfish. Plop, now Haibo is in Mama's belly. Her head hurts.

"How?" she says.

"I'm the Avatar," says Dad and now Mama is coughing.

"But," Haibo says, her brow lowering, "who put Meiko in Aunt Mai?"

"You have Zuko to credit for that," says Mama.

Haibo digests this.

"But Uncle Zuko isn't the Avatar!" she says.

"No, he's not," says Dad. "He's the Fire Lord."

"But!" says Haibo.

"If you aren't going to eat," says Mama in a warning voice, "then I think it's time for bed."

Haibo stabs at her plate as quick as she can and bites down on her prize: a boiled sea prune, long since cold.

"I know how you feel," says Dad.

*

Haibo doesn't have a whole lot of choices left, and it's Uncle Zuko and Aunt Mai or Uncle Sokka and Aunties Toph and Suki.

It's not exactly a hard decision to make.

"Hey!" Haibo says. "Where do babies come from?"

"Yeah," says Auntie Toph, "I'm gonna leave that one to Sokka."

"It's a long and complicated process," says Uncle Sokka. "A long, complicated, magical, and highly scientific process. Our players: a single egg, and millions of these little squiggly guys called sperm. Our setting: a honeymoon suite by the ocean lit only by the glow of a hundred candles--"

"Never mind," says Haibo. "I'll just ask Auntie Suki."

("I already know how babies are made, Sokka!" Auntie Toph is saying.

"It's rude to interrupt someone when they're trying to drop some knowledge, Toph," Uncle Sokka says.

"Then stop dropping knowledge," says Auntie Toph. "Problem solved.")

*

"You should really ask your parents," says Auntie Suki.

*

"You're right," Haibo tells Meiko glumly. "It was a dumb question anyway."

"I could have told you that," says Meiko.

This story was originally posted at livejournal on 08/22/2009 in response to the 08/22/2009 prompt for Kataang Week (Summer 2009 Edition), "secrets."