Demons
Tenth Year of the Dawn Empire
Aang stands alone. The spirit world shifts and pulses around him. A living thing. Nausea stirs in his stomach. The air wavers, thick and yellow-tinged. A demon rears before him. Spider legs. The body of a woman.
"Widow." Aang's voice echoes, distorts.
She giggles, the noise building and echoing in a manic cacophony. "Avatar! I have a surprise for you!" Her face changes, her pale skin darkens to golden brown. Long, black hair tumbles down her back.
Aang's nails bite into his palms, he feels the warm stickiness of blood. He knows that the demons here will be able to smell it. Will be drawn to it.
"You have no right." He fights to keep his voice calm.
The Widow Demon giggles again. "Not yet…"
"Never."
"The world is out of balance, Avatar. We sense it. We thrive on it…. The Air Nomads have been massacred. The Divinity is lost. The fire may be out, but the embers remain. The scent of smoke lingers."
"Don't speak in riddles."
"The Fire Lord may have washed the blood from his hands but the wound festers. A glorious time is upon us. A rich, bloody, dark era. It's a decade since you reduced Ozai, Avatar. You are a child no longer. But knowledge has been lost. The knowledge that could save the world."
"Tell me."
"I have a price." The Widow begins to weave a web. The strands glisten dark red. Aang averts his eyes. The patterns whirl and contort. Look too deeply and be ensnared.
"What?"
The Widow Demon's web surrounds him. She scuttles upwards, hangs above him. Aang looks up, and it is Katara's face he sees. Her hair tickles his face, silky, familiar. It surrounds him, blocks his view of the shifting, dangerous world.
"A kiss. Just a kiss."
Katara's eyes are the blue of the ocean, the blue of the sky. He hasn't touched her for so long. Her lips, her skin. He caresses her face. Cradles her cheek. Warm. Soft.
He presses his lips against hers. He feels her arms around him, breathes in her scent. He lets himself be lost in her. He inhales deeply, knots his fingers in her hair. A sharp, coppery scent makes him hesitate. She doesn't smell like saltwater and rainstorms. He doesn't feel her pulse, strong as the tides of the ocean. A creeping horror fills him when he realises that more than one pair of hands caresses his back. He jerks away. The Widow Demon clings to him with eight arms.
"Staay" she hisses. "Staay. I am sooo much better than her. Than all that's left of her… She's cold, isn't she… Freezing… You can't even touch her. For three years you haven't touched her. You've surrounded her in a cocoon of ice. You've frozen the blood in her veins. But it was cold anyway. She's gone. You were too late. You can't get her back… No matter how much you try, there's no way to revive the dead."
"No!"
"She's dead, Avatar. You know it, even your son knows it. Do you remember the night it happened? Of course you do. You remember Kae screaming. He was still a baby, wasn't he? You remember rushing in the door, the moonlight bleaching the colour from everything. You thought; something's wrong, something's terribly, terribly wrong. The door was hanging open, the house was freezing. Appa was howling outside. There was a layer of ice, everywhere. You held you hand up, called fire to it. The frozen water sent back thousands upon thousands of reflections. You called out her name. There was no reply. You ran to the nursery. Katara had fought, of course she had. There was a shield of frost over the door, you burst through. She lay on the floor. So still, so white, she looked like a statue. Kae was in his crib, crying, surrounded by a shell of ice. Katara had protected him. Katara hadn't protected herself. Not enough, anyway. The blood looked black in the moonlight-"
"Stop!"
"Why? This body belongs to me now. The bodies of all murdered women and children belong to me… Who knows, maybe my next acquisition will be little Kae's…" Aang sees a small shape appear on the web. Black, curly hair, his mother's eyes, bright blue, terrified. He is trussed up like a fly, sticky strands block his mouth. He's just a baby, five years old-
"No!" He jumps towards him, Aang's hands pass right through his skin. He disappears, dissolves into the darkness.
"Don't worry, Avatar. Your son's safe. For now. He's with his uncle. He's the only one who can make him laugh anymore."
"Please. Tell me how I can fix this."
"Ying and Yang. Moon, sun. Night, day. Male, female. Fire, water. Earth, air. Avatar… Divinity. "
"What do you mean?"
"Balance, Avatar. The world is falling, spinning out of balance, and so are you. Life and death are different. You are seeking to make them the same. You are the Avatar. The manifestation of the four elements, the physical, the natural. But your other half is missing. You are the light, but where is the dark? The myths of the Divinity have faded. Half of the world is gone."
"What's the Divinity?"
"What's the Avatar? What is day, what is night? Without one, the other cannot exist."
"I don't understand!"
"Your counterpart. Your opposite. A nightmare. Madness. The supernatural. Us. My creator. The Divinity has been lost. Hidden. Stolen. Lost as you were lost. Found, but then taken. A past reincarnation hides the newest. Deception."
"I need to find the Divinity?"
"The Divinity is everything you aren't. The Divinity goes against nature. The Divinity is a Soul Bender."
"What do I need to do to bring the world to balance? To bring Katara back?"
"Those are two different things, two different questions. The Divinity is chaos, blood, lust. The Divinity defies nature, life, death. What will you sacrifice to save Katara? The Divinity can bring her back. For a cost."
"Please…"
The Widow laughs shrilly. It sounds like she is screaming. Her web begins to burn. "Goodbye, Aang." She speaks in Katara's voice. She disappears.
Smoke hangs, heavy and bitter in the air. It whips away into nothingness. The Spirit World dissolves around him.
Aang comes back into his body. He is cold.
He is seated cross legged before a marble altar. Blue fire burns in the lamps, in the thousands of candles lining the walls. The light reflects, refracts. It casts thousands of rainbows over the walls. Aang stands, stiffly, and leans against the white marble. He traces a hand over the ice. Katara's beloved face is just out of reach. Her eyes are closed, her hands crossed neatly over her heart. Tiny white flowers glow in her dark hair. She looks like a doll, immaculate, porcelain. Untouchable.
The ice protects, preserves. She looks as though she is sleeping.
He presses his lips against the ice. It burns.
"I'll save you. I won't give up. Ever. I promise."
He walks away. As he leaves, a whirlwind begins to howl around the ice in a perfect sphere. Blue lighting creates another orb of protection, lacy, glowing electric blue. He closes the door of the tomb behind him and uses earth to ensure the marble is locked tight, impenetrable.
"Whatever the price".