this chapter was fun to write. you'll see why.

"Today's the day!"

Aang jumps down from Appa, grinning, landing near a sleeping Sokka and inadvertently causing him to stir awake. Ka slides down Appa's tail and fluffs her hair, pushing it out of her face and back into a ponytail. It has gotten so long lately, and strands of hair constantly fall into her face and block her vision. Ka makes a mental note to cut it soon.

"Can you believe it?" Aang continues, voice shimmering with excitement. "After all that time searching for a teacher, we're finally starting earthbending!" When Ka nods and smiles softly at him, Aang throws his arms in the air and says, "And this place, it's perfect, don't you think?"

"Yes," Ka replies, looking around at the rock canyons that surround them.

Aang looks towards Sokka for his answer, but he does not respond. "Sokka?" The boy in question grumbles angrily and looks up to glare at the both of them. "Oh, you're still sleeping, huh?" More grumbles. Aang shifts his voice into a whisper, "Sorry."

The ground then begins to shake, and the earth tent Toph had been sleeping in is suddenly destroyed, the slabs of each side tossed in every direction. Toph has her hands in the air, grinning.

"Goooood morning, earthbending students!"

She walks over towards them, her hands on her hips. The rumbling had woken up the rest of the team, and Katara sleepily rubs her eyes from her sleeping bag.

"Good morning, Sifu Toph," Aang says, bowing, and Ka follows his lead.

Katara makes a disappointed noise. "Hey," she says tiredly, "you never call me Sifu Katara."

Aang scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, if you think I should..."

Sokka sits up, grumbling some more, his eyes narrowed angrily. Aang blinks at him, while Toph only smiles from next to him.

"Sorry, Snoozles," she says, "we'll do our earthbending as quietly as we can." She finishes her sentence with a slam of her heel into the ground, sending a fissure through the ground that creates an earth pillar underneath the sleeping Sokka. It launches him into the air, and he screams as he crashes loudly into the ground. Jumping to his feet, still in his sleeping back, he bounces towards each of them and mutters incoherently, before bouncing out of sight.

Ka crosses her arms over her chest with a curious look, watching him disappear from sight. From beside her, Aang jumps in the air excitedly.

"So what move are you going to teach us first?" he asks, eyes sparkling. He stretches his arm and brings it down like a hammer, "Rock-a-lanche? The Trembler?" He throws both arms over his head and spins. "Oh, maybe we could learn to make a whirlpool out of land!"

Toph puts a hand on his chest to stop his movements. "Let's start with"—she makes a motion as if she is pushing something forward—"move a rock."

Aang claps excitedly. "Sounds good, sounds good!"

As they walk to find a good area of the canyon, Ka rolls her eyes. "Do not base your expectations on Earth Rumble VI, " she says, amusement sneaking into her tone.

Her Avatar just laughs.

They eventually make it to a good, wide open area. Toph bends three rocks in front of each of them.

"The key to earthbending is your stance," she explains, shifting her legs and arms so she stands upright and firm. Aang and Ka copy her. "You've got to be steady and strong. Rock is a stubborn element. If you're going to move it, you've got be like a rock yourself."

Ka nods.

"Like a rock," Aang says. "Got it."

"Good," Toph continues. "Now the actual motion of this one is pretty simple." She pauses, turning to the side, and steps forward, punching her fist against the rock and slamming it against the canyon wall. "Okay," she then says, turning to her students, "you ready to give it a try?"

Ka goes first. She copies Toph's movements, reminding herself to stay firm, like a rock, keep steady. Slamming her foot against the ground, she manages to push the rock forward—albeit not as impressively as her teacher. The rock only moves a few feet, and she tilts her head, standing back up straight.

Toph nods approvingly. Aang beams and claps.

Then it is Aang's turn. He does not look as firm as the other two when he does his, and the motion sends him flying backwards into Appa, the rock unmoved.

Ka winces. Katara puts a hand over her mouth in shock. Toph just purses her lips thoughtfully.

Sokka, on the other hand, just laughs from his place perched in the mountainous canyon. "Rock beats airbender!"

His uncle finally stirs awake, an unbearably sad look in his eyes. Zuko almost doesn't want to know what he could have possibly been dreaming about—but he doesn't ask.

Instead, he says, "Uncle... you were unconscious."

Uncle slowly sits up, holding the patched area of his chest.

"Azula did this to you," he continues, clenching his fists against his knees. "It was a surprise attack."

"Somehow, that's not so surprising." Uncle groans and shifts against the wall, and looks down at the makeshift bandages across his body. "Surely only bandages couldn't heal me as much as this?"

Oh. Right. He should probably tell him. Zuko opens his mouth, but hesitates, only out of sheer embarrassment and shame.

"It," he starts, and swallows, "was the Minder and the Water Tribe girl. They... healed you with water, or something." Zuko remembers the glow that had come from their hands, how the water they bent over his uncle's wound glowed and glowed until the wound began to seal shut and turn less red. It wasn't completely perfect, but it was enough to keep him alive without any additional medicine.

"Oh?" Uncle says thoughtfully. And you let them? goes unsaid. "I'll have to thank them if I see them again."

Zuko doesn't say anything to that. He now thinks that he, perhaps, should have thanked them at the time. Even when he screamed at them to leave, the Avatar's Minder—no, the Minder—ignored him and did everything she could for a man she didn't know. He chased the Avatar and his—the Minder all around the world and yet they still have the audacity to humiliate him by helping him at every turn.

What an odd bunch.

After a moment, he suddenly remembers the tea he had oh so carefully made. Turning, he picks up a cup and hands it to his uncle, "I hope I made it the way you like it."

Uncle takes a sip and his eyes widen, and Zuko can only hope that means it's good. "Good," his uncle says a moment later, his voice strained. "That was very... uh, bracing."

Zuko refills his cup, and then grips the fabric around his knees as he speaks. "So, Uncle, I've been thinking. It's only a matter of time before I run into Azula again. I'm going to need to know more advanced firebending if I want to stand a chance against her. I know what you're going to say: she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her."

He did get along with her. Once before, many years ago. Zuko can only wonder what could've happened to ruin all that.

"No," Uncle then says, surprising him, "she's crazy, and she needs to go down."

Zuko stares at him for a moment. His sister is younger than she seems—simply fourteen. Both of them have been thrown into a crazy world. Nonetheless, he nods.

His uncle grunts, holding onto the wall as he stands up tall.

"It's time to resume your training."

Aang recovers from his stumble and walks over to them, rubbing the back of his head with a wince.

"I don't understand what went wrong," Katara says. "He did it exactly the way you did. And Ka managed to do it!"

Ka just shrugs.

"Maybe there's another way..." Aang voices thoughtfully, and turns as if he is going to attack the boulder from the left side. "What if I came at the boulder from a different angle?"

Toph grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him backwards. "No," she says firmly. "That's the problem. You've got to stop thinking like an airbender." She knocks on his head to emphasize her point. "There's no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety-trick that's going to move that rock. You've got to face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this!" She jumps in the air and slams her head against the rock, destroying it completely.

Aang flinches backwards. "Whoa!" He then turns to Ka as Toph and Katara walk away to talk to each other. "How come you got it so quickly?"

Ka looks at the rock she had moved, and then back at him. "Spirit World mentoring."

"Yeah, but you can't bend in the Spirit World," Aang sighs. "I don't get what I'm doing wrong!"

Ka just follows after him when he starts to walk off. "I am sure you will figure it out eventually."

Their training consists of destroying rocks, punching sand, pushing more rocks, and balancing on earth pillars to keep from falling over.

Aang struggles in the beginning, but proves himself successful near the end. Ka manages to get most of them just fine—though most of her attempts prove herself to be a new, budding earthbender.

Toph eventually decides to focus on Aang only, letting Ka watch through her examples, as the Avatar is the one struggling the most.

She sets Aang in front of a large decline of the canyon, where a boulder sits at the top. She ends up blindfolding him so he has to sense the vibrations in order to stop it. In the end, Aang jumps over the boulder at the last second, causing it to roll past them and crash into the cliff on the opposite side.

Angry, Toph yells at him. Katara ends up diffusing the situation and leads Aang away to practice waterbending. Ka ends up going with Toph to practice some more; she feels Aang needs some time alone, without her.

For a while, they just punch sand and rock in silence. Then, Toph finally speaks up.

"What's with you two?"

Ka pauses for a moment, tilting her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Toph says, shaking out her hands and putting them on her hips, "I've heard stories about the Avatar, and even less about the Minder. They always involve you two doing some weird, connection stuff. So, Goddess, what's the deal between you two?"

That answer does not give her much to work with. Ka just thinks for a moment, pointedly ignoring the nickname, and says, "We have a connection that dates back hundreds of years. We are linked both mentally and physically. I must protect him, as he protects me."

Toph stares into space blankly, processing her words. "I guess that explains the crazy twin talk you two do sometimes."

Ka smiles softly. "I suppose so."

"So, I think I'm all caught up on Aang's whole frozen in ice for a hundred years thing," Toph then says, "but where do you come from? Water Tribe?"

Ka shakes her head. "No. I come from the Spirit World."

That renders Toph speechless, even if it is just for a moment. "No kidding."

"I would not lie."

"So you really are a goddess, huh?"

Ka frowns. "I am in no way comparable to a goddess, " she urges.

Toph just laughs. "Alright, whatever you say."

After a few more silent minutes of bending earth at one another, Toph suddenly stops and looks up with a great, big, horribly mischievous smile.

"I just got the greatest idea."

Toph's so-called great idea consists of making Aang so irritated that he is forced to earthbend. Make him brave enough to stand up to something hard and strong.

It takes an angry saber-tooth moose-lion and her cub to bring Aang to that point. In the end, when he yells at Toph, and earthbends right after, he finally manages to send a rock into a canyon wall, and Sokka finally breaks free of the crevice in the ground he had been trapped in.

All in all, a successful day.

Failure after failure. He can't do anything right.

"You've always thrown everything you could at me! Well, I can take it, and now I can give it back! "

His voice sounds even louder than the storm as he yells. Heavy rain thumps against him so hard he feels he could fall down from the pressure of it. The ground beneath him is slippery and wet. Zuko takes a careful step forward, and suddenly sees lightning strike a few feet away from the mountaintop.

"Come on, strike me! You've never held back before!"

Life has tossed strike after strike and storm after storm his way, when he never asked for it, when he never thought he deserved it.

But now it's different.

He screams at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking, and realizes that the hot wetness against his face is not, in fact, the rain, but instead his own tears.

They choose mini-vacations.

Aang's vacation choice leads them to a vast savanna, and he eventually lands them on a part of the ground littered with holes. Jumping off, he pulls out a thin, wooden flute and sits cross-legged on the ground. The rest of his friends sit behind him, watching curiously and confusedly.

"What's out here?" Sokka asks, mostly representing the confused part.

Toph kneels down to press her hand against the ground. "A lot, actually. There's hundreds of little—"

"Shh!" Aang shushes quickly. "I know you can see underground, but don't ruin the surprise. Just watch." He blows a note on the flute, and suddenly a groundhog pops out of one of the holes and mimics the note. Sokka and Katara share a weird look. Aang grins, and plays a different note, with the same outcome. "I'm putting an orchestra together!"

"Orchestra, huh?" Sokka deadpans, and then waves his hands in the air, "Well, la-di-da. "

Three groundhogs pop from the ground in lined holes, mimicking Sokka's unintentional notes. Ka snorts, putting a hand over her mouth to keep it from becoming full-fledged laughter. Momo jumps into one of the holes in an attempt to catch the groundhogs. Aang continuously plays notes, causing the lemur to run after each one. On the fifth note he plays, Sokka walks up and plugs the flute with his finger.

"This is great and all," he says, his tone implying that it is clearly not great, "but don't we have more important things to worry about? We should be making plans."

"We did make plans," Toph argues. "We're all picking mini-vacations."

"There's no time for vacations!"

Aang frowns from his place on the ground. "We're learning the elements as fast as we can," he says, and Ka walks over to stand beside him. "We practice hard every day with Toph and Katara. I've been training my arrow off!"

"It is unhealthy to work and work with no play," Ka says.

"Yeah," Katara comments, "what Ka said! What's wrong with having a little fun in our downtime?"

Sokka frowns. "Even if you do master all of the elements, then what? It's not like we have a map of the Fire Nation. Should we just head west until we reach the Fire Lord's house?" He gestures to the side and knocks on some sort of imaginary door. "Knock, knock. Hello, Fire Lord? Anybody home?" He then stomps his foot and turns to Aang and Ka with a heavy frown. "I don't think so. We need some intelligence if we're going to win this war."

Aang replies by playing a short note on his flute. A groundhog appears from underneath Sokka and repeats it.

"All right," Katara relents, "we'll finish our vacations and then we'll look for Sokka's intelligence. "

Aang laughs, and Ka covers her mouth again to hide a smile. He moves to take a map from Appa's saddle and opens in front of Ka. "Your turn, Ka. Where would you like to go on your mini-vacation?"

Ka purses her lips, tapping her chin. "I am not sure..." she murmurs.

Katara scoots up beside her, and then points to an area in the center of the map. "How about the Misty Palms Oasis?" she suggests, smiling at Ka. "That sounds like a place you'd enjoy."

Ka shrugs. "Alright."

"Oh, yeah, I've been there," Aang says. "It's a pristine natural ice spring. And I don't usually use the word pristine. It's one of nature's wonders. "

Compared to the beautiful drawing on the map, the oasis itself is small and melted, sitting in the center of a rundown town crawling with sandbenders and other shady-looking folk. There are animals licking the melting ice spring.

"Must've changed ownership since I've been here..." Aang says sheepishly, laughing a bit.

As soon as they walk into the town, the hanging gate behind them crashes to the ground. Almost like an omen. To escape the heat, they walk into a tavern, and Ka frowns at the gazes that the sandbenders give her and Katara. One even spits at Sokka's feet.

Inside the bar are weary travelers and men carrying large weapons. A bartender is serving fruity drinks inside chunks of ice, using his swords to cut up the fruit.

"I don't see anything wrong with having one of those fruity beverages while we plan our strategy," Sokka says, grinning, and runs up to the bartender. Ka follows him, craving one as well. "Excuse me."

The man who had been ordering at the bar before suddenly turns, bumping into Aang and spilling his drink all over his clothes. He gives him a horrified look before Aang smiles and puts up his hand.

"No worries, I clean up easy." And he airbends the drink off his clothes, causing the man to hold onto his hat and gasp.

"You're a living relic," he says, amazed.

Ka walks up beside Aang with her fruity drink, her lips wrapped around the straw as she watches the man leer towards her Avatar with eager eyes.

"Thanks," Aang says casually, "I try."

"An Air Nomad... right in front of me," the man says thoughtfully, rubbing a hand over his chin. He then nods, and says, "Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University." He grabs Aang's arm and points to his arrow tattoo, studying it curiously. "Tell me, which of the air temples do you hail from?"

Aang blinks. "The Southern Temple!"

Professor Zei suddenly whips out a pair of calipers and measures his head, smiling. "Oh, splendid! Now tell me—what was the primary agricultural product of your people?"

Unsurely, Aang replies, "Uh... are fruit pies an agricultural product?"

Professor Zei blinks. "Oh, truly fascinating. That is one for the journal." He takes out said journal and begins scribbling into it, and when he looks up, he finally notices Ka standing beside Aang, and his eyes widen. "Oh, you are a living mystery! Where do you hail from?"

Ka slurps the rest of her drink down. "The Spirit World," she replies bluntly.

The professor grins, and begins writing in his journal even more furiously. "Incredible! An actual spirit, here before my eyes! I should have known—from your breathtaking appearance!"

Breathtaking. Ka has never been called that before. It makes her do a double-take, and she stares at the professor even more suspiciously than before.

"So, Professor," Sokka says, "you're obviously a well-traveled guy. Do you have a more current map? Ours seems to be a little dated."

"Certainly!"

The map they are given contains only the oasis and the desert, with several lines traced into the depths of the desert.

Sokka scans the map, tracing his finger around it, and then groans. "What, no Fire Nation? Doesn't anybody have a good map of that place?"

Katara leans over the table. "You've made a lot of trips into the desert," she observes thoughtfully.

"All in vain, I'm afraid," Professor Zei sighs. "I've found lost civilizations all over the Earth Kingdom"—he raises his clenched fist rather dramatically—"but I haven't managed to find the crown jewel: Wan Shi Tong's Library."

Ka stops in place. She has most definitely heard that name before, somewhere.

From her place on the chair on the opposite side of the table, Toph speaks up, "You spent years walking through the desert to find some guy's library? "

"This library is more valuable than gold, little lady," Professor Zei says. "It is said to contain a vast collection of knowledge, and knowledge... is priceless."

"Hmm," Toph deadpans, "sounds like good times."

Oblivious to her sarcasm, the professor continues, "Oh, it is. According to legend, it was built by the great Knowledge Spirit, Wan Shi Tong, with the help of his foxy knowledge seekers." He looks towards Ka with an excited smile. "I do wonder if you know him by any chance?"

Ka shakes her head. She has most definitely heard the name (probably from her father, or some passing spirit), but has never seen him. "No," she replies.

"Oh," Sokka drawls, smirking, "so this spirit has attractive assistants, huh?"

His sister pushes at his face with an annoyed frown. "I think he means they look like actual foxes, Sokka."

"You're both right," Professor Zei says, surprising both of them. "Handsome little creatures." He pulls out a drawing of the large, extravagant library and spreads it across the table. "Wan Shi Tong and his knowledge seekers collected books from all over the world, and put them on display for mankind to read, so that we might better ourselves."

Sounds like something a spirit would do, Ka decides.

"If this place has books from all over the world," Sokka says, stroking his chin, "do you think they've got info on the Fire Nation? A map, maybe?"

Professor Zei furrows his eyebrows in thought. "I wouldn't know. But if such a thing exists, it's in Wan Shi Tong's Library."

Sokka nods firmly, and then smiles brightly. "Then it's settled. Aang, I do believe it's my turn. I'd like to spend my vacation"—he points his finger into the air as he shouts—"at the library! "

A beat of silence passes. Toph waves her hand in the air to gather her friends' attention. "Uh, hey, what about me? When do I get to pick?"

"You gotta work here a little longer before you qualify for vacation time," Sokka says matter-of-factly.

Toph slams her drink on the table and folds her arm with a huff. Ka pats her shoulder in an attempt of reassurance.

"Of course," the professor then speaks up, "there's the matter of finding it. I've made several trips into the Si Wong Desert and almost died each time." He looks down sadly. "I'm afraid that desert's impossible to cross."

Aang and Sokka share a look. Sokka turns to the professor with a smirk. "Professor, would you like to see our sky bison?"

"A sky bison!? You actually have one?"

The sun beats down on them hard. Ka ends up tying her hair into a bun to keep it off her neck and rolls up the sleeves of her tunic. The professor asks her more questions about her tattoos and her appearance. She mostly ignores them.

They eventually find the library, which is only visible by the small tower protruding from the sand. When they look at the illustration, they find that the entirety of the library is buried underneath the sand, but completely intact. Following a fox spirit, they climb inside through the window at the top of the tower and land on a walkway. The inside of the library is absolutely beautiful, seemingly going for miles and miles, with rows and rows of books as far as the eye can see.

After landing inside the library, they hear rustling noises and the sound of footsteps. Hiding behind pillars, they avoid the large owl spirit that suddenly rounds the corner, walking over the bridge. He stops at the rope, and looks at it curiously. Ka and Aang peeks over to look.

"I know you're back there. "

The two of them quickly hide once more, but the professor smiles and walks out from behind the pillar and out onto the walkway, his hands clasped before him.

"Hello!" he greets excitedly, all but running up to the spirit. "I'm Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University."

"You should leave the way you came, " is all Wan Shi Tong says in reply, and he turns his head to the side. "Unless you want to become a stuffed head of anthropology. "

The professor clutches at his neck when he sees the three stuffed animal heads situated on the pillar. The rest of the group walks out from behind their pillars, and up towards the spirit. Ka finds herself in awe on how large and tall he is.

"Are you the spirit who brought this library to the physical world?" Sokka asks.

"Indeed, " the spirit replies, "I am Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things. And you are obviously humans, which, by the way, are no longer permitted in my study. " Wan Shi Tong suddenly eyes Ka with wary eyes, and he pauses. "You, however... do not seem to be human. Welcome to my library, fellow spirit. " He bows, which surprises her, and she bows back after a moment of hesitation.

Aang looks at Ka for a moment, and then back up towards the large owl spirit. "What do you have against humans?" he asks curiously.

"Hm! " Wan Shi Tong scoffs. "Humans only bother learning things to get the edge on other humans. Like that firebender who came to this place a few years ago, looking to destroy his enemy. "

Zhao, Ka realizes. Aang seems to realize the same thing, for he gives her a startled look.

Wan Shi Tong leers towards a sweating Sokka. "So... who are you trying to destroy? "

"What?" Sokka says, very obviously lying. "No, no, no destroying! We're not into that."

The spirit only blinks. "Then why have you come here? "

"Um... knowledge for knowledge's sake?"

"... If you're going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put some effort into it. "

"I'm not lying!" Sokka says quickly, and moves to grab Aang and Ka. "I'm here with the Avatar and the Minder, and they're the bridge between our worlds. They'll vouch for me."

He nudges them, and Ka rubs at her arm.

"Uh, yeah," Aang says nervously, "I'll vouch."

"We will not abuse the knowledge in your library," they say in unison, and bow respectfully. "You have our word."

The spirit thinks for a moment, looking between the two of them. Ka has a feeling he only believes them because she is there, a spirit, among humans. "Very well, " he finally says. "I'll let you peruse my vast collection, on one condition. To prove your worth as scholars, you have to contribute some worthwhile knowledge. "

After a few moments of taking things out of bags and thinking of what to give, Professor Zei walks up holding a large book, kneeling before the spirit. "Please accept this tome as a donation to your library."

"First edition, very nice, " Wan Shi Tong says, and takes the book with his wing.

Katara walks up next, holding out the waterbending scroll she had stolen from the pirates oh so long ago. "I have an authentic waterbending scroll."

Wan Shi Tong's voice is horribly monotone as he says, "Ooh, these illustrations are quite stylish. " He takes the scroll, and Katara bows as she walks away.

Aang and Ka are next. They look at each other unsurely, before Aang whispers something into her ear and pulls his and Ka's wanted poster out of his shirt, holding it before the spirit with a big smile.

The spirit stares. "I suppose that counts. " He takes it nonetheless.

Sokka walks up, and Ka can only dread what he is going to do. "Oh, great spirit, check this out." He takes a string out and weaves it into a butterfly knot, smiling. "Ta-da!" The spirit only stares at him silently. "It's a special knot!" Sokka then urges. "That counts as knowledge!"

"You're not very bright, are you? " He takes the knot, however, and looks up towards the group. "Enjoy the library. " Wan Shi Tong jumps off the side of the walkway and flies down towards the lower levels of the library. Ka just watches him go, and turns to follow Aang when he begins walking into the library.

"Bright enough to fool you," she hears Sokka mutter under his breath, and clenches her fist.

Lying to a great and ancient spirit feels too wrong for her liking, even if it is for good reason.

The group stops at a bookshelf eventually, Professor Zei tearing through book after book eagerly, while the others merely peruse what the library has to offer.

"Hey, look at these weird lion turtle things," Aang says, holding the book over at his friends.

Sokka just shrugs, picking a book up off the shelf. "Eh, I've seen weirder."

Ka walks out of the bookshelf and into the next aisle. Tracing her fingers along the dusty books, she suddenly stops when she sees a scroll with the words violet and spirit written on the side. The other letters are scratched out, and she takes the scroll out curiously. Unraveling it, Ka holds it up to the light so she can read better.

The scroll tells a story of a beautiful woman from legend, who was beloved by all who met her, who was so generous and kind that the queen of the land she hailed from asked for her hand in marriage. The scroll details the woman as being dark-skinned from the sun, her hair as black as coal, and her eyes as vibrant as amethyst. Ka is so startled that she very nearly drops the scroll, but continues to read nonetheless. The day before her wedding, the beautiful woman accidentally finds herself in the Spirit World, where her face is stolen by none other than Koh the Face Stealer. The queen is in such a rage that she orders the spirit killed, but all of her soldiers have their faces stolen as well. The queen eventually dies of a broken heart, and the kingdom falls into chaos and ruin. The community comes together to rebuild each other back up—the community eventually becomes what is now known as the Northern Water Tribe.

This time she really does drop the scroll, her hands trembling too much to keep holding it. Her heart drops down to her stomach and her breath catches in her throat, and for a moment she forgets just where she is.

Her face. Her existence. Her suspicions must be true. The face she wears is not her own, and it never will be.

(Then she stops. Her hair. Her hair must be hers, for the beautiful woman from legend had black hair. That thought makes her calm down just a bit, just slightly, enough to move again.)

Ka kneels down, shakily picking up the scroll and rolling it back up, shoving it back where she found it. She follows her friends' voices, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she weaves her fingers through her hair, untangling it from the bun she had put it in before. Aang looks over when he notices her walking down, and his face immediately goes from a smile to one of great concern. He runs up to her, holding onto her arms and looking up at her face.

"What happened?" he asks worriedly. "Are you okay?"

"Ka?" Katara calls from farther down the aisle.

Ka shakes her head and gently pushes Aang away. "Read a bad story," she murmurs. "I am fine."

Aang is most definitely not convinced, telltale from the smallest furrow in his brows, but he is too distracted by the sound of Sokka's sudden running to ask any further.

"Sokka, where are you going?"

The boy in question is running down a section of the library, holding some sort of burnt parchment in his hands. He turns his head to look back at his friends and says, "I want to know what happened to the Fire Nation on their darkest day. This could be promising."

They have no choice but to follow.

"The information on the Fire Nation should be right up here," Sokka says when they come across the entrance to some sort of room, the sign at the top being large and red. However, upon walking inside, the room is full of ashes and rubble, blackened, without a trace of anything readable.

"Firebenders..." Aang and Ka whisper.

"They destroyed everything having to do with the Fire Nation," Katara says morosely, her eyes trailing across the darkened room.

"That's so unfair!" Sokka all but shouts. "Just when I think I'm one step ahead of the Fire Nation, it turns out they beat us here a long time ago!" He collapses to his knees, his fists clenching in the ashes. "I need to know what happened on the darkest day."

Suddenly, behind them, comes a whimper, and when they turn they see one of Wan Shi Tong's Knowledge Seekers standing on its hind legs.

Sokka blinks a few times. "Uh... hello, little, weird fox guy."

In reply, the Knowledge Seeker lowers back down to its four legs and points its nose outside the room.

"Seems it's trying to assist you," Professor Zei observes.

"Um, sure, I guess I'll follow you..."

They run after the fox when it begins running in the opposite direction, and it leads them to a large, round door with a mysterious texture lining the bottom sides of the wall it rests on. The Knowledge Seeker enters through a small door in the texture, and a moment later the large door rolls open. They walk inside the room, and the fox pushes a lever beside a large structure in the center of the room, and the domed ceiling slowly begins to change from dark to light, fictional stars shining over their bodies.

Professor Zei gasps, holding onto his hat. "This room is a true marvel," he says, amazed, "a mechanical wonder. It's a planetarium that shows the heavens moving."

"Uh," Sokka says, "this is beautiful, but how is it helpful?"

Ka turns to look at what seems to be a calendar wheel. There are inscriptions across all four dials, and she nudges Sokka with her elbow.

"Perhaps these dials represent dates and times," she says. "The parchment you took—did it include any dates?"

"Shh!" Sokka shushes her quickly, mock whispering. "Ka, not in front of the fox, he's with the owl!"

Ka gives him a deadpanned look. The Knowledge Seeker whimpers.

Sokka eyes the fox warily before peeking at the parchment and then moving to the dial to change the calendar wheels. He then pushes the lever, and the domed ceiling slowly changes from day to night, the sun and moon passing by each other, getting closer and closer until they eventually stop, the fake moon over the sun.

Ka tilts her head in confusion; Aang mimics her.

"Hey, wait, what happened to the sun?"

"Great," Aang says, "you must have broken it."

Sokka walks a few steps forward, narrowing his eyes, before they suddenly widen. "It's not broken," he declares, and Ka realizes the same moment as he. "The sun is behind the moon. It's a solar eclipse! It's literally the darkest day in Fire Nation history! Now I get it." He grabs Aang's shoulders and begins shaking him back and forth as he speaks. "Something awful happened on that day. I don't know what, but I do know why. Firebenders lose their bending during a solar eclipse!" He shoves Aang back without realizing, and Ka catches him before he falls. Sokka winces. "Sorry."

"That make sense!" Katara gasps. "I mean, think of what the lunar eclipse at the North Pole did to the waterbenders. This is huge. "

It was not much of a lunar eclipse, Ka thinks. The moon was ripped from the sky, rather than it being covered up by the Earth's shadow.

The Knowledge Seeker rises up on its hind legs behind Sokka and holds its paws up as if to beg.

Sokka smiles. "Fine, you earned it." He rummages through his bag for a snack and tosses it to the fox, who catches it in its mouth. It walks around Ka's legs, its tail brushing her skin, before running off and out of the room.

Sokka then walks up to the others with a confident smile. "We've gotta get this information to the Earth King at Ba Sing Se. We'll wait for the next eclipse, and then we'll invade the Fire Nation when they're totally helpless. The Fire Lord is going down!"

"Mortals are so predictable. "

They whirl around to see Wan Shi Tong standing at the entrance, his monotone voice betraying his disappointed words.

"And such terrible liars. " Sokka gulps at his words. "You betrayed my trust. From the beginning, you intended to misuse this knowledge for evil purposes. " The spirit then looks towards Ka with a horribly sharp gaze. "It's truly saddening to see a spirit dragged into human violence. "

"You don't understand," Sokka urges. "If anyone's evil, it's the Fire Nation." He gestures his arm back, his eyebrows furrowed. "You saw what they did to your library. They're destructive and dangerous. We need this information."

Wan Shi Tong is unfazed, his voice only growing louder and echoing further in the domed room. "You think you're the first person to believe their war was justified? Countless others before you have come here seeking weapons or weakness or battle strategies. "

Aang takes a step forward. "We had no choice," he pleads. "Please, we're just desperate to protect the people we love."

"And now I'm going to protect what I love. " Wan Shi Tong raises his wings, and when he begins flapping them, the library begins to tremble and shake.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking my knowledge back, " Wan Shi Tong states, and oh, if they stay, they will be forced into the Spirit World. "No one will ever abuse it again. "

Sand begins to pour from the ceilings and from the cracks in the floors. Katara looks over at her friends, her eyes frantic, "He's sinking the building. We've gotta get out of here!"

"I'm afraid I can't allow that. You already know too much. " And then the spirit is attacking them, his neck stretching impossibly far as he pursues them.

They just barely manage to avoid his first attack, running down the halls and over the vast expanse of the library. The owl spirit is fast, and the only way he does not catch up to them in time is the fact that Aang is continuously blowing air back at him to keep him at bay.

At the last moment, Sokka rounds the corner and begins running back towards the planetarium. Aang and Ka end up going with him. They check date after date—the ones before Sozin's Comet—and Ka's arms are just about getting sore with turning before suddenly the moon overlaps with the sun on a date just a few months away. They write the date on a piece of paper and run out of the planetarium just as it is engulfed with sand. The only way they escape is Sokka sneaking up to Wan Shi Tong from behind, and whacking him in the back of his head with a book. They manage to climb up the rope from where they came—except the professor refuses to leave. Ka does not know how he will fare in the Spirit World, but they leave without him regardless.

On the surface again, in the desert, when they finally jump out, Toph suddenly lets go of the pillar, falling back and groaning. The pillar shoots down into the sand and sinks, only a crater in the earth detailing its existence.

There is only one problem.

Appa is gone.

Toph tells them of sandbenders. How they snuck up on her while she was keeping the library above ground, how she tried to fend them off but ultimately had to make a choice. Ka cannot help but sympathize with her. It must have been a difficult choice.

Aang, however, is furious. His anger is so intense Ka feels it as well, and she takes a few steps away from everyone else to keep from blowing up like her Avatar.

"How could you let them take Appa!? Why didn't you stop them!?"

"I couldn't!" Toph shouts defensively. "The library was sinking! You guys were still inside—"

"You could've come to get us! I could've saved him!"

"I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sandbenders snuck up on me and there wasn't time for—"

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone! "

Katara runs up, putting her hands on Aang's shoulders in an attempt to calm him down. "Aang, stop it," she says quickly. "You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives."

"Who's going to save our lives now? " Sokka asks, looking across the vast desert with hopeless eyes. "We'll never make it out of here."

Aang stomps away from the rest of the group, settling next to Ka, his eyes blazed with fury. "That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

"We're all concerned," Katara urges, ever the patron saint, "but we can't afford to be fighting now."

Ka grabs Aang's sleeve, but he only shoves her away and turns towards the rest of his friends. In a cold, hard tone never before seen from him, he gives a I'm going after Appa before spinning his glider open and taking off.

"Aang!" Ka shouts, Aang's frustration and despair evident in her tone.

"Aang, wait!" Katara calls, running after him before coming to a halt and watching him go with sad eyes. She clenches her fists and looks down at the ground before whirling around to face the group. "We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se."

They begin walking in the same direction as Aang took off, Ka looking up into the sky for any sight of her Avatar.

Sokka drags himself behind his sister, "You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give us a ride?"

"Not after that blow you gave him," Ka sighs, and the group falls into silence.

The sun is hot and it makes them all sweaty and sticky. It is not long until they are quite literally stuck together—Ka's clothes eventually meld with Sokka's, while Sokka's are stuck to Toph's. Toph eventually shoves them both off, and they drink a bit more of Katara's bending water—Ka's had run out some time ago.

Then Sokka finds a cactus sitting in the middle of the desert. He does not even seem to hesitate before running towards it and cutting off a side with his machete. A strange plant in the middle of the desert is apparently not weird enough, but the liquid inside is white-tinted and gives off a strange smell when Sokka chugs it down.

"Sokka, wait! You shouldn't be eating strange plants!"

Sokka gulps down another portion of the cactus juice and then excitedly holds out its contents towards the rest of his friends. "There's water trapped inside these!"

Katara backs away, putting an arm over Toph and leading her back as well. "I don't know..."

"Ka?" Sokka offers next.

She sighs in reply. "You should not be drinking that."

"Suit yourself," Sokka says, shrugging despite the large smile on his face. "It's very thirst-quenching though." All of a sudden, his pupils dilate and he rapidly shakes his head. Leaning forward, his voice has turned strange as he says, "Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya! Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest! "

He starts to move and shake oddly. Ka wordlessly takes the juice from his hand and pours it onto the sand.

"I think you've had enough," Katara deadpans.

Sokka leans towards Toph, giving her a very odd stare, while the girl in question simply stares ahead of her, her entire body slumped over. "Who lit Toph on fire?"

Above them, Momo begins to fly around in circles, increasing his speed and becoming uncontrollable before he plummets to the ground, head-first into the sand. Ka picks him up out of the sand and cradles him, stroking over the fur on his head.

"Can I get some of that cactus?" Toph asks.

Katara wraps an arm around her shoulders and begins to lead them away. "I don't think that's a good idea. Come on, we need to find Aang."

They begin to walk away, but Sokka is still rooted to the ground, looking up into the sky with a dazed, far-off look. Ka runs back at the last moment to grab him by the wrist and lead him off.

"How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean? "

Ka and Katara sigh in unison.

Suddenly, as they are climbing another dune, Ka has the sudden urge to scream into the heavens, and dust and sand suddenly washes over them. Turning, they see a giant mushroom cloud of sand in the distance, blowing ever higher and higher.

"What is that?" Katara asks.

Toph looks left and right rapidly. "What? What is what?"

Sokka suddenly spreads his arms out, looking towards the mushroom cloud with a big, excited smile. "It's a giant mushroom. Maybe it's friendly! "

Katara shares a worried look with Ka before taking Toph's hand and leading her away again. "Let's just keep moving. I hope Aang's okay..."

"Friendly mushroom! Mushy giant friend!"

Eventually, when twilight comes, Aang returns, his expression crestfallen and his face woebegone. His landing kicks up a small cloud of sand, and Ka blocks her eyes for a moment before frowning and walking over towards him. His sadness is beginning to affect her, bringing her entire mood and hopefulness down.

"I'm sorry, Aang," Katara says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's hard for you right now, but... we need to focus on getting out of here."

A few moments pass. Aang shrugs his shoulder away from her grip. "What's the difference?" he says softly. "We won't survive without Appa. We all know it."

"Come on, Aang," Katara tries. "We can do this if we work together. Right, Toph?"

Toph only kicks at the sand. "As far as I can feel, we're trapped in a giant bowl of sand pudding. I got nothin'."

"Ka?" Katara then asks.

She stands next to Aang, looking down at the ground, and remains silent.

Katara then turns to her brother, her hopeful voice slowly dying. "Sokka? Any ideas on how to find Ba Sing Se?"

Sokka, however, is still tripping on the cactus juice. He and Momo lie side-by-side on their backs, arms and legs stretched out. Sokka smiles blissfully, and points up at the sky, "Why don't we ask the circle birds?"

There are four buzzard wasps circling over their heads, awaiting their demise. Katara looks across her friends, looking more and more despondent at the second, before her eyebrows furrow and her eyes turn determined.

"Ugh..." Katara grabs her head with an annoyed groan. 'We're getting out of this desert, and we're going to do it together! Aang, get up. Everybody, hold hands. We can do this. We have to."

Katara pulls Aang along with his staff, leading everyone in the front, as Ka holds onto his hand from behind. Toph holds Ka's hand, while Sokka holds both Toph's hand and the end of Momo's tail as he lazily tries to fly in the other direction.

They walk and walk until night begins to fall. Katara suddenly comes to a halt on the top of a large dune.

"I think we should stop for the night."

Everyone behind her sighs in relief and falls down from exhaustion. Toph lifts her head momentarily to say, "Is there any more water?"

Katara kneels down and opens the cap to her pouch. "This is the last of it," she says. "Everyone can have a little drink." She bends the water from her pouch, but Momo suddenly leaps through it, causing the rest of it to fall into the sand.

Sokka claws at the sand with a horrified look. "Momo, no! You've killed us all!"

Katara sighs. "No, he hasn't," she informs, bending the water from the sand and back into her pouch, before handing the pouch to Toph.

"Oh, right... bending..."

"Sokka, let me see the things you got from the library."

"What!? " Sokka shouts, backing away and holding his bag of scrolls protectively to his chest. "I didn't steal anything! Who told you that!?" He whirls around and points an accusing finger into Momo's face. "It was you! You ratted me out! "

"Sokka, I was there," Katara counters calmly, taking the bag from Sokka and digging through the scrolls.

"It doesn't matter," Aang speaks up, his voice sad. "None of those will tell us where Appa is."

Katara pauses for a moment, rolling out one scroll. "No," she then says carefully, "but we can find out which way Ba Sing Se is. We can use the stars to guide us." She looks at the scroll she holds, a map of the stars, and holds it up to the sky to compare the two. "That way we can travel at night when it's cool and rest during the day."

She is met with silence. The rest of the group lay in their respective spots in the sand, exhausted and ridden with grief.

Katara frowns. "Just try to get some sleep. We'll start again in a few hours."

They find themselves in some place called the Misty Palms Oasis. The tavern is ridden with weary travelers and men with rough appearances and large weapons.

"No one here is going to help us," he tells his uncle as much, irritated. "These people just look like filthy wanderers."

"So do we," Uncle counters, and before Zuko can reply he points someplace behind him. "Ah, now this is interesting. I think I found our friend."

Zuko follows his uncle's finger, and turns to see an old man sitting quietly at a Pai Sho table, his arms folded in front of him calmly.

Spirits. Is he crazy? "You brought us here to gamble on Pai Sho?"

Uncle just smiles calmly. "I don't think this is a gamble."

He and his uncle rise from their own table and walk over to where the old man sits.

"May I have this game?" Uncle asks.

The old man gestures towards the seat across from him. "The guest has the first move." Uncle takes a seat and immediately places the lotus tile in the center of the board. The old man raises an eyebrow. "I see you favor the white lotus gambit. Not many still cling to the ancient ways." He cups his hands and bows towards him.

"Those who do can always find a friend."

"Then let us play."

Zuko takes a seat at the side of the table, watching with both awe and confusion as both men place their respective tiles on the board at impressive speeds, seemingly without even looking at what the other is doing. At the end, when they run out of tiles, the ones they had placed down form the shape of a lotus flower. Zuko blinks a few times—what is going on?

"Welcome, brother," says the old man. "The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets."

"What are you old gasbags talking about?" Zuko demands, sick and tired of all the games and vague comments at every turn.

Uncle just smiles, not even turning to look at him. "I always tried to tell you that Pai Sho is more than just a game."

All of a sudden, a large, dark-skinned man rushes up towards them, followed by a smaller man in fancy clothes. "It's over!" the first man shouts. "You two fugitives are coming with me!"

The old man they had been playing with suddenly places himself between Uncle and Zuko and the two men, pointing at them. "I knew it! You two are wanted criminals with a giant bounty on your heads!"

"I thought you said he would help!" Zuko accuses.

Uncle places a hand on his shoulder. "He is," he urges quietly. "Just watch."

The old man whirls around to face the two men. "You think you're going to capture them and collect all that gold?"

"Gold?"

"Huh?"

At the word gold, every person in the bar lifts their weapons and moves towards the commotion, grinning smugly. The man in the fancier clothes starts to back away nervously. But the larger man only smirks and attacks the first man who tries to come after him, bending a rock from underneath him and pushing him out of the way.

In the chaos, the old man takes Zuko and his uncle and quickly leads them out of the tavern. Huh. Maybe he really is going to help, after all.

"It is an honor to welcome such a high-ranking member of the Order of the White Lotus." What? What in the gods name is this old man talking about? "Being a Grand Master, you must know so many secrets."

He's getting tired of this. "Now that you played Pai Sho," he says irritably, gesturing all around the flower shop, "are you going to do some flower arranging, or is someone in this club going to offer some real help?"

"You must forgive my nephew," Uncle says, blatantly ignoring him. "He is not an initiate and has little appreciation for the cryptic arts."

The old man leads them to a door with a peephole in it. When he knocks twice, another man slides open the peephole and looks through, his eyes suspicious.

"Who knocks at the guarded gate?"

Uncle smiles. "One who has eaten the fruit and tasted its mysteries." The door opens, and Uncle and the old man walk through. When Zuko attempts to follow, the door slams shut right in his face. He pouts at the shut door, and frowns deeply when Uncle opens the peephole and says, "I'm afraid it's members only. Wait out here."

The peephole shuts. He huffs and folds his arms across his chest, and leans against a nearby table. The flowers in the room surely are beautiful, differing in colors and sizes. He leans over to sniff the one beside him, and blinks.

Smells nice.

They find a sandbender's glider buried in the sand. It leads them to a giant rock in the center of the desert. Unfortunately, that giant rock is occupied by hundreds of buzzard wasps, those of which attack them once they inadvertently walk into their home. They end up having to run off, and Ka earthbends rock after rock at the wasps that come after them. Momo gets snatched up by one, but Aang goes after him and promptly overkills the wasp when it flies away, and Ka feels it—startled by his merciless outburst.

Suddenly, giant pillars of sand rise from the ground and scare off the swarm, promptly saving them. Sandbenders appear from all corners, surrounding them, and Aang and Ka land in front of the rest of their friends, ready to face them.

"What are you doing in our land with a sandbender sailer?" one shouts, taking a few steps forward. He must be the leader. "From the looks of it, you stole it from the Hami tribe."

"We found the sailer abandoned in the desert," Katara quickly rebuts. "We're traveling with the Avatar and the Minder." She gestures to Aang and Ka, and the leader's eyes widen at the sight of them. "Our bison was stolen and we have to get to Ba Sing Se."

Another young man steps forward, his fists, clenched, and shouts aggressively, "You dare accuse our people of theft while you ride in on a stolen sand sailer!?"

"Quiet, Ghashiun!" the leader scolds. "No one accused our people of anything. If what they say is true, we must give them hospitality."

"Sorry, father."

Toph's eyes suddenly widen, and she turns her head. "I recognize the son's voice," she says softly. "He's the one that stole Appa."

"Are you sure?" Katara asks, biting her lip.

"I never forget a voice."

Aang charges forward, threateningly brandishing his staff towards the leader's son. "You stole Appa!" he shouts angrily. "Where is he!? What did you do to him!?"

Ka walks up to stand beside him, giving the young man a glare as she stands tall beside her Avatar. The man in question cowers back, looking fearful.

"They're lying!" he tries. "They're the thieves!"

Gritting his teeth, Aang growls in frustration and smacks his staff against the ground, obliterating one of the sandbender's sailers with a powerful blade of air. Then, turning back towards the sandbenders, his eyebrows twitch in fury. "Where is my bison? You tell me where he is now!"

When none of the sandbenders utter a word, Ka furrows her eyebrows and sends a strong blast of air towards another sailer, blowing it to pieces.

"What did you do?" the leader demands of his son, sounding horrified.

"I-It wasn't me!"

Toph points a finger and shouts, "You said to put a muzzle on him!"

"You muzzled Appa?" Aang and Ka demand in unison, and their eyes and tattoos begin to glow as they destroy the last of the sandbender's sailers with a simultaneous air blast.

"I'm sorry!" the leader's son cries, almost in tears. "I didn't know that it belonged to you!"

"TELL ME WHERE APPA IS! "

"I-I traded him!" Ghashiun confesses, taking a step back. "To some merchants! He's probably in Ba Sing Se by now. They were going to sell him there!" The Avatar and the Minder's shared glare only gets stronger, and the sandbenders begin to back away. "Please! We'll escort you out of the desert; we'll help however we can!"

The wind around the two of them beings to swirl violently. Sokka grabs onto Toph and starts to run, "Just get out of here! Run!"

Aang's staff falls from his hands. The wind around he and Ka forms into a fast-moving sphere, knocking sand high into the sky and lifting the two up into the air. Katara steps forward sadly, grabbing onto their wrists—turning back with an enraged expression, they are only met with her sincere gaze. She pulls them back to the ground and presses Aang close against her chest, with one of her arms wrapped around Ka. The wind becomes less rough, and Sokka and Toph slowly step forward when the air sphere dissolved away.

Aang is in tears. They stream down his face.

His overwhelming, heartbreaking sadness is too much for Ka to not feel it. She raises her hands to cover her eyes as she begins to cry.

They escape the desert and find a waterfall pond. They suppose they deserve a quick break in the water after being trapped in the desert for days. Sokka, his head finally cleared of cactus juice, observes one of the maps he took from the library from a nearby rock. Toph sits with her feet in the water as Aang bends an ice cube around himself as he swims.

Ka lays down beside Toph, her clothes discarded and residing only in her wrappings, the top of her head submerged in the water, her hair flowing out in every direction. She closes her eyes, focusing on the heat of the sun and the coolness of the water. She reaches up to comb her fingers through her hair—if her suspicions are true, and her hair really is the only part of her that she herself owns, she wants to care for it as much as possible.

"Don't like swimming, Goddess?" Toph jokes.

Ka opens one eye to glance at her. "I'm just focusing on my hair right now."

"Whatever you say."

From on top of the waterfall, there is a huge burst of laughter, and Katara is shouting Waterbending bomb! as she cannonballs into the water. The splash sends Aang flying, and soaks the rest of her friends who sit on the side. Ka frowns, lifting her head out of the water, her wet hair flying to the front of her face and sticking to it.

Sokka groans and holds up his now-wet map. "Sure, five thousand-year old maps from the spirit library. Just splash some water on 'em."

Katara smiles sheepishly and wrings the water form her hair. "Sorry." She reaches up and bends the water from the map, letting it drop back into the pond. Sokka shakes the map to make sure it's dry and then drapes it over his lap.

The rest of the group scoots up. Ka takes a comb from Sokka's bag and brushes her hair out with it.

"Do we know what path we are taking?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay," Sokka says, pointing along the map, "we just got out of the desert, so we must be around here. And we need to go to Ba Sing Se, which is here." He then shifts his finger to a very thin line of land across from where they stand and where the grand city is. "It looks like the only passage connecting the south to the north is this sliver on land called the Serpent's Pass. "

"You sure that's the best way to go?" Toph asks.

"It's the only way," Sokka replies matter-of-factly. "I mean, it's not like we have Appa to fly us there."

"Shush up about Appa," Katara says quickly and quietly. "Can't you at least try to be sensitive?" Following her words, she and the rest of them turn to Aang to give him worried and sympathetic looks.

Aang, his knees tucked his chest, closes his eyes. "Katara, it's okay. I know I was upset about losing Appa before, but I just want to focus on getting to Ba Sing Se and telling the Earth King about the solar eclipse."

A lot of his newfound decisions have come from heavy conversation with Ka. Nonetheless, she is proud, while the rest of his friends give him surprised looks.

"Oh... well," Katara says, "okay. I'm glad you're doing better."

Sokka quickly stands up, turning away. "Then to Ba Sing Se we go. No more distractions."

Three more distractions suddenly appear. "Hello there, fellow refugees!"

Sokka gives a hearty sigh. The three refugees walk up, one of whom being very heavily pregnant.

"So, are you guys headed to Ba Sing Se, too?" Aang asks.

"Sure are," says the man, Than, and then he reaches over to pat his wife's large stomach. "We're trying to get there before my wife Ying has her baby."

"Great!" Katara says with a big smile. "We can travel through the Serpent's Pass together."

The three refugees promptly gasp, and Ying holds a hand over her mouth as she says, "The Serpent's Pass? Only the truly desperate take that deadly route!"

"Deadly route," Toph repeats, and then punches Sokka in the arm with a grin. "Great pick, Sokka!"

Sokka rubs at his arm. "Well, we are desperate."

"You should come with us to Full Moon Bay," Than suggests. "Ferries take refugees across the lake. It's the fastest way to Ba Sing Se."

"And it's hidden," Ying adds, "so the Fire Nation can't find it."

Katara pretends to ponder over the two choices for a moment, an amused smile on her face. "Hmm... peaceful ferry ride or deadly pass?"

Sokka pouts.

"Who would have thought after all these years, I'd return to the scene of my greatest military disgrace—" Uncle whirls around with a floral hat perched atop his head, a large smile on his face. "—as a tourist!"

Ugh. Zuko tightens his grip on the railing of the ferry, staring into the ocean that surrounds them. He had missed this, the smell of salt on the sea, the splash of water from standing on the edge. Being at sea for three years with no end in sight makes one used to it. This is a familiar scene. He can handle this.

"Look around. We're not tourists, we're refugees." He takes a sip of the food he was given and spits it out immediately. Okay—maybe he can't handle this. "Ugh!" The taste is horrid; he suddenly feels like vomiting over the side. "I'm sick of eating rotten food, sleeping in the dirt. I'm tired of living like this!"

"Aren't we all?" comes a sudden voice, and Zuko turns to see a boy his age walk out of the shadows with two people behind him. His skin is tanned and scarred and his face dons an almost permanent smirk. "My name's Jet," he says, and gestures towards the people behind him, "and these are my Freedom Fighters, Smellerbee and Longshot."

"Hey," Smellerbee says. Longshot only nods silently. It reminds him of someone.

Zuko turns to look back out at the sea. "Hello." This boy is very handsome—it makes him feel almost self-conscious.

"Here's the deal," Jet says, coming up beside him, leaning far too close to him for comfort. His breath is hot on his face. "I hear the captain's eating like a king while us refugees have to feed off his scraps. Doesn't seem fair, does it?"

Uncle leans over to ask, "What sort of king is he eating like?"

"The fat, happy kind." Uncle's mouth hangs open and he starts to drool hungrily. Zuko resists the urge to roll his eyes, and instead looks back towards the boy in front of him. "You want to help us liberate some food?"

He looks down at the bowl of gross scraps in his hand, and chucks it into the water as far as he can. It feels good. "I'm in," he tells Jet.

Jet just smirks at him. It's kind of unfair how attractive he is.

"Um, five tickets for the ferry to Ba Sing Se, please."

The ticket lady is very intimidating. Ka's eyes trail after the sobbing cabbage merchant as he is carried away by guards; she feels pity for him.

"Passports?" the lady demands.

Aang falters, "Uh... no one told us we had to have passports."

"Don't you know who these two are? " Sokka breaks in, shoving in between them with an arm around their necks. "They're the Avatar and the Minder!"

The ticket lady only eyes them up and down, and then scoffs, unfazed. "I see fifty Avatars and Minders a day, and, by the way, not a very impressive costume." She gestures towards the small group of fake Avatars and even smaller group of fake Minders. Aang nods approvingly, while Ka just raises her eyebrows in both astonishment and wonder. The ticket lady suddenly notices Momo, and points at him. "Besides, no animals allowed. Do I need to call security?"

Beside them, a platypus bear chomps down on the cabbage, breaking it into pieces. Momo scours into Ka's hair to hide, chittering fearfully.

Aang takes a step back, his hands up in surrender. "That won't be necessary."

"Next! "

Toph casually strolls by them, "I'll take care of this." She walks up to the ticket lady and pushes a fancy, shining passport in front of her. "My name is Toph Beifong, and I'll need five tickets."

The ticket lady gasps, her eyes sparkling in awe. "Ah, the golden seal of the flying boar!" she exclaims, and bows where she sits. "It is my pleasure to help anyone of the Beifong family."

"It is your pleasure," Toph says. "As you can see, I am blind, and these four imbeciles are my valets." She sweeps her arm behind her, presenting her friends, where they stand all huddled together in a hug, smiling. Ka rolls her eyes.

"But," the hesitant clerk says, "the animal—"

"—is my seeing-eye lemur."

The ticket lady pauses, and looks down at the passport. "Well, normally it's only one ticket per passport, but this document is so official... I guess it's worth five tickets." She stamps approval seals onto five tickets, and bows as Toph reaches up to take them with a Thank you very much.

Walking away, Sokka grins as he holds up one of the tickets. "All right, we scammed that lady good!"

All of a sudden, a guard yanks him backwards by his shirt and holds out her hand expectantly. "Tickets and passports, please," she demands.

Ka's eyes widen. She knows that voice, and that face. But everyone else does not seem to, and especially not Sokka.

"Is there a problem?" Sokka asks nervously, visibly sweating.

"Yeah, I got a problem with you!" Suki says, playing the role, jabbing a finger into Sokka's chest. "I've seen your type before. Probably sarcastic, think you're hilarious, and let me guess, you're traveling with the Avatar and the Minder."

Sokka blinks, and then furrows his eyebrows. "Do I know you?"

"You mean you don't remember? Maybe you'll remember this. " She leans over to kiss Sokka on the cheek, and that is when he finally recognizes her.

"Suki!" Sokka exclaims, his cheeks pink, and he leans over to embrace her tightly.

Suki grins when she pulls back. "Sokka, it's good to see you!"

She takes them to a more private area of the station to catch up before their ferry leaves. She leans on the railing as the others sit on the benches, Aang and Ka on the railing beside them.

"You look so different without your makeup!" Katara exclaims. "And the new outfit."

Suki gives a dry laugh. "That crabby lady makes all the security guards wear them," she says, and then smiles at Sokka with interested eyes. "And look at you, sleeveless guy. Been working out?"

Sokka smirks and rolls his shoulders. "Ah, I'll grab a tree branch and do a few chin touches every now and then. Nothing major." He pats his muscles, and Katara gives him a weird look.

"Are the other Kyoshi Warriors around?" Aang asks.

"Yeah!" Suki replies, smiling. Ka notes that she looks very beautiful even without makeup. "After you left Kyoshi, we wanted to find a way to help people. We ended up escorting some refugees and we've been here ever since." Momo jumps up next to her and chitters. Suki smiles and scratches his head, "Hi, Momo! Good to see you too!" After a moment, she scans her eyes across the group. "So why are you guys getting tickets for the ferry? Wouldn't you just fly across on Appa?"

Silence passes over the group. The good mood falls.

"Appa is missing," Katara eventually explains. "We hope to find him in Ba Sing Se."

Suki frowns. "I'm so sorry to hear that," she says genuinely, and then turns to look over at Aang. "Are you doing okay?"

When Aang looks up, he sees the faces of all of his friends looking at him in concern. Minus Toph and Ka—Toph because she never really looks at anyone directly, and Ka because she knows better. Aang bites the inside of his cheek and goes, "I'm doing fine. Would everybody stop worrying about me?"

"Avatar Aang! Minder Ka!" comes the voice of Ying, and they look down to see her, her husband, and her sister-in-law watching them desperately from below, "you have to help us! Someone took all of our belongings; our passports, our tickets, everything's gone!" She buries her face into her husband's shoulder, and covers her eyes with her hands.

Aang and Ka look at each other and then back at the crying woman. "We'll talk to the lady for you."

The ticket lady does not care a bit about their predicament.

"No passports, no tickets!" she shouts, and stamps a denied stamp on Aang's forehead.

"She is pregnant, " Ka urges.

"All of her stuff was stolen!" Aang continues.

"You have to make an exception," they finish in unison.

The ticket lady leans back a bit, looking a little confused. "No exceptions!" she then declares. "If I just gave away tickets willy-nilly to anyone, there would be no more order! You know what that means? No more civilization!"

"What if we gave them our tickets?"

"No!"

"But—"

"Next!"

Her spit flies into their faces, and they walk back to the refugees and their friends and meet their worried looks. When Aang looks at Ka, she knows he is thinking the same thing.

"Don't worry, you'll get to the city safely," Aang reassures.

Ka nods. "We will lead you through the Serpent's Pass."

They give their tickets to people who need them more than they do, and meet up with the refugees at the exit of Full Moon Bay.

"I can't believe we gave up our tickets and now we're going through the Serpent's Pass," Sokka complains, as if going through the dangerous path was not his idea in the first place.

"I can't believe you're still complaining about it," Toph speaks up.

Suddenly, Suki, in her full Kyoshi Warrior attire and makeup, runs towards them, panting. "I'm coming too!" she declares.

Sokka stops in his tracks. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Suki, confused, tilts her head and gives him a weird look. "Sokka, I thought you'd want me to come."

"I do, it's just—"

"Just what? "

"Nothing. I'm glad you're coming."

When Suki walks away, Sokka suddenly dons a worried look. Ka walks up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder and wordlessly asking what could be wrong. He only looks at her and sighs.

"It's nothing," he says. "Don't worry about it, Ka."

He is obviously lying, but she does not press the issue any further.

The Serpent's Pass is a thin, jagged, dark, rocky path in the middle of the vast ocean. There is a sign above the beginning, and as Ka looks out at the expanse of rock, she wonders just how easy it would be for them to slip off and disappear into the depths of the ocean.

Crossing the pass is a lot easier said than done. They are spotted by a Fire Nation ship, nearly destroyed by fireballs, and Aang's block of his own emotions leads to Ka feeling more and more like the person she was when she lived in the Spirit World.

Night falls, and they rest for the night. Ka ponders about how she can possibly fix her Avatar.

When the next day comes, they are attacked by a serpent, to almost no surprise. The serpent nearly causes Toph to drown, but they manage to save her just in time. Aang, Ka, and Katara fend off the beast by trapping it into a whirlpool and slamming it into a mountain.

After that, they finally exit the Serpent's Pass. The walls of Ba Sing Se are visible in the distance

"There's the wall! Now it's nothing but smooth sailing to Ba Sing Se!"

"Oh no!" Ying suddenly groans, clutching her stomach and nearly doubling over. Than grabs onto her from behind, keeping her upright.

"What's wrong?" Sokka asks.

Ying looks up with a panic. "The baby's coming!"

"What? " Sokka gasps, almost incapable of words. His eyes widen and his jaw drops so wide that Ka feels like closing it so bugs will not fly in. "Now? Can't you—hold it in or something?"

"Sokka, calm down," Katara says. "I helped Gran-Gran deliver lots of babies back home."

"This isn't the same as delivering an arctic seal! This is a real... human... thing! "

Her hands on her hips, Katara frowns. "It's called a baby, and I helped her deliver plenty of those, too." She turns her attention to the rest of her friends, as Than helps his wife to sit on the ground against the rock wall. "Aang, get some rags. Sokka, water. Toph, I need you to make an earth tent, a big one." She promptly does as she is told, earthbending the rock below them into a large tent that surrounds Ying. "Suki, Ka, come with me."

She follows, albeit a bit nervously. She herself was not a normal birth, so what would she know about delivering a baby?

Katara seems to trust her, however, so she walks in regardless.

They end up liberating food. He eats better than he has in weeks.

But the crowd around him, with Jet and his Freedom Fighters, becomes too much for him to handle. He walks to the side of the ship where he can be alone, with no prying eyes and no one to stare at him, or at his scar, or at his eyes.

The mist from the sea splashes at his face, and he inhales slowly. Upon hearing footsteps, he clenches his fist tighter against the railing, bracing himself for whoever is coming.

"You know," comes Jet's voice, and the owner comes to a stop beside him, "as soon as I saw your scar, I knew exactly who you were."

He knew it. They know. He knows. He's about to be turned over to his sister and then he'll have to face his father—

"You're an outcast. Like me." Oh. "And us outcasts have to stick together." Oh, false alarm. "We have to watch each other's backs. Because no one else will."

Zuko turns his face away. "I've realized lately that being on your own isn't always the best path." His exile, and his days without his ship has given him much time to think. He's realized things, some of them less favorable than others.

Jet suddenly gets closer, and presses a hand to his chin, turning his face towards him with the tiniest of smirks.

"It sure isn't," he murmurs against his lips before he kisses him, soft and chaste.

Ka is tasked with wiping Ying's forehead with sweat as she gives birth. Katara and Suki sit at the opposite end with her, between her legs, urging her to push and relax, prepared for the baby to come out at any moment.

Ying breathes heavily, squeezing her husband's hand in what looks like a painful grip. Ka bends more water onto her forehead, and brushes her hair back.

"You're doing great, Ying," Katara reassures, patting her leg, and then turns back towards the outside of the tent. "Sokka, where's that water?" Looking back towards Ying, she clenches her fists. "Now, get ready to push. One... two... three, push!"

At that moment, Sokka enters, goes pale, and immediately passes out. Toph ends up dragging him out of the tent so they can finish the job in peace. A few heart-pounding moments later, a cry echoes through the tent, and Katara laughs breathlessly as she pulls out a tiny, screaming baby.

"It's a girl!" she calls, and cuts the cord before wrapping the baby in a spare blanket.

The others trail in to see the baby, and Katara hands her to her mother before pulling another blanket over Ying's body. Ka finds herself smiling at the sight of the baby, much to the surprise of her friends. She ignores them when they point it out, and walk away from the new parents to stand beside Katara.

"She sounds healthy," Toph says.

"She's beautiful."

Sokka just tilts his had. "It's so... squishy-looking."

When Ka looks over, Aang is smiling, brighter than she has seen him in the past few days.

"What should we name her?" Than asks, looking down at his daughter like she is the world. Ka almost envies the child.

"I want our daughter's name to be unique," Ying says, stroking her daughter's face. "I want it to mean something."

Aang wipes away the tears that fall down his face, and walks further into the tent. "I've been going through a really hard time lately. But you've made me... hopeful again."

New life always brings joy into old lives. Ka tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and takes her Avatar's hand with another soft smile.

"I know what I want to name our baby now," Ying then says. "Hope."

"That's a perfect name," Than agrees, his voice quiet. "Hope."

They leave the tent, leaving the couple inside to talk some more. Aang and Ka stand before their friends, their plans already set and made.

"I thought I was trying to be strong," Aang starts, looking away. "But really I was just running away from my feelings. Seeing this family together, so full of happiness and love, it's reminded me how I feel about Appa..." He looks up at Katara with a smile, full of pure warmth and love. "And how I feel about you."

Katara wipes her eyes and runs up to him, embracing him tightly. When she pulls away, she moves to hug Ka as well.

"I promise, we'll find Appa as soon as we can," Aang says when Katara pulls away from both of them. "We just really need to do this."

"You sure you wish for me to come with you?" Ka asks.

"Of course." Aang nods, as if the answer was obvious. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Ka resists the urge to break into a big grin, and she only bites her lip to keep it from showing.

"See you in the big city," Sokka says.

"Say hi to that big fuzzball for me," Toph says, but finishes it with a punch to the arm.

"You'll find him, Aang," Katara assures, nodding.

"I know," Aang says, opening his glider. "Thank you, Katara." He then turns to Ka and Momo. "You ready?"

They fly off, Ka on her usual spot on top of Aang's glider, Momo beside them, their friends waving goodbye.

The outer wall of Ba Sing Se is grand and large, spanning out for miles. Thy fly up the side, and up to the top, marveling at the vast expanse of the city before them.

But then Ka turns her head.

Tugging on Aang's sleeve, she wordlessly points to the large Fire Nation drill that heads for the wall, steam pouring from the sides as it chugs along.

Aang visibly deflates, fear written all over his face.

"Appa's going have to wait."

oh my! lmao. don't worry, zuko and ka are still endgame. still, i wonder what kind of hate i'll get now?

anywho, we're in ba sing se now! exciting! for next chapter, we have: the drill, the city of walls and secrets, the tales of ba sing se, (i'll probably mention appa's lost days but not get into them fully), and maybe lake laogai (i doubt it). ka and zuko are finally going to interact more, lol. exciting, no?