Old Masks
Disclaimer: Avatar the Last Airbender does not belong to me and I make no money from this work of fanfiction at all.
A/N: This is partially a response to some of the whole "reincarnated companion' stories that I've seen posted, and wanted to play with. This story is more or less about what happens when there really isn't a destiny involved, and what would happen if one of the lovers goes unrecognized. Please bear with me.
Pairings: For the moment, Katara/Aang, Sokka/Suki, and Zuko/Mai. Other couples eventually.
Summary: Koh keeps what he takes, unless he doesn't want it. Ummi never gave up, and fought her way back to Avatar Kuruk… and to each Avatar after that. But after all this time, the Face-Stealer has gotten bored.
Chitinous legs drummed through the dark cavern, a light staccato beat that belayed the size of the monstrosity that danced on the edge of shadow, darting in and out, just long enough to give the impression of unending size and amused malice. Eyes sparked at him in the gloom: human, monkey, wolf, spirit, the faces of dozens of his victims flickered in succession, some faces he felt he should know; others alien to him. Aang fancied that half the stink was fear, acrid and sour, and could still hear their screams of torment below the wet slurps and drips and flaps and…
Of whatever was left of them- and he had no idea how much that was. It wasn't like he had ever forgotten the curly tailed blue-nose, from the first time he had met Koh.
Aang shook his head; these were things to focus on after he left the Spirit World. He needed all the focus he could muster right now, and even sympathy could lead him to join the ranks of Koh's collection.
Aang already knew that the monster was toying with him again, even as he forced the muscles of his face to sag, exerting the iron control of a fully realized Avatar to keep the crawlies from getting up and over his neck and the thoughts of what his poor victims must have suffered underneath the surface. He battled within and without, and right now Koh was just one of his opponents.
Especially after what Kuruk had said…
Knowledge was usually his best weapon when it came to dealing with the spirits, but Koh, as far as he knew, was. He was not evil as Aang understood evil. The ancient spirit was part and parcel of darkness, spawned of the deepest human fears of what hid within that blurred middle between shadow and light. And nothing was more frightening than the familiar, especially on a monster.
"It has been some time, Avatar," Koh's voice was nowhere and everywhere in the dim, moldy twilight that needled at skin and eyes and ears and nose and brain with the promise of a thousand nightmares to nip at his sanity.
"Yes, it has." Aang was here for a different reason, this time, but he knew that Koh didn't attack without provocation. Of course, in this case, provocation equated the faintest grimace. Fear of a different sort spurred him to come… fear, and the angry spirit of Avatar Kuruk.
"And what brings you back to my, ah, humble abode?" The hard, brittle legs had stopped circling around, instead deciding that they should head up, and over the ceiling… and to stop, and Aang could sense the weight of the massive bloated body over his head and the threat of it coming down on his skull. "Surely you didn't return just for my lovely countenance and sparkling conversation?"
"You mentioned, once, that you took the face of someone that the Avatar loved," Aang replied, and the effort to stay expressionless lessened, just a bit. "And that person was beloved of Avatar Kuruk."
"Oh, you mean you want to peruse my collection again? I assure you, that you'll have all of time once I've taken this particular incarnation's face.... it's a pity, I had so hoped you would have come back sooner," Koh cooed, his unnerving voice coalescing into a face, and the very one that made bile rise up and threaten to shake his composure as it soured his tongue.
Beautiful as always, she had sable hair and creamy skin, unusual for a woman of the Northern Water Tribe. Pale eyes twinkled merrily, her cheeks flushed with joy at seeing him… and Koh let the face linger, and Aang's stomach continued to twist. Kuruk's rage had thundered within his own blood, but if he was to get answers he couldn't break yet.
"Why have I been seeing her in my meditations, if you have her?" There was no way he could free her from Koh. The ancient monster had a purpose in the balance, even if Aang didn't understand it himself.
"How would I know?" He continued to wear the face, before fading into the black again, before blinking out and turning into a wizened old man. Aang did not know this face- but a blue point angled between wrinkled brows. An Air Nomad. "I only have her face, after all. Once her spirit left, what did I care?"
Aang felt his eyes close, briefly, before exerting his control again. He had nearly gaped in surprise as Koh twisted back into the dark, and away.
"What do you mean, her spirit left?"
"Mostly, I keep what I take. The face, the memories, I peel them away, seeing the squirming, pathetic form that slinks inside the wrappings. The soul I play with, sometimes I devour, and sometimes I let it go… after a little rough handling." Aang managed to keep the shiver off his face, but it snaked into the pit of his stomach and stayed there. "And Ummi was, hmmm, quite diverting. I kept her, at first, to taunt Kuruk with his failure. But that wouldn't have been very fun, now would it? After all, I had her face, the sweet memories of their courtship and love…" The monster lingered on those words, playful, enjoying the effect they had on the Avatar before him, turning away and back again so that he wouldn't see the faint shift on Aang's face.
The next face wore Kyoshi warrior paint, with muddy hazel eyes.
"The silly girl clung to herself, fought me like none one else has in, oh, centuries, before or since. Even with the memories gone, her face lost, she knew she had loved someone and wanted to find that person with such ferocity that I'd never seen before. Shame Kuruk didn't have her spirit," Koh murmured, the young girl's face flickering into-
-no-
That couldn't have been Sozin's face.
The spiteful gold eyes flickered away, again replaced with someone from the Water Tribe, someone who could have been an uncle, cousin, brother to Hakoda. Another Earth Kingdom face replaced it, before twisting around back to Ummi.
"You see, Kuruk was annoying. Couldn't figure out that he couldn't slay me, couldn't understand that, why, he had no choice but failure. And the irony would be too much fun to ignore."
More dread knotted up the muscles in Aang's neck, and he resisted the urge to wet his lips. "You don't have her anymore, do you?"
"No."
There. Aang had what he wanted, knew that Ummi was no longer a prisoner of Koh and he could go to Kuruk and end his nightmares and Kuruk's rage with the truth that the woman he loved was no longer being tormented. He could leave, go back to the real world, and Katara, and happily have nightmares where he did scream instead of this battle with himself and-
"She wanted to go back to the world of the living so badly, I let her. I've not had as much fun in years."
And Aang's breath stabbed in his chest, raw and bleeding, as a puff of air escaped his lips.
Koh ignored him
"Love is powerful, you know. Too bad Kuruk was so in love with her face that he never recognized her when she did go back."
"What do you mean?" His voice shook, showing what his face could not.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," and Ummi's face smiled, showing too many teeth. "I so hoped to see your shock, your outrage, when you found out." And her lips formed a perfect pout at the lack of reaction. "I gave Ummi exactly what she wanted. There is a reason that you don't remember your past from life to life, and a reason why mortal souls do not retain any knowledge of their pasts. They go back to the physical world clean, without the desires and pains of their past lives. You're the only one who can contact and understand your past selves." Koh's voice was mocking, amused. "You're the only one who knows what you have been, but always with a… safe… distance. Ummi is still trying to find you." One of Koh's black legs tapped Ummi's chin in thought.
"She just… came back? Born as herself?"
"Well, not that easily. But, to tell the truth," and here his voice turned sweetly cruel. "She has found you. Found Kuruk, Kyoshi, Roku… and you. Over and over again, and each time she has been rejected. Poor child," he sighed. "She has to take what she no longer has. A face, a name, a body. And of course, she no longer knows that it was Kuruk that she loved, since those memories I have. Just the Avatar."
Aang fought off more nausea roiling through his belly. "You mean I know her?"
"Of course! Why wouldn't you? Though she was born a few times when you were frozen. Poor child spent her entire existence looking for you, knowing and believing it was her destiny, and you were nowhere to be found… And each, and every time… she comes back to me." Koh lurched away, before Aang felt lips brushing against his ear.
"And my collection grows."
He was starting to crack, his lips drawing back from his teeth where Koh couldn't see just yet, eyes widening. Aang knew that Koh sensed victory. There was only one question left to be asked… and that was the one that would probably break him.
He opened his mouth-
And felt Koh smile.
"No!"
He jolted, his spirit rocking the container of his body as Aang came back to himself, not willingly, but thrown, forced out of the Spirit World, just as he had felt his fragile control start to fracture.
Inside he reeled, senses coming back to him one at a time as his body and soul realigned. Warm winds edged with cold that never touched the fragrant grass of the Spirit Oasis buffered his skin, the ever-present scent of snow and salt and the faintest hint of flowers that sprung up only within this icy grotto filled his nose, and he felt the heavy cloth of his robes dragging him down, almost too heavy after being a spirit for so long.
Sounds came slowly, but the tinny ringing twisted louder, and softer, finally resolving itself into male and female voices.
"Aang? Aang! Are you all right? Did you-"
Then he remembered to open his eyes, seeing Katara and Sokka on either side of him, faces furrowed with worry.
"Hey, buddy, are you okay? I mean, you really scared us for a minute!" the tenor settled itself, but Aang really didn't hear him.
"That- he-" Aang sputtered, his fingers clawing at the grass, not paying attention to the two Water Tribe siblings with him, or their obvious concern. "He-"
"Hey, Aang, answer us! Are you okay? Really, man, talk to us-"
"Aang-"
"That- that monster- what he did to her," Aang muttered, not noticing Sokka and Katara, or the concerned look they threw at each other. "I- I have to tell Kuruk- can I tell Kuruk? And if I know her where is she and that- that monster threw me out!" Aang surged to his knees. "I didn't get to ask, dammit!" He didn't even notice the curses. "I didn't get to ask!"
"Didn't get to ask what?"
Aang looked at Katara, and the question sprung out, grabbing her shoulders and into his arms. "Is she you? Katara, is she you? He didn't give me the chance to ask, that- that- monster! I don't know who she is!"
"Whoa, whoa, hang in there, back it up. Aang, calm down. What happened?" Sokka's voice cut through Aang's outrage and panic. "You have a freaky meditation with some of that Guru's 'special juice,' you said, and then you decide you have to come here for a Spirit World journey, drag us into it, your breathing stops, and then you come back here yelling that someone is a monster! You didn't even tell us why you had to do this! So will you calm down and finally explain what is going on?" The older man got to his feet, fists clenched as they flailed through the air, his own worry etched on his face.
Aang took a moment, eyes wide with grief as he pulled his girlfriend even closer, pressing his lips to her thick hair as his body convulsed. For her part, Katara didn't object, her breath shaky as she wrapped her own arms around Aang, on her knees with her head against his chest as he tried to curl around her like a cocoon.
The scream that Aang had fought so hard to keep in was swallowed, even as he made his chest and belly ache.
"Koh, the Face Stealer. He's an old spirit, nearly as old as they are," Aang swallowed, before nodding to the two koi fish as they continued their eternal dance within the unnaturally warm pond. His shaking eased, outrage soothing into relief that he had Katara with him, that she was safe, even if he didn't really know… She was safe.
She was not going to be taken away from him like Ummi.
"Yeah, and?" Sokka scratched at his goatee, one eyebrow lifted. "That's not telling us much." Aang could see him biting back his obvious impatience, and the Avatar clenched his fists around wads of Katara's dress. He could feel her breathing against his chest, and he let go to rub her back, more for his own benefit than for hers.
"Koh is the Face Stealer. Back then, during the Siege and I was in the Spirit World, Roku told me to go talk to him so I could find Tui and La." He almost repressed his grimace on instinct at the thought of the hideous beast and his games. "He's might even be older than the Lion Turtle, and I know he's older than the Avatar." The familiar surroundings of the Oasis faded from his mind's eyes, back to that dark, slimy grotto and the disgusting joy Koh found in taunting him. "He- Avatar Kuruk, I mean- told me that Koh stole his wife Ummi away, on their wedding day."
"Avatar Kuruk? The last Avatar from the Water Tribes?" Katara murmured, finally sitting up and away to look him in the face. Aang stared at her blue eyes- her face was so different from Ummi's- and nodded.
"He said that he wasn't a really, well, involved Avatar. He let people work out their own problems and," he could remember that conversation, and shook his head at the memory, "liked to show off a lot. Koh decided to punish him for it."
Katara's eyes had gone wide, covering her mouth with her hands, before they dropped to clench into fists on her lap. "That… that," she shook her head, pressing her lips together until they whitened. "That jerk." She groped for a stronger word as her lips trembled. "He- he could have just punished Kuruk, but no, he had to go and involve some innocent girl and-"
"And that's not the worst of it," Aang murmured, finally turning his gaze away. "No where near the worst of it…"
He could feel the gaze of the Water Tribe siblings as they stared at him, and Aang took a deep breath.
"I've got to find her. I don't know what Koh's playing at, but he said he let her go. And she returned to the real world. And has been born, over and over again, looking for me. That she thinks it is her destiny to find me." He looked at Katara, and bit his lip. "He threw me out before I could ask who she is- he only said that I probably knew her." His heart rate slowed, calm starting descend after leaving the nightmare of Koh's little cave, and inhaled. "He let it slip that he was amused. If I had stayed…"
"This game would have ended too quickly," Sokka finished, his lips spread in a frown. "And he wouldn't have gotten to torture you, or Ummi, any longer."
"Besides, he wanted a child in his collection, and I'm not anymore." Aang found himself smiling without humor. "So that game is over. He wants a new one."
"And you were afraid he meant me." Katara had been mostly silent, but her interruption made Aang shiver. "But, Aang, we have no way of knowing that. We have no way of knowing who Ummi is right now. He only said that you knew her. You've known a lot of people."
Aang slumped, exhaling into the warm, humid air. "Yeah."
"So… that means we've got to play his game for right now. All we know is that she feels she has to find you in every life." Sokka tugged on his ear in thought, turning towards the door of the Oasis. "But you can ask your past selves about it, right? I don't know if that will help us now, but that might helps us understand exactly what is going on."
Katara and Aang got up to follow him, and Aang just shuddered. Speaking with Avatar Kuruk, especially considering the fate of Ummi, was not something he relished.
To be continued.