Spirit World Adventures

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A/N: This is just my version of the spirit world – the whole concept in the cartoons, especially from what I've heard about LoK, leaves a lot of room for interpretation and maneuvering. So I interpreted and maneuvered, and here we are. Loosely related to my one-shot Panda Lilies and Proposals. Will be a collection of one-shots based on Kataang's life after death, so to speak. Consider this an afterlife version of my other one shot collection The Found Adventures.

~A~

"What was the first silly thing that Aang did after you found him in the iceberg?"

Katara sighed, a bare exhalation, and opened her eyes wearily to meet Korra's blue-green ones. She smiled just a little, too weak now to do more as death finally approached, but unable to stop herself from trying as she lost herself in a lifetime's worth of memories of her beloved husband and the father of her children.

"Not even a minute after he woke up he asked me to go penguin sledding with him," she answered after having gathered what little strength she had left to speak. She'd already bid her children and grandchildren goodbye, and now she was doing the same with her final waterbending pupil. "He had the biggest hopeful grin on his face when he blurted it out. I imagine my expression when I heard him looked pretty silly, come to think of it."

Korra blinked, and then a pang went through her as she remembered the first thing she'd said to her master when she'd been introduced to her as a small child. Would you go penguin sledding with me? "I'm so sorry," she began, wincing. "It must have hurt when I said that to you, too. I really don't know why I asked that... I hadn't been thinking about penguin sledding right then or anything."

The old woman's eyes smiled tiredly though warmly at her. "It did, I won't lie. But it gave me hope, too. I kind of always suspected that Aang sort of... prompted you to say that, actually. To make me realize that he was still with me, that he still loved me and that he was waiting for me."

The avatar thought about that for a few moments and then nodded, a small smile lighting her features. "I think you're right. And I'm glad that you were here to teach me and help me so much with all this stuff, though I kind of feel guilty saying that – like I've been keeping you both apart."

A hand unfurled and beckoned her own, and Korra gently held her sifu's fingers. "No. Don't feel guilty," she rasped, growing weaker. "Roku told Aang once that some friendships are so strong that they can last lifetimes. And he was right. I've been friends with the avatar in two lifetimes now. I don't regret that. And I've been proud to call you a friend too, Korra. But now it's time for me to rejoin my husband, and I'm glad to go."

Korra nodded, knowing exactly what she was speaking of. After the whole thing with Vaatu and Raava, she knew... Raava was the avatar spirit, and Korra was her mortal host - this time. One, yet not.

Her eyes began to glow as Katara's strength finally failed, though Korra could feel a difference this time. This wasn't the normal avatar state she went into when all Raava's past hosts flooded the new avatar with their power, but a private goodbye between the avatar spirit and someone who had been a friend and even a protector for so long.

"Goodbye, Katara, my friend, and thank you," Raava said, and the aged waterbender left the mortal realm behind with a soft, "You're welcome and goodbye," in return and a small but contented smile on her face as her eyes fell closed, her fingers falling away from the young woman's and going limp.

Korra's eyes faded back to their normal blue and she smiled through her tears at the look on her sifu's face. She stood up and put her fists together and bowed in a gesture of deep respect.

"Goodbye, Master Katara... my friend," she whispered. "Go in peace."

~A~

When Katara next opened her eyes – what felt like mere seconds later – she blinked, confused. "Did I dream all that?" she wondered aloud, rubbing at her eyes and then peering at what still lay before her with bewilderment.

Until she caught sight of her hands as she dropped them from her face, that was. And then she became even more startled. "Wait, wait, wait." She looked around and then dashed over to the pool of water that had just appeared out of nowhere and that shouldn't even be possible in the frozen realms of the south pole, and crouched down to look at her reflection. Nope, not seeing things. She looked like she was eighteen again... and on top of that she should be freezing right now considering that she was wearing the kind of light summer clothing she'd used to wear when in the Fire Nation.

But she wasn't.

It felt like a warm spring day in the earth kingdom, which should have meant that the ice she was seeing all around her was impossible.

But it wasn't.

That's when it finally occurred to her exactly where she was, and for a moment she sighed in relief – she hadn't lost her mind, she was just in the spirit world, though why it looked like the south pole and felt like a warm spring day she had no idea. She'd never imagined the spirit world like this whenever she'd thought about it, and from the things that Aang had told her of it, wherever he'd been hadn't been like this, either.

The thought brought sudden anxiety to the fore, and she stood up shakily and looked around with some desperation. "Aang?" she called softly, almost afraid to speak any louder and possibly disturb the spirits, though if he didn't appear soon she probably wouldn't care if she disturbed every spirit that called this place home – human or otherwise. "Aang?" she called again, a little louder this time.

She froze just moments later as the one voice she'd never forgotten even just a little caressed her ears for the first time in eighteen years, and gasped at the intensity of the emotions that flooded through her on hearing it, one hand going up to clench in her top just over her heart.

"Would you go penguin sledding with me?"

She shook her head then, a sense of deja vu three times over hitting her hard, and whirled around... to see her beloved monk looking just as young as she did and holding out his hand to her with the large, joyful, goofy grin he'd always had - and that she'd always adored - plastered across his face. He'd always been handsome to her, his features and soft gray eyes that could go from storm-cloud gray to silver in a heartbeat exotic in her eyes, even in the months before he died. He'd aged greatly in his last four years of life, though the only reason that had mattered to her had been because of what it meant, not how he looked. But seeing him again as he'd been when in the bloom of youth, in perfect physical shape and health, just took her breath away.

She reached out and put her other hand in his, her heart jumping as she felt his touch again after so long without. It wasn't until that very moment that she fully realized just how much of herself she'd locked away when he'd died... how much of herself she'd smothered in order to honor his last wishes for her to watch over the next avatar, to train her and help her just as she'd done for him.

"Aang," she choked breathlessly, "Aang." It seemed his name was all she could say as he yanked her into his arms and wrapped himself around her as they fell to the ground, apparently just as overwhelmed by his emotions on finally seeing her again as she was on seeing him. For endless amounts of time they just remained that way, locked together as they fed their need for each others touch without holding back. It was a sharing outside time or space, and as necessary to their souls as air was to the living.

Finally though, they resurfaced, and with a mischievous grin, Aang redressed and looked down at his drowsy and satiated – at least temporarily - wife. "Well, come on, Katara. We've got some sledding to do – and then we're going to go dancing like we did in the Fire Nation that time back during the war. So hurry up!" he exclaimed, excited for the first time since he'd been separated from his girl. The wait had been unbearably hard, but now that was all over and they had literally forever. His grin softened as he watched her redress. "My forever girl," he sighed, his eyes shining.

She blushed, and he chuckled. "Yes, well, I suppose that's literally true now, hm?"

At those words from her he beamed, just so ecstatic that he couldn't contain himself. He grabbed her and kissed her, and then pulled away and tugged her with him, heading for the group of penguins that had just appeared out of nowhere a short distance away – on the ice that they'd just been laying on that hadn't felt cold at all. "It always was true. I knew we'd have forever once we both reached this place. It's my definition of paradise... forever with you."

"Mine too," she whispered, reaching up to finger the betrothal necklace he'd made for her so many years ago, the panda lily carved into its surface just as bright as it had been the day he'd given it to her atop the volcano above Aunt Wu's village. His eyes lit up even brighter as she touched it and she smiled at him before looking around again. "So... anyway, why does the spirit world look like the south pole?"

Letting go her hand to single out two penguins, he shot her a grin over his shoulder. "It's the spirit world. It's whatever we want it to be."

"For everyone?"

At that he sighed and his smile faltered a little. "Not really. For most once-mortal spirits, you just sort of spend your eternity dreaming about whatever you want to. But for the mortal spirits that were once the avatar, things are a little different. I guess because of the sacrifices that every avatar has to make in our time on the mortal plane, the spirits have granted us the ability to sort of... bend this realm to our wills once we pass on, I guess you could say. It's a fair trade – I'd rather have lost time with you on that side for the chance to spend forever with you here. And besides... even dead I still have responsibilities to the mortal world and the new avatar, you know. I can't spend my eternity just dreaming it away."

"Oh... then is that to say that I'm just dreaming this, since I'm only a mortal spirit?" she asked, her heart sinking at the thought.

"No, no," he hastened to assure her. "Once the avatar, remember? I can have pretty much whatever I want here, and what I want is you. So here you are, and I'm never letting you go again." He shook off the somber atmosphere that had fallen between them at her questions and smiled. "Now come on! We've got a lot of things to do!"

Katara sighed and then grinned, shrugging. Aang hadn't changed even a little bit – he was still a hyper, charismatic, fun-loving prankster, and she fell in love with him all over again as she climbed on her penguin and they started off, laughing the whole way. She was positive she was in for a crazy, fun-filled eternity...

And that was just fine with her.