"Secrets? Mysteries? No such thing. Someone else always knows."

-Fire Lord Zuko to Secretary of Intelligence Biong La after the Fire Lord's first Intelligence briefing

The entire world ripples around me, as though I'm trapped inside one of my own energy spheres. People walk by me in what seems to be a busy marketplace, their voices faint and distant. The people and what I assume to be market stalls are green and tan blurs that shift and distort themselves like water. Nothing seems to hold a distinct appearance for more than a split second.

Then the world dissolves around me, and I am standing on the edge of a metal pier. I look down from the edge, and I see the world moving below me. Clouds and large forests pass under me, and some part of me wonders if anyone down there is looking up at me right now, wondering what is above them. Hell, I'm wondering the same thing.

The world changes again, and I'm sitting in a dark room. I try to move my head, but my body does not respond. My eyes start to close, and I desperately fight them, trying to keep my eyes open because I'm afraid that if I let them close they will stay that way forever…

With a sharp breath, my eyes open and I'm staring at the vaulted ceiling of my bedroom.

I take a few deep breaths, and then sit up in my bed. The light white sheets fall off me and tickle my bare chest as they fall. I realize when I move to pull the covers off me completely that I'm holding my forehead in my hands.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, I look around my room. Everything seems to be in the same place. My drawers are in the normal positions flanking my closet, my large windowseat overlooking the large pool outside has all of it's cushions relatively in the same place, my fireplace is empty (like normal,) the door to my bathroom is open, and all of my pictures and paintings are hanging and in their normal positions.

Just to make sure I'm not still dreaming, I pinch my foot. It hurts, so unless I've developed a deep psychosis within the past forty-eight hours, I should be awake.

I get up from bed. I point a finger towards a round crystal button on the wall by my door, and a small orb of energy shoots out and hits the button. The lights in my room click on, casting the entire room in a soft glow. I look up at the vaulted ceiling and smile when I look at all the hanging crystals. Lighting in Elysium is typically done either by stationary energy spheres or by crystals. It saves electricity.

I get up and pad on my bare feet over to the large windowseat. I look at my reflection. I'm only wearing a loose pair of white shorts, but I can't see anyone outside that would care about my lack of clothing.

The pool gurgles faintly outside my window, and I see steam rising up from the direction of the hot tub. Iulia is probably using it. She loves that thing. When I use it, I turn the heat down a lot, because I don't enjoy boiling myself alive like she seems to.

I turn around. I go into my bathroom, which is as beautiful and elegant as my room. I take a quick shower, eager to once again rub Elysi into my skin. The oil is both a cleanser and a moisturizer, and all Energybenders on a daily basis use it for many things. It's another one of the "traditions" we've had since our inception as a demographic. The irony is that it's only been a tradition for forty seven years, which is how long people have been Energybending for.

I step out of the shower, careful not to slip on the smooth marble floor. I shave the stubble that grew overnight off of my face, brush my teeth, and make sure I'm presentable to the public eye. Being the son of one of the Energybending Masters, I need to make certain that I always look presentable. It doesn't bother me. I enjoy looking good.

I step out of my bathroom and pull a white baggy shirt out of my closet. I pull it on, and put on a pair of grey slacks. I look in the mirror, make sure everything looks alright, and open the two glass double doors by my windowseat and step outside.

The cavern is warm, like normal. I've been told that it's so warm year-round because we're much closer to the planets core and we don't have any cold breezes since we have no wind underground. My father has mentioned talk among the Council of allocating funds in order to build an underground beach for the residents of Elysium to use.

The idea sounds absurd, but I would be fine without having to leave Elysium to go to the beach. I pad on bare feet across the light multicolored tiles by the pool. I imagine that I'm walking on a sandy beach. I roll my eyes and smile at my own childishness. The water gurgles softly beside me as I walk down the few steps to the hot tub.

The hot tub is a tier below the pool, and a small waterfall flows down the wall that the pool shares with the tub. The amount of steam wafting up from the hot tub makes it difficult for me to see who is in it, but I only see one shadow so I know it's only one person.

"Iulia." I say into the cloud of hot steam.

I hear a gasp, and the water by my feet ripples a bit. I hear some water splashing, and I realize that Iulia must have fallen asleep. She has never done that in the hot tub before.

"Bloody hell Aelius," the shadow in the mist curses. I hear some faint splashing, and Iulia swims over to the edge of the hot tub closest to me. Her body is still submerged, but her head is showing. I see that she's wearing one of her many white two piece swimsuits that make all the young Energybenders swoon. "You just about scared me half to death." She looks up at me with her silver eyes, and I see my mother in her smile.

"And that hot tub is baking you the other half of the way." I say. I don't dare touch the water, because I know from experience how incredibly hot Iulia sets it on. "You're going to get a tan just from being in that hot tub."

Iulia leans back and dips her hair in the water. "Maybe I'm training for the handsome Firebender husband I'm going to have one day." Iulia and I both roll our eyes at the same time.

"Father would kill you."

"Father would kill me."

We both say it at the same time, and our eyes meet. We immediately burst out into laughter. Oh, my father would have a heart attack if either of us married into other Nations. He is very much in favor of keeping Energybending linage pure. So is the rest of the Masters Council. It's one of the many reasons why we live underground. Less contact with the surface, the less chance of an Energybender giving birth to another type of bender.

I'm looking at the back porch when Iulia speaks next. "Cathra," she says. "Is very much attracted to you, Ael."

I look at all the chairs arranged on the back porch. A large purple crystal table is the centerpiece of a seating area, and a white wicker snack and drink stand is nearby. It's for all the parties my father has with the who's-who of the Energybenders. Iulia and I aren't allowed to leave our rooms during those parties, because my father says that they're for business, not for children.

"I know." Is all I say. My feelings towards the Princess are… conflicted, to say the least.

I look back at Iulia, and her eyes are darting across my entire body. She's trying to read my body language to see what I'm not saying out loud. Iulia's always been good at reading people. I used to think she could read my mind. "No," She said when we were younger. "Just your body."

"You're worried about what could happen." Iulia says, stabbing into my inner thoughts like a knife.

I wonder if it ever bothers Iulia that she can read people as well as she does. "Ya." I know the futility of lying to her. "She's Fire Nation, I'm not. She's a princess-"

"And you're the son of one of the only four Energybending Masters in the world." Iulia says calmly.

I look at her like she just sprouted a new head. "Are you trying to encourage me?" I ask. Iulia and I have a long-standing agreement that whenever one of us does something stupid, the other would try to stop us. It's been very helpful for both of us, over the years. But her encouraging me to have a relationship with another Nation is out of the blue, and surprises me greatly.

"She's a nice girl. Attractive. She worships the ground you walk on, but not for the reason every girl in Elysium does." Iulia looks up at the cavern ceiling. "She likes you for you."

I blink a few times. "I saved her life twice. That's the only reason she-"

"Oh, just shut up." Iulia snaps. "Can't you just listen to yourself? You're trying to talk yourself out of this."

"Ya?" I snap right back at her. "So what if I am? Maybe I don't want to have to lose someone I care about again!"

"Aelius," Iulia says softly. "You had absolutely nothing to do with mom's death."

I throw my hands up. I feel the blood rushing to my face. "Mom has nothing to do with this! She's been dead for twelve years! I've gotten over it."

Iulia stares at me with her piercing silver eyes. A cloud of steam covers her face briefly, but I can still see her bright irises through the mist. "You're lying."

I realize I'm breathing heavily. Damn Iulia and her mindreading. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, fighting down the anger before I lose control. I sit on the hard tile by the hot tub. Iulia just looks at me.

"I miss her too Ael," Iulia comforts. "But we have to move on. We're older now, and we need to start planning for our future."

I laugh. "Rich irony in that. I'm not even really an expert Energybender."

I hear a shrill whistle, and a blur strikes out at my leg from the hot tub. The hand hits me like a whip, and I cry out in pain. "What the Gods was that for?' I ask, rubbing the point of impact.

"You are the meanest person every Aelius, and only to yourself. You passed those trials like everyone else." Iulia is mad now. She's was always very motherly, but she basically took the role in earnest once our real mother died.

I look up at the cavern ceiling, and wonder what would happen if all the crystals that gave us light disappeared. "Father oversaw my test, and if it hadn't have been him, I would have failed."

Iulia is silent, but only for a minute. "So what? You're still an amazing Energybender-"

"No I'm not."

"I bet you could beat me Aelius."

I look at Iulia. She's full of surprises today, that's for sure. "You really think so?" I ask. I try to keep the disbelief out of my voice.

Iulia nods. "Let's spar. Right now." She lifts herself up out of the hot tub. Steam emanated from her wet body. I stand up, and she looks up at me. She's only a few inches shorter than I am, but sometimes she still intimidates me. She pokes me in the center of the chest. "You need some self confidence, and maybe beating up your half-naked sister will give you that."

Iulia starts walking up the stairs to the pool level. She grabs a towel from it's place over the back of a chair, and starts to dry off. "You should show Cathra the pool. She would love it. She didn't get to see it last night."

I pick up Iulia's white silk wrap from it's pile by my feet. I hand it to her, and she wraps it around her waist. "Where is she?" I ask.

"I think she's still asleep. It's only three in the afternoon." Iulia says, nonchalantly.

I shrug. Cathra had a rough day yesterday, and it's understandable that she would need a lot of sleep. She went from being choked in the morning to Republic City at night. "How were things here while I was gone?"

Iulia shrugs as she pulls on a loose silk crop top. "Fine, I suppose. Missed you. A squadron of girls came by a few days ago and asked if they could meet you. I told them you were away, but they said they would come back." She leans over and dries her hair with her towel.

I sigh. "Anything besides girls visiting, or is my love life the topic of the day?"

"You got it." Iulia says. She starts walking over to the side of the house with the training ring. I follow her. The training ring is a large sandy circle. That is all it is. It is the most used portion of the house, and yet it is the most low-tech. The irony doesn't escape me.

Iulia walks over to the far side of the ring. I take up a position opposite her. I feel the sand grate at the bottom of my feet, and all the sudden I have a flashback of my fight with Cathra two days ago. It's amazing, what can happen in two days.

Iulia stretches her arms above her head. "What are our rules? First one unconscious?"

I nod. "Guess so. No silvers, please."

Iulia nods, and takes up her Energybending stance. Iulia has always used a quick and agile stance, with her feet only a foot apart. Her stance looks like it's for kickboxing instead of for Energybending. The results she produces with her swift attacks, however, prove that she is an expert Energybender.

I take up my regular long stance that gives me both agility and powerful strikes. "Whenever you're ready," I say. "It's your call."

I take a few deep breaths, and I see Iulia do the same. "Go." She says, after a few seconds.

She is the first one to move. She sprints at me, her feet kicking up tufts of sand. I make a punching motion with my left hand and shoot a white orb towards her. She leans back and slides under it, using her gathered force from her speed to kick her legs towards me.

Two energy spheres fly towards me, and I throw up a white barrier to block them. Once they hit the barrier, I kick with my foot in Iulia's direction.

She rolls out of the way a few seconds before my energy sphere hits her. She jumps back to her feet and twists her body to the side to get out of the way of the energy sphere I tried to hit her with while she was distracted. Apparently, she wasn't distracted.

Iulia runs at me again, and this time she makes a sweeping motion with her hand. A long blade of white light speeds towards me, and I sidestep it.

I step right into Iulia's foot kicking me in the ribcage. With a woof of air escaping, I stumble a few feet back.

Iulia doesn't relent, and her silver hair is a blur as she closes the distance between us with a few swift punches. They all hit my abdomen, and they sting. Iulia fights with the ferocity and speed of a swarm of insects.

I reach out with a hand and shove her backwards, hard. She uses her movement to shoot a energy sphere towards my chin, and I throw my head back just in time to get out of the way.

Then I feel a hundred volts of energy going through my torso, and I black out for the second time in twenty-four hours. My last thought before the darkness consumes me is that I'm getting to be very good at passing out.

My eyes snap open as a wave of fiery pain bursts into existence on my right cheek. I see Iulia leaning over me, her hand raised in preparation to smack me again.

"I'm awake!" I cry, shielding my face with my hands as a defense against further blows.

Iulia sighs. "You need to be trained." She offers a hand out to me, and I grab it. She helps me up and dusts off my back. "That was too easy for me."

I cross my arms in front of my chest. "I told you. The training I had wasn't enough."

Iulia doesn't respond and just continues to wipe the sand off my back. Her eyes are cloudy as though she's debating whether or not to agree with me.

After a few seconds, she grabs me by the shoulders and looks up at me. "Ael, against other elements, you'll be fine." She smiles sadly. "But against other Energybenders, you're screwed."

"Do you think father could teach me?" I ask.

Iulia shakes her head. "He's going back to the Eastern Air Temple soon. No time."

I sigh. "I'll find a way." I start walking in the direction of the right wing of the house. Iulia has control over the right wing because that's where her room is, I have control over the left wing, and my father has control over the middle and the rest of the house. Since he's rarely home, Iulia and I basically have free range over our wings.

I open the door to Iulia's main hallway. She has been decorating her wing of the house with white flower arrangements and energy orbs in every corner. She has converted a majority of her rooms to clothing storages, rooms where she designs her own clothing, indoor flower gardens, and she even has a few specialized lounges.

I, on the other hand, have devoted my wing of the house to libraries, updates on world news, combat training, an indoor agility course, a weapon storage room, and a meditation chamber. The decorations in my hallways are suits of armor, weapons, and hanging crystals.

I pass by an open door near the end of Iulia's hallway. Inside I see Cathra reclining on a large light blue plush couch. I stick my head through the doorway.

"Enjoying yourself?" I ask, smirking.

Cathra jumps up from the couch and runs over to me. "Thank the Gods you're all right!" She throws her arms around me, and I awkwardly put mine around her. She looks up at me, and I see a glimmer in her eyes.

I try to think of something noncommittal to say. "It's good to see you again too." I immediately regret saying that, because Cathra smiles like a child opening a birthday present. I quickly change subjects. "How do you like Elysium?"

Cathra still hasn't let go of me. "I love it! I want to walk around, but Iulia told me-"

"That she can't go out wearing Fire Nation clothing or else people will freak out." Iulia says from behind me. I let go of Cathra (I sense to both girls' disappointment) and turn to look at my sister.

"Can't she borrow some of your clothes?" I ask.

Iulia shakes her head. "I make my own clothes and you know I sell them when I outgrow them. No," Iulia gives me an odd smile. "She'll have to go into town for clothing."

Don't do this to me, Iulia, I plead with my eyes.

"Aelius can take you, Cathra." Iulia blinks twice, and through our secret twin language, I understand the blinks to mean, "have fun."

Cathra, oblivious to the undercover conversation, says "Oh, yay! Shopping!"

I groan. "Oh, yay." I mutter. "Shopping."

Four hours, several hundred Yuan, and numerous failed attempts at flirting later, Iulia, Cathra, and I are sitting around the kitchen table. Cathra is now wearing one of her many outfits that she purchased. It's a short white dress that showcases her athletic legs and upper torso. Her hair falls down behind her back. I made her take out her Fire Nation topknot, as people would recognize her as royalty from a mile away if she were wearing it.

I cut into one of my dragonbull dumplings. "Someone asked me in one of the stores about how I was."

Iulia nods across the table. "Mhm." She mumbles around the remains of a piece of bread. "Father told-" she swallows the piece of bread. "Father made a statement about how you passed out from exhaustion."

I put a piece of dumpling in my mouth. I chew, savoring the tough beef. After I'm done chewing, I put down my fork and knife. "It's amazing how one second no one knows what caused my collapse, and the next, without even running any tests, they say it's exhaustion."

Iulia shrugs and sips a blue wine from a crystal flute. "Science works at a distance, these days." She blinks.

Translation: rather than cause a tumult with my mysterious fainting episode, they're going to pick the easy path and lie about it instead of having everyone wonder if they could be the next ones to black out.

Cathra, Gods bless her soul, is totally ignorant of our continuing secret conversation. "In the Fire Nation, they have a machine that scans your entire body and diagnoses you for any illnesses or medical conditions." She shakes a bottle of hot spice over her rice. Fire Nation citizens enjoy spicy food. "It's really cool how they can do that."

I sip from my own flute of blue liquid. The berry wine is sweet and leaves a sour aftertaste in my throat. "It's amazing how far advanced the world is, technologically." I clink my glass loudly against the table and look at Iulia.

She understands my cue. "We're working on some new technologies ourselves." She looks at Cathra and smiles. "Our techies are working on something that can intensify the power of our light spheres until they get so hot they can cut right through things."

I raise an eyebrow. "When did they start developing that?" I ask. Iulia is more privy to the secrets of Elysium and the Regia because she has a way of pulling secrets out of people.

"Few years now." Iulia says from around bites of a dumpling. She wipes her mouth with her napkin.

Translation: I can't talk about anything more in front of the Firebender.

As if on cue, a noise rings from the kitchen wall. "Communication Center to Impera Estate, over."

Iulia rushes up and approaches the source of the ringing noise, which is a glowing glass monitor embedded in the wall. She pushes against a corner of the glass, which begins to glow green. "Lady Impera to CeeCee, responding, over."

"Lady Impera," the voice says respectfully. "The Regia honorably requests the presence of Princess Cathra immediately. She has a visitor."

I raise my eyebrow and look at Cathra. She shrugs.

Iulia turns around and looks at Cathra. "Any idea?"

Cathra shrugs again. "No clue."

Iulia pushes a lock of hair out of her face. "Well, let's go see your mystery visitor."

A/N: I'm going to be out of town for the next week. But when I come back, expect the regular updates to return! In the meantime, please enjoy the story so far, and don't forget to review! If you like it enough to review it, chances are other people will too!