Three Families

by James Golen

Three Families seek the Avatar. Three Families find the Avatar. Three Families use the Avatar. The story of how three sets of siblings are changed by the Avatar, amidst an endless war. AU, Want of A Nail.

21. Bad Tidings

Indulge me for a moment:

(In the voice of Huuni/Irukandji): Water...

A shadowed young man lashes out with a roiling whip of water, before snap freezing it into a blade hurled ahead of him.

(Irukandji) Earth...

A muscular youth stomps the ground, then sends the block which raises away in two explosive blasts of shrapnel.

(Irukandji) Fire...

A powerful girl spins through an inferno, ending with a twist of the arms, punctuated by lightning.

(Irukandji) Air.

An older woman in orange and yellow armor bounds in from the darkness, and with a punch, sends a line of shockwaves away from her.

(Irukandji, showing the world map) The world once stood in balance, both between the nations of the world, and with the world of Spirits beyond. (Map becomes the Fire Nation invasion fleet) ...but like all things in balance, it takes surprisingly little to put that balance in jeopardy. The guardian of peace, order, and balance was called the Avatar (Roku bending the four elements), the only man who could unite the elements in himself, and the world in his name. But a century ago, the Avatar disappeared.

(The scene changes to Summavut, devastated) And a century of warfare has taken its toll on both the mortal world... (shift to the Black City) ...and mine.

(Aang, standing on the cliff over the Black City) The Avatar has returned, a boy from a bygone age; he alone can restore the balance which was lost.

(Fade to black, Irukandji continues) ...because if he can't, then there's no hope left. For anyone.

Three Families

Season 2

---

The crowds buffeted against her, recoiling from her touch as she staggered amongst them. There was a smile on her face, but it wasn't exactly the happiest of expressions, nor the sanest. Her eyes were locked ahead of her, even as the lightheadedness pressured her in that illogical way it did, casting away her balance and poise. Not that she had much left at this point.

"Daddy, why's she walkin' so funny?" a child's voice said from somewhere near her as she lurched ahead, her destination clear in her mind, if not to her vision.

"Step away from her, son," the unnoticed parent coached. She kept walking, and chuckling under her breath, feeling the cold as it crept through her. After all, she'd lost a lot of blood. It formed a trail behind her, marking her path from the foot of that ridiculous statue that they were breaking ground on, that monument to his insatiable vanity. It did occur to her that in a more just world, the monument would have been to her, not to him. That just made her all the more angry.

She stumbled for a moment, but kept herself from falling against a lamppost which thrust up from the stone of the sidewalks. She took a moment to catch her breath. She wasn't as young as she used to be. And the last decade in particular had aged her far faster than it ought have. She panted, trying to get the wind back into her, trying to clear the specks from her cataract-fuzzed eyes. Blood pooled, and she summoned her strength.

Even as she stood, she thought back to the last time she'd seen him, the destination of her exsanguinating walk. He had to be waiting for her. She knew he was. It was expected of him. If there was one thing which she regretted, it was how she treated him, but for one thing she enjoyed, it was his reliability. She pressed on, leaving a red hand-print against the pole as she did so. As she walked, that distant smile on her face, she remembered his face, his voice. The look on the latter, the sound of the former, the last time that she'd seen him.

It had been simple enough to break into his apartment, which took up a tiny corner of the condominium. Her eyes as they flit around the domicile were contemptuous. Were she in this place, she would have never accepted such meagre quarters, a place so steeped in the tropes of poverty. Not since she remembered who she really was. Not since Chiyo. And the waiting had been galling. Not that she'd expected Daichi to be home when she arrived. She'd actually made sure he wouldn't be. There were certain things she needed to put into place, in case things went wrong.

The clunk of keys in the lock dragged her scornful attention away from the nursery, which was half-completed beside its intact brother. Something started and then abandoned? She'd taught him better than that. When the door swung open, she was silent, standing off to one side, and letting the two of them come in.

"I swear, if I eat another bite, I will explode," the woman's voice said.

"Really? That'd be a terrible shame, wouldn't it?" Daichi's playful tones followed. "And I don't think it's likely. You're probably going to be snacking away come midnight."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were fattening me up for the oven, sweetheart," she said, coming into view of the silent older woman. This woman was a tiny thing, fully half a foot shorter than Daichi, which was telling because Daichi was two inches shorter than she herself. Not surprising considering his father, but... She also had the parchment complexion of a native of the North Earth Kingdoms, possibly even from the Western Reach, and green eyes cemented her place as a local. The older woman's lips twisted at the thought. It wouldn't have bothered her a decade ago. A lot wouldn't have bothered her then.

"Please, I remember how you were when Mako was in there," Daichi said, taking a moment to embrace his woman from behind, even while balancing a very young boy in the crook of his arm. As he did, he turned the three of them toward the old woman, and two of them gave a start. Only the toddler didn't look shocked by her sudden appearance.

The woman gave a clipped shriek, and backed into her mate. "Daichi! Somebody's in our home!"

"Calm down, calm down," Daichi said, tones guarded, his golden eyes locked on her own. "It's just my mother. You remember my mother, don't you?"

"But... What's she doing here?" the woman asked.

"Still slumming with the locals?" the elder asked unkindly.

"Mother..." Daichi said with annoyance.

"I wish to speak with my son. Leave," she ordered. The mother of her grandson gave the old woman a glare, but took the boy.

"Mako and I will be in the next room, alright?" she said, then leaned up to give the boy a peck on the lips, before absconding. Good. She turned her eyes toward the man, now in his thirties, who stared back at her impatiently.

"Mother..." Daichi began.

"Don't take that tone with me," she snapped.

"I think I've got the right," Daichi noted, but not caustically. "After all, you did say some fairly unkind things about me last time we were in the same room."

"That was..."

"Also some unkind firebending," Daichi continued.

She glanced away, refusing to let the boy see her shame. "That is the past."

"I mean, it's obvious you didn't approve of my wife, but you could at least acknowledge her as a human being."

"I need do nothing of the sort," she snapped.

Daichi shook his head. "I really wonder how Dad put up with you for so long."

She stalked up to him, pointing one broken-nailed finger up at his nose. "Don't speak of him. Not now."

"Is there anything else you'd like me not to talk about? Should I compile a list?" Daichi asked.

"You didn't used to be such a smartass," she said, turning toward the window, which provided a lovely view of an adjacent building's wall.

"And you didn't used to be such a psychopath," he answered. She gave him a glare for that. "Face it, 'Azula' is practically a profanity nowadays. They're going to find you, and they're going to punish you for what you've done to the heroes of the last war. There's nothing I can do to stop it. But really, Mother, would it be so bad that I could understand it? Why, Mother?"

"She killed Chiyo."

"That was ten years ago, almost," Daichi said.

"And you put her out of your mind in an instant, didn't you?" Azula asked.

"I loved my sister. I still miss her," Daichi said mournfully. "But she's gone. I can't bring her back. Neither can you."

"Maybe not," Azula said, "but I can still have my vengeance."

"Mother, please, stop this," he said, so quietly. "Just... meet your grandson. Talk to my wife. Stop this before it's too late. Before the Avatar himself comes to end this."

"It's already too late," Azula said, a smirk coming to her face. "I know he's coming. I'm counting on it."

"Why?"

"He stole my fire," Azula said, forcing past the knot in her throat at the admission. "The only justice left will be when I take his life."

Daichi sighed, leaning against the doorframe. "I can't help you, Mother. I have my own family to take care of. A family which is getting bigger every day."

"Misbegotten children," Azula said.

"Enough!" Daichi shouted. Azula had often doubted that he was even her child, until she saw him angry. Then, the resemblance came through clear as glass. "I've tried to be a good son, Mother. I tried harder than you could believe. But you never gave me an inch of respect. If you can't even appreciate that I'm happy, now, then maybe you should leave."

"This is going to end soon enough," Azula said.

"And thank Agni for that," Daichi said. He pointed to the door. "Just... go. It would be better if you didn't come back."

She gave a start and a lurch, coming back to consciousness as she slumped against a passer-by. She pushed off of him and kept walking, even as, in her wake, he noticed the glut of her own blood she left on him in her passage. He started to shout in alarm, but she kept walking. There was a dull roar which filled her ears, making it hard to pick out the words which were being said to her, even as people now tried to keep pace with her, to tell her something, to restrain her. She pushed past them, even as her strength flagged.

Not even noticed, for the numbness in her hands, the knife she'd carried all this way fell onto the stones of the roadway, its blade red and slick, and its contents not her own, unlike the rest of it which fell around the weapon, and formed crimson footprints as she moved. The smile didn't go away, though. And then, she started to laugh. It was a croaking chuckle at first, an anguished sound coming from an ancient throat. But it grew stronger as she made those last few steps, under the arch which separated the street from the condominium proper.

"I did it," Azula said, the joy poisoned in her voice, but there nonetheless. "He's dead. The Avatar is dead..."

She reached to the door, to give a hearty 'I told you I'd do it' to her son, but her slick hand couldn't grasp the handle. She slumped forward, just to get her breath, to muster her strength.

It didn't muster. It ebbed.

She slid down the door.

Her body went numb.

Her blood pooled.

Her heart stilled.

Her eyes shut.

...

Azula's eyes snapped open, hurling the blanket off of her body in a sweep, her body jerking up like it was propelled by a spring. Her heart hammered in her chest, and sweat pounded out of her pores. She whisked it away with a palm, trying to get her breathing under control. Her eyes pressed shut, as an old but familiar pain began to compress her like a vice, a never-ending and unquenchable agony. Which was her fault.

Azula rose on the deck of that stilled steam-boat, casting out a blast of explosive blue flames into the clouded sky with a scream of wrath, pain, and sadness. The first was joined by a second, a vast illuminating fan of azure which pushed back the night and painted the odd scratchings in the deck and rail in wavering light. When that ended, she slumped against the rail, her eyes pressed tightly as though it could hold the tears in. The clouds, unimpressed by her bravado, offered only a distant thunder roll. She sobbed quietly, despite herself, just for a few moments.

"...it's not fair..." were the only coherent words which came out of her. But as with everything in her long, unhappy life, she hadn't time to weep. There was only time for vengeance, fresh vengeance, and she had to have the strength to claim it. Shoving all of that pain and sadness down, she gave the latch which controlled the anchor a kick, which started the chain's ascent. It was lucky she'd piloted these kinds of skiffs for almost three decades. Otherwise, this kind of weather might have killed her. But she set her course, and started to power south.

"It'll never be enough," a young girl's voice said. Azula pointedly didn't look for its source.

"It will have to be," Azula snapped, reddened golden eyes glaring south. Her voice was not that of the nearly-fifteen year old girl she seemed. It was the voice of bitter age. "It's all I've got left."

---

Book Two: Chaos

Chapter 1

Bad Tidings

---

The snap of the sails above was a slim comfort; they were practically more hole than sail at this point, after fleeing across the open ocean, through the hearts of storm after storm. And the rest of the fleet had still two thirds of a planet yet to traverse. The whole thing had Aang leaning forward against the railing, a sigh in his throat, eyes pressed shut. He was tired. They were all tired.

"Is something wrong, Avatar?" the old woman asked him. Aang glanced in her direction, taking in Yugoda, the aged healer of the North Water Tribe. Now, she was the most skilled waterbender left alive, and even then, because everybody greater than her was left behind as they fled, helter-skelter, away from the city which once was their home and bastion. Some were left alive. Most, not. "You look somewhat ill."

"Just nightmares," Aang admitted to the healer. "I keep having the same dream. Watching as... that man... beat me. Beat all of us. It isn't fair."

"Life seldom is," Yugoda said understandingly. "You shouldn't let dreams plague you, as you shouldn't let failures plague you. Tomorrow is a new day."

That brought a chuckle to Aang's throat. "You're right. It is," he said, somewhat heartened. He turned to the west, where the bluffs quickly dropped down to golden sand, before that sand too vanished and the wharf of Duoluo Mouzi began. He looked upon that city, which he'd honestly thought he'd be approaching with news of victory, and felt a leaden sensation. So many people were depending on him. And he couldn't help them.

He couldn't even enter the Avatar State.

"Aang, what are you doing up?" Katara asked, taking his side. "Master Yugoda."

"Just keeping an old woman company," the healer said pleasantly. And untruthfully. "I'm surprised you're up so early yourself."

"I couldn't sleep," Katara said.

"So few can," the healer admitted sagely. The boat broke away from its brothers, cutting past those bluffs, where the sea crashed against the stone, and along the woods which clung desperately to any source of water, even if it was salty. Knowing why the East was under such a drought didn't bring Aang any peace, though. It made it worse.

"Welcome back," Aang said quietly, as one ship, of a refugee fleet, took to safer harbors. All because he couldn't become the Avatar they needed. Because he failed.

---

"Is it just me, or is the weather being particularly hellish today?" Omo asked, looking somewhat green around the eyes. Kori just laughed at the Eastern-born Child's discomfort, and steered the ship with a foot as he leaned back in his seat.

"And how would you even notice the difference?" Kori asked.

"Kori, stop taunting Omo," Yoji said quietly, buffing some scuffs out of her blackened lenses. "We have a job to do."

"Yeah, a job where we have pretty much complete autonomy and the collective clout of our master behind us," Kori agreed with a grin. "I could get used to assignments like this."

"Don't," Yoji said. "That sort of pride is unbecoming the Children."

"Pride is a virtue," Omo pointed out. "It drives us to excel."

"And overweening pride is a deadly disorder," Yoji said. She leaned over the maps, slipping her lenses back in place, even though they made the ill-lit charts even harder to see. She didn't like anybody seeing her eyes. Ever. They were amongst many things about herself she detested. She ran fingers down the coasts of the East Continent, long fingernails making a skritching sound as they did so. "So where, o where, would the traitor and the rebel go?"

"Ba Sing Se?" Omo asked.

Yoji scowled at him. "Don't be thick," she said quietly. "They'd tear the Dragon of the West to shreds if they got their hands on him. The Grand Secretariat would have no less," she leaned back. "No, one would need to amass a certain amount of resources to sneak into the Impenetrable City, resources I am fairly confident they presently lack. I think they're heading in different directions. We've heard nothing of the Dragon since the North. But Azula..."

"Princess Azula," Kori amended.

"We aren't in the Far West, Kori, knock it off," Yoji snapped. He chuckled to himself. "A ship skippered by one of her description was seen heading directly south."

"So who do we target?" Omo asked.

"Who do you think?" Yoji asked. "We split the targets away from Zuko and deal with them one by one, starting with the weaker of them," she leaned back, shooting a smirk to where Omo clung somewhat seasick to the rail of the yacht. "After all, how could the mad-struck artist be harder to deal with than the Dragon of the West?"

---

"Well, this is timely," Nila said, as she reached the crest of a dune, looking at the heavens in the northern distance. Notably, spotting that there were far fewer stars in that direction.

"What is it?" Tzu Zi asked. Ashan and Sharif both kept quiet, but for vastly different reasons. Sharif did hum his tune, but was otherwise mum. Nila honestly didn't know what was going through the other young man's head. And probably better for it. Men could be disgusting. Nila pointed to the northern horizon.

"We're getting close to Ibn-Atal, the political capitol of Si Wong," she said. "Seat of Sultan Wahid the Younger, also called Wahid the Cautious. If you'd asked me a year ago where I'd be living when I escaped my mother, I'd have said there without hesitation."

"Why? Why are we going there?"

"Because the water won't reach the next settlement, and somebody should probably tell the man in charge of this country that his back door no longer exists," Nila said.

Tzu Zi was silent, as she started to walk in Nila's wake, and the other two kept silent behind her. But eventually, it became obvious that she was only trying to find the words, for she spoke out. "Nila... what happened back there?"

"I am not sure."

"Well, what made it stop?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I am not sure."

"I thought you knew things," the firebender said quietly.

"I do know things," Nila said. "I know many things. But that... was over the horizon of my knowledge," she paused, staring ahead of her. "There are things I don't understand, and may never. But I know the path in front of my feet. I need to deliver my brother to Mother. As to how to do that..." she shook her head.

"Don't worry, you're not alone," Tzu Zi said comfortingly. "That's a promise."

The two girls walked ahead, and the two boys followed after, one lost in his own thoughts, the other lost in other ways. It was best that Nila didn't look back to Ashan. The pain on his face would have only served to confuse her.

---

The almost inaudible clunk of the ragged ship bumping for the first time against the battered wharf brought Sokka out of his dreams and caused him to blink away the strange nightmare which had shrouded him. Nightmares that for whatever reason, Yue died in the North, destroyed by that same unstoppable energy which rolled over them all and cast them into darkness. It took Sokka a moment of staring at his feet to remind himself that glorious Yue was still alive. And forever out of his reach.

With a bit more might than was strictly necessary, he pulled his long, loose hair back from where it draped over his ears, tying it back. In the week and a half since they set out, they'd been battered by constant storms, so he didn't trust himself with a razor to keep the sides of his head shaved. How Aang kept stable and his own pate smooth was a mystery to the South Tribesman. His teeth ground as he got to his feet, stretching until the popping of his joints stopped, then starting to get dressed. Land meant food, and food was something in dire need in this little flotilla of the destitute. It also meant a hot meal which Katara didn't cook; Sokka could say many kind things about his sister, but a good cook was not one of them. In truth, he knew that his stomach wasn't the cause of his distress and his rancor. Hahn was.

Every day, Sokka had to work with the others in the fleet. That meant he had to talk to Tanuuit, which was an exercise in futility, and it meant he'd get dumped off on Yue, who had Hahn hovering around her like a wasp around jelly. To say that the two young men grated on each other was like saying that the ocean was damp. Honestly, Sokka couldn't yet conceive of how the sparks that the two of them threw with even the most passing of interactions didn't manage to burn up the whole flotilla, despite the storms. Tugging on his pants emitted a ripping sound, which in an unusual bit of largess on the behalf of the universe, didn't appear at the butt, but rather along one knee, where his foot had gone through it. Not surprising. East Continent fashion just didn't have the durability proper Tribal clothing did. He sighed, and put his foot back in properly. Might as well get one more day out of them.

With a flick of his shoulders to at least get his cloak over him, he clambered up the ladder to the deck, and saw that there was already something of a group waiting up there. And the one which immediately drew his attention was Yue, causing Sokka to emit a somewhat lovelorn sigh. He tore his eyes away from her, which was about as painful as tearing his eyes away from his own head, and took in the others, and found that the gang was all here, even Dad. They hadn't even finished tying off the ship to the moorage. "Have I missed anything?" Sokka said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"All of the important parts," Hahn snarked.

"You looking for trouble?" Sokka snapped.

"Sokka," Dad interrupted, instantly between the two at-odds adolescents. "You should accompany the Avatar. He needs a familiar face right now."

"But he..." Sokka blurted.

"Son," Hakoda said quietly. "Please."

"I... Alright, Dad," Sokka ceded. He turned, and made his way to Aang, his surrogate little brother, and forceably not looking back to where the girl of his dreams conversed with his father. If there were any one factor in this universe which convinced Sokka that there was no justice in the world, it was that Hahn, sanctimonious, smug, narcissist that he was, not only survived the end of the North Water Tribe, but managed to get the girl, too! There was no kind god in the heavens, and life was inherently unfair.

"Hey, Sokka. You don't look so great," Aang said. Sokka focused on Aang, and let out a chuckle.

"You're not exactly looking so hot either," Sokka said. "Come on. Some real food should get you perked right up. Like braised Pork Steaks and a kabab of Shig, and..."

"Can you please not list meats right now?" Aang asked, turning slightly green, even as he stepped off of the moving deck, onto the less mobile wharf. The two of them turned a corner, heading toward the utterly stable land. "I just want to have solid ground under my feet."

"Think fast, Twinkletoes!"

Sokka and Aang both had to let out that same clipped yelp of desperate alarm at what came. A block of stone roughly the size of Sokka's head was screaming toward them, and Sokka's only worthwhile means of avoiding it was to abandon the wharf for the water. Aang, on the other hand, managed to evade it by a dodge which betrayed gravity. Then again, gravity and Aang probably had a non-aggression agreement with each other at this point, because had they not, they'd be at open war. Sokka gulped and blubbed his way back to the surface, hauling himself back onto the subtly shifting timbers of the wharf, leaving an even wetter spot under him as he glared murder at who'd forced his evacuation. And how little that glare did.

It wasn't like its target could perceive it.

"Still quick on your feet, I see," Toph Beifong noted, tromping up the wharf like she owned it. But then again, considering her father, it wasn't inconceivable that she might. "And still getting wet, eh?"

"Why couldn't you warn me?" Sokka snapped as he flicked wet hair out of his face.

She gave him the most incredulous look without actually having to look at him. "Then what would be the point of a surprise test?" Suddenly, she broke out into a grin. "So, it's been a while. What sort of trouble'd y'all get into while you were gone?"

She was answered by wind, the crashing of waves, and silence. As she waited, the grin began to melt from her face. "What? Am I missing something?"

"We lost," Sokka said.

"What?" Toph clearly wasn't believing that.

"The Fire Nation were too many," Aang said quietly, despondently.

"But ain't you supposed to be some unstoppable Fire-Lord crushing machine? That's what the Dragon of the East said," she pointed out. Aang just shook his head, and kept walking. "Hey, where are you going? Where's he going, bub?" she attempted the second at Sokka.

"Just give him a bit of space, alright?" Sokka said. "We've all had a hard few weeks."

She stared to Sokka's left. "I don't like being left out of the loop. What happened up there, anyway?"

Sokka glared back at the ship, somewhat pointlessly since the grey waves of mist and sporadic rain kept him from seeing the source of his rancor. "We got whupped," Sokka summed up. "They had the numbers, the technology and us, we... We didn't have anything."

"You know what? I'm sick of standing in the rain. On your feet; let's go to Zha Yu's place. It's drier and a lot more interesting than out here."

"Zha Yu? Where's he?"

"Not too far," she said. "The town unanimously agreed to move him out to the Point House after the third unexplained fire. Hey! Twinkletoes! Come on, the Mountain King's gonna want to see you!"

"I thought I said..." Sokka began.

"Really?" Aang perked up with a sort of spirit Sokka hadn't seen recently. One of utter curiosity. With that light rekindled in his eyes, it was hard to say Toph wrong for the way she dealt with him. In short order, they were ascending the bluffs nearby, and entering the house which clung to its edge like a Fire Hawk over its perch without so much as a knock. Obviously she was a known and welcome guest.

"Knock knock," Toph said. "Anything on fire today?"

Teo, wearing a stained and scorched long-jacket of some sort, turned and started to wipe at the lenses which covered his eyes. "Not exactly the best time, Toph. I'm pretty sure Dad's busy," he said. He finally got sick of trying to clean them in place, and plucked them off. They left an odd, octagonal shape over each eye which was far paler than the areas around them, like he'd gotten socked in the face and the black-eyes came in backward. Or like he'd been given a very, very sudden suntan. As he did, though, he caught sight of the soaking wet Sokka and the mildly damp Avatar, and those green eyes widened with glee. "Wait... Is that...?"

"In the flesh, buddy," Sokka said, his arms cast wide. Teo turned to Toph, though.

"Katara's back!" he said excitedly, and bolted back down into the basement which was evident by the stairs which descended away from the foyer. Toph shook her head with a sigh, and half-turned toward the two teenagers with her.

"That kid just would not shut up about your sister," Toph muttered. "Annnyway. Come on. But if you don't know what something is, don't touch it. I've just managed to regrow an eyebrow from the last one," Toph said, indicating one of her brows which looked a bit thinner than its sister. Sokka nodded.

"Duly noted," he said.

"Alright," Aang sounded no less enthused. And in fact, he darted out in front of Toph, beginning to rummage through the various things which the family left lying about for any strange hands to mess with. Every surface was home to either a prototype, or a schematic for same. Really, it was like a factory and a library had an unholy love-child, which then proceeded to explode inside a respectably sized manor.

"You sound a lot less angry and tense than I thought you would," Sokka pointed out to his tour-guide through this house of madness and genius – of there was any difference left 'twixt the two at this point – as he followed her through that mess. It was lucky Momo hadn't accompanied them. The poor little guy would have been in real trouble, since he'd probably be acting like Aang, and Aang was a lot tougher than Momo was.

"And you sound a lot more of that same than I thought you would," Toph pointed out. Sokka scratched ad the back of his head, which now scritched at the short hair which was growing there. "Something happened up there. Something besides just getting your butts kicked," she paused briefly, after pulling Sokka's hand away from a heavy looking device which let out an electric hum. "Although, I can see that alone being something of a buzz-kill."

"There was a girl," Sokka said.

"So our boy has some stones in him, does he?" Toph said with an elbow to the ribs and a deep laugh. Tui La, it was like Toph rebelled actively against her own gender. "So how was she? Tender and warm and gushy? Or was she a real hardass?"

"I'm... not sure you're the one I should be talking to," Sokka admitted. She scoffed. "Fine. Well, she's got this other guy, and..."

"Did he stare down a volcano with nothing but a boomerang?" Toph asked.

"No, but..."

"Then you've got him beat," Toph said.

"It's too late!" Sokka snapped. "She's already marrying the guy!"

"Oh, so a cuckolds horns you're giving him?" she said with a nudge.

Sokka stared at her for a moment. "Now I'm sure you're not the person I should be talking to."

"You're no fun at all, bub," she said with a shake of her head. She gave a nod to the matriarch of the house, yellow-haired as ever, as she stood, staring and tense, at the study at the end of the hall. Toph halted, turning to her. In Whalesh, she asked, "Who's in that room, Sul?"

"A stranger who came from the East," Sul answered, looking somewhat nervous. "He barged in here and demanded to speak to my husband. He's been in there since."

"And you just stood out here?" Toph asked. Then, she leaned aside, and noted that Cho'e was playing contendedly in a corner of the chaos which she'd daintily tidied away. "Oh. Right. Well, he'd better be ready for a visitor of his own."

Sul gave a hiss of alarm as Toph stomped right up to the door and pushed it open, cutting off the conversation within at mid word. This time, unlike the last time Sokka had seen the Mountain King, he was vibrant and filled with an almost manic energy, which he was obviously leveling against whomever was there with him. The stranger was a taller man, of impressive height for an Easterner, broad shouldered and bushy bearded. The green eyed stranger looked Toph up and down, and turned to Zha Yu. "And who is this girl? I thought that was your daughter out in the room?" he asked in Tianxia, which was welcome over the difficult and byzantine Whalesh tongue.

"She is a friend of the family," Zha Yu said. "Toph, this is General Fong of Ba Sing Se. General Fong, this is Toph Beifong."

"I see," Fong said. He turned back, ignoring her completely, which got a sour look from the blind earthbender. "I'm telling you, we need you, and I am not leaving until..."

"Don't threaten me in my own house, Fong," Zha Yu said. "The last man who tried that got a quarrel in his gut."

"This war is turning against us," Fong pointed out. "It is only a matter of time before the North Water Tribe falls, and when it does..."

"Too late," Sokka said quietly. Fong broke off, turning to face the Tribesman.

"What was that, boy?"

"Fong, keep a civil tongue with the friends of my family," Zha Yu snapped.

"He's a Tribesman. He probably doesn't even understand me," Fong said.

"Are you kidding me?" Sokka asked, and that got Fong to pause from his condescension. "The war's over in the North. The Fire Nation won. There is no North Water Tribe anymore."

"But... That means they'll be able to send the full might of the Fire Nation against the Earth Kingdoms," Fong said. "And as soon as the next few weeks!"

"You're welcome, by the way, for that 'illiterate barbarian' treatment," Sokka said.

"Not now," Fong waved Sokka away. "We'll need to find the Avatar at once. This is news of dire import... Wait," the man grew pale. "Didn't he head for Summavut not too long ago...?"

"Hey, guys, look what I found!" Aang declared, walking into the room with some sort of twin-tonged instrument on a cord, which crackled with snapping lightning. His grin at the device faltered upon the meeting before him. "Oh... Right... No touching, I'm sorry," he said, trying to find where to put the thing.

"Avatar Aang? You are safe?" Fong asked.

Aang looked mildly confused, but less alarmed. "Yeah, why?"

"I'd feared the worst with the news that Summavut fell," Fong said, with a glance at Sokka. "Although, I can't help but wonder why? Where was the legendary power of the Avatar? Shouldn't you have been able to destroy that force with your might?"

At around that point, Aang's smile began to curdle entirely. "I... couldn't," Aang said. "I don't know how the Avatar State works. I don't know how to enter it, and I don't know what to do while I'm in there. It just... happens sometimes. I don't have any idea why."

"So the Avatar cannot summon the legendary strength and invulnerability of his namesake?" Fong said, obvious disbelief in his voice. "How is that even possible?"

"Well, it's not like there's somebody who can teach me this stuff! I have to learn waterbending out of a book, now!" Aang said, agitation joining his own tone.

"Then it's settled," Fong declared. "I will take it upon myself to determine what causes the Avatar State to activate."

"That is a monumentally stupid idea, Fong," Zha Yu noted.

"Nonsense. With the Avatar at his full potential, we will be able to end this war against the Fire Nation before they can even rotate their troops! Think of all the lives you'd be saving, Aang, preventing needless bloodshed and despair. I dare say there could be no greater goal for an Avatar," Fong said. Aang looked up at the man, then back at Sokka.

Sokka shrugged. "Well, you've wandered around gathering teachers for various things before. Why not this guy for Glowing Badass-hood?"

It was telling, though that Toph and Zha Yu shared a glance, a common understanding, even if Sokka didn't notice it. For various reasons, unique to each, they knew how it was going to end. Aang, like Sokka, hadn't noticed the 'exchange'. "You're right," Aang said, the poker dropping to the floor, where it continued to spark, even causing the rug to smoulder a little. He bowed to the brick of a General. "It is time I expanded my training."

---

"You really don't need a ride any further?" the young woman asked from the back of her Ostrich Horse, her hat tilted to keep the driving rain of the nearby storm from flying sideways into her face.

"I have impinged on your kindness long enough," Iroh said, with a bow to the woman. She was a kindly sort, a refugee fleeing south ahead of the Vagabonds who were beginning to flee the North as the news of the North Water Tribe's dissolution became prevalent. Of course, this wasn't the first time he'd met her; last time was about two years ago, when they'd first surveyed the northern lands, looking for the Avatar. She and Zuko had hit it off... then nothing came of it. "I hope that your fortunes serve you better in the south, miss Song."

"I feel bad leaving you here in the wilderness, mister Mushi," she said, using one of Iroh's aliases, most of which were invented by Zuko as something like a joke. "You should come with me to Omashu. We could be there in a week at this rate."

"I'm sorry, young lady, but my path takes me down a different road today," he gave a nod. "I appreciate your hospitality and your charity. May the fortunes favor you."

She smiled at him, a sad and parting smile, and began to steer away, to the east, a road which would take her out of the swampy lands and into the dry inner countries, finally joining the Southlands Highway. In truth, she would probably reach Omashu long before any other means of transit, but Iroh had a task which needed much closer attention than that. He knew she would be there. She'd as much as said so, and even left something there as proof. But the task wasn't to ambush her. It was to intercept her before it was too late.

He started walking down the road which moved along the coast. After a moment, he paused, then looked east, after the vanishing rider. He sighed, tugging at the beard which was growing out swiftly now that he no longer took effort to keep it trimmed in a Fire Nation style. As much as Iroh wanted to have Zuko as part of his hunt, he knew that the boy's presence would only be upsetting and confusing, to both involved. Iroh had no doubt whatsoever of Zuko's heart, but his mind? He took up a stick, and with a furtive glance, seared its end, before using the soot to make a note on a secluded rock. There was a time that Zuko was upright and honest to a fault, and a terrible liar because of it. The Dragon of the West didn't know if what he'd imparted to the boy was education or corruption, though; was it kinder to have a liar's tongue in a wise man, or an honest tongue in an empty head? Whatever the case, and however cunning Zuko was, there was one thing which he lacked comparable to Iroh. Experience.

With the note scratched in oily, staining soot in its unsaturated spot, he began to walk again, and as he did, he thought of Qiao.

"How has she been?" Iroh asked the woman as she came back into his room. Qiao shook her head, lips pursed and worried. "That bad, huh?"

"She's like she was when she first took ill," his wife said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "She didn't even recognize me. And the crying... I couldn't help her, beloved. She was inconsolable and I could do nothing!"

Iroh sat up, despite the late of night and the fatigue in his bones. He was still new to the life aquatic at that point, and not as close to his niece and nephew as he'd later be, so his impulse on seeing his wife in such a state was blame for its cause rather than empathy for its difficulty. "Maybe you should just give her some time and peace," Iroh offered.

Qiao shook her head. "You didn't see her. She was in so much pain, the kind of pain that... Iroh. It was like looking at myself when Lu Ten..." she trailed off, wiping briskly at her cheeks. Iroh shifted then, leaning closer.

"What's wrong, Qiao?" he asked.

"It's like she's lost something. I can't understand her words, but they're so distraught and sad and... It's like something so valuable was taken away from her," she let out an uncomfortable laugh. "She didn't stop weeping uncontrollably until she started firebending at her bed," her tone shifted suddenly, "and we're going to need a new mattress at our next stop, by the way," back to her sadness, "and when she did, the anger went out of her. What happened to her? What is this distemper of her mind?"

"I cannot say," Iroh said. "But it proves that her first fit will not be her last. What of Zuko?"

"He is beside himself," Qiao said with a shake of her head. "Damn it all... I feel so helpless! I hate feeling helpless!"

"It will be alright," Iroh consoled. "You forget that before her sickness, Azula was my brother's favorite. He respects nothing but strength and cunning, and she had both. I do not fear for her. She will recover."

"Iroh! Don't speak of her that way," she snapped, scandalized.

"What?"

"She needs our help just as Zuko does. You can't push her aside to your favoritism."

"It's not favoritism, it's..."

"Then why don't you ever tend to her in her worse times? Why don't you ever teach her as you do our nephew?" She asked, her melancholy replaced by indignation, and her seat replaced by an angry pacing. "Do you even know your own niece?"

That was a question which Iroh found himself asking himself more and more often since the discovery of the Avatar. For the longest time, he'd been complacent with Azula, just assuming that he'd have as much time as he'd need to puzzle out her mysteries. But the heedless, headstrong rush of the last few months, especially since they came on the tail of Qiao's passing, he'd gotten distracted and pushed aside such consideration. Now, it was coming back to bite him in the copious ass.

So much was, actually.

With a harumph, he hitched his own straw-cloak a little higher on his shoulders, keeping his body relatively dry if nothing else. He'd a long way through the storm to walk, and he wasn't sure of what he'd find when he got there. Iroh had failed the same place where Ursa almost had; he'd favored one child over another. Now, he had to redeem himself of that mistake.

Iroh walked. The storm walked with him.

---

Katara perked up from where she was trying to gather supplies upon hearing a familiar voice, and turned, leaving the stocker to gather what she'd listed off already. It was a daunting process to try to supply thousands of mouths who could find no safe harbor in this hemisphere. She was starting to appreciate the effort which Sokka put into planning their every move; expanded up, it made a lot of sense, because the logistics of moving even a remnant-people were nigh-overwhelming.

"Lana? Is that you?" Katara asked, moving out into the grey and the cold. Even though it was spring in name, here, against the storms of the ocean, and the harsh wind blowing down along the mountains, it was still as good as winter here, today. The middle-aged waterbender turned from where she was trying to haggle with a fishmonger, a hilarious scene in most cases considering neither could heed the other's tongue. Today, though, it just seemed desperate. "It's me, Katara, I was..."

"Do you know this woman?" the fishmonger asked. She was a broad woman, to say the least. Katara imagined she got anywhere she needed to by rolling. "Could you tell her to stop scaring off the other customers?"

"She's not scaring off... Just let her buy her food," she said with a shake of the head.

"With what? Ceramic chips and poetry? No money, no sale," the fishmonger said, arms crossed before her. Katara sighed, palming her forehead. She turned to the woman.

"I'm sorry, Lana. She's a bit of a bigot," Katara said. Lana sighed, her face sagging slightly. It was a common expression for the woman. "Um... this might not be the best time, but I really feel I should ask you."

"What is it?" Lana asked, turning away from the racist fishmonger.

"Do you have a husband named Shakt?" Katara asked carefully. Lana sighed.

"I did, once," the woman answered. She shook her head. "Sometimes, I think he died long before Summavut fell, in spirit if not in body."

"And a son, named Qujeck?" Katara continued. Lana nodded.

"I was so proud of him when he left Summavut. That was almost a decade ago. I haven't heard from him in more than a year. I... just assumed the worst," she said. Katara nodded, then reached into the pack which hung from one shoulder, extracting the passage box which she'd liberated months before. Lana's eyes widened, and she snatched the box from Katara's hands and ran her own over it. She looked up at the girl, unshed tears in her eyes. "It cannot be..."

She slid the lid open, and let out a sob. Katara gave the woman's arm a comforting squeeze, and guided her out of the way of the few who were still going about the business of shopping and working, even under such weather. But then again, considering this kind of weather was essentially eternal here, they would have to learn to adapt. She turned Lana into a nook behind an unoccupied stall, where the woman read through Qujecks effects. She lifted up scrolls, letting the light fall over them.

"I sent him these letters. This was the last he answered," she said. "And this was the one he didn't... Where are the others? Where did you even find this?"

"I took it from some people who didn't deserve to have it. In all the chaos and the pressure for time, I didn't have a good chance to give you this before," Katara said. "I'm sorry for that."

Lana sucked in a sniffle and put on a brave face. "Don't be sorry, kinsman. You've done me a service. At least, now I have something of my son."

"I wish I had better news," Katara said. But Lana wasn't listening to her anymore. There were some days she didn't feel particularly heroic. She started to walk off, but was arrested by the sight of a very nervous looking Aang nearby. Her brow knitted, and she quickly scampered over, after making a mental note to return to the stocker before returning to the ships. She still had her duties to attend to, after all.

"Aang, what's wrong?" she asked.

"I just spent three hours trying to figure out what causes the Avatar State, and we've gotten nowhere!" Aang complained, kicking a loose cobble. And probably regretting it from the way he hopped on one foot briefly. "Why is it that nobody ever tells stories about how hard it is to be the Avatar? I mean, there's so much that I'm supposed to know, but nobody ever told me! It's like the entire world wants me to fail or something!"

"Aang, you know that isn't true," Katara said, giving him a comforting hug. As she did, the frustration and tension which had coiled the airbender into a knot started to release, obvious even to her. "We believe in you. We know you're going to be a force for good in this world, and that when you're ready to be the Avatar Realized, you'll be fantastic. And you're wrong, you know?" she said.

"What do you mean?" Aang asked, a bit confused.

"Stories tend to have tonnes of stuff on how hard it is to be heroic. Well, at least ours do. Have you ever heard the story of Utukku Netweaver?" Aang shook his head. "Well, the way Gran-Gran told it, she was a Water Tribesman from before even the Avatar, and she was supposed to unite the South Water Tribe into one people. But the thing is, she tried and failed for forty years at it until she finally managed to get it right, and that's where most of the story is. Really. The part where she succeeds is pretty much five minutes at the very end of it."

"You've got weird tastes in stories," Aang noted. He paused for a moment, a smile coming back to his face. "Have you ever heard about the King of the Monkeys?"

"No," Katara said. "What about it?"

"It was one of my favorites. It was a monkey who decided that he was wise and handsome and rather wanted to be a god, so he started to... you know what, I'll tell it when we aren't standing in fog," Aang said.

"See? Just like that your spirits are mended," Katara said.

"Yeah. Thanks for that," Aang said. "I'm really glad you're here, Katara. I don't know what I'd be doing if it weren't for you and Sokka."

"Probably still trying to teach Momo how to dance to the flute," Katara said. She looked the boy over again. Even though his expression had brightened from its dismal set, he still looked like he was being worked hard and put away foaming. "So what's going on out there? Where were you, anyway?"

"I was at the Mountain King's home, and General Fong was trying to figure out how I go in and out of the Avatar State," he repeated.

"Why?" she clarified. Aang shrugged. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Aang."

"Why not?" Aang asked, perplexed. As he did, the lanky form of Teo appeared out of the mist, fighting hard and obvious to anybody who was paying attention to keep a suave front. He leaned on a post near Katara.

"Hey, there Katara. I heard you were back in..."

"Not now," she dismissed brusquely. "Aang, do you know what happened the first time you were in the Avatar State?"

"Yeah, I blew up my home," Aang said uncomfortably as the two of them continued to walk past the crestfallen Teo, left behind them and gaping after the Tribesman as she glided away. Katara shook her head, attention firmly on the Avatar.

"No, I meant why you did that in the first place?" Katara asked. Aang's eyes started to get a bit squirrely. "Aang, Sokka told me that you started to do what you did after you discovered Monk Gyatso's bones, and the remains of the dead. I think... that it was started because you were under such a weight of rage that you forgot who you were."

Aang stared at the stones before his feet as he walked. "Really?" he asked.

"And when you were in that fortress up in the mountains, you got so confused and angry that you looked like you wanted to bury the entire building. Aang, I don't think this is a good idea," she said.

He looked at her, though, with those expressive grey eyes, and she had doubts. "But every day that I let the war drag on, more and more people are dying. If I could have entered the Avatar State in the North, we wouldn't have lost."

"We don't know that," Katara said.

"I do," Aang said. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this. This is the only way that I'll be able to stand against the Fire Nation."

"But, what about your plan? Learning all of the Elements?" she asked.

"I don't have time," Aang said. "It took me twelve years to master airbending! I only had a week and a half of teaching in waterbending... unless we count you as a teacher," Aang said at a swift backpedal when Katara levelled a glare at him. Aang shook his head. "Even with Bumi as a teacher, I don't think I'll be ready to face the Fire Lord. Not this year. Maybe not ever."

Katara sighed. "You need to have a bit more faith in yourself," she said. "You'll get through this. And you'll do it the right way."

She should have been concerned when Aang didn't answer that.

---

"What now?" the girl asked her as the ship scudded up against the gravel which made up part of the beachhead, until it slowly planed out into drab sand. Azula glared at her, but didn't dignify it with a response. "Oh, giving me the silent treatment, are you? Well, that's going to be effective," she finished with a sarcastic barb.

"I don't need any lip from you," Azula said, her hands running along the words on the page. As she looked at them, she could feel the girl leaning around her, trying to look over her shoulder. "This doesn't concern you."

"I think it does," the girl pointed out, her arms crossed before her chest and an inordinately mature look of derision on her youthful face. "There's something you're not telling me. Something you really should."

"You are a burden I had and have no desire to carry," Azula snapped. The girl gave a haughty tut and shook her head. She folded that letter, and set it into the boiler. With no coal and no means of getting any more short of unimaginably lucky banditry, she decided her time on the waves had come to an end. The last flames in the engine lit up on the paper, consuming it, and the message borne upon it, into ashes. The girl sighed.

"You can try to lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me."

Azula ignored her. "Don't get in my way," she demanded.

"Or what? You'll leave me here, all alone?" she said, with the singsong tones of mockery. "Whatever will I do? I'll be dead in a day!"

Azula glared at her, and found a smirk turned up at her. "You have no part in this."

"Oh, I think I do, old woman," she said.

"Old?"

"You're older than me," she answered.

"This is pointless. You're not here. You're not real," Azula said. "You died six years ago."

"If I'm dead," the younger version of herself said, leaning a bit closer, "then how come I can still talk to you? How come I still know who I was? How come I can talk like my mouth isn't full of goop?"

Azula didn't answer that. She just vaulted over the rail and into the surf, saturating her pants in an instant and chilling her to the bone. There were quite a number of things which Azula hated beyond all rational reason. Sea-gulls. The color teal. Swimming. But highest amongst those irrational dislikes was being cold. Combining cold with wet sent a shard of wrath through her. She nurtured it. It would keep her warm, keep her strong.

"So much effort," the girl said from Azula's side, slogging through the water without a care. "You know, I actually enjoyed swimming."

"You were mad," Azula snapped.

"Says the woman who's talking to an eight year old version of herself," that younger Azula taunted. Azula set her jaw as she walked past rocks and trees all cut with illegible marks and symbols. Her other obviously thought Azula's focus comical. She let out a peal of laughter. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

"I didn't realize I was a sadist," Azula muttered.

"If I cannot torment myself, then what's the point?" the girl asked. "Besides, I might as well keep you company. I want the Avatar as much as you do."

Azula didn't answer that... but as much as she wanted revenge, an end to these decades of torment and injustice, a spark of her still wanted to see that look she didn't get, so long ago. Pride, in her father's eyes. Even more than hatred, that yearning drove Azula, young and old, forward, down the roads to the Southern Earth Kingdoms.

---

The wind rattled at the door as a man pounded at the door. Gansu rubbed his neck, and the skin which was already starting to flake and peel from the harsh sun which beat down on him day-after-day. He knew he couldn't sustain a herd like this much longer, but moving his family? This farm had been in his family for generations. The rains had to come next year. They just had to. But that was little balm for a sunburned neck or a visitor at such an oddly late hour. Gansu opened the door, and was immediately faced with a very intense stare, levied by golden eyes.

"Do you mind? My family are taking dinner," Gansu said.

"Where did he go?" the teenager asked. He leaned past Gansu, to where Sela and their child were trying to make a meal of what meagre provisions they had. As the teenager did, Gansu could see a nasty looking burn on the side of his neck, and that it carried up to his left ear, which was practically absent for damage.

"Excuse me?" Gansu said, blocking the youth off. When he did, he saw the youth's hand stray to a sword-pommel. Gansu swallowed hard.

"I was told an old man came to your house not too long ago. Riding with a healer girl from the north," the teenager said, an unbearable tension in his voice. "Where did he go?"

"What are you talking about?" Gansu asked.

"He must be talking about Mushi," Lee said from the table. He went to the door, and the stranger took a step back, hand releasing his weapon. Only then did Gansu dare relax. He'd had enough trouble with a bad feed-grain harvest the year before, and too few births amongst his own flock. He didn't need insane bandits making it worse.

"You know Mushi?" the youth asked. "Squat, fat, grey bearded?"

"Yeah, and he made great tea," Lee said. "He said he was heading south, toward the Three Roads Junction. Why? Do you know the guy?"

"Yeah," the youth said. "He's trying to take something which is mine."

"That doesn't seem right," Sela said. "He was always so kindly and polite."

"Looks can be deceiving," the youth said. "South. Good."

"Wait, where are you going at this hour?" Sela asked, to which Gansu had to restrain himself mightily to keep from groaning. She was too caring by a half, his wife. The number of strays which frequented the homestead was a testament to that.

"I have to go," the stranger said, and started pressing south, through the dust and the red light of the approaching dusk. Sela, bless her heart, leaned out of the door, holding up a hand against the driving grit.

"Wait... what's your name?" she asked. Gansu shook his head. It was a miracle that she only had two children, that woman. Someone that hungry toward caring probably would not have been content with a litter of seven. At once. The stranger turned, just a moment, staring back. Gansu couldn't have guessed what the youth, at the upper reaches of his teenage years, was thinking, but whatever it was, he was sure it was not pleasant. Without another word said, the youth returned his attention to the road ahead of him.

"Come on, Sela. Let's eat dinner while it's still warm," Gansu said. But Sela's sigh as she returned into the body of the house told him that this wasn't going to be the end of his hearing about this.

---

The weather had cleared somewhat, which didn't say much but that the clouds were a little higher off the ground and the rain reduced from a storm-hurled deluge to a dreary drizzle. Honestly, Sokka had never seen so weather-hammered a place in the East as this. It was practically like the Fire Nation, the weather it weathered. Of course, it did mean that they produced more food here, and in the areas around it, than did most of the Dakong Basin, despite having one hundredth the area.

"I haven't seen Aang, recently. Have you?" Sokka asked the blind girl who kept him company. She gave him something like a look. "You know what I mean."

"Nah," Toph answered. "I heard that Twinkletoes and Epic Beard Man both took over part of Dad's manor to test some theories, but beyond that..."

Sokka scowled at her. "He took over part of your house and you don't know what's going on in there?"

"Hell naw," she said. "I spend more hours over at the Mountain King's then I ever do there. You know, I gotta say, getting Zha Yu as a neighbor was the best consolation prize I ever got."

"So what do you think they're doing?" Sokka asked. "Beyond the whole 'invoke the Glowing Badass' business?"

"I couldn't tell you," Toph admitted. "Not like I could tell when he starts glowing."

Sokka nodded, but as he was about to press from a different direction, he noticed something zipping toward him with stupendous speed. He gave out a somewhat girlish shriek and heaved Toph aside, because it was obvious she had no clue what was coming. Clearly, since what was coming was a wide-eyed airbender shooting down the streets on an air scooter, his mouth working a mile a second, and the words coming out in a Doppler-shifted mass behind him.

"Hey-Sokka-Hey-Toph-they-thought-that-maybe-if-they-gave-me-some-chi-enhancing-tea-that-might-make-me-zippy-enough-to-activate-the-Avatar-State-but-I-don't-know-if-I-am-yet-are-my-tattoos-glowing-I-can't-tell-from-here-but-I-feel-like-they're-glowing-why's-everybody-moving-so-slowly?"

And with that, the airbender shot away, laughing like a maniac. Sokka blinked a few times, as Toph did. "What the HELL was that?" Toph asked.

"I'm beginning to see my sister's point. This might be a very bad idea," Sokka said.

---

"Well, you're looking a lot more sprightly," Kori said easily as they walked along the path.

"Oh, you just shut up," Omo muttered.

"I'm serious. Like a man come back from the dead," the waterbender said with a grin, adjusting the clothes which he'd brought on the occasion that he'd be on a mission requiring a doffing of uniform. They were Tribesman's clothes, all the way from the supple boots to the Sallowscale choker, but Yoji couldn't for the life of her figure how he could stand them.

Omo turned to Yoji. "Can I bury him? Just leave his head sticking out for a few days?"

"No, Omo," Yoji said, stretching muscles long cramped from having no room aboard that swift if tiny skiff. "It wouldn't do to throw away the Fire Lord's best."

"I wouldn't call him the Fire Lord's best," Omo muttered under his breath, pulling off the red tunic which was part of his own kit and replacing it with verdant. Of course, while he did so, the marvelous sculpture of his chest was visible, and Yoji allowed herself a small smile as she appreciated it. Ah, but there was better time to view works of art, and they all had places to be. Namely, not here. Of them all, only Yoji kept her own clothes, and only she refused to doff her spectacles. Unlike the others, she would not hide what she was. She was Fire Nation. No matter what.

"Have you got a feeling like this isn't going to be a normal mission?" Omo asked, which caused Yoji's eyes to snap up from the cut of his muscles to his face. Kori, who'd noticed the shift, rolled his eyes but was luckily silent. Yoji raised a brow in a silent question. "We're being sent after the Dragon of the West, obviously enough... so why didn't he send Hisui and Hai with us?" Omo shook his head, glancing back to the west. "Something is going on here. Something unsaid."

"Much is unsaid," Yoji said. "Much need not be said. Now can you please ready yourself? We've doddled enough."

"Whatever you say, o' magnificent leader," Kori said with a flourishing bow. Yoji shook her head. The only reason she put up with Kori's irreverence was because he was very good at what he did, and it was a talent unique to the Children. After all, how often did the Fire Nation have access to loyal waterbenders? Not surprising, though, given the Tribesmen's predilection for abandoning unwanted children to their death when times got hard. Yoji's past was... similar. She stepped out of the abandoned fishing shack whence they grounded the skiff. The rain was still falling, beading when it it her skin and rolling off to the ground where it wasn't absorbed by fabric. Rain. At least in this part of this continent, she could be reminded of home.

"Are we ready?"

"Are you seriously going out like that?" Omo asked.

"If I need to change into something else, I will do so as the need arises," Yoji said. "Now come. We have a lot of ground to cover."

Kori raised a brow at that, and disbelief was clear in his dark blue eyes, even as he bent the water which fell into a canopy which sent it sliding away from his head. "Call me the demons' advocate if you would, but you do realize that the East is a rather big place? If the Dragon and the Princess are even here – which I'll admit is more likely than not the way things are now – then we're still looking for a needle in a haystack roughly five times the size of our entire home continent."

"Your point?" Yoji asked, as she took the path toward where the road split to the shore.

"I'm just saying that unless you have some information which you haven't shared with me or your boy-toy over there," Omo simmered at that, "then the odds against us are somewhat astronomical. It's not like we're just going to find him drinking tea on the side of the road."

"Perhaps not," Yoji admitted, moving through that path. "But we do know where their rebellious ilk live. They will seek out security in the presence of other profligates."

"Ba Sing Se?" Omo asked.

"All roads do lead there. Yes; inevitably, but perhaps not initially," Yoji nodded. "Ba Sing Se is a hard city to navigate, and I don't doubt that every eye of every security force in that city will be wary to them. No, they'll be searching for friendlier faces in a more open city if only to gather the resources to infiltrate Ba Sing Se unnoticed. That means Omashu."

"Why would the Dragon of the West head for Omashu?" Kori asked.

"I think a better question is how do we get him away from the Prince?" Omo interrupted. "Have we got a plan for that?"

"Of course I do," she said with a peevish impatience. "I always have a plan."

"And how has that turned out for you?" Kori asked.

"That depends. Who's in charge?" Yoji asked, a withering glance directed at him him, somewhat ruined by the dark glass of her lenses. Kori just shrugged. "The plan is a remarkably simple one. We join him."

"What?" Omo asked.

"Zuko is something of a romantic at heart. According to my sources," direct from Ozai, in fact, "Zuko is obsessed with honor and takes people at their word almost without question. Lucky for us, he's not the most cunning. I simply pass myself off as a heart-rent renegade, taken up by a well-meaning outcast of a Tribesman and a helpful local, cast out for reasons not of my choosing or responsibility, and he'll take me under his wing in a heartbeat. And then, I can work to separate him from the Dragon and the Princess' influences," she explained. "After he doubts them as much as he by rights should, we will have his outright permission to eliminate them. I only hope we can do it swiftly enough to keep their tendrils out of his mind."

Kori didn't look to enthused with the plan.

"What?" she asked.

"I'm just concerned that this plan has too many moving parts," he said. "But we'll see. We'll see."

"I'm sure," Yoji said. "Whatever your doubts are, raise them. Best have them out before we move on. After all, it's not like we're just going to stumble across one of them as soon as we take the road."

If Yoji were one to believe in the will of the universe, she might have felt it laughing at her. As soon as she took to the road, the very instant the path merged with the uneven stones of that highway, Yoji's eyes went wide, because Princess Azula was standing not two dozen paces away, her own golden eyes widening at the trio's appearance. Yoji halted, and Omo had to skirt around her. Kori just looked past her other shoulder, and let out a grunt. The Princess stared in outright disbelief, as Yoji did as well. She didn't even know the odds against this happening, but they must have been pretty high.

"You must have arranged this, right?" Kori asked Yoji with a chuckle. Oh, but if she had.

---

As much as Katara wanted to protest, the sight of Aang covered in mud and ridiculous clothing overpowered her outrage and her desire not to giggle. Of course, it was obvious that Fong was starting to scrape the bottom of the Avatar barrel in his search for that spark which would turn Aang into something she wouldn't recognize. Hopefully, his overtaxed imagination would give up the ghost and Aang could leave this ridiculous misadventure behind them, and head south to Omashu before too long. After all, it wasn't like Fong was actually going to hurt Aang, right? Then again, she had dumped a dangerously powerful stimulant into the youth yesterday, and it took Sul gliding over the outer reefs to find him, crashed out and sleeping on a rock in the middle of the water. The tongue-lashing she gave Fong for that one was so legendary that even though Katara couldn't speak Whalesh, she was in awe of it.

"Katara?" her father's voice came from behind her, and she turned, spotting him not too far away, on the outskirts of Zha Yu's... compound really. It was far less palatial than the manor they slept in with Toph, and far better built even than the garrison. It was a sensible choice, given what fully half that odd family did as a hobby. The sounds of thundersnaps followed by impressed laughter emanated at almost any hour of the day. It was just lucky the building wasn't made of wood. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course I do," Katara said. "What's going on?"

"Katara... I'm sorry, but..."

She felt her stomach drop, her eyes go wide. "What is it, Dad?" this time, more alarmed.

"There are a little over five thousand on that flotilla," Hakoda said, his words careful, measured. Like he was trying very hard not to say the wrong thing. "They can't stay here forever. They need to move on."

"Well, then I guess I'll say goodbye to Yue before they leave," she said, but her father caught her shoulder, and shook his head.

"Katara, I'm going with them."

"What?" Katara asked, not truly understanding what he'd said. "You can't go. You can't!"

"I have to, Katara," Hakoda said.

"But... but we just found you again!" she sobbed, tears coming to her eyes. "Why? Did I do something wrong?"

"What? No!" Hakoda shook his head vigorously. "Katara, I couldn't be prouder of you as a daughter or Sokka as a son as I am, and have always been. It's just that... these people need me."

"I need you!" Katara answered.

Hakoda just sighed, the smile on his face not a happy one. He pulled his daughter close, and she let out a flood into his shoulder. "Five thousand," Hakoda said, an edge coming to his voice. "The North Water Tribe was forty times that when I went there. And these are all that's left."

"Why can't they just follow Tanuuit? Or Yue?" Katara asked into his parka.

"You know that wouldn't work. These people need a familiar face. And besides," he said, with an uncomfortable laugh, "because of how Arnook died, I'm technically the last High Chief of the North Water Tribe."

"But... but..." Katara couldn't come up with a good excuse. She just didn't want him to go. Not after so long. "I mean... I understand why you left. You had to, and it made perfect sense, and nobody else would do... but why do I feel this way? Why am I so angry? So betrayed?"

She took some comfort in her father's warm embrace against the cold of the wind, but not much. "Because you're not wrong. If there were anything I could have done to not leave, any way I could have not gone, I would have."

"I know, I know," Katara said, sniffling. "We had Gran Gran, and we knew she loved us, but without you... we weren't a complete family anymore. Not the way it was supposed to be."

Hakoda let out a bitter sigh. "Katara, we haven't been a complete family since a little after you were born," he said. Kya. Mom. It was odd, she had considered then – and even now in an oddly rational part of her sorrowful brain – that she had grown up without a single memory of her mother. Sokka could remember a little bit about her, but all her life, Katara'd had no mother figure. And then there was her sister, Hikaoh, a spectre in her father's eyes, but not even a whisper to Katara's. They'd all suffered. All of them, and entirely too much. It just wasn't fair. "Katara, when I was gone, I missed you more than anything. You and your brother were my entire world. You filled my dreams as I slept, and my thoughts when I was awake. Some days, your absence was like a burn which would never be soothed. But you came back to me. And you will again."

"Can... can you stay just a little while longer?" Katara asked. Her heart sank when Hakoda sighed.

"I'm sorry. I've put this off too long as it was. And the truth is, I'm not the fighter I used to be. But I promise you, whereever you go, and whatever you do, I will be praying for you, and thinking of you. And if you need me, I'll find you. I swear it," Hakoda said.

And if there was any kindness left in the world, it showed itself by giving her a few more minutes to still her tears, before her father left them again.

---

"You must have arranged this, right?" the Tribesman in the road said.

"I wouldn't put it past her," the Easterner at his side said. Azula gave a glance away from where they one and all stood on weirdly engraved cobbles to where the girl stood, looking at them with a stark note of concern.

"You are standing in my way," Azula said, turning her attention forward once more.

"I know her..." the child said warily. And oddly, now that she mentioned it, Azula did as well, but only in the haziest of fashions.

"Are we?" the girl with the dark glasses and the inhuman looking skin asked. There was something strange about her face, Azula saw. The water which struck it beaded off rather than run in rivulets. The girl waved aside, and Azula stalked toward and past them. As she did, she felt a creeping numbness run up her arm, and a confused fuddle clouding her mind. She looked down, and saw that the girl was holding her hand, having caught it just as she reached the trio of odd strangers.

Azula snatched her hand away, and when she did, the numbness dissipated, and her mind cleared. But the girl? She looked outright panicked. "I know who these people are!" the girl shouted. "Why can't you remember?"

"What are you talking about?" Azula asked.

The Tribesman nearby gave a chortle. "Worse than I'd heard," he muttered to himself in the Hui Temple Tongue. Azula wasn't exactly paying attention to him, though.

"Think you stupid old hag!" the girl shouted. "Where have you seen those glasses before? What happened the last time you did?"

Azula tried to think back, but there was a block in her memories... or rather, a great and gaping hole. She knew that there was a memory which belonged there, but it was like it had been lifted whole out of her apperception and the only sign of its existence was the relief of its figure. "They could be anybody."

"The Fire Temple, dum-dum!" the girl said, punching Azula in the hip. As she did, there was another jolt to her brain, but this time, it had the side effect of leaving an image in her memory. Her, beaten and weeping, as three teenagers in red and gold armor looked down upon her.

Azula turned, her eyes narrowing dangerously, and stared that black-lensed girl where her eyes would be. "You," was all Azula said.

"Well, that was fun," the Tribesman said, but Azula shut him up by blasting a shockwave of azure flames at him. His panicked reaction to drag the water which lay just about everywhere in the wake of the storm did little but keep her attack from tearing him in half. He still was hurled into the woods and vanished from sight. Azula swept low, but found herself blocked by the Easterner before her sweep could project the glorious sapphire flames which were her birthright. She then lashed forward, to send a lancet of flame through the girl's spectacles and head, but the girl nimbly batted the attack awry. Azula tried to press her attack, but every gout of flame, every axe-kick, every bullet of fire and sword-like chop was either dodged with contemptuous ease or shut down before it really started by one or both of the fighters. And all through it, while the Easterner showed great focus with his earthbending, he did not smile nor gloat, and the firebender girl was inexpressive as a doll.

"She's a lot better than last time," the earthbender noted, after almost pulling the cobbles out from under Azula's footing and sending her onto her back. "Think she started learning from the Dragon?"

"Doubtful," the girl answered her. "Even he couldn't train somebody from that to this so quickly."

Finally, the girl gave just the slightest hint of expression, a tiny wisp of smirk coming to bright red lips, before a hay-maker punch appeared out of seemingly nowhere, and Azula had a fraction of a second to catch it. The close fight was failing her, that much was obvious. So she thought back. Way back. Her brother asking a stupid question, her giving a quick witted and cunning answer. A brief scuffle where she had the upper hand the entire time... until he used the terrain against her, by...

Azula lashed forward with her own fist full of blue flames into the firebender girl's own. Where the two flames met, there was a cataclysmic reaction, a blast wholly out of proportion to the forces arrayed to create it. And it did hurt just as much today as it had decades ago; this time, her body was not built like a glass figurine, all nimble joints and no constitution. Now, her body was built to endure and overpower. She tumbled, bouncing painfully on the stone, before righting herself, if still while sliding backward. A jet of flame from either hand stopped her backward momentum. She saw that her opponent was quickly rising to her own feet. If looking quite different than she had before. Something had changed about her face...

"So where's the Dragon, traitor?" that girl asked, her voice professional even if her words weren't. "I'm surprised that he'd let you off your leash."

"My idiot brother and useless teamonger uncle were slowing me down," Azula said with a smirk of her own, even if she did have to puff a breath to put out one of her smouldering bangs. What she said drew the second emotional reaction from that strange girl that Azula'd seen today. A second smirk.

"Agni smiles on me then. It'll be a lot easier to kill you if I don't to explain where you'd gone," she said, as calm and aggressionless as if describing the distasteful task of personally disposing of rubbish. Since the blast had also hurled the earthbender into the forest, opposite the waterbender, it left only the two of them on the road. And Azula's patience with this encounter had just about reached an end. Her hands began to drag through the air, the old kata which she had practised every day as a child until she'd perfected it, and every stormy day as an adult to keep it sharp. As she did, the other firebender's eyes went well and truly wide.

"Agni's Blood! When'd she learn...?" the firebender began to ask, before making the smartest decision of her life and hurling herself bodily into the protection of the woods. But as Azula idly tracked the girl's path, she noted that something was undefineably off about her performance. It wasn't just that she was rusty, considering that gap of about ten years since she'd last bent lightning. No, there was something else. Almost like the energy was imbalanced. Just a little. Just enough.

When Azula lashed forward with two fingers, the bolt didn't snap instantly and obediently away from her fingertips and cutting through the foliage like the non-issue it was. Instead, there was an explosion before her hand, as the lighting clawed away in a vast arc, spiraling out and managing to set some of the smaller saplings alight, and causing some of the larger trees to explode as their hearts boiled. It was three times the raw power that she'd ever seen in her life. And less than a ten-thousandth the control. Then, that explosion began to reach back toward her, first bending her fingers back with a painful crunch, then sending her entire body twisting back even as she retreated the five paces it took to keep her balance. She blinked away that brilliant dazzle that her attack left in her eyes. What the hell was that?

"What the hell was that?" the younger version of herself asked.

"Who cares? It worked," Azula answered. She made to move toward them, but her younger self blocked her way. "What are you doing?"

"I could ask you the same," the girl asked.

"I'm finishing them now while they're dazed. I have enough enemies."

"No, you're going to run," the girl said.

"I could..."

The girl answered her by punching her in the kidney, which was simultaneously numbing and brilliantly painful. Azula staggered in a brief circle, trying to get feeling back in the left side of her body, and regretting it when she did. Now that she could feel her left hand, she was sure the fingers were broken. "You're not in any condition to fight," the girl said. "And you don't know what condition they're in. Come on, you old bat! Think this through! Gah, if you're really what I'm supposed to grow into, then I'm obviously on a drastically wrong path," the girl said, crossing her arms before her and petulantly looking away. Azula glared at her younger self, then turned, and began to run, unstably at first, but with increasing speed as her body learned its proper orientation. Of course a version of Azula was right. Young or not, she was still Azula.

Besides, Azula had better things to deal with than... whatever those people were here for.

It didn't occur to her until hours later, as she tried to catch a meager of sleep, to even wonder what they wanted with her, and by then, she was too tired to ponder it.

---

"What's on your mind, powder-puff?" Toph asked as she plunked herself down beside the Avatar, where he'd unceremoniously crashed into bed at the end of the day. While she had no way of seeing how the teenaged demigod looked, she could tell from the somewhat pulpy way he showed up to her unique perceptions that he wasn't exactly in the best of shape.

"What time is it?" the Avatar's voice was harried.

"Dinner time," she said. "So get up, lazy bones. Can't have the great and mighty Avatar gettin' soft on us, can we?"

"I'm not hungry," Twinkletoes said, and his stomach immediately called him a liar by gurgling loudly. Toph gave him 'a look', which she had to assume he'd figure out, but then again, they might be standing in pitch darkness and she'd not notice. "Why won't you all leave me alone?"

"'Cause you've got stuff that needs doing, and Zha Yu wanted somebody to check up on ya."

"You mean Fong wanted somebody to check up on his experiment," Twinkletoes said with an exhausted sort of bitterness.

"And why would I care what tall, hairy, and stupid has to say?" Toph asked. "Now on your feet, bucko! You're not missing a meal on my watch. Gods, you're already so spindly I can practically spit through you."

The Avatar gave a groan, but with a bit of effort on Toph's part, she got the teenager moving. He shuffled out the door like some sort of living dead, though. That was something of a concern. She couldn't exactly have the adventure of a lifetime if the most second-most-important person of the age – the most being herself, of course – keeled over from exhaustion. After some finagling and fetching, she managed to get Aang pointed into the dining area, which was somewhat odd to her, considering he'd been living here for three days so far and he'd not even been anywhere but his bed for all that time. Fong really had his priorities messed up, that much was obvious.

"Ah, Avatar, it is such a pleasure to finally have you join us," Dad said with his usual slimy obsequiousness. Or he could just be trying to be earnest; Toph could never really tell with the guy. One was much the same as the other. The Avatar, obviously too tired for social niceties, stood like a stunned ox, rubbing at an eye, before wordlessly taking the nearest seat and throwing himself into it. She could 'see' her father, at the head of the table, give a nervous glance aside, probably through the door to the servers, and shrug. "Well... perhaps we should simply proceed to dinner?"

"Yeah, the Avatar here's pretty well starved. I'm pretty sure General Fong only let him go so that he could figure out why his latest half-baked plan to bring about the Avatar State failed," Sokka said, from where he was already eating near where Lao sat. Dad turned to him, shocked. Toph let out a laugh at his blunt but accurate assessment. Of course, she and Sokka'd always gotten along like a house on fire, as the Western idiom went. Vexingly, for all her education, she still couldn't figure out what that saying was supposed to mean, and why it was trucked out for platonic friendships. Toph took her own place, and breathed deeply the lovely smells of a hearty stew. It wasn't until she'd been on the road that she even learned the joys of this sort of fare. Now that she'd had it, she wasn't going back. Heavy food which sat in her stomach like a brick was the only way to go.

"Toph, that is too hot for you. Somebody blow in it for her," Dad said with his usual panic-about-everything.

"Dad," Toph said with annoyance. The man blanched somewhat, and hung his head.

"Right... you're right. I'll just..." he shook his head and then shifted his attention to the Avatar, who at least would be less fraught conversation. "Ahem. Well... Tell me, young Avatar, how long do you think it will be until this war is over?"

"I don't know," Aang said morosely. "I mean... I planned to beat him by the end of summer, but now I'm not sure if that's even realistic."

"Sure it is, Aang!" Sokka said brightly. "I'll just whip up a schedule, find you a firebending master who isn't insane or evil, and you'll be throwing down with the biggest of big bads in no time."

"Y'all might need a firebending master, but from what I've heard, you're going to need an earthbender to teach you first," Toph pointed out, pausing to eat some delicious stew. They even left the big chunks of Cowppo in there, as she liked it. "And I know I've got a lot to teach you."

"Tuofu, please, don't be ridiculous," Lao said.

Toph turned to her father. "For the last time, Dad, it's not Tuofu. It's Toph! You're the only one who calls me that!"

"...but..." Lao said.

"And Twinkletoes here needs the guidance of somebody who knows earthbending as well as the badgermoles do. Unless you can think of somebody who'd be a better teacher, then..."

She trailed off when she 'noticed' that they were all staring at her. She shifted her 'gaze' toward where Dad was sitting. His head was hanging, and his chest was oddly heaving. "I just don't want you to go, too," Lao said. "It's hard without your mother here. So hard... But..."

"Dad, I know that this isn't easy for you, but you're going to have to let me go sooner or later. Besides, Mom's fine. She's got the Dragon of the East looking out for her. She couldn't be in better hands!"

"See, everything's sorted," Sokka said from his spot at the table.

"I'd be happy to have you along... but we're heading south to learn in Omashu with King Bumi," Aang pointed out.

"What? That crazy old lunatic?" Lao asked.

"Crazy lunatic is redundant," Sokka pointed out, gesturing with a pigken leg.

"I've heard stories about that man. They say..."

"He's an old friend of mine," Aang assured the patriarch, but Toph still didn't like the weight of the room. She turned to the annoyingly yet-to-be-properly-nicknamed Sokka.

"I'm a bit surprised that Katara isn't here."

"Yeah," Sokka's mirth drained somewhat. "She took Dad's heading to the South Pole again pretty hard. But I'm sure Teo's company will keep her from getting too grim."

Toph chuckled. "Yeah, I bet it will," she muttered. She wouldn't be too surprised if by tomorrow, the waterbender found herself suddenly and unexpectedly married to the mad scientist. The boy's enamor of her bordered on obsessive. But then again, Teo was the kind of guy who pretty much had three states to work with: ambivalence, unhealthy enthusiasm, and outright obsession. As much as he was no child of Zha Yu, he was certainly his father's 'son'.

Aang was silent from that point on, though. Whatever council he held, he held it alone.

---

The next day saw an end to the drizzle, as the clouds actually managed to part over the city named for a noble's dropped hat. It would be a temporary respite. It always was. Aang didn't want to say that his spirit had been broken by his defeat at Summavut, but it was pretty battered. And now, he was going to extend that condition to an entire people. He knocked on the door which Fong had claimed as his own office inside the Mountain King's proffered property. The grunt from within saw Aang opening the door, to the great, bushy-bearded general, who was reading something off a scroll.

"Is this a bad time?" Aang asked.

"No, just more news from some friends of mine," Fong said. "They were right. The Fire Nation is going to invade the Earth Kingdoms once more. It seems our six-year armistice has come to an end. What is it, Avatar?"

"I don't think this is going to work," Aang said. Fong got to his feet, running a hand down his beard.

"What do you mean?" the man asked.

"I don't know much about the Avatar State, but I do know that the times when I managed to access it, it was because I was desperate for my life, or so angry that I pretty much forgot who I am. And when I did... I wasn't really in control. It scared me."

"Aang, walk with me," Fong said, and stepped out of the building, moving through its device-cluttered halls. "I don't think you appreciate the gravity of the war. Your hundred years of absence have buffered you from many uncomfortable truths. And with the West starting to mobilize once more, it is only a matter of time before they spread their destruction before them in the places which I've sworn to protect. As you have, no doubt, as well."

"I know that, but..." Aang had to duck aside as Sul and her daughter passed by, heading out the door and into town. "...but this is dangerous. I mean, I heard from Toph that once one of my previous lives rearranged the face of the planet while in the Avatar State. I don't know if I'm ready to hold that kind of power."

"Well, you'd better get ready," Fong said with a harsh note. "Every day you prevaricate, more of my people will die," he turned, standing at the heart of the building's courtyard. "Without your aid, any force we sent to deal with the Fire Nation on its own soil would be slaughtered. But with you in the Avatar State, you would cut a path directly through the heart of their defenses, acting as our ultimate weapon! We could end the war this week!"

"Weapon? That's how you think of me?" Aang asked.

"I'm starting to think your sympathies don't lie with the people of the East," Fong said.

"I'm starting to think you're out of your mind," Aang answered. Fong stared at him for a long moment. Then, with a movement which Aang would have known to dodge had he actually thought the man would do it, he sent stone racing up toward the airbender's neck. It ringed 'round him, before the stone shifted and pinned his arms to his side, and then with a thrust of the general's arms, Aang was sent sliding away into the center of the yard. Aang goggled at the man. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting results," Fong said grimly. "Desperation or rage, you said? Well, how far will I have to push you before desperation sets in?"

And with that, the stone began to squeeze. The pain mounted, in his shoulders, in his back, in his knees. And Aang, pinned as he was, was bereft of any airbending; airbending was critically dependent on mobility. Without it, he was as helpless as a hypothermic firebender. And the waterbending which Aang did know required the use of hands and feet, of which, he had ready access to neither. And the pain began to mount.

"Come on, Avatar, show me your power!" Fong shouted.

Power beyond his darkest dreams.

There was an opening of the door, just at the corner of Aang's vision, and he could see Katara entering the courtyard. "Aang, what's going... Aang!"

She started to run toward him, water flying out of her flask into a belt of protective assault, but while she might well be the prodigy that Master Pakku claimed her to be, she was still young, and Fong had decades of earthbending experience. With a stomp, she was slammed against a pillar by an upthrust of earth which pinned her by her middle.

No barriers to our vengeance.

"Katara!" Aang screamed.

"Show me the Avatar State! I demand you become the Avatar!"

"I can't! Please, don't hurt her!" Aang begged, his eyes welling, once for the pain, and twice for seeing it levied on people that he loved.

We can save her. We can save all of them.

"I don't see glowing!" Fong snapped, and an inching of a foot sent that grinding pressure further into Katara's stomach, and she let out a cutting scream of pain. Aang didn't see the door open again, he didn't see another enter the room. All he could see was Katara, the sister by deed if not blood, in pain, and knew that if only there was a way to stop it...

Open the Door. Become the Bridge.

The tears didn't keep flowing. Rather, they evaporated into steam in an instant within a brilliant light.

Even as the glow overtook the young airbender, the pillar grinding at Katara fell away. Fong's eyes went wide as he beheld the earthbending of the master of the house. They closed again when that same man's fist crashed into his face. The Mountain King stood over where Fong was half-crouched against a low garden-wall, his face practically red with outrage. "Are you out of your goddamned mind!" Zha Yu screamed. "Don't you know what you've done?"

"I've brought out the Avatar," Fong said with a note of triumph. Zha Yu turned slowly toward the airbender, just in time to see the stone which had encased him in a crushing embrace explode away, and the gentle, carefree boy's entire form transform into one of unspeakable wrath.

"Yeah, you did," Zha Yu said, starting to move away from Fong. "And I hope that comforts you for what's going to happen next."

"Outstanding!" Fong shouted at the youth, who was starting to levitate on a cushion of tearing wind. "Now, we just need to find some way to control and direct this, and we'll have –"

Fong was cut off as the Avatar let out a scream which lit with fire, and flashed forward, ready and preeminently capable of giving Fong the beating of his life.

---

"What the hell was that?" Kori asked, as his waterbending soothed and knitted the burns on Yoji's arms, replacing scarlet, inflamed tissue with something much darker. "She wasn't half the fighter back at Crescent Island!"

"That was lightning," Yoji said, her teeth grit as she fought to ignore the warm, gushy feeling that being healed always engendered. She had no time for the euphoria right now. She needed a clear head. "Which itself makes no sense. The Princess never tamed the cold-blooded fire."

"It must have been her brother," Omo pointed out. "He taught her."

"No offense, but I severely doubt that Prince Zuko himself knows how he makes lightning. He'd hardly be an ideal teacher. And from what I know of Iroh, I know he'd never spread that skill."

Kori chuckled at that. "She's just bitter that the Dragon wouldn't teach her," he intimated.

Yoji favored her healer with a death-glare. "Where are my spectacles?" she demanded. Omo glanced around, finally locating them nearby. He held them toward her, showcasing that one of the lenses had a crack across it. She sighed. At least she didn't need them to correct her vision. She slid them back into place. "Despite this setback, Agni has smiled on us. Princess Azula has separated herself from the Prince, and thus, made herself an easy target. He will never know what fate befell his traitor of a sister."

"I don't like this," Kori pointed out. "Something just feels... off."

"Noted," Yoji said. "We take to the road as soon as you heal Omo."

"No offense to beefcake over there, but you're kinda the priority," Kori pointed out, lifting a hand which had been seared to the bone. "This isn't exactly easy work. And besides, Omo's just got a lump and some bruising. He'll be fine in a day or two."

"I will not let her get away," Yoji swore. "She caught us unprepared and complacent. That will not happen again."

"Don't worry," Omo said comfortingly. She flicked a glare at him. There was a time and a place. He pulled back somewhat at that. "Your theory was right. She's heading south, which means her only viable destination is Omashu. And I don't doubt we can outpace a pampered, mentally ill artist."

Yoji nodded, but her gaze turned to the dark blue eyes of the Children's sole waterbender. There was an understanding there, that his observation was apt. There was something off about this mission, even from its very beginning. Still, she would see it through to the end. She was Fire Nation.

---

Aang's vision opened from the burning white, showing a scene of blackness, interspersed by luminous clouds which stretched on into infinity. But before him, he could see a shape which was obviously not a cloud, for it stood straight backed, and flowing bearded, even if it was almost translucent. The man waved a hand aside, and the clouds began to light up with the glow of more than a thousand eyes. Clearest amongst them were Roku's.

"What's going on?" Aang asked, his voice oddly booming, its words flowing from a thousand throats.

"It is time that you learned," Roku said, and the scene shifted, from clouds, to a semi-visible scene of battle, where one figure stood alone amidst an army, all sculpted as though a dash of flour had been thrown over invisible figures. "The Avatar State is a defense mechanism, and a very powerful one. As you allow the strength and wisdom of the past Avatars to flow through you, you become capable of unspeakably mighty acts of strength and skill."

As Aang watched, that powder figure began to glow itself, and the army it was arrayed against burst into flakes of snow driven by a winter storm.

"But as powerful as it makes you, and it makes you quite powerful, it also leaves you extremely vulnerable," Roku continued. "If you die during the Avatar state..."

"What?" Aang asked, his voice slowly fading back to more normal tones. Roku stared at him, the glow fading from his eyes. The powdered-figure which was Roku seemed to quake slightly, not like a man staggering, but rather a sculpture of baked dust swatted with a careless hand. Its mouth moved, but whatever words were going to come out of it were silenced, as his body was reduced to a swirl of grit, which evaporated into the blackness. "Roku! What's going on?"

Then, he felt something shifting toward him. It landed with a thunk which reverberated up Aang's spiritual spine, and then, there was a shifting, like an eyelid opening. Only it somehow opened in the blackness, showing a great eye, stretching from horizon to horizon, all in scarlet red with virulent black lines racing through it. Aang retreated a step, feeling the primal terror at this thing, this unspeakably vast entity, which had turned its attention to him.

AVATAR.

The word rumbled throughout this nowhere place, sending the whole rest of the scene scattered to the winds, which was unsettling since there was no wind. It even took the ground out from under Aang's feet, and without even his most basic tricks of airbending to avail him, he fell. The eye tracked him as he fell, a great blink slamming shut like a mountain falling from heaven and crashing into the earth. Aang fell, and he knew terror.

HUNGER.

Aang fell, and the scarlet eye in the heavens faded, the distances growing so great that even its size couldn't keep it in his perception. He fell forever. He fell for a moment. Then, with a great crash of shattering glass, he fell through a roof.

It was a good thing that Aang wasn't actually here, or that might just have killed him. As it was, he felt a little bit alarmed at where he'd landed. Notably that there was no broken glass around him. A glance upward showed both that the eye was if not gone, then at least hidden, and that the glass which had broken as he passed through it now flickered between whole and sundered, unable to decide which it was. Aang rubbed at an eye with a spectral hand. "What were you trying to tell me, Roku?" Aang asked.

Silence.

"I don't understand! What was that thing?" he shouted once more.

Silence.

"Please, I need help. I don't understand! Roku! Vajrapata! Anybody!" Aang's voice echoed throughout the columnar building, and not even his echo answered him. He slumped next to where a brazen tree had tried to burst through the panels of this obvious uppermost floor. "I need help. I don't know what to do."

He huddled there for what could have been a minute, or an hour, or an eternity. Then, a light began to glow, pale blue and illuminating against the darkness. Aang rose to his feet, and looked down at where it was coming from. One floor down. And a glance aside showed that there was a stairway heading down to it. He moved to it, and marveled at it. It was all built out of metal, which moved down through the layers of this building without any regard to structural reinforcement. Even as little as Aang knew about architecture was enough to tell him that this stairway shouldn't be able to support itself. But he took it down.

And then, he recoiled as he felt a burning run through one arm. He glanced aside, instinctively opening the World Eyes, and the instant he did, he could see why. There was a pocket of Fire here. Not flames, no fuel, no burning. Just pure, elemental fire, hovering just off the stairway, an otherwise invisible menace. He could also see others. Air, some earth, even one which seemed made of lightning. But it was the being in the center of the layer, glowing blue and placid, far removed from such hazards, which commanded Aang's attention.

He moved past what few of those elemental spheres remained, and stood before the glowing woman. He got down into a leg-folded sit before her. "Who are you?" Aang asked.

Her eyes popped open, and she leaned back, as though surprised to see Aang. It wasn't easy to tell, since she was spectral and blue, but he was fairly sure she was a Tribesman. "Airbender?" the woman asked. She was in her middle age, possibly a bit older, but her body was powerfully built. "And a boy; well, I guess it's been a while. Really, I'm surprised nobody else called on me a bit sooner."

"Who are you?"

"I am..." she paused, glancing down at herself. She let out a chuckle. "Well, I was the Avatar."

"You are?" Aang asked. "You don't look like any Avatar I've seen before."

"Yeah, well, it's probably been about six hundred years since my death to your birth, unless we've got another unreasonably long lived Avatar in there," the woman said with a very sarcastic and irreverent tone.

"More like eight," Aang said. "At least."

"Yikes. Must not be very popular," she said, scratching at her head. She gave a shrug, rolled her shoulders, and leaned forward. "Well, that doesn't matter. What's your problem, little guy?"

"Well..." Aang said, "I was told that something bad would happen if I died during the Avatar state, but he didn't get to saying what..."

"Oh, you don't want to die in the Avatar state," she said briskly. "That happens, your death spreads to all the other Avatars in the cycle. Having all of them die at once means that the Bequest is gone, and the Avatar Cycle ends, as in, forever."

"That's horrible!"

"Yeah, almost happened a few times in the past," the Tribeswoman said. She suddenly let out a laugh. "Well, where are my manners? I haven't even properly introduced myself yet, have I?"

"No, you hadn't," Aang said, rubbing at his head.

"Right. Well, I'm Korra, or as the police tended to call me 'Stop running on those rooftops', 'Who do you think's gonna pay for that window?', and 'You're under arrest for wonton destruction of property'," the woman gave a laugh at that. "Ah... good times."

"I've never heard of you," Aang admitted. Korra tsked.

"And just when I thought I'd made a name for myself," she muttered. With a shrug, she looked around. "Whee-oh. Look at this place. Somebody hasn't been dusting recently."

"The last century has hit the Spirit World pretty bad," Aang admitted. "I hear it used to be nicer than this."

"I wouldn't know," Korra said with an uncomfortable shrug. "I wasn't exactly the best hand on the valve when it came to this sort of spookiness," She stood knuckling her back. "Well, you want my advice? Don't pick fights on the edges of buildings, never get into a bomb-fight with a Tribesman, and don't fight in basements against earthbenders. But for spirit-y stuff, you'd be much better looking way back to the Avatar before me."

"Really? Who was it?" Aang asked.

"Oh, he was a lot like you," she said with a hand-wave. "Airbender first, boy, got started way too soon, I hear. Name of Aang, if that matters for your finding him."

"Aang... Miss Korra, that's my name," Aang pointed out.

"Oh, get out of here," Korra said. Aang shook his head slowly, and her grin started to droop away.

"I was born more than a hundred years ago. I was frozen in a block of ice and..."

"And you're fighting against Fire Lord Ozai," Korra finished for him, shock on her face. The shock quickly turned into a grin. "Oh my gods! It's you! You're me! You're... old me! You're... TINY!" and with that, Aang was wept up into a spectral bearhug by the past-incarnation... which somehow was also his future incarnation.

"I don't understand," Aang said, separating from her at last.

"I mean, I knew you when you were about yeah-high," she said, holding a hand about a foot and a half above Aang's, "all preachy and pacifistic and stuff. But you're, like, twelve! How is that even possible? Did that lightning guy play some sort of spirit prank on you which made you shrink?"

"Korra, please!" Aang pleaded. "How can you be the Avatar? You're probably not even born yet!"

Korra broke off, and scratched her chin for a moment. "Yeah, come to think of it that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?"

"This is all wrong," Aang said.

"There was that vortex," Korra said with a note of confusion, like she was trying to find the right words. Aang leaned in. "I mean... I felt like I was getting... sucked... somewhere. Man, this is crazy."

"You're telling me," Aang said. Then, he paused. "Technically, I'm telling me. This is bizarre."

"No kidding," Korra agreed. "This is bigger than my embarrassing death or your fight against the Fire Lord, that much is obvious."

"Embarrassing?" Aang asked.

"Incredibly," Korra answered. She turned, glancing somewhere to Aang's left. "Hate to leave you hanging, especially after all the help you gave... will give... me. But I think I know where to get some answers. Maybe. Try to keep out of trouble 'till I find you again. And for Yue's sake, don't get killed while in the Avatar State. It'd be the greatest crime against humanity since the Purge if I wasn't born."

"You've got a pretty high opinion of yourself," Aang said, perhaps needlessly.

"You betcha," the Avatar-yet-to-be said with a smirk. "Now you'd better get topside and stop whatever you're doing. Are you in Ba Sing Se, by the way?"

"What? No," Aang said. He frowned. "What happens in Ba Sing Se?"

"Y'know what, it's probably better if I say nothing," Korra said. "Man, the old guy would have a conniption fit if he learned about me 'breaking causality' like this. Good luck, kiddo. You're gonna need it."

And with that, there was a feeling, like a hand being forced through pudding, and the blue figure before him was gone. And a moment later, so was Aang, leaving the empty confines of The Observatory as bereft as they were when he'd landed there.

---

The cathartic value of watching the overbearing representative from Ba Sing Se get hurled through yet another wall by the victim of his ill-advised torments was greatly outweighed by the fact that Aang had, once again, gone Glowing Badass, and that was not good news. Sokka had seen one Blood Drunk man in his life, despite his dad's best attempts at the contrary. It was a startling sight to see somebody so wild, so full of rage and bile that there was nothing left in the world for them except violence and hatred. It was a look on the face, in the eyes, which shook Sokka to his core. And his time in the North had only honed that sense, because the symbol seen once was seen again hundreds of times. But seeing it etched across the features of one of the most pacifistic and kind hearted kids he'd ever known? That was just freaky.

What chucked it from freaky to terrifying was that this time, it wasn't just a man with an axe trying to get revenge for a heinous crime; this was a demigod with the power to alter the face of the planet. If Sokka was a praying man, he'd pray it didn't get altered any further. It was messed up enough as it was.

"Aang, you've gotta calm down!" Sokka screamed into the wind, which was a somewhat moot gesture, considering the sphere of airbending around the monk was almost visible for its density. "Come on! This isn't how you are!"

"I'm pretty sure we should be running," Toph said, staring somewhere aside, trying to keep her grasp on the crumbled ruin of a wall to keep from being blown away. It was a good thing that Sokka had a bit more weight on him. "Twinkletoes is gonna chuck us into the ocean! Or a cliff! I'm not sure which would be worse!"

But Sokka was a number of things which got spoken of in various ways, encouraging or disparaging. Smart, be it 'er than he as a right to be' or 'ass', depending on who was saying it. Quick, either 'er than his brain can keep up with' or 'enough to keep from getting killed'. But the one which stood somewhere between madness and virtue was his courage. Aang was family. He was family in pain. And there was no Tribesman alive who would abandon family this side of death.

If only he'd had a bit more courage, then he could have said something as Yue sailed away from him. All he could do is stare at her, at those bright blue eyes.

Well, there was no time like too late to make up for it. As Aang once stood his ground against a volcano, now Sokka stood his ground against the Avatar. "Aang, let him go!" Sokka shouted. The sphere of air stopped advancing on the badly beaten general, but only because the whole thing rotated until the Avatar was staring down at Sokka. It was no cowardice that Sokka swallowed nervously being under that gaze; it was a simple reminder that he was both human, and still sane. The Avatar's burning eyes looked down on Sokka, and Sokka stood his ground.

"Aang, you're better than this!" Sokka shouted. A glance aside, past the ruins of what used to be the Mountain King's house showed that Katara was still trying to make headway against the wind, to even reach where Sokka stood. "Come on! This idiot wanted a weapon to throw at the Fire Lord; are you going to just give him what he wants?" Sokka said, with a brief gesture toward Fong, which he had to call off because the wind almost pushed him over as he did so. "He was wrong. He was wrong and now he's been punished for trying to hurt our family. But Katara's safe now. We're all safe. You don't need to do this! You don't need to become something you're not!"

The Avatar's eyes closed, and after a moment, the searing white glow departed from the tattoos upon his brow and arms. The bubble of air wafted away, and Aang slumped, almost keeling face-first onto the ground, if not for Sokka's catching him. Aang let out a groan. "Ooooh, what happened?" the kid asked.

"Gave us all a bit of a scare, there," Sokka said.

"Katara... Is she alright?" Aang asked.

"I'm fine, Aang," Katara said, taking her place at Sokka's side, now that she wasn't at risk of being blown away.

"So that's the Avatar, huh?" Toph asked, striking some of the chips of stone from her clothes and hair. "That ain't half bad."

"Toph, please," Katara said.

"Guys, there's something wrong with the universe," Aang said, slowly pushing himself to his feet. He made it about two steps before stumbling somewhat. He turned, and looked upon Fong, who was trying to get back to his feet, showing a remarkable resilience considering how long he'd been the sole focus of an Avatar's rancor. "I am not your weapon. That's the wrong way to do it, and if you try again, next time it'll probably be worse," Aang said. "If I can't do this right, then there's no point in doing this at all."

"But... if I can just control it..." Fong said, still grasping for rationalizations. The grasping was brought to a halt when a sauce-pan struck his head with a mighty bwong, leaving a yellow haired mother standing behind where he'd fallen, a honey-haired girl cradled with her other arm. Sul gave a contemptuous look down at the general.

"And you wonder why the Fire Nation keeps beating you," she spat. She turned to her daughter. "Now when you grow up, you must never, ever do that, alright?"

"But he was bad, wasn't he? Don't you hit bad men?" Cho'e asked. Sul sighed, and started carrying the girl away from the ruins. Sokka gave an arm for Aang to lean on, and helped the weary demigod out of the rubble. A portion of it shifted aside, and a shock-white Teo clambered out of it, covered in dust.

"What happened?" Teo asked, pulling off his goggles again. "Wow. Did Aang do all of that himself?"

"Yup," Toph said.

"That's... My experiments!" Teo said with sudden horror. "My machines! NOOOO!"

"I'm really sorry," Aang said, but Teo was already weeping against the fallen stone, crying for a device which Sokka didn't really understand or know how to pronounce.

"We should probably go," Toph said. "All of us. This time I'm serious."

"Shouldn't we clear this with your father?" Katara asked. As they walked, they passed where Zha Yu was on his knees at the outskirts of the devastation, his mouth agape.

"Why?" the man said. "Why is it I can never seem to do it?" he leaned back, shaking a fist at the heavens. "Am I just never allowed to have a damned house?"

"Don't worry, I made myself quite clear in that," she said. "Besides, I can give Twinkletoes a primer in earthbending as we go south. What'd'ya say?"

"Well," Katara said.

"Love to have her along," Sokka interrupted. "We'll take whatever help we can get."

"And you'll need it," Toph said, cracking her knuckles.

"Maybe things will start to look up," Aang said.

"Yeah," Katara agreed. "Maybe they will."

The trip to Appa and beginning toward the south was a quiet one.

---

The hand the note was written in was obviously Poppy's. Lao had known the woman long and intimately enough that he'd recognize the script almost as quickly as his own. Of course, the note was also battered and creased almost to illegibility, and slightly singed besides. Even somebody as deeply in denial as Lao, who read the contents, couldn't ignore the fact that Toph'd had to have this thing made months ago, back when his wife had separated from them in the Mountain King's Pass. After all, she couldn't exactly write this herself. She couldn't write at all.

"Dad.

I'm leaving. Don't panic over it though, I'll be fine. I'm a lot tougher than you think I am.

Mom understands. And you have to too. I need this. The Avatar is going to need my help

and there's nobody else who can do it but me. And don't send any idiots or bounty hunters

after me, that's just a waste of money. I don't know if this is what it'll take to prove to you

that I can make it on my own, but I have to believe it will. Maybe. I'll come back when

this is over, that I promise.

Toph."

Lao shook his head, staring at that thing, before turning it over. On its back was a post-script, obviously done in the voice of the person who'd done the scribing itself.

"Beloved,

If you do anything against her wishes in this

I will be very displeased.

Yingsue."

Lao hung his head. Beaten again. But oddly enough, he was defeated by the people he didn't mind losing against. But still, as he turned, looking up across the broad dining hall of the admittedly much smaller abode than his main house in Gaoling, he felt very much alone.

And he didn't like how that felt at all.

---

The weather had broken in the East, and the sun showed itself upon the shores for the first time in weeks. The old man with his toes in the sand breathed deeply, feeling the warmth of spring flowing into him as the sun bathed down, as sporadic as it might be. He was perhaps a bit off of his course, but he had to see something which he knew he would find. He couldn't have said how he'd know. And he wouldn't have explained if he did. After all, Iroh pondered, what was the point of getting old if you had to explain your eccentricity?

He walked through the sand, toward where the steam-powered skiff was beached and on its side, abandoned to rust or scrappers on the shore. A shame. These things deserved better treatment, for all they were a technological innovation which the rest of the world declined to keep up with. Until a decade or so ago, the Fire Nation ruled the oceans, domain usually given whole to the Water Tribes, simply because the Fire Nation had developed technologies which nobody could possibly match. He could see the imbalance it was creating, but there would come a leveling. It always came, sooner or later. Iroh just hoped that, unlike every leveling before, it was a bearing up of the world, rather than a grinding down of the forerunners.

Iroh hopped over the rail, and walked the length of the skiff in a few steps. No food, no money, and nothing left behind. Azula might as well never have been here. But there was something odd. Something out of place. Iroh's eyes narrowed, and he glanced inside the boiler. While the coals had fallen to ashes long before, there was also just a tiniest scrap of paper stuck to the inside of the plate. That would have been consumed utterly were the boiler active. It was something tossed within after the fire's guttering. Iroh reached inside, plucking that scrap of paper, no larger than his thumbnail, and carried it down to the sands.

Iroh laid the scrap on the damp sand, and scratched a circle around it. He then drew a square which just touched the edges of that circle 'round the lot of it, then lines from the corners inward, to where the scrap lay. With that, he sat back, listening to the roar of the waters behind him, and breathed deep the sea air.

"Mysterious Void, inevitable messenger, whispers of the profound; gear of reclamation," Iroh intoned. "Restore the words lost to the flow of time. Bear back the message which fell through the gaps of perception. Breathe the message into waiting ears."

When Iroh opened his eyes again, the sand was already moving, the scrap vanished completely, but a message beginning to scrawl across the damp sands in clear, crisp letters. The letters – obviously translations from yet another dialect – were of the language Uou, the secret tongue of spirits, supposedly only to be known by the Avatar and the dwellers of the deepest sanctums of the Spirit World. It didn't stop Iroh from knowing it, though.

My beloved daughter.

Every day that I live is wracked with guilt. Not just for what I've done to you, but

for what I didn't. You were the best of everything that I was. Because of you, I

finally felt like there was a place that I wasn't a monster, like I could belong. But

I was a fool. I didn't appreciate you when I should have. And when I did, it was

already essentially too late. You didn't need me anymore. The greatest of my dreams

are over, but when I awaken, I find myself alone. You gave me the greatest gift of

all, something that nobody ever gave me before; you made me feel human.

There are no words for what I am. I only pray... yes, I pray... that you would

be proud of me, my beloved Chiyo. That you would understand why I have to

do what I do now. I once hoped that I could make this world the perfect place

for you to excel, to thrive... but now I wonder if I even deserve to live in it.

I'm so sorry. I failed you. Your birth gave me hope. But where-ever you are

Chiyo

I miss you.

It was not signed, but Iroh didn't need a signature to know who had wrote it. It was the confirmation of his theory which he only wished he could have shown Zuko, made him see what Iroh saw. He got to his feet, and dusted his knees. The tide was coming in, and when it arrived, it would erase the message completely. Now, it only existed in his mind. He started walking toward the road which lead to the south. And as he did, he wiped once at his eyes, to wisk away an errant tear.

---

Alright. Back writing again, but you have to be aware that I am forseeing a definite chance (and by that I mean definite definiteness) of at least one entirely Mass Effect related delay in updating. As much fun as it is, I find myself in the unenviable but entertaining position of trying to outguess the creators of the series; my verisimilitude in this story (read, the obsessive research regarding technological levels regarding weapons and electricity) only came about when I noted that Korra has radio. In order to have radio, you need to have a number of precursor technologies. Now, since Korra's coming out not long from now, I'm going to have to hedge my bets with what they're going to have access to, and if I'm lucky, might even be able to front-fill characters from that story into mine. You've already seen the first of it. There will be more. Hey, I accurately guessed that ME2's Jack would have hair if she survived to ME3. I figure I'm on a bit of a roll.

While I need to work on building up my buffer for this 'second season', I also need to figure out how I get to Ba Sing Se. It isn't following the usual path, since neither the Swamp, nor Avatar Day (Kyoshi Island's been annexed, remember) can happen, nor will The Library, (since Wan Shi Tong would send the Gaang running in justifiable terror at first sight) nor The Desert (Because Gashuin's no longer in the geographical area to steal Appa). It's mildly annoying, because I have fairly decent plans about what happens once they reach Ba Sing Se (and Team Girl Power finally unites with the Gaang), but it's the getting there which is the harder part.

If you're still wondering what's going on with Azula, remember what Sharif called her; the Four Soul mind. She ain't alone in the old noodle, if you catch my despairingly obvious implication. That will be explained into the ground by the time this season's over with. Also, more Iroh. Yay.