The Spare
Upon returning to the Fire Nation, the Fire Sages demanded the royal couple begin trying for a second child. If anything were to happen to Izumi or Iroh, they needed another successor for the throne.
“Classic. An heir and a spare,” Izumi muttered sitting on the edge of her bed.
“You could just defy them. Your mother only had you–”
“Shut up,” Izumi growled.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard correctly. Shut up!” Izumi yelled turning to Hisoki. “You have NO IDEA what my mother had to go through–what she had to lose just so that I could breathe my first breath of air!”
Hisoki looked down silently and continued folding back his sheet.
“You’re not going to say anything?” Izumi asked, hurt.
“You told me to shut up,” Hisoki replied plainly. Izumi turned over and fell on top of the covers and grabbed her pillow, covering her head with it and screaming.
“I am starting to think Hisoki is not the man he used to be,” Izumi said to her mother while gazing at some distant point on the horizon outside of the tea room.
“I have been thinking he never was the man we knew him as those two years of courting,” Mai responded guilt ridden.
“After this spare is born, I want him gone, Mother.”
“But your reputation–”
“How can we encourage the people of our nation to spread love and peace throughout the world, if we subject ourselves to misery trying to comply with outdated and unnecessary traditions? The people will understand!”
“I’m not sure they would, unfortunately,” Mai replied.
The labor was longer than with Iroh, more grueling, and as soon as the baby was crowning, they knew something was wrong.
“Oh no–” Master Akira said reaching her hand into Izumi to assist the rotation of the infant.
“WHY ARE YOU SAYING ‘OH NO’? WHAT’S WRONG?!” Izumi shrieked sitting up before throwing her head back as Hisoki and Zuko held her hands down.
Akira looked to Mai who nodded and put a hand behind Izumi’s neck.
“You can’t put her out! The Baby is still–”
“You! Hold her head still!” Mai yelled, REALLY yelled at one of the healer’s apprentices.
The apprentice nodded and held down Izumi’s head.
“MOTHER, WH—-” Izumi screamed before she went still. The baby was out.
“The baby didn’t make it,” Master Akira said, unwrapping the umbilical cord from the fetus’s neck. Zuko fell into his chair by his daughter’s bed, devastated. Mai touched her daughter’s head, checking that the technique still worked. Her daughter breathed, her heart still beat, but she was otherwise out cold.
“Why did you do that?” Hisoki asked Mai, also sitting, across from Zuko, looking at Izumi’s unconscious form.
“Because I didn’t want her to see,” Mai said, looking at the lifeless form in Master Akira’s hands. “I didn’t want her to see what she almost became when she came out of me! I have caused my daughter too much pain already. I could spare her from seeing this, at least,” Mai said.
“How shall we proceed, Hisoki?” Akira asked.
“With what?” Hisoki asked.
“Shall we hold a funeral for the child or have her cremated?”
“Cremated, and nobody will ever hear about this– this failure!” Hisoki spat with a certain acidity in his tone, looking at Izumi as he answered. Mai frowned. Zuko shifted in his seat uneasily. After a moment in thought, Mai reached over the birthing table, grabbed Hisoki by the collar with one hand and swung the other as hard as she could across his face.
“See the child is gone before she wakes,” Mai ordered the healer as Hisoki rubbed his jaw.
“Yes, my Lady!” the healer said rushing away.
Zuko lowered his arm so Mai could get closer to her unconscious daughter. A tear fell from her eye as she looked down at her baby and placed a hand on her cheek.
“Hisoki?” Izumi asked as her eyes fluttered open.
Hisoki said nothing as he stared down at her.
“I’m sorry,” Izumi whimpered. By her mother’s reaction, she knew. “The baby didn’t make it, did she?”
“You’re not,” Hisoki said.
“Excuse me?” Mai asked, her own anger flaring
“You could have prevented this! All of it! You should have stayed home, in bed! A woman’s place is not with her husband traveling, overexerting herself daily at the expense of her own baby!”
“You’re insane, Hisoki!” Izumi yelled.
“How DARE you accuse her of such a thing!” Zuko yelled getting to his feet.
“I AM THE PRINCESS OF THIS NATION! I cannot simply remained locked away in this spirit-damned palace reproducing like a broodmare. Her death was nobody’s fault! Her spirit simply just wasn’t ready to join us in this world, and probably for good reason!” Izumi yelled at Hisoki.
Hisoki stared at her, eyes filled with hate, fury, and grief. “I’m leaving,” he announced exiting the ward quickly.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Mai yelled.
“Somewhere where I’m worth more than the seed I provide to make heirs!” Hisoki replied.
“Hisoki!” Izumi threw off her blankets and launched herself out of bed, but missed the ground with her feet, falling on one foot and one hand and knee.
“ZUMI–” Zuko yelled, dropping by her side, scooping her up, and placing her back in bed as she clutched her battered body. “You can’t go anywhere! Your pelvic bone is still detached and your hips are open! You must stay until everything is back in its place!”
Izumi was panting from the overwhelming pain that coursed through her body from pushing.
“Guards! Don’t let him leave the palace!” Mai yelled. He glanced at his wife, silently passing off care of Izumi to her before bolting out the door after Hisoki.
“Mother, Iroh!”
“Kei Lo is bringing him!” Mai said. “And just in time!” Kei Lo entered through a side door and placed the two year old on the bed next to Izumi. Iroh automatically curled up under her arm for safety.
Just then was an explosion of white fire in the hallway. Izumi raised an open palm and blocked the incoming debris with a wall of blue fire as Mai and Kei-Lo, both non-benders leaned closer to her. Her arm fell, exhausted from labor and lack of sleep.
Zuko ran back in coughing. “Hisoki’s gone.”
FanFiction by zhenyilani 