A/N: This one took a while, ne? And the word count is back up in the 7,000s. Don't ask me how. XD

Anyway, I can't wait to write the next chapter! I get to use 'The Runaway,' which is my favorite episode of the first half of season three. My favorite of the second half of season three (I'm not counting the specials, The Day Of Black Sun and the Finale, because those are special. I'm only counting "filler" episodes, you might call them, although every episode is important) is obviously 'Fire Bending Masters.' Hellz yeah, you know why. #heart#

Small side note: you might say that there are a few teeny-tiny hints of Rozin (RokuXSozin) in this chapter, but not much, not really. Only if you specifically search for it, I suppose. But there definitely are hints about Roku knowing all about kitty!Zuko. But that's because he's in on it, too. Yue convinced him, you could say. ;D

Chapter X

In the morning, the stranger who called himself Riku had gone missing, just as he said he would.

But Katara isn't disappointed, honest. She doesn't mind at all.

She looks around the campsite the formed just hours before dawn, at her pack of friends. Toph is sprawled out on the group like always; Sokka is curled up like an inchworm in his sleeping bag; Aang is snoozing on Appa's tail. Momo and Patches – since when did that cat get on Appa last night? Katara must not have noticed, just like how she hadn't noticed Momo, but then again, the tiny lemur could fly – are sleeping near Aang.

She smiles to herself as she begins making breakfast, which won't be ready until the others wake. The sun is up, but not high, which promises another hour before the others will bother to wake. She has time. How would they feel about creamed wheat? They got some milk and wheat from Pinandao, who was more than happy to provide the Avatar and his friends with supplies. It would be a treat to make it, but today seems like just as good a day as any…

The waterbender busies herself with gathering up the meal and beginning to prepare it and sweeten it, being careful to stir often to keep it from lumping. Sokka hates lumps in his food, which is why he rarely eats chicken dumpling soup, although he still enjoys sea prunes. But sea prunes are every water tribesman's favorite, so she supposes that those lumps don't count.

Her thoughts dabble in other pointless things whilst she fixes breakfast and waits in the silence for the others. Although she notices out of the corner of her eye one tossing and turning airbender.

xXxXx

"Aang," the spirit of the previous Avatar beckons through flames and smoke to the aforementioned boy, "It's time you learned my history with Fire Lord Sozin."

The boy – his dream-self much different than his current self – stares in awe, his brows lifting and his lips parting. Sozin… he's the man who used a comet to officially start a war. He's the man who named said comet after himself, and purposely wiped out the air nomads, since he knew that the next Avatar would be among them. He's the man who, despite being dead, Aang fears the most in the world next to the man's grandson, Ozai.

"You need to understand how the war began, if you want to know how to end it," Roku goes on to explain. "Meet me on my home island, on the day of the summer solstice." A vision of the island appears in Aang's mind's eye as Roku says this.

Then, the dream fades as elusively as a wisp of smoke. The glow of fire embers in the early morning dawn light Aang's frowning face. "Okay, Roku," he sighs in his sleep, "If you say so."

xXxXx

"So where are we going, now?" Sokka inquires around a happy slurp of creamed wheat, sweet and delicious.

"To Avatar Roku's home," Aang explains as he, to, eats the breakfast he woke up smelling. "He wants to explain to me about his past. Specifically, his past with Fore Lord Sozin. I'll tell you guys about what I learn as soon as I'm done. I'm going to have to go into the Spirit World for this one."

"Hmm. Sounds weird," Toph says with a wrinkle of her nose. She licks her fingers of sticky grains. "I mean, why would he want you to learn about some scary old guy that tried to ruin the world?"

"I don't know his reasons, but I trust him," Aang says swiftly. "It must be important."

"Let's hope you're right," Sokka sighs, "Because his might set us back a day to catch up with –"

"Shut up about your stupid schedule, will you?" Toph grumbles. She's cranky for having to wake up earlier than she normaly likes. "We already abandoned it, I thought."

"Yeah, well. You can never be too careful. We don't want to let anybody down," Sokka points out.

His sister nods and defends his viewpoint. "Sokka's right. But we should be fine; we're closer now, since we flew most of the night to escape that crazy guy. Do you think he was a bounty hunter?"

"I know he was," Sokka mumbles coldly. "We're always getting people like that chasing after us."

After breakfast, the group hops onto Appa, and while they fly, Aang bends a cloud around them as a disguise from the small villages they pass along the way. "There it is!" Aang says after a while. "That's Avatar Roku's home."

They land, and jump of of Appa one at a time. They find a barren landscape, covered in long-since hardened lava.

"But… there's nothing here," Katara states, puzzled.

Toph is the last to jump down. As her feet connect with the black earth and the vibrations give her a layout of the small piece of land, her tone turns grave. "…Yes, there is. An entire village… hundreds of houses… all completely buried in ash."

Aang's eyes turn steely grey with a note of sorrow. Did people die? How many?

The tragedy parallels another world, one without bending: a world where an entire city by the name of Pompeii was smothered and mummified in ash and some lava, preserving and mutilating hundreds of souls. Did the same happen here, in this world, where there is bending?

But this is the Fire Nation. Surely some firebenders bent the molten, red-hot rock into the sea, where it could do no harm… right?

"Let's find a place where the summer solstice sun will hit the best," Aang says abruptly. At his feet, a small cat gazes up at him and thinks about the facial expression it had seen on the boy's face moments ago.

They find a spot: on a small cliff jutting out above what used to be a shore, and overlooking the sun on the horizon. Aang takes a moment to admire the beauty of the pinks and oranges and soft purples before closing his eyes, ultimately shutting out the world. He is in a meditative pose, and within second, Roku arrives upon his dragon in the Spirit World.

"Come, Aang."

Aang takes his past self's hand. He climbs onto the winged beast, a creature as crimson as blood-rubies, as warm as fire, even in this world.

"Where are we going, exactly?"

"To the past," Roku replies. "Our shared past," he adds with a small smile. Aang grins with hearty enthusiasm and great interest in return.

And the journey through the past begins.

xXxXx

They fly into a memory like one might fly into a painting: the image is still at first, the colors softened, and then, as soon as some sort of barrier is passed by, the memory becomes vivid. The people are fleshed out, the plants move in a breeze that can be seen and not felt, and sounds can be heard. Movement can be witnessed as plain as if it were actually occurring in the present.

But this is only ghosts, replicas of what did happen; Aang is here, and he can feel the fondness of the memory radiating through him, as projected by Roku, but he cannot touch or smell or do much of anything but watch, and listen intently.

Like a movie in another world without bending. Like how a memory could be, if one could revisit it at any given time, reliving it through the barest of senses: emotion, sight, sound.

In this irst memory, there are two teenagers sparring. They appear to be no older than Sokka, or Zuko. Fifteen at the least, seventeen at the most. They are in a courtyard in the royal palace, with greenery nearby. Lames spit out here and there, but it is only play. The sparring is hardly meant to be painful, or teaching; just fun.

Through the dim, Aang can almost hear a voice. Another voice, a different one that is neither his nor Roku's. The voice is thin and wavering through time and space, and only catches the edge of Aang's ear, barely making a mark or registering in his mind.

As I feel my life dimming, I can't help but think of a time when everything was… so much brighter. I remember my friend.

One of the boys sparring stumbles on a tree branch, but his friend catches him with a hook of the legs, before dropping him. The boy who broke the others' fall is wearing a crown ornament in his hair; the same one, Aang notices with a peek to his left, that Roku wears in his hair now. Is that Roku when he was young?

No, it isn't. Because the boy with the crown says, "Looks like I win again, Roku."

The other on the ground replies with a raspy voice, "Are you kidding? The tree root did all the work," the boy jokes. His friend offers a hand, and the boy gets to his feet. "Nice one, Sozin." There is fondness in his voice.

Aang stares, both perplexed and amazed at the same time. "You were friends with Fire Lord Sozin?!" the tattooed boy exclaims.

Roku looks amused. "Back then, he was only Prince Sozin; and he was my best friend." He stresses the word 'best friend,' because it's truer than Roku would like to admit.

The two boys walk out o the courtyard under an arch, just as a young girl about their age passes by, and blushes faintly. The teenage Roku sighs and blushes as well. Sozin nudges him, encouraging him to say something to the girl he likes. But Roku can't; he's too shy. He flops down onto his back on the grass, defeated. Smiling, Sozin sits beside him and piles grass on Roku's face teasingly.

"Love is hard," the older Roku remarks softly in narration, "When you are young." There is a hint of regret in his tone that Aang doesn't miss. He wonders about it, but he finds himself talking.

"You don't need to tell me," Aang comments passively. He learned that with Katara, before. But now he doesn't think about it much anymore; he thinks about what lies ahead, with the end of the war and his responsibility to make it happen.

"It gets better," Roku says gently. He takes Aang by the shoulder and turns him around as they walk into another still-photograph, one that livens up as he speaks. "We have a party to attend."

"Wait, whose party is this?" Aang asks as he inspects the pumpkin-orange laterns hanging along strings from the ceiling, and countless guests awaiting two young men who walk out from behind a curtain together. They are slightly older than they were in the previous memory.

"Sozin and I shared many things," Roku says warmly, "Including a birthday. We are turning sixteen here. And what would happen when I turn sixteen, Aang?"

Realization strikes the arrow-headed boy like a pebble flicked to the forehead. He barely needs to think about it as he replies, "You're announced as the new Avatar!" he half-shouts in order to hear himself over the slowly quieting roar of the crowd. The monks of his time hadn't waited until Aang turned sixteen; they feared the war, and the outcome, and so on. They told him when he was still just a child and too young for such knowledge; when he was merely twelve.

Sozins face melts from a glowing smile to a worried frown upon seeing the Fire Sages. "Has something happened to my father?" he inquires.

"No, Prince Sozin," the leader replies gently, "We are not here for you. We are here to announce the identity of the next Avatar." He pauses in prominence, allowing the crowd to build their own conclusions before he bows and gives away the secret, easing all tension. "It is an honor to serve you… Avatar Roku."

In this very moment, Aang can feel a ghost of a sensation: frozen, open-mouthed shock; and, following it, a stab of pain akin to loss. The teenage Roku knew what he would have to give up, in order to be the Avatar, just as Aang had. Because of this, the young boy watching the memory can relate all too well. He knows, however, that unlike himself, Roku will not run.

Thinking better of himself at the last second, Sozin also bows, and then it's too much for Roku. The teen Shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and turns and dashes back into the palace. He is not running, no; never running, because running away from problems is wrong. He's just… moving from the crowd and his friend – whom is royalty, and shouldn't have to bow to others thus – simply to think and absorb. That's all.

As the memory shifts into another as Roku takes Aang by the elbow and leads him out of this one, Aang hears that other voice again, and it is no louder, no softer, just the same level of thinness, like a wisp of smoke after a candle is blown out.

So then day came when my friend Roku had to leave the Fire Nation and face his destiny as the Avatar. He needed to travel the world so that he could master the other elements.

The next memory is that of a man – no, not yet, despite his age; he is too fragile-looking in his gloom to be a man. A child, then – sitting on the edge of his bed, his possessions partially packed into his stravel bag behind him. He is staring at the floor, thinking.

A voice sounds from the door as a figure leans against the frame, a forced half-smile on its lips. "Hey," the voice says, and at first, Roku does not look up at its speaker. "Why are you not packed yet, O Mighty Avatar?"

When he gets no response, he shuts his eyes and frowns, for a second thinking about what he can do to cheer his best, dearest friend up. He leaps forward, and does a couple funny moves in mock-bending of the other elements.

"Come on, show me how it's done, doing all four kinds of bending!"

Roku glances upwards; he isn't amused. Looking away again, he says slowly, "I started packed, but then the Sages told me that I wouldn't need world possessions anymore."

"Oh," Sozin replies curtly, and drops his act to sit beside his friend.

"It all happened so fast," the teenage Roku is saying, and Aang crouches down to hug his own knees. He knows how that feels, too. "Everything's going to be different now." There is a pang of despair in his tone, as if he can see into the future.

Sozin takes the pin out of his crown, and slips it off his bun. He lays the pin on his palm beside it and offers it up between them. "Here. I hope you're at least allowed to have this." There is genuine kindness in his voice. Except… there is also a hint of sorrow.

Roku protests with a link of wide eyes. "But… this is a royal artifact! It's supposed to be worn by the crown-Prince!"

"I want you to have it," Sozin says firmly, sticking to his decision.

Roku smiles for the first time in this memory, and after placing the object in his hair – one he wears even now, as a spirit – he stands and bows to his friend in respect, and his friend does the same. If it had been Aang in the same situation, he would have embraced the other person. He silently wonders why Roku did now embrace Sozin; was it out of courtesy, since Fire Nation folk are so prim and proper? Or is it because he was afraid some of the feelings of affection Aang could merely feel shadows of when viewing this memory?

Either way, the memory is fading, and they are soon walking away to visit another. The voice can be heard again, and Aang understands now that is it Sozin's, from a memoir of some sort.

I was sorry to see him go. I selfishly wanted him to stay, but I knew better. It is not something one person can change, the reincarnation of the Avatar; but deep down inside, I wished that the Avatar spirit had chosen a different body, one of another person who was not Roku, not my friend, and therefore unable to hurt me like this. When, I wondered, would I see my friend again?

They climb aboard the dragon once more, and as they fly, Aang notices where they are headed. He grins widely. "Hey! We're headed towards the Southern Air Temple!" His home.

"It was the first stop on my journey. It was where I was to master airbending," Rolu explains with a lighter-hearted tone than before. "It is also where I met an old friend of yours," he goes on to say as they watch a line of benders – dressed no different than Aang is now in the Spirit World, decked out in orange and yellow – stand on a cliff-side, waiting to jump off and glide. Aang can pick Roku easily out of the crowd: his head is the only one that s not balded. "Monk Gyatso."

A bald boy bends air in Roku's face, and then laughs, his eyes merry and the same color as Gyatso's, although not nearly half as dull, in that tired-looking way old men's eyes get. This boy is also the first to step up to the edge and go soaring off, encoruing the others to join him.

"No way!" Aang says, disbelieving, because this was over a hundred years ago. But it made sense: Gyatso was very old, one of the oldest, and was that way when Aang was born. And Aang was orn and given a soul just as Roku would have died, which must be one of these memories somewhere. Aang doesn't want to see that memory, though. Like all death, he fears witnessing it.

The groups of airbenders fly around; Roku tries to impress with a glider trick of his, but Gyatso outdoes him by surfing on the air, his feet on the spine of his glider. He wobbles and flails his arms for balance, and ultimately falls, but Roku catches him on the back of his own glider.

Aang laughs. "He's air surfing! Now, why didn't I think of that?" But it is pretty dangerous, so that's probably why. Despite appearances, Aang is a relatively cautious person. He smiles, though, because even as the two crash, they're happy and Gyatso is playfully bending Roku's hair out of his face again. "That's amazing! You were friends with Monk Gyatso just like I was."

"Some friendships are so strong that they can even transcend lifetimes," Roku explains with a joyous tone added to his voice. He truly believes this, and Aang believes it now, too.

They watch in a sequence of trial and error as Roku learns waterbending – his opposite, like earth to Aang, and therefore difficult – and finally, earthbending. The teacher he had reminded Aang strangely of Toph, and they, too, were friends, which makes Aang wonder if Toph is this man's reincarnation. It wouldn't surprise him, considering how tough and boyish she can be. But he loves her all the same, like he does his other friends.

And Aang watches as Roku bends all four, the results of training for years (of which Aang has had to cram into months) paying off in the end.

But then the voice is heard again, and Aang begins to wonder why he can hear it and Roku seemingly cannot. Is some other spirit making him hear it, like a ghost from the past brought to Aang's ears, for him to hear and him alone?

Twelve long years passed before I saw my friend again. When Roku returned… he was a fully realized Avatar. And I had changed as well.

The scene cuts as they fly back to the Fire Nation, peering in throne room of the palace. Roku is walking in as a man now, young and sturdy and bearded. Sozin is seated at the throne, looking regal and powerful.

"Sozin! – Or should I say, 'Fire Lord'?" Roku greets with open arms.

"Customarily, my subjects bow before greeting me," Sozin says, his tone stiff.

Roku stops walking, looking taken aback.

"…Buy you're the exception," Sozin smiles as he steps down from the throne, definitely shorter than his Avatar friend, but glad to see him nonetheless. He spreads his arms to hug his friend, the first he has done so during these flashbacks.

"Even after all these years," Roku murmurs beside Aang with an odd tone, "He was still my best friend. And a few months later," Roku adds as the scene blurs and another still-image appears, and like diving into a painting, it comes into life as they pass through it like the others, "He was my best man."

It is a wedding of the Fire Nation sort, with glowing lights like orbs of magic charms, and people as delighted as koi swimming in a pond. The bride is a beautiful woman with a mole by her eye, and eyes as creamy and brown as melted chocolate.

"Roku!" Aang says as he recognizes the woman, "It's that girl who didn't know you were alive!" His eyes sparkle, because she reminds him of Katara. It's sweet, but it feels strange, because he can't see himself in this position: getting married to a childhood crush. This is much stronger than what he has now. Much, much stronger.

"Ta Min," Roku replies fondly, recalling her name. He grins. "I was persistant." He pauses, then says, "When love is real, it finds a way. And being the Avatar doesn't hurt your chances at love, either, Aang. Your time will come to you, and in… the most unexpected of ways." He winks, and Aang is bewildered, but doesn't comment on it.

Sozin is speaking again. On Wedding days, we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future.

The reception dinner following the ceremony takes place, but Sozin steps over to his friend, Aang notices, and whispers something discreetly to Ta Min. "May I borrow him for a moment?"

She smiles. "It's not very tradition, but okay." 'He is the Fire Lord, after all; how can I deny his request?' her face seems to say.

The two friends walk towards the balcony of the palace, which overlooks the capital and the ocean. Aang witnesses ach movement and captures ach word in total silence. He can nearly taste the tension and foreboding laced in the wind current of the memory.

"What's on your mind?" the young, still naïve Roku asks.

His friend, the leader of a nation, answers immediately. His tone is stern and his words are swift, and he refuses to look Roku in the eye. His face tells Aang that he expects Roku's reaction, but voices his thoughts anyhow. "I've been thinking hard about the state of the world lately."

"Sozin, it's my wedding!" Roku says brightly, and slaps his hand down on Sozin's shoulder in a friendly gesture. "Have a cookie; dance with somebody! Lighten up."

"I know, I know," Sozin says with a slightly smile, but Aang can tell when a smile is deceptive, because his own are the same way sometimes. "But hear me out, alright?" he requests, and Roku nods. He turns toward the sunset again; the beautiful, colorful, impossibly picturesque sunset. "From the start, I know that I was destine to be Fire Lord. And although we didn't always know it, you were destined to be the Avatar." Briefly, Aang thinks of Zuko and himself, ut he can't think of why. "It's an amazing stroke of Fate that we know each other so well, isn't it? Together we could do… anything!"

The young Roku is no so naïve, however. His smile tilts downwards just a hair. "Yeah… we could…" he says carefully, and waits to see where this conversation progresses to next.

"Our nation is enjoying a time of unprecedented peace and wealth; our people are happy. They are so fortunate is so many ways."

Roku hesitates before saying, "Where are you going with this?"

"I've been thinking: we should share this prosperity with the rest of the world. In our hands, we could create the most successful empire in history! It's time we expanded it."

"No!" Roku says, his initial gut reaction throwing the words out of his mouth like flames from a dragon's throat. He casts his hand to the side forcefully, as if he would push away the thought of taking over other nations in other parts of the world. "The four nations are meant to be just that: four."

"Roku," Sozin tries to persuade, his smile ever-present. A shiver runs down Aang's spine. The power has gone to his head, the boy realizes. Sozin is cloaking his hunger for power by means of spreading the Fire Nation's inclined economy with the world. But a dictator is still a dictator. Aang's mind shushes itself while Sozin continues to speak in the memory: "You haven't even stopped to consider the possibilities."

Roku remains firm in his standing viewpoint. Not just as the Avatar, but as a man of pure morals. "There are no possibilities. This is the last I want to hear about this!" And he turns and walks away, storming back to what used to be a happy day.

Aang is thrown back onto Roku's dragon, and they soar towards another memory, one in which they spot a much older Roku flying atop his crimson pet towards the Earth Kingdom. Except he finds that Sozin has already gone ahead with his plans.

The scene cuts sharply like the blade of a knife to a new memory, one of Roku calling Sozin out on his actions. He bursts through the palace doors, unannounced, and in a furiously heated windstorm. "I have seen the colonies, Sozin. How dare you occupy Earth Kingdom territory!"

Sozin is dark, a silhouette against low-burning candles set ablaze. "And how dare you, a citizen of the Fire Nation, address your Fire Lord this way." He pauses for a split second, as if wanting to take it back. But then, he says with a tone Aang can only imagine Ozai using, "Your loyalty lies to your nation first. Anything less makes you a traitor."

Roku clenches his hands into fists, and grinds his teeth a little. "Don't do this, Sozin," Roku comes close to growling, "Don't challenge me. It will only end badly." Four elements against one, after all, Aang vaguely thinks to himself. Then, in a low voice, Roku says, "It's over." And he begins to walk.

Aang isn't entirely sure what Roku means y that last remark. It could mean, 'Your rein oover other nations has come to an end.' Or he could have meant, 'Our friendship has come to an end.' And yet still, the phrase could mean, 'This plan of yours is done with, and shall never come up again.'

In a way, Aang thinks that Roku meant all three.

As Roku walks away, Sozin scowls and leaps off of his throne with a roar, blasting the largest wave of fire Aang has ever seen in his life thus far.

A short battle ensues, in which the room is destroyed, Sozin is literally left hanging, and Roku has won.

The spirit Roku, unlike earlier, is now appearing tired and regretful and sorry, so very sorry that it had to be that way, had to happen like such, and that he can't change how it effects the coming flashback.

Because next they are taken further ahead into the past, which is a memory that is much closer to the present. And it takes place twenty-five long, sad years following the battle; two and a half decades without sight or sound from the other. Roku without Sozin, Sozin without Roku. Aang could feel the ache between them, the rift of friendship from war-torn sides, even if the war Aang knows now had not yet officially broken out. But between them and their opinions on things, the war had begun.

Suddenly, in this memory – in which Roku is very old and resembles his current spirit-self, which makes Aang think and fear that this is indeed the final memory he shall see – Roku is thrown rom his bed in the middle of the night by an earthquake.

He rushes outside as balls of fire shoot down from the heavens.

The volcano, one of two that the land is composed of, is erupting.

Aang can only watch in wordless horror as the entire thing plays out, Roku narrating for him since his past-self is unable to say much.

Roku battles against the smoke and lava, bending what and when he can. Aang watches in fascination. He hears Sozin's voice, and can picture him with hands flat on the stone balcony, watching a small orange glow amidst the ocean's horizon:

Roku's island was one hundred miles away; but I could still feel it rumbling. I could see the black plume of smoke. I've never seen anything quite like this catastrophe.

A shiver runs down Aang's spine. After a while, he finally finds his voice, after he watches the people float offshore on boats and Roku conquerers some of the volcano's violent actions. Astounded, he tells his incarnation's spirit, "This is amazing, Roku! You're batling a volcano… and winning! You're doing much better than I had once, and on a much larger scale. It's impressive."

The spirit-Roku shakes his head. "Unfortunately, my success didn't last, Aang. There was no way I could do it all." And just as he says this, a tidal wave of lava coming flowing down the side of the volcano.

He tries anyway. He continues to battle the elements of nature, but he does it, the spirit says, while he can barely breathe. The toxic gases, the overwhelming heat (even for a natural-born firebender)… it became great to bear.

And once Roku makes a second opening for the lava of the main volcano on its opposite side, the second volcano in the memory also erupts, and the past-Roku gets a defeated look on his posture.

"Need a hand, old friend?" a voice says, and past-Roku – as well as Aang – is shocked to see Sozin riding his own dragon, a blue one, just meters away from where Roku stands.

"Sozin?!" For a moment lasting a breath, Aang can see the hope spring into Roku's tired, old eyes. He never looked so small and human as he does when he turns to face his friend/foe, the smoke and cinders and magma shimmering behind him.

"There's not a moment to waste," the Fire Lord says, and Aang starts to believe that there is hope yet.

Together, moving like clockwork, they try to calm the volcano enough to save the people on boats below, and themselves. Except all is not going well. Just as Roku tells Sozin to beware, and not breathe in the poisonous fumes from the vents being cracked open, he gets a rush of one directly in his face.

Aang can see/feel/remember Roku's strength, what little he has left of it, exit his body. His vision blurs, and he drops to his knees. He coughs, hacking the cough of the terminally ill, and utters in an unhealthy rasp, "It's… too… much!" Like any other memory, Aang can pungently recall the the taste of blood in the back of his – Roku's – throat. The flavor of death.

The young airbender can barely contain his tears as he watches Roku shakily hold up a hand and murmur 'please.' He is able to keep the tears from flowing in the end, because in the Spirit World he has no tear ducts, but he feels the sadness, disappointment, and all-around crushing sensations nonetheless.

Sozin's reply is what nearly gave Aang over to tears. Aang can see it in his eyes, those cold, gold eyes, as Sozin changes his mind about something. "Without you, all my plans are suddenly possible." His aura is dark, darker than Zuko's has ever been; it reminds Aang of Azula, and how he pictures Ozai. "I have a vision for the future, Roku," Sozin is saying, and Aang both wants to yell at the flashback-Sozin and weep for the fallen hopes of his previous self. He can sense Roku's own anger and pain.

Roku coughs, and as Sozin boards his dragon and flies off of the island, Aang casts his gaze to the ocean and shuts his eyes as tightly as he can. A large avalanche of thick, charcoal ash and dust and smoke come hurtling down, and Feng the dragon curls around Roku like Appa had in the ice, and Roku's final heartbeat sounds in Aang's ears just as clearly as if he had been dwelling in the memory-Roku's body.

When Aang opens his eyes again, he hears a baby crying. The light is bright compared to the shadows of the night in the previous memory. The light is very yellow and familiar, the hue like puffs of dandelion pollen in the summer air.

In the flashback, Aang recalls the smell fruit pies.

Grey eyes of the infant smile and blink, and a tuft of mousy brown hair rests atop its chubby little head. Aang is pulled from the grief of the previous memory and into the dawn of realization. "Who's…? Wait. That's me, isn't it?"

Roku turns to the boy and says his final words before sending him back to his friends in the Human World. "Make sense of our past, connect it to your present, and restore balance to the world for the future, Aang. And remember what these memories have taught you." Always in riddles.

"But why show me this, Roku? Why?"

"Because," Roku says, his voice wearing as thin as the air on the peak of a mountain, "Who rules the Fire Nation now? – The grandson of Sozin. But who will rule it later? – The great-grandson of Sozin, but also the great-grandson… of me."

And then the old man vanishes.

"Roku? I don't understand!" Aang questions, but he, too, can feel himself fading. "Roku!"

With Roku gone and the great comet returning, the timing was perfect to change the world. I knew the next Avatar would be born an Air Nomad, so I wiped out the Air Temples. But somehow the Avatar eluded me. I wasted the remainder of my life searching in vain. I know he's hiding out there, somewhere. The Fire Nation's greatest threat: the last airbender.

xXxXx

The first thing Aang thought as he returned to what might be called consciousness is this: Sozin was wrong about how to change the world, but he was right about one thing; and that's the fact that with the comet returning, the timing couldn't be more perfect to fix things. Because if nothing happens before the comet comes… then afterward, the world might be in worse shape than it has been in the past.

Aang yanks himself from his thoughts as his friends approach him, and ask him how it went.

He tells each of them as they gather in a circle around him the story of two people: Roku and Sozin, good and evil, friendship and conflict. As he tells them, he understands what Roku had meant, and the meaning becomes clear. All meanings, starting with the meaning of his final remark about heritage.

The cat, unlike the lemur and the bison, listens very carefully. "When he told me that, I didn't get it, but I understand now: he meant Zuko. Zuko's father's grandfather was Sozin. But that must mean that Zuko's mother's grandfather… was Roku. That's why, I think, he's so troubled. It's because of all the strife born into him from the two bloodlines of an Avatar and a dictator."

"But Aang," Katara counters, "Even after Roku showed Sozin mercy, he betrayed him!"

"…It's like these people are born bad," Toph mutters, trying to sort out her thoughts.

"No, that's wrong; I don't think that was the point of what Roku showed me at all."

Sokka speaks up. "Then what was the point?" he poses with a shrug.

"Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right? If anything," Aang says, a smile beginning to form on his lips, "Their story proves that anyone is capable of great good or great evil – anyone, even Zuko, and Azula, and Ozai, and so on. Everyone in the Fire Nation needs to be given a chance, second or otherwise. And," he says around a short pause, "I also think it was about friendships."

Aang is confident now, although he isn't sure what about. But he feels as though he accomplished something, or overcame some hurdle. As if he accepted the Fire Nation, despite their wrongdoings. As if he accepted Zuko and Azula and Ozai as people, not demons.

The blind girl bends down to scoop up Zuko, whom is stunned into silence. She cradles nuzzles his fur for a moment during the lack of sound, and sets him down again. Toph's voice wavers as she inquires, "Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?" The idea seems foreign to her, but not impossible, and definitely inviting.

The airbender's smile grows larger and affectionate as he steps closer to her, taking her hand in his. She flushes a little and smiles while Aang tells her, "I don't see why not."

And then they all hold hands, and Momo and Appa come closer to be part of the group. All save for Zuko, whom is slowly backing away, too lost in thought to want to be around the others.

He crawls, slinking lowly to the ground, and crouches down with his tail twittering back and forth, back and forth. He shivers, not because it's chilly – it's summer, after all – but out of spiritual connection. He sees it clearly now: why he is destined to love Aang, why he doesn't mind that destiny forced him down this path, and why he loves Aang in the first place. But not how; he doesn't see how it started, or how he should go about his fully formed feelings, but he knows enough.

The firebender knows that he loves Aang despite their ancestry; he doesn't mind because it feels right and feels like it's his choice; and he loves Aang because of who the boy is, in mind and body and soul, the airbender's personality being as bright as stars.

And so, Zuko makes another decision, which earns him one step closer to solving his problem: he decides that, during the eclipse when the moon is out and blocking the sun, and when he had his ody however cat-like it still may be, he will go to his father. He knows where he father is hidden. He will go there, and he will tell him what is on his mind. And then… then, he will leave, and try to find his uncle. Prison or not, he needs to see his uncle, because in his life, his uncle is the only person who has truly made sense, aside from his mother, Lady Ursa.