EPILOGUE: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Kyoshi Island had become quite cramped since the return of the Kyoshi Warriors. Even though both Suki and the Commander had tried their best to accommodate the new Kyoshi Warriors, there simply hadn't been enough houses with free rooms. Chief Oyaji and Bipin – the forester of the island – had laid out a plan to build a new house next to the Kyoshi Warrior dojo, but even with the help of Sokka and the Mechanist, the construction would have taken several months. So Suki had decided to open up the dojo itself, and for the time being, she and her novices had moved in there.

The late autumn night was pretty cold, and the dojo wasn't exactly well-insulated either, so the novices slept in one big clump, wrapping themselves into thick blankets and nestling up to each other for warmth. They were all asleep, mostly undisturbed by the cold. The scene was peaceful, maybe unnaturally so, as the seven girls didn't make as much as a snort or a turn.

The two spirits watching them made sure that they wouldn't wake up, bestowing empty dreams upon the girls that trapped them in the lands of slumber. From their viewpoint, the single room of the dojo was illuminated by sharp golden light – a spiritual phenomenon, projected by the young girls on the floor as their unique bond took form in the Spirit Realm.

One of the spirits looked like an average, slender woman, wearing a loose grey robe, her long black hair flowing in the air like it had its own will. The other was like a big stray dog, with shaggy fur and two black holes in the place of his eyes. Their presence was highly unusual around this part of the Spirit Realm, but the golden light had drawn them here with an undeniable force.

They both carried the bindings that connected them to these girls: the bracelet on the woman's arm and the large collar on the dog's neck both emitted the same golden light as the novices' bodies. They weren't here of their own free will, but they had had to come, answering their master's call.

"I still can't believe that we were free to do whatever we wanted with them," the dog-spirit broke the silence with his rasping voice. "She was away for waaaay too long. One hundred years is quite a lot by mortal standards, I reckon. She won't like the…" He licked his lips with his grotesquely long tongue as his mouth formed a wicked smile. "…changes we made."

The woman-spirit giggled up.

"If there is someone who is responsible for all this, then it should be her," She leapt into the air and twirled around the novices in the air like a bizarre flying snake, her form now inhumanly sleek and graceful. "We told her to use the connection and escape, but she preferred to spend one hundred years encased in ice." She skimmed over Kei and flashed a wide smile. Despite being asleep, the girl below her obediently mirrored the expression.

"Stop playing with them," said the dog-spirit, but the woman-spirit ignored him. She now moved to Asha and blew into her hair, mussing it up.

"How are our plans going?" She asked eventually, after she had pulled down Kitara's blanket, making the poor girl shiver from cold. "Is everything in place?"

"You know that it is," answered the dog-spirit impatiently. He nodded towards Nirmal. "The medium is going to be a problem though. She saw me in the prison tower while I was feeding on another girl."

"Most unfortunate!" laughed the woman-spirit. "What about the redhead?"

Both spirits looked at Suki then at each other. The woman-spirit glided a little bit closer, but as she tried to touch Suki's auburn hair, a blue aura flashed up sharply around the girl's head, repulsing the woman-spirit's hand. She hissed up painfully as the blue light tore into her form, dissolving the end of her fingers.

"Careful my dear, we don't want them to wake up." It was hard to miss the malicious glee in the dog-spirit's voice, but the woman-spirit let it pass. He moved a little closer to the pile of girls, glancing through them like a predator checks out its fallen prey. "I have them under control. They think that the worst is past them, but they have no idea. Their little adventure was only the beginning, and what's coming for them will be worse… much worse."

"I almost feel pity for them."

The dog-spirit shook his head and his smile turned into a terrific grin.

Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden fluctuation in the golden light. It ebbed and flowed for a moment, then brightened up even stronger than before.

"She is coming," noted the woman-spirit, and the dog-spirit nodded.

"Let's wait for her at the statue," he said. "She is the strongest around her daughters. Maybe she will have less energy for scolding while she is away from them."

The woman-spirit just laughed and flew out from the dojo through the roof window. The dog-spirit stayed for a moment longer, but eventually he too left the place through one of the side windows.

Without the presence of the two spirits, life slowly returned into the novices: Kei started to snore loudly, and Kitara's shivering intensified as she really began to feel the cold of the night.

Only seconds later, the golden light turned blinding-white. It only flared for a moment, as an incorporeal hand wrapped in golden light gently re-arranged the blanket on Kitara, and then the whiteness left as quickly as it had arrived.

THE END

Author's Note: Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed the story! Reviews are greatly appreciated!