"I love you, Korra."

"I-I can't."

"Korra!"

The Avatar, stripped of her dignity and three of the four elements, ran to Naga and swung herself onto his back. The polar bear dog lumbered forward, taking Korra away from Mako, Tenzin, and everyone that cared about her.

She'd let them down. Amon got away, she couldn't bend the four elements, and it was only dumb luck that she'd even managed to come up with air bending at the last possible moment, fending off Amon. Naga made it as far as the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean before she dismounted, walking up to the edge before tears started to spill out. She collapsed to her knees, coming to terms with her fate, when the swish of familiar robes caught her eye.

"Not now Tenzin. I wanna' be left alone."

"But you called me here," came the reply, not quite mirthful, but far from melancholy. Korra whipped her head around, eyes wide, as she realized just who spoke to her.

"Aang," she rasped out, eyes wide with barely concealed hope.

"You have finally connected with your spiritual self," he continued, sun peeking out behind dark storm clouds behind the airbender.

"How?"

Aang never let the peaceful look slip from his face. He wasn't there to scold the new Avatar, and he certainly wasn't about to let his successor drown in her own misery.

"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change."

To accentuate his point, and the surreality of his appearance, Korra's past lives fanned out behind him, showing her vast history.

He touched a finger to her head and another to her chest. Relief flooded inside her as she realized that he was bailing her out of everything that was wrong. She fought to keep the smile off her face, but immediately broke out in a sharp frown when, instead of the welcome feeling of her bending abilities returning, she saw Aang start to fade from sight, along with the past Avatars.

"Wait, weren't you going to give me my bending back?" She asked of the famous energybender, who was surprisingly even-tempered, given the accusatory tone and pointed finger. As he fully faded from her sight, his voice echoed out for only her ears.

"You have to discover yourself to truly open up those pathways, Korra. You must earn your place as the Avatar."

The implications hung heavy. Before she could so much as open her mouth to tell him what, exactly, she thought of that, her world spun out of control, and she vanished the same way Aang did.

Hours later, Tenzin would go looking for her when Naga returned without the Avatar, and as night fell, he managed to reach the cliff, Korra's footprints reaching the edge without any further trace of a trail.

Tenzin paced madly back and forth inside one of the many tents in the encampment. With Korra gone, people were beginning to turn to him for guidance. The White Lotus had stationed sentries outside of his family's temporary dwelling, hoping to stem the tide of frightened civilians. Suddenly, a guard was flung into the tent, followed closely by a large white ball of fur.

"NAGA!" Meelo pounced on the polarbear dog, quickly followed by Ikki. Jinora took a more reserved approach in embracing the beast.

"Naga," started Tenzin, "Where on earth is Korra?"

Pemma shot him an inquisitive look as he reddened, realizing that the polarbear dog could not, in fact, tell him the location of the avatar. He quickly strode out of the tent, shouting over his shoulder that he would be back by sundown.

After following Naga's tracks for miles, Tenzin was finally brought to the edge of the cliff where Korra had vanished. He bit back a gasp and forced himself to avoid fearing the worst. His own father had, notably, on the eve of his greatest crisis, vanished to speak with the Lion Turtle; he could only hope that a great spirit was taking care of Korra, and that she was in good hands. Wrapping his cloak closer to his body, he headed back to his family with a heavy heart.

After an indeterminate period of time, Korra regained consciousness and peeled herself off of the sand, damp from incoming waves. She dragged herself to her feet, and forced back another round of sobs as she realized that she couldn't waterbend the moisture out of her clothes. The first thing she noticed was that she wasn't cold. In fact, in her soaked tunic, she felt uncomfortably warm. She looked warily at her surroundings, knowing that the polar water was a million times more likely to give her hypothermia than to make her regret wearing her coat. Sliding the wet fabric down her arms and off of her torso, she let out a sigh of relief as the added weight of damp cloth was relieved.

When she finally took stock of where she was, however, she yelped in fear. There were palm trees, dunes, huts, waves, rocks- she stopped her frantic mind and breathed in deep. The last thing she remembered, Aang had given her a cryptic message about getting her bending back.

"Where am I?" she mused, breathing shallow and fast, despite her efforts to keep calm. She felt the onset of a panic attack.

"Ember Island. Or, at least, some version of it," came his clipped reply. She spun her head around to the direction of the voice, and what she saw surprised her. He was around her age, with thick brown hair styled in a ponytail that reminded her of her own. He was tan, and wore pants and shoes reminiscent of out of fashion Water Tribe clothes. He had a shirt on, but it looked to be made of mesh rather than anything she'd seen in the South. Based on his bearing and familiarity with the area, she assumed that he'd been here at least a little longer than her, but his clothing made her think that he, like she herself, hadn't been prepared for a trip to the beach.

"Why are you here?" He glowered, eyes narrowing. Korra couldn't help but think she'd seen that look before.

"It's polite to introduce yourself before you start interrogating me, you know," she bit back, hoping that tough words would make her feel less panicked and vulnerable than she did now. All of this did little to assuage her panic, however, when he spoke back.

"My name is Noatak."

Her eyes shot wide and she struggled to stay on her feet. She stumbled backwards, ending up on her rear, and crab-crawled farther back than that.

"N-No," she pleaded, tears coming back to her eyes. He was here to finish her off. This was the end.

"You just said it was polite to introduce yourself, and I've yet to get your name," he said, seeming to ignore her distancing herself from him, but raising an eyebrow in marked interest.

"You're-you're," she stammered, unable to even form words. He looked utterly disinterested in her, and it was only then that she really looked at him. He was young, far younger than she'd ever known him. He looked as young as her, even. She stood up, trying to compose herself enough to answer him. He hadn't killed her yet, at least.

"My name is Korra," she replied, eyes narrowing in distrust, seeing if her name sparked him into action.

He showed no more recognition than he had when he saw her face on washing up on the beach. He wasn't, at least as far as she could tell, going to kill her. He didn't even seem to know who she was.

"That's a water tribe name," he mused, "and your clothes seem vaguely similar to Water Tribe garb."

She snorted, despite herself.

"Please, my clothes aren't just similar to Water Tribe clothes, they are Water Tribe clothes. Your clothes make you look like you got dragged out of a few decades ago."

Only as she finished her thought did she realize exactly what she'd said. What it meant.

"How did you get here?" She asked, morbidly curious of his answer. It had to be a joke. There was no way this could actually be happening as she thought it was.

"I was running in a blizzard and lost consciousness. I washed up here on the shore some time ago."

"How long ago?" She managed to say, her voice trembling with barely contained effort. This was impossible, after all, and she had to reconcile that with the fact that she was living the impossible.

"Hard to say. Time seems to drag on here, and they either won't or can't tell me how long it's been."

She gave him a good look-over, and saw the man he would someday become. Here he was, in the flesh, seemingly without any knowledge of his actions in Republic City. He had some of the same bitterness in his eyes, but without the true malice that years of hate had built up in him; he didn't just look younger, he really was younger.

She started to panic again, spinning herself to look out into the open ocean. She wasn't an expert on Fire Nation geography, but she knew that Ember Island was part of an island chain that made up the Fire Nation. There should have been, at least somewhere on the horizon, evidence of another island, or a ship, or anything marking her location relative to the rest of reality.

"There's nothing out there," he seemed to read her mind, his voice dropping in volume, as if he was speaking conspiratorially.

She turned to face him again, and, already fearing the worst, asked him, "You said a second ago that 'they' won't tell you how long it's been. Who are 'they'?"

At first he looked down at the ground in what she assumed was a mixture of fear and shame. Whoever these people were, they had the man who would come to be known as Amon in a tizzy.

She realized her assumption was wrong as he rose his eyes to meet hers, and she got a good look at the displeasure in his gaze. What she thought was fear was really just strong aversion.

"Two of the most infuriating men you will ever, in all your days, meet."

He rose from his place on a rock and walked back over a dune. Taking that as her cue to follow him, she steeled her resolve and jogged after her arch-nemesis. Seeing a small group of huts clustered just past another dune, she reached him and matched his pace, trying to muster up enough courage to speak.

"Where are we going?" She finally managed, almost as they reached the door of a hut.

"Isn't that obvious?" He replied, crossing through the threshold, leaving her outside in the sun. She stood dumbstruck for a minute or two more before following him into what she assumed was his home, and saw him inside, putting a teapot on the stove.

"You drink tea?" She asked, incredulous. Who in their right mind would've thought Amon to eat and drink like any other human being?

He snorted. "It's practically all there is to drink here."

With that comment they lapsed into an uneasy silence. She couldn't think of anything else to say, really, and it was only when the kettle started to steam that he moved from his place staring into space.

Setting two cups at the small table in the center of the hut, he poured into each and gestured for her to sit. When she recovered from her shock, she did so, and brought the cup to her lips. It wasn't bad, she noted, but whether the taste was from the ingredients themselves or the preparation, she had no idea.

"You're probably going to be stuck here for a while," he murmured, almost too quietly for her to hear.

"I have to get back home," she said. Her eyes tightened with resolve.

"I have much better things to do than sit here all day drinking tea, believe me," he asserted, almost as if to convince himself. She held back comments about his personal history, feeling like she knew him better than he knew himself. He only had inklings of what he would become, no way of knowing the atrocities he would commit.

"I'm sure you do," she agreed, barely contained malice. For the first time, she contemplated killing him, when they were alone, when she had the chance to do so. Maybe that was what Aang meant? If she killed him here, would there even be an Amon in the future? Tarrlok had said that he and his father thought Noatak died in a blizzard. Would it be so bad if he died here, on an island, shortly after he disappeared from the north?

She calmed her own murderous impulses; Aang was nothing if not a pacifist, and the notion that he would send her on a murder mission seemed ridiculous, when she actually thought about it. She would have to pass whatever test he had laid out for her before she got her bending back, and Noatak's words about remaining on the island started to make her panic. How long would it take to relearn three of the four elements? Aang had done it in a year under extreme duress, but the thought of spending that long away from her family, her friends, and her boyfriend was disheartening.

'Mako'.

Even thinking his name made her sick. She'd run out on him, after he'd poured out his heart to her. Would he want her back? Did she want to go back? Would a year away from him change either of their feelings for the other?

'I'm not going to stay away for a year,' she resolved, already planning her great escape. Surely Aang would understand; who would want to stay away from all they'd ever known for that long? Without proper teachers, it could be a lifetime before she had her old mastery back.

"You've been staring into space for a while," Noatak observed, feigning disinterest. However long he'd been here, she realized, it must have felt even longer without company. The mysterious figures he alluded to earlier seemed to make poor company, if he chose to live by himself out in a hut. She wondered how long it really was that he was stuck here, even if he himself seemed to have given up on keeping track. She looked on his face for fine lines around his eyes and on his forehead, any hints of the man he would become. When she found none, she was launched back out of her own thoughts by her companion's not-so-subtle coughs.

"Ahem."

She blushed, despite herself. Had she just spaced out on him again? Clearing her throat, she murmured out weak apologies.

"Thank you for the tea, it was quite good," she praised, and he gave a muted 'hn' in reply.

"They taught me how to make it like this," he revealed, "but I haven't quite gotten it right yet."

Already sick of the ambiguity, she narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she asked, "Just who are 'they'? Really. Names, faces, anything."

He shrugged, which caused her to narrow her eyes further into angry slits. He was being about as uncooperative as was possible, she reckoned.

"Do you not know?" She seethed, voice heavy with doubt. When he nodded to the affirmative, she felt the fury slip away, replaced with confusion.

"How could you not know? Have you not asked them their names?"

He snorted, and she felt as if she was being mocked. Knowing him, she probably was.

"As if that wasn't the first thing I tried," he admitted, eyes downcast again. She realized that he was worried, too, in his own way.

"Did you try, uh, beating them up?" She asked, beating her hand into her first for emphasis. She didn't want to let on that she knew too much, but even at this age she knew he would be a very powerful waterbender, and a bloodbender to boot. Who were these people?

"My bending doesn't seem to work properly on them," he confessed, and she realized that he had yet to reveal to her that he was a bloodbender. She wasn't sure how much longer she could go on pretending she didn't know.

"What kind of bender are you?" She asked, and he gestured down to his clothes in answer. She nodded, not sure how to proceed.

"Are you any good?" She continued, probing for more information, or any hint that she could jump on.

"I'm alright at it," he lied, but his face was neutral, and he didn't let on that he was any better than an average bender. She supposed that, for the time being, that would have to suffice.

"Are you a bender?" He asked, expecting her affirmation.

"Yes. I'm an airbender," She said, regretting that, at the moment, that really was all she could do.

Noatak raised an eyebrow. "Wearing those clothes?" This time, his eyes narrowed. She nodded, opting to be as cryptic as he had been.

"Airbenders are rather rare, these days," he added. Korra gasped. Her connection to the former Avatar would be revealed. In his youth, his father had ordered him to hunt after the Avatar, and he knew that to be Aang. The only airbender he knew of was Aang, and maybe Tenzin, and that meant he would assume she was connected to the two of them somehow.

"The clothes are in style in Republic City," she lied, and he merely nodded his head. Despite her tanned skin and clothing, he had no reason to doubt her, at least if she proved her claim to be true. Generating a small ball of whirling air in her hand, she held it up for his inspection before dissipating it in a swirl of winds.

"So you are," he allowed, and they lapsed again into silence. She finished her cup of tea with a series of small sips, and rose from the table.

"I'm going to have a look around," she informed him, and started to step for the door. Without so much as a nod, he watched her leave, finishing his own cup. As Korra almost reached the door, it swung in, nearly hitting her in the face. She nearly fell over in shock, steadying herself on the table after staggering back a few steps. Before she looked back to the door, she caught Noatak's steely gaze directed at the figure at the door. He hissed his displeasure, and she felt frozen solid, caught between Amon's angry eyes and whatever was likely giving the young man the same cross look from the door.

When she heard deep, mirthful laughter instead, she nearly hurt her neck whipping it around so fast. In the doorframe was a portly old man with deep laugh lines and creases in his brow, but with one of the kindest smiles she could ever recall seeing. The Avatar couldn't help but feel that she should know who this man was, that she did know who this man was, but when she tried to tap into any of Aang's memories, all she got was a very strong mental block.

"Do I," she paused, not sure how to advance, "know you?"

The man let out another resonating laugh, but did not respond to her question. Unpacking a small bag he carried with him, he went to work stocking Noatak's cabinets with various tea tins and food supplies. Taking out what she assumed were the old, empty containers, he repacked his bag silently. Despite his easy demeanor, there was a great tension in the room, and she couldn't help but feel that she, along with Noatak, needed answers out of this man and any companions he had with him.

"Who are you?" She shouted, finally losing her temper as he seemed ready to leave the hut without saying a word. She was in a combat stance, ready to pounce, even as the old man merely put his hands up in mock surrender.

"You remind me of my nephew," he said, rubbing his beard in remembrance. Korra tensed her legs, sick of the old man's refusal to help her, but before she could leap, she felt a strong hand on her shoulder.

"It's not worth it," Noatak admitted, unable to meet her eyes. It was then that she realized that, whoever this guy was, even the most powerful bender she'd ever met couldn't stop him. Did she, with only her airbending, have any chance to do what he couldn't?

She relaxed her body, and the old man looked on her with pity.

"Truly, it pains me to see you straying so far from your path," he revealed, his baritone echoing softly in the hut.

Korra's eyes widened at his sympathetic comments.

"You seem to know more than you let on. You could help me find whatever path it is I have to be looking for," she reasoned, thinking of marked similarities between this man and Tenzin, when he spoke to her in such a way that made her pick through the words for his meaning.

"I can merely guide you," he confessed, door in hand, "You must find the path on your own."

He closed the door behind him, and she was left once again in the hut alone with Noatak.

"Just like I said earlier," the boy mumbled, "utterly infuriating." He glared daggers at the door, as if he could will pain on the man who had just left.

"He seems nice enough," she allowed, but didn't disagree with his sentiment about the man. He was, at the very least, well mannered and sagely, even if he wouldn't just tell her what she wanted to know. Was this what Aang had intended her to do? Live with her arch-enemy and a bunch of old men who spoke in riddles? She worried about just how bad the second of these two mystery men really was.

As if reading her mind, Noatak said, "the second one is arguably even worse than him."

If Korra didn't know better, she would've said Noatak was pouting.

"Don't seem so glum about it. At least he doesn't seem dangerous," she said, attempting to find a bright side to the entire affair.

Noatak's face went slack at her words. "Don't, in any way, think that they aren't dangerous. The two of them are incredible benders, and I'm not too sure they're really as sane as their apparent kindness would make you think."

Korra stifled a barking laugh. Never did she think she would hear Amon call anyone else, let alone a kindly old man, insane.

'To be fair, I never thought I'd be sharing tea with him either,' she realized, seeing once again how human Noatak really was.

"Where is the second of these two guys?" She queried, looking to at least get acquainted with him. She hadn't seen or heard anyone else since arriving on the island, even though she recalled it was a vacation hotspot for the wealthier people of the fire nation. It seemed like the whole island had been abandoned. In fact, she hadn't seen any animals, either, when she really thought about it. No seagull-rats overhead, or star-hermitcrabs scuttling around on the beach. It seemed like she, Noatak, that old man, and a fourth figure were the only life on the island.

"The man you just met lives in a large house towards the center of the island. Naturally, I situated myself as far away from him as I could," Noatak explained, revealing that his exile to a hut was self-imposed rather than mandated. She nodded along with his words, starting to get some sense of life on this island.

"I can only assume that the other man lives in the mansion as well, or in some adjacent area. I see much less of him. The only contact I really have with them is when one brings me supplies or they come down to pester me."

"Do they come down to give you supplies often?" She asked, in genuine interest. She would have never taken Amon as the type to be pampered and delivered food and necessary supplies.

"There is nothing to hunt on this island. The only food I can find is what they bring me, so I am in that way dependent on them for survival," he explained, and said nothing more on the matter.

Korra spent the remaining hour or so in the day thinking, trying to figure out just what was going to become of her. Noatak did largely the same, shading more towards how this new arrival would change life on the island. They sat in silence until the sun started to set, casting long shadows across the inside of the hut. A knock at the door made both occupants shoot upright, and Noatak grunted out a guff, "what do you want?" as the door swung open.

Just behind the man she'd seen earlier in the day, Korra spotted another silhouette, slightly misshapen, and limping along. If the man she'd seen before was old, this new arrival was absolutely ancient. His beard was wild and unkempt, and his hair was largely the same, both jutting away from his face in shocks of white. One of his eyes was glassy and clear, as if he were blind on that side, and his posture made her think he had a hunchback. She gulped quietly. He seemed like a monster, compared to the genial grandfather the first man was. When he caught her eye, both of his bushy eyebrows shot up his face, and he broke out in a toothy grin, a few teeth short of a full set.

The Avatar felt herself sweat even in the chillier night air. He looked deranged, and she feared for her safety. She looked to the door, the only exit, blocked by the first of the two old men, and as the second stalked closer to her, she raised her hands to shield her from his assault.

When she felt a palm clap down hard on her head, she opened her eyes and moved her hands to get a better look at the geezer. His grin hadn't faltered in the slightest, and he was starting to buckle with snorting laughter.

"You look good for an old man, Aang!" He chortled, slapping his knee at his strange attempt at humor. The man strutted away from the startled Korra, and the incredulous Noatak.

"What did he just call you?" The waterbender asked, probably overwhelmed by the sheer amount of questions that one comment had just raised. Korra was just as confused. Clearly they knew she was the Avatar, but why had they called her Aang? Were these men old members of Aang's gang?

"That and more will be answered in time," the gold-eyed man replied, as he led his companion out of the hut. With them, Korra feared, would go her chance at answers. She wracked her brain for any clue as to who they were. The younger of the two had golden eyes reminiscent of the Fire Nation aristocracy, but without a scar on his face, she knew he couldn't be Zuko. She knew even less about the other man, as his strange robes would have placed him as an Earth Kingdom monarch, but he wasn't any more familiar to her than the first. Any attempt to get into Aang's memories were blocked, until even Katara's face started to blur.

"We will have much to discuss, Avatar," he said, holding the door open for her to pass through. Frozen there in place, she felt completely helpless. Turning to Noatak for backup, she saw his face twisted in rage. It was then that she realized what, exactly, had been said.

"You're the Avatar?" He seethed, caring less about the actual believability of that statement as far as his own timeline was concerned, and more about the idea that he'd harbored his father's greatest enemy under his roof. He had his falling out with Yakone, but years of anti-Avatar sentiments had left him bitter toward the World Spirit. He bared his teeth in a wicked snarl.

"Get out of here," he ordered, sweeping his arm towards the door. Struck dumb, Korra obeyed his wishes, taking the lead the two mystery men had set. Once outside the hut, she turned to the gold-eyed old man, and asked, "where do I go now?"

"You may live with us, if you so desire," the younger replied, but Korra shook her head to express her distaste for the idea. Honestly, she trusted them about as much as she trusted Noatak, and she knew who he would become, and what he would do to her.

"I'll live in one of these huts," she decided, gesturing to the others among the cluster where Noatak made his home.

"We'll discuss this more after you've rested," he said, as the two started walking away. Glumly, Korra walked over to the hut farthest away from Noatak's, and realized just how tired she really was. As soon as she got inside, she collapsed onto the small bed.

Meanwhile, the two older men conversed in hushed tones on their hike.

"You may have said too much," Iroh chastised, but without sternness. If anything, there was a sparkling in his eyes.

"I simply wanted to greet an old friend properly," Bumi retorted, his smirk making Iroh chuckle.

"Surely, with your advanced age, you could show a little more restraint?" The firebender teased, but soon after a small slab of earth sprung forward and hit him in the rump. He looked up to the giggling Bumi with a withering glare.

"Now just who are you calling old, you old coot?" The earthbender asked. They looked at each other and laughed, their figures fading off into the night.