Nikko lay on his back in the open grass plains he spend his days in, his hands tucked under his head and his friend's head beside his, though her body was laid down in the opposite direction. "You know what I don't understand?" the sixteen-year-old asked rhetorically.

Ryah's eyes inspected the clouds. "What don't you understand?" she queried in distraction, the clouds in the sky forming shapes in her mind that reminded her of a long forgotten dream. She had been eleven, before she'd met Nikko. She'd been alone in the dark, the huge dragons Ran and Shao circling her, whispering to her. She couldn't remember what they'd said, but she knew they had told her she needed to talk to someone important.

"How I'm a nomad, literally, like the Airbenders, but I'm an earthbender. They're opposites. I don't see how I can grasp the idea of Zen with the stubbornness earthbenders have historically employed. I mean, I can be a little hardheaded myself, but I'm a pretty open-minded guy. Aren't I?" he frowned thoughtfully.

"You're extremely open-minded, Nikko. Look at me; I'm a firebender, and my best friend is from the earth kingdom. That's pretty contrary to common knowledge too." She pointed out intelligently.

Nikko continued to stare into the sky, lying back on the grassy hills they lounged on most of the time. Ryah hadn't told anyone about Nikko, and Nikko hadn't exposed himself to the sun-tribe. Things just worked better that way. "You make a good point." He acknowledged.

"Yup." Ryah sighed, watching the clouds against the bright blue sky. "Hey, have you any idea how big a coincidence it is that we came together with our markings and our understanding of Zen, in the middle of a forest simply because I was dumb enough to try to take on a wolflion?"

"It wasn't a coincidence. My parents used to say my destiny was among those of the Avatars', because of my marks, and the fact that I learnt my earthbending from the badgermoles on my parents' plantation. It was a bunch of idiotic ramblings that they'd taken from some crazy fortuneteller, but maybe the spirits really are following me to some degree; I mean, I survived in the forest on my own, I learnt earthbending on my own, I built a tree house despite that I'd never done any carpentry before … and somehow, fate brought us to the same place at the same time." He rambled on thoughtfully, making points that Ryah agreed with continuously.

"I learnt my bending from Mizu. I couldn't grasp my teachers' forms until I did my coming of age ceremony with Ran and Shao. I did it when I was eight, even though I was supposed to do it when I was twelve, because my dad wanted me to bend. It was a long shot, but it worked. They gave me Mizu as an egg for my tenth birthday, and it took me three years to master my bending. Most firebenders take more than a decade to reach mastery."

"Stop fanning your own flame." Nikko scoffed, rolling his eyes with a term he'd learnt from Ryah herself.

Ryah opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a loud bugle being sounded from the tribe. She suddenly sat up and looked out to her golden city. "Oh, no." she whispered, clambering to her feet. Her black, flank-reaching ponytail was swept aside by the wind as she got up. "That can't be good."

Nikko stood up, displaying rigid muscles on the arms now shown by a tunic with ripped-off sleeves, and only knee-length capris that same forest green. "What does that mean? That bugle?" he approached her side and looked out over the breathtaking city. He was taller than her by at least six inches, and his short brown hair had grown to a shoulder-length ponytail, low at the base of his head. His light gray eyes had darkened with age. His marks were even more prominent, just as hers were.

"That's the meeting bugle. It's only sounded when someone's hurt, or the someone's had a message from the spirits." She grimaced, beginning to walk down the hill, with Nikko not far behind her.

"Ah. So the spirits don't often bear good news, then." Nikko noted dryly.

"The last one was the threat of death. The spirits birthed four stillborn infants before they were viable." Ryah frowned, her brows coming down hard as she marched briskly toward her civilization. "This is bad."

Nikko nodded thoughtfully. "Your people talk to the spirits a lot?" he asked, feigning belief.

Ryah looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you making fun of my beliefs?"

"No, no, not at all-,"

"Because if you are, I'll burn you to a crisp. Not all us sun-people are eternally forgiving." She warned him.

"I'm not, okay?" Nikko decided against this topic. "Anyway, what could go wrong right now? You said there were no pregnant women right now just the other day."

"Plenty could go wrong; drought, plague, flood, evil spirit beast (haven't had that one in a while!) …" she trailed off, biting her lip. "I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Father. What's going on? Who called the meeting?" Ryah approached her father, standing before the large crowd of their people, as the village elder performed the opening ceremony to their meetings.

"You could just listen to the announcement like everyone else," Akirou's advisor, Ham Gao, hissed.

"Silence." Akirou glanced to the man, before addressing Ryah. "A friend of the tribe has come to us in the worst of circumstances. He is injured. Elder Mako is performing a healing session with the herbs we have gathered, though not much can be done. His companion asked us to inform the tribe of his presence, so he may gather a party to move him to a nearby place of final resting."

Ryah's brows went up. "This man; you're just going to let him die? I read that waterbenders can heal, if he got to the swamp tribe he could-,"

"Nothing can be done."

"Well, not if you don't try." Ryah snapped quietly.

Akirou looked to his daughter with narrowed eyes. "Don't hold that tone to me. I may be aging, though I am still your chief. And your father, might I add."

Ryah frowned again. He always referred to himself first as her chief, then as her father. She didn't know why. "The man is going to die, father, if we do nothing." Ryah looked aside and thought for a moment. The man's friend had also given up on him. "Where is this companion? I want to speak to him." She glanced adamantly at Akirou.

"You are not yet leader of our people, Ryah. I have decreed we will respect the man's companion's wishes." Akirou put his hand on Ryah's shoulder and gave a brief smile. "I understand you lean toward the saving of lives, but to preserve this man's life would only bring around suffering."

"You don't know that!" Ryah hissed. "For all you know he could just need a quick splash of water and a healer to be right as rain."

Akirou frowned hard, angry with her, she thought. "We have no waterbenders here, Ryah. The man would not survive the journey to either pole or to our sister tribe in the swamps of the southern hemisphere. And healers have diminished in the south; there are no more benders at the southern pole at all."

"But we're only days from the North Pole." Ryah insisted; she'd read about the travels of the mainland firebenders to the poles, before the war. There had once been peaceful travels, under the rule of Firelord Ukuza, before Sozin's time. Ukuza had traveled to the poles with the usual shipments of vegetables and food from warmer parts of the world, and had been friends with many water tribe dignitaries that would later suffer at the hands of his son.

"Weeks, Ryah. Three weeks it would take with our simple riverboats, many would die, more would fall ill to pneumonia. It is a pointless trip for one life to be saved." Akirou shut his eyes before smiling weakly at her. "None would be happier than I to see this man live, for I have known him longer than I you. The best that can be done is to make him comfortable. His companion is seeing to that. If you wish to help this man, pray for him."

Ryah stared at her father in disbelief for a moment. This man was a friend of their people; not many were welcomed into their humble civilization. He had to be well looked on by the dragons to stay here without opposition. "The dragons." She whispered, before frowning hard. She'd read Mako's inscriptions; he was one of the few here who read and wrote. Mako, years before she'd been born, had written about the prince and his men who had come to slay the final two dragons, and met the young chief Akirou, who had taught him all of their beliefs about the dragons, and the teachings of the wonderful beasts.

The prince had left and claimed to have killed the beasts, protecting them from any other dragon slayers who might wish for the title of 'the dragon of the west'. Nothing else had been written on the prince after that. She wondered how Akirou had kept friendship with a man he'd met once for two weeks, twenty odd years ago.

"Father, is this man the dragon prince from Mako's inscriptions?"

Akirou shut his brown eyes again and nodded briefly. "Yes."

"Then the dragons would show mercy to him." Ryah frowned at her father suddenly. "Why aren't you readying a sacrifice to Ran and Shao?" she tilted her head suspiciously.

Akirou didn't answer.

"Father." She added, reaching out and touching his arm.

"Your mother has prepared a meal for you. I suggest you go eat." He glanced at her apprehensively.

Ryah glared at him for a moment, before turning on her bare heel and walking away from him with her face screwed up in anger. How could a man she'd trusted her whole life just be allowing a man to die?

Ryah was meditating atop the grassy hill, with a flame in her palm breathing with her; her hands held together in her lap, with the flame hovering above them. She had to detach herself; she wasn't usually this concerned with other people's problems. Could she really blame herself, though? They were simply going to allow a man to die; a man that could be saved. Maybe there was some way a healer could be brought to them. If a lone tribal dignitary traveled to the North Pole and brought back a healer … she stopped herself; maybe her father was right. To risk one of their own for an outsider was foolish.

Still.

Her meditation was interrupted when a loud cry echoed back from the city. Her eyes snapped open and the flame in her hands diminished. "Nikko," she whispered to herself. He was constantly challenging the booby traps of their ancient civilization. He somehow managed to escape them most times, probably using earthbending, but the few times he'd been a bit … stuck, he'd called for Ryah; nearly getting found out by her people in the process.

This particular cry was exactly like Nikko's cry last time; when he'd been suspended over a pond of fire-frogs by a splitting vine.

"For the love of Agni." She grumbled and stood up.

"Nikko!" Ryah called out, walking carefully around the quieter parts of the city with a flame on her palm held high as she looked around, the warm summer breeze taking her hair aside as she searched for him. "Nikko, I told you to stay out of the city!" she added in exasperation. She suddenly heard a whisper and stiffened. Who would Nikko be whispering to out here in the middle of the city? The only friend he had in the world was her. "Nikko?" she asked into the darkness, this time quieter.

"HELP!"

"Shut up!"

Ryah's head snapped in the direction of the voices. "Hello?" she asked, with a gulp.

"Down here!"

The girl glanced across the floor and caught sight of something predominantly darker than the cream-colored stones of the ancient city, a few feet away from her. She took a few precautionary steps toward the black blob, the fire in her palm getting smaller in her palm with her unsettlement. The two faces in the black snapped toward her and both watched her hopefully. There were two boys glued to the grate in the ground by the green adhesive that the warriors often set down on the jungle floor to catch unwitting animals.

"Wow, big-mouth, you got us saved." The dark-haired one with a scar glanced as best he could to the bald one with the arrow on his forehead.

"Hey! Can you get us out of here?" the bald one called to her. They couldn't get a good look at her for the goo sticking their heads up to the sky, but they were aware that someone was there, none-the-less.

Ryah's flame faltered as she stared. Why were they here? Who were they? Had Akirou's 'friend' led them to their civilization? She frowned suddenly, her flame disappearing and what little smoke it had made blowing away on the night air. Her golden eyes fixed on those of the scarred boy; on his own gold orbs. They were strangely familiar. 'Well, of course. They're exactly like yours', She thought to herself. She was lucky if she saw her own reflection once a day in the lakes and puddles and ponds between her civilization and that of her earthbending jungle-friend, but she recognized her own eyes.

'I should go' she heard her own voice in her head. 'I should tell father about them, while they're still trapped. They could be dangerous.'

Ryah turned slowly and began to run away. She needed to get Akirou, or Ham Gao, his advisor, and a band of warriors, perhaps, to restrain them should they be volatile. She argued with herself; the bald one seemed friendly enough, and even the skeptic one with a scar seemed somewhat amiable. Then again, they had intruded on their city, and attempted to steal the golden dragon egg from its pedestal in the temple of the dragon dance. They couldn't be very smart.

Running and looking down wasn't a very good idea. She smacked right into a familiar body; that of Akirou. She stumbled back and regained herself, looking up and smiling sheepishly at her father. She was going to be in trouble; she was supposed to be in her bedroom by sundown.

"Ryah. What are you doing out at this hour?" he frowned at her.

Ryah swallowed in thought. "Well … uh, I heard some … voices. And I was actually just on my way to get you." She put her hands together in front of her and wrung them in one another. She was rarely this awkward; except when she knew she was in trouble.

Akirou frowned. "Voices." He murmured in thought. "Did you investigate?"

Ryah raised her brows in surprise; she wasn't supposed to investigate, she was supposed to stay safe. "Uhm … yeah, kind of. There are two outsiders stuck in the temple of the dragon dance. If that's what you mean …" she felt her throat dry for some reason.

"Alright. Go and fetch a party of four, tell them to bring two anteater-sloths." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And then straight to bed."

Ryah made a face and nodded. "Yes, father." She breathed, before moving to walk past him. He put his arm out to stop her and gave a sigh.

"And please do not stop into Mako's hut as you usually do."

She shut her eyes and nodded. "Yes, father." She managed reluctantly.

Ryah had trouble sleeping that night. She lay on her bed in the light summer linens that only her family and the religious officials of their people were awarded, staring through the vine-ridden holes in the roof, through to the sky. The friendly one, the bald one, had had arrows on his hands that she hadn't noticed until afterwards, thinking back, and an arrow on his forehead; only awarded to master Airbenders. What was an Airbender doing all the way out here? She cut her own train of thought off; the western air temple wasn't all that far away; perhaps three days hiking. But they were supposed to be extinct.

Then again, if any Airbenders had known the fire nation would attack, wouldn't they have tried to escape? What if he was the descendant of an escaped air nomad?

She shut her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She ended up thinking on Akirou's friend, the one they dubbed dead and buried long before he had expired. If only a healer were nearby, then the man could live. Ryah cursed herself; she didn't even know if her thoughts were correct, for she didn't know how bad the man's illness, or injuries were. Why did she always have to do what Akirou said?

When Ryah opened her eyes, she was surprised to realize she'd fallen asleep, and dawn was approaching with its pink and orange lights shining through the roof. She sat up and stared out the window at the neon pink sky with a tired smile. There was something pleasant about the sunrise she couldn't quite put her finger on. Strangely, for a firebender, she felt the same about the sunset. Ryah kicked her feet out of the bed and onto the cool stone floors, pushing away her linens and standing up.

Downstairs, she could hear her father speaking with his wife. Zuma sounded more excited than usual; she was jumpy anyway, but sometimes she would get as close to 'happy' as someone like her could get. She wasn't a stoic kind of woman, just critical. She was mean-spirited. She taught the younger mothers of the tribe how to cook sometimes, and sew and stuff, all the while criticizing the ones who were pregnant and unmarried, or the ones who stood up to their husbands. She was a traditionalist.

It was normal practice in their tribe for a man to have multiple wives, perhaps to do with the fact that more girls were born than boys in their civilization. Zuma was actually bothered by the fact that she was Akirou's only flare. People often called their partners their 'flares' around here. It was something equivalent to how she'd read that in the Northern Water tribe they called partners their snowflakes, except less endearing.

Ryah descended the flight of stone steps to see Akirou and Zuma sitting at a short table, with a young man she'd seen before with the other hunters. She greeted them politely and sat beside her father. "Good morning, father. Good morning, mother." She smiled nervously at the stranger. "Hello."

Akirou smiled too. "Good morning, blossom. This is Hiroshi. Hiroshi, my daughter, Ryah."

Ryah offered a hand to shake, and he took it politely, lifting it and placing a kiss on the back of it. "A pleasure." He spoke charmingly, forcing her to bite back a girlish giggle. She glanced back to her father with a bright expression.

"Is there a hunt today?" she asked hopefully.

Akirou was perhaps a protective man, and indeed a selfish one, but stupid he was not. He understood that Ryah would most likely comply with anything to go hunting; even a bodyguard, after six months of no hunting whatsoever as punishment for last time. And all he really wanted, so far, was for her to get to know Hiroshi, so that the news would be a little less shocking when he told her. He knew his daughter, even if he wasn't very good at expressing it.

Plus, this got her as far as possible from Prince Zuko during his and the Avatar's trial with the great masters, and cut the risks of her true heritage becoming known. It was best, you see, for her and Iroh and Zuko to be at three separate points today. And as soon Iroh was dead and buried, the risk of him losing his only daughter would be gone.

"No, there's a men-only ritual today, so I have appointed Hiroshi to take you hunting." He explained calmly. "Your mother and the other women will be crafting some new clothes in the city, if you'd rather do that, though."

Ryah rolled her eyes. "As if." She paused at Akirou's dark glare and dropped the casualness in her voice. "I uh … I'd prefer to go with Hiroshi." She smiled nervously.

"Alright, then." Akirou nodded, stood and looked to his wife. "We will return at sundown, my sweet flare." He reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. He stalked to the door, turned and bowed, before leaving.

Zuma blinked at Ryah, who was discreetly glancing at Hiroshi. This in turn caused her to scrutinize her adoptive daughter's husband-to-be. Unlike the religious officials, he had no shaven head, but tanned skin and a topknot, just as the other hunters did, though some strands were free and pushed behind his ears. He had dark brown eyes and light brown hair, wore a black tunic and maroon knee-pants with the same gladiator sandals as everyone else in their tribe. Mako made the shoes out of boarcupine leather, in every size.

Hiroshi was muscular, taller than Ryah by about a foot, and was one of the best swordsmen in the tribe. A sparse line of facial hair came along his jaw line and over his mouth.

"Alright, I'm going to go get my bow and arrows, and we can go." Ryah stood up and ran up the stairs happily.

Hiroshi was quiet a lot of the way back from hunting, and had been quiet throughout most of the hunting itself, other than a few curses when he missed with his spear, but silence was key to hunting. Still, she didn't like silent people; that left too much unknown, and Ryah liked to know things. "So …" she began, adjusting her grip on the spitfox over her shoulder. "… you like boarcupine?"

Hiroshi shrugged with his wolflion on his back and glanced at her. "Not really. I like komodo chicken."

Ryah nodded in thought. She didn't really like komodo chicken, but she supposed she'd eat it if there were nothing else. "Huh. I hear that's nice with noodles."

"It is." Hiroshi replied. "You cook?" he wondered aloud.

She smirked. "Does a platypus bear shit in the woods? 'Course I cook." She replied amiably, using her free hand to push her hair out of her face. Her mother had made sure she cooked; nobody would want a wife who didn't cook, and she wanted Ryah to be married - because then her husband would be chief. Zuma didn't want Ryah to lead their people at all.

Unsurprisingly, Hiroshi seemed pleased by this. He suddenly stopped and looked up ahead with an expression of awe, as the trees opened up and the city filled the view. Fire of every color in a kind of tornado was spinning up into the sky. His mouth fell open and his eyes popped, and he nearly dropped his kill. "Whoa!" he exclaimed.

Ryah smiled at the sight. "Pretty, isn't it? Looks like the masters are liking the ritual." She continued moving into the city thoughtfully; she had pleased the masters herself, during her coming-of-age ceremony, with another firebender boy, at age ten. She'd eaten boarcupine that night, freshly killed by her father himself. Zuma had failed at skinning it, so Akirou had taken over. "I hope you skin your own kills." She called back over her unoccupied shoulder as a result of her thought.

Hiroshi followed after her with scoff. He didn't really know anyone he trusted enough to let skin his kills, so he did it himself. He didn't even trust his own brother to do it. "I don't trust anyone else to do it for me," he caught up to the princess and answered calmly.

Ryah nodded approvingly. "Neither would I. Don't tell anyone I said this, but my mother can't skin an animal for the life of her." She pulled an impish expression as they continued into a cluster of huts. "So where do you live?" she asked, looking around.

Hiroshi raised a hand and pointed to one of the huts on the edge of the cluster; with a red-painted handprint on the wooden door. "There." He and his brother shared a hut, but his brother was training to become a scribe, and was usually down in the catacombs. His getting married would not only bring a better cook for him, but also for Shin.

The two of them walked up to the hut and walked in; a fire pit with a pot over it was in the middle of the room, a bed was on the far side; literally just a hide mat, and around the fire pit were cushion seats. Ryah immediately sat down and moved the spitfox into her lap. She pulled a knife from her belt loop and removed its sheath, bringing the blade to the animal's skin.

Hiroshi sat down and the two began skinning and cleaning their kills.

When the day was out, Ryah realized she hadn't been to see Nikko at all, but it was late and he would understand if she missed a single day; after all, he usually just figured it was a religious thing when she didn't show. Either way, he'd probably seen the dragons' fire and thought she was at a day long Ritual. As Ryah walked through the open-plan sparring arena toward her home, she heard small, tapping, running feet and yelling. She turned and saw a group of six younger kids between ages five and ten running up the stairs to the higher walls of their city.

"It's a flying cowsheep!"

"No way! It's a furry dragon!"

"It doesn't even look like a dragon!"

Ryah looked up as a shadow interrupted the sunset's light over her. She found herself shouting in surprise and staring up as the flying beast took off into the sky; with the two boys from last night atop it. Ryah suddenly frowned as the beast took off even higher, and looked to the children again, who were scrambling back down the stairs and running toward her, after the flying sky bison; and Ryah was sure that was what it was.

"Look! Look, Ryah! It's a flying cowsheep!" the eldest girl, Liu, yelled at her in excitement. Ryah was about to scoff and correct them, but then decided against it; if Akirou had kept this a secret from everyone, then he had a reason for it. Also, if he'd kept it a secret from her, then he wouldn't appreciate her asking about what he was trying to cover up. And she didn't want to anger him.

Ryah smiled briefly, with a concerned expression. "Yeah … whaddaya know …" She muttered plainly.

"Mako won't tell us why it was in the jungle - Sai found it near the dragon-egg temple." Another child explained, a boy by the name of Fou, pointing to his friend next to him. "It's got a funny arrow on its head, he says."

Sai gave an adorable little nod of agreement, but said nothing.

Ryah jerked her head upward in an awkward nod. She'd bet anything it had something to do with those two strangers. Right now she absolutely knew that young bald one was the Avatar, or at the least an Air Nomad, though she figured it took two people to do the dragon dance. She grimaced in thought; the two of them had pleased the dragons; the Avatar and his firebending friend - most likely his firebending teacher.

"Mako." She murmured, before exhaling. "Huh. Alright, have fun." She waved, turning back from her house and heading back toward the village. She needed to speak to Mako. Mako would know all about the Avatar's visit, the sky bison, Akirou's friend, and how they were all linked, as she swore to herself.

Ryah waited patiently outside Mako's hut after knocking loudly, with her arms behind her back, linked at the hands. Her eyes danced around, looking for anyone who might report to her father that she was out past her curfew, and she wrung her hands in one another nervously. She could feel fate tugging at the corners of her world, threatening to tear it down the middle. It wasn't a familiar feeling.

"Mako!" she called out hopefully. "It's me!"

The elderly man hobbled to the door on shaky, aged legs and opened it with an amiable smile. He looked tired. "Hello, child - what can I do for you?"

Ryah laughed. "What are you talking about? I come here all the time."

Mako raised an eyebrow. "Oh. I was sure … your father said you wouldn't be stopping in for a while."

Ryah made a face. "Something's going on. I'm trying to figure out what it is. My father is acting really strange." She glanced sideways in thought and gave a sigh. "I came to see if I could do anything for your foreigner patient. My father mentioned him - in fact we had a disagreement over him." She shrugged up against the cold draft beginning to take the night.

Mako nodded happily. "Oh, wonderful. I need spitfox venom."

Ryah made a truly shocked expression that Mako read like a scroll. "Spitfox venom?" she questioned, wondering if she'd heard him wrong. "You don't mean spitfox marrow?"

Spitfox bone marrow was used in many of Mako's herb supplements; it worked wonders for arthritis. Spitfox venom would knock you out for hours if it got on the right part of your skin; a part where the veins were exposed, like the wrist, or the inner-elbow, or the neck. Spitfoxes spat their venom at their prey and knocked them out, and then ate them alive while they were unconscious. Why did Mako want to put the man to sleep? Then Ryah realized if Mako was trying to put the man to sleep, the man was surely awake.

"No, the man's pain is keeping him from sleeping. I've tried simple herbal concoctions, but none have worked."

Ryah nodded in understanding. "As it happens, I killed a spitfox just this morning. My mother's cooking it as we speak." She grinned proudly. "I left the venom I collected in the house, though. I was going to use it for hunting."

Mako smiled warmly. "That is a cunning idea, Ryah. You think like a true huntress."

"Thanks. I'll go get the venom now. Tell him to sit tight." She backed away from the door and tried to peer in, but saw nothing of the man. Mako nodded and retreated into the house, shutting the door.

Ryah turned back on her own path and began back toward her home at a run. She continuously reminded herself that however long it took her to get the venom, was time that man was spending in pain. She took a shortcut through the brush of the jungle and saw the light of her house at the edge of the vegetation after three minutes of continuous running. She paused to catch her breath; if they heard her breathing hard, they'd catch her and she'd get in trouble.

She settled for holding her breath - as if she were swimming underwater - and stealthily snuck toward the house. She grabbed the vines growing on the side of it and pulled herself up toward her bedroom window. She gripped the ledge and pulled herself up, turning so she was sat on it. She carefully turned and put the feet on the floor, sliding in and grabbing the small, glass lidded pot from the low unit by her bed. In the same second she'd entered the room, she was sliding herself back out. She inched down the vines and took off again for Mako's hut at a sprint, breathing hard.

Ryah arrived at Mako's hut only five minutes after she'd left, fully aware of the distance between Mako's dwelling and hers. She rapped hurriedly on the door and rocked back and forth on her feet, waiting for the elderly man to answer the door. As soon as the wooden door opened, Ryah held out the pot of clear orange venom to Mako, who took it immediately, turning and approaching his herb-crushing station, on the far side of the room.

Ryah stepped in, turned and shut the door, her breathing beginning to catch up to her. She shook her head and turned to the sound of a painful grunt. She saw a man in his late-fifties or early-sixties, muscular but portly, and short, struggling to sit up on the hide mat on the floor. She moved toward him and dropped to her knees with an unexplainable look of confusion on her face.

"Tell him to lie down. The man keeps trying to sit." Mako shook his head as he poured the venom into a small wooden bowl and lifted a basting brush, putting the brush end into the venom.

Ryah frowned. "Maybe it's uncomfortable for him to lie back." She disputed reasonably, but passionately. She looked to the man's pain-ridden face; one that she knew was usually one of soft, kind consideration and humility. His eyes were closed tightly, and his lips thinned against each other, grunts coming from the back of his throat. Ryah helped him sit up.

"Maybe. Alright, lift his wrist for me," Mako turned with the bowl and the basting brush in old, frail hands that, despite Ryah expectations, didn't shake.

The golden-eyed girl lifted up the man's arm and moved her hand up to his hand, holding his left arm out - she'd read that the left ring finger had a vein that went up to the heart directly, and so she reasoned that the left arm's veins must've therefore also gone directly to the heart. The man's stiffness seemed to loosen at her gentle but deliberate grip as Mako basted the venom onto the man's wrist, bending down.

His face softened as he began to lean backwards, lethargy making it impossible for him to hold his own weight. The girl guided him back to the mat and looked down at him in concern. His eyes opened and she stiffened herself. The same golden eyes that she saw in the water, and on the scarred boy from the night before were looking at her thankfully. When he closed his eyes, they didn't leave her mind. They burnt in her head and she shut her own eyes. She lifted the fur blanket over the man and turned her head away from him. Something strange was going on, and she didn't like it.

Little did she know that fate had only just begun to unravel her destiny.

A/N: Whoa this is weird. This is my only fanfic with an OC - so far. Not enough Nikko in this chapter :P

Iroh is sick ! :(

So tired. Need sleep. Two AM. NNNNNnnnnnnghhh … REVIEW!