Auuugghhh my god, this took so much more effort than it should have. Sorry guys, there's like no motivation right now. It may be a while until the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar

CHAPTER 21

"Sokka? Katara? Aang?" Toph shouted as she moved slowly through the hallway at the bottom of the staircase. She had one hand on the wall to guide herself, since the street cars seemed to resonate here as well. She stopped. Someone was coming. "Who's there? Identify yourself!"

Woof.

"Oh, Appa, good, it's you," she sighed in relief, reaching blindly for the dog. She felt his wet nose against her hand and couldn't help but smile, scratching his head gratefully. "Do you know where everyone went?"

He barked again and sat down.

"Yeah, me neither," she exhaled heavily and sat beside him, leaning against the wall. "Man, this blind thing really stinks." He woofed in what sounded like a sympathetic way and she smiled again.

0000000

"Oh come in, this is ridiculous."

Katara and Aang glanced at Sokka. He pointed at the owl and shook his head.

"This is the real world, birdface," he called. "Isn't there a Spirit World that you're supposed to be in?"

"Your disrespect doesn't really motivate me to answer you," the owl replied in an even tone, dark eyes turning to Sokka. "But I will regardless. I once believed curiosity to be worthy of reward. That is why I'm here."

"What do you mean?" Katara asked quietly, genuinely curious.

"The older Spirits have never been fond of humans," Wan Shi Tong continued placidly. "Thousands of years ago, I disagreed with them. I sneaked to the human world whenever I could, teaching them and learning from them. I walked among them as one of their own."

Before their eyes, Wan Shi Tong began to shrink in upon himself, feathers smoothing into skin and hair and fabric. In a matter of moments, what appeared to be a middle-aged man stood before them. He had pale skin and dark eyes, his dark hair and cropped beard framing his face like that of the owl. His dark robes, Aang noticed, seemed similar to Avatar Roku's. But older.

"I convinced my…" he trailed off and glanced away for a moment. "The Sun Spirit, I convinced the Sun Spirit to give the western humans the gift of dragons, and she was nearly banished to this world for it. But I came instead and brought my library to share with you humans." A dark look came over his face. "But her gift was squandered."

"Firebenders," Sokka sighed, shaking his head again.

"I lost my faith in humans not just because of the firebenders, young Riversider," he corrected firmly. "The only use humans make of the gift of knowledge is to use it to destroy each other. I have hidden my library here so my knowledge will never be misused again."

"Sounds like you got left holding the bag," Aang said at length.

The man sighed. "You humans and your slang," he shook his head in disappointment.

Aang blushed in embarrassment. "Oh uh… what I meant was you got less than you deserved," he corrected himself humbly. Katara smiled.

"I know what you meant, though I appreciate your attempt to explain yourself," Wan Shi Tong replied in his even voice, though his dark eyes glimmered briefly in amusement. "After all, I do know ten thousand things."

Katara grinned. "That was always part of the stories my mother told me," she sighed. "Wan Shi Tong, he who knows ten thousand things, and um…"

The Knowledge Spirit made a strange gesture at that point. If he had been a bird it wouldn't have been unusual. He shuffled his arms slightly as though ruffling his wings. "I'm sure these stories had something to do with the Sun Spirit," he said tonelessly. "And our perceived romance."

"Oh yeah, I've heard those too," Aang cut in. "After you were banished you moved your library to the desert so you could be closer to her."

Wan Shi Tong didn't respond. Aang flushed again.

"If you have nothing more to say, I suggest you leave," he said darkly.

"Wait," Sokka said suddenly. "We can't just… pass up on all of this knowledge, right?"

Aang and Katara stared at him. Sokka swallowed hard.

"I mean um… can't we just… look around for a while?"

The spirit shook his head. "You will just use my knowledge to get the upper hand on someone else, will you not?"

"No no, we just want knowledge for knowledge's sake!" Sokka replied defensively. He glanced around wildly and his eyes fell on Aang. He shoved him forward. "Here, he's the Avatar! Bridge between our worlds! He'll vouch for us."

Wan Shi Tong looked at Aang with slight interest.

"Uh… sure, yeah," Aang continued. "I swear upon my duty as the Avatar, we will not use your library for our own ends."

The spirit sighed. "Very well, but to enter you must give me a piece of knowledge to add to my collection."

The three of them exchanged a glance and simultaneously reached the same thought. Katara reached for her back pocket, Aang reached for his front, and Sokka dug around inside his jacket. They each produced a folded up piece of paper. The spirit unfolded them one by one, revealing three wanted posters, one of each. Sokka and Katara had long ago made it a habit to keep recent copies of their own wanted posters, just to see how much they were worth. Aang had taken up the hobby, as had Toph. Wan Shi Tong seemed slightly amused.

"I suppose these will do," he muttered. "Take as long as you like."

With that, he turned back into a massive owl and soared off into the shadowed depths of the library.

Aang and Katara both turned to Sokka. Katara crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.

"What?" Sokka asked innocently.

"Why?" Katara instantly responded.

"This is our chance to find out as much as we can about the Avatar," he said with a shrug.

"True, but that's not why you want to be here," Katara continued suspiciously.

"Fine," Sokka sighed. "There's gotta be something about the Dragons in here."

"You made me lie to the Knowledge Spirit?" Aang blurted.

"No, we just omitted the truth," Sokka replied, waving the matter off and moving into the library.

"That's the same thing!"

0000000

"Uncle, are you sure you're well enough to take a trip like this?"

Iroh chuckled. "I appreciate your concern, but contrary to the song, it isn't really a long long way to Ba Sing Sei."

"Don't start singing again, please," Zuko groaned.

The two of them had spent some time in hiding after Azula's attack. Iroh was still recovering, though he was doing much better and slowly teaching Zuko finer points of bending lightning. He had started out just trying to show Zuko how, but that hadn't worked, so he was coaching Zuko in the mental aspect as they made their way to Ba Sing Sei. They had managed to hitch a ride on an old passenger ferry going lazily upriver, and it would take them several days to reach the city. Ba Sing Sei, they had decided, was going to be much easier to hide in from Azula.

Iroh shrugged and started humming. Zuko groaned.

0000000

"So what's the story on Wan Shi Tong anyway?" Sokka asked vaguely as he, Aang and Katara sifted through shelves and shelves of books, maps, scrolls and newspapers.

"You mean you've never heard it?" Aang asked distractedly as he came across a book about famous pirates and started flipping through the old pages.

"Sokka wasn't into the 'fairy tales' when we were little," Katara said, rolling her eyes. She was sitting on the floor in front of a crowded bookshelf, a stack of books beside her. She paused, examining a very old scroll that depicted a few simple waterbending moves. "I heard this story from Mom all the time."

"So what is it?" Sokka asked impatiently, studying a sprawling topographical map of the area surrounding the city before it had been settled.

"The story is basically a tragic romance," Katara said thoughtfully. "Wan Shi Tong was as he said. He loved humans, thought they were fascinating. He came to our world all the time to speak with the ancient people. Then one day, the Sun Spirit, Sol, wandered right into his library in the Spirit World." She smiled wistfully. "Just like that, they fell in love." Aang glanced at her, failing to hide his grin. She didn't notice, engrossed in another waterbending scroll. She turned her attention to the shelf for a moment. "Oh would you look at that! The owl's got some records, too."

Aang and Sokka looked over in great interest. "What's he got?" they asked in unison.

Katara started pulling the records from the shelf, reading their covers. "A lot of old classics and um… hey here we go! Al Jolson, Bessie Smith, the Memphis Five, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton… of course, the Charleston and Rhapsody in Blue."

"Hip to the jive," Sokka said with an approving nod. "Now I'm more impressed by this Wan guy."

"It's Wan Shi Tong, and he doesn't collect it because he likes it, he collects it because it's knowledge," Aang pointed out. "It's what he does, it's what he's done for thousands of years."

"What a life," Sokka muttered, turning his attention to another stack of maps. "This guy's off his nuts."

"No, he's heartbroken," Katara sighed. "See… the Sun Spirit's sister, the Moon Spirit, was in love with the Ocean Spirit. They were fond of humans as well, and they taught them to waterbend. So they were banished to the human world."

"Yeah, they really do live at the base of the spring at the Northern Distillery," Aang added.

"When Wan Shi Tong saw that the spirits could teach the humans to do something amazing like bending, he convinced Sol to come to the human world with him to teach some humans to bend fire," Katara continued. "But Sol knew it wasn't allowed, so she just gave the humans dragons and trusted them to figure it out for themselves. As you can imagine, they did."

"But then the firebenders started getting violent, and someone had to be punished," Aang finished for her. "So Wan took all the punishment for her, came to the human world with his library in an effort to share his knowledge with humans and stop the spread of violence and discontent."

"Didn't work, huh?" Sokka said grimly.

"Nope," Katara sighed again. "So he turned his back on us and moved his library to a desert, so he could be closer to the Sun Spirit."

"How did he end up here?" Sokka wondered vaguely.

"I don't know," Aang said, shrugging. "The desert he lived in was probably domesticated, so he came here. After all, the Moon and Ocean were already here and they were safe. I guess this city is a good place for spirits."

"Some people say there are solar eclipses because Sol is so sad," Katara said quietly. "She hides behind her sister so she can cry."

Sokka dropped the book he was holding. "Solar eclipse?" he repeated. "But… firebenders get their bending from the sun."

Katara and Aang shared a look. They glanced at Sokka. A grin was slowly spreading across his face. He looked around him quickly.

"Where do you suppose he keeps the Farmers' Almanac?" he asked, smirking.

0000000

Toph was bored. Excruciatingly bored. Plus she had a headache from the street car rumbling by almost constantly. Luckily, Appa was her only company, so there was nothing stopping her from cursing as often and as viciously as she wanted.

She was lying on her back, hands folded on her stomach, head resting on Appa's back.

"It's not that I'm not worried about them," she told Appa. "I've just never been a fan of libraries." She had, at this point, figured out that she was leaning up against the outer wall of an underground library, and she felt the distant vibrations of Aang, Sokka, and Katara moving around within it during a rare pause in the trundling street car. "It's not like I can read."

Appa whined sympathetically.

"You know, you're all right, Appa," Toph sighed. He barked and she laughed a little. "Slightly more civilized company than I'm used to these days." He growled a little. "I'm not saying Aang is uncivilized." Another growl. "Or Katara." His tail started wagging. "I'm just saying they're more interested in each other than anyone else, so I'm stuck with Sokka all the time." He whined again. "I guess he's not so bad."

Appa growled, a little more forcefully this time.

"What? I'm trying to be honest here," Toph said grumpily.

The dog kept growling. Toph sat up and he immediately got to his feet, standing protectively in front of her.

"Someone's coming?" she asked warily. He barked. Toph got hastily to her feet and fell into an earthbending stance. "Bring it on."

0000000

"Sokka, this is ridiculous," Katara sighed as they abandoned yet another section of the library. "Dad has this year's Farmers' Almanac at home."

"Yeah, I don't think we should stick around any longer," Aang consented, looking over his shoulder. "Wan Shi Tong might be on to us, and I'm worried about Toph and Appa."

The telltale rushing of wings was all the warning they got.

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave."

Wan Shi Tong came to a landing in front of the three of them. He shook his head.

"You humans are so predictable," he said evenly. "Using my library for personal gain."

"Hey, we didn't get anything valuable from here, we figured it out ourselves," Sokka said defensively.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Not helping."

"I'm taking my knowledge back," the spirit continued. "And I'm making sure no one can use it for anything, ever again."

He started flapping his massive wings and the ground began to tremble.

"I think we're in trouble," Aang said slowly.

"Run!" Sokka shouted, turning and sprinting away from the owl. Aang and Katara followed him at a dead run.

0000000

"Well well, if it isn't the Blind Bandit."

Toph frowned. She didn't recognize his voice, but she could tell the man speaking to her was one of the Rough Rhinos. And from what she could see through the trembling ground, there were several more behind him.

Trembling ground… was the ground shaking even more now?

"Hey what's going on?" one of them men asked.

So they felt it too. Toph's blank eyes widened.

"Library sinking," she whispered. She turned and sprinted toward the wall. "Library sinking!"

She rooted her feet firmly to the ground and delivered a firm two-handed punch to the wall, sinking her knuckles into the stone and stopping the building's downward progress. Appa started barking.

"Hey, isn't that the Avatar's dog?" one of the men said quietly.

"You stay away from him!" Toph roared, turning away from the wall for a moment to send a column of stone shooting in their direction. She missed and drove her hands back into the wall. She heard a couple of them laughing.

"I bet we could get some heavy sugar for the Avatar's dog in Ba Sing Sei," the man continued. She heard Appa barking again, then he abruptly stopped.

"No!" Toph shouted, throwing a few more pillars of rock in their direction that they avoided with ease. "No…" She plunged her hands back into the wall and felt her eyes welling up. "I'm sorry Appa…"

0000000

Aang, Katara and Sokka finally came into sight of the door, Wan Shi Tong at their heels. Sokka reached the door first and wrenched it open, only to find it blocked by several feet of stone.

"The library is already sinking," Sokka shouted over the groaning of the rock.

"I'm surprised it hasn't already," Aang replied. "Stand back." He stepped toward the doorway and pounded a fist to the rock, blasting a path back up to the hallway. The three of them climbed out and found Toph a few yards back toward the stairs, her hands dug into the wall.

"Toph!" Aang shouted. She jumped, startled, and let go of the wall. The library abruptly dropped into the ground, sending a wave of dirt and dust into the hallway. Sokka pulled Toph onto his back without a word and started racing back toward the stairs in the dust. The Rough Rhinos had created a new staircase by piling the remains of bookcases from the destroyed library above. The four of them climbed back up and proceeded straight out of the fake library as fast as they could.

As soon as they made it to the street, the ground shook with a resounding crash, and dust and ash exploded from the boarded windows. Then all was silent. Sokka sat on the ground, startling Toph again. Aang and Katara sat beside him and they all fell back onto the ground, breathing deeply.

"Well that was more adventure than I needed in one day," Katara sighed.

"No kidding," Aang responded.

Sokka just grunted, still trying to catch his breath.

They were all silent for quite some time. The city was abnormally quiet near the old library. A lot of the area had been destroyed in Dragon raids, leaving it relatively empty. When the silence was finally broken, it was Toph who spoke first.

"Aang," Toph said quietly. "I'm… so sorry…"

"What about?" Aang asked, bewildered.

She sighed and shook her head. "The Rhinos, they… took…"

Aang sat up and looked around. "Where's Appa?"

Katara sat up abruptly. Sokka looked over at them.

Toph sighed again. "The Rhinos took him…"

Aang's eyes widened and filled with tears. He got to his feet and stumbled back a few steps. "What?"

She shook her head and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

"Aang…" Katara began quietly, getting to her feet and reaching toward him.

"No," Aang said suddenly, backing away from her. "No, that's not…" He looked around again, then turned angrily on Toph. "How could you let this happen?!"

"I'm sorry!" she cried, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. "I'm sorry, I tried to save him, but I couldn't see! I couldn't see and the library was sinking and… and… I'm so sorry…"

"Aang, it's not her fault," Katara said quietly, trying to reach him again. He shrugged her off.

"No… no, Rhinos," he rambled on. "Where are the Rhinos? Where did they take him?"

"Ba Sing Sei," Toph muttered miserably.

Aang slammed the butt of his staff to the ground, snapping the glider open. "We're going," he said lowly.

"Aang, be reasonable," Sokka said quickly, getting to his feet. "Ba Sing Sei is two days away by car, and there's no way you can fly faster than that." Aang didn't respond. "Come back to the distillery with us, we'll get everything packed, and we'll all go to Ba Sing Sei and get Appa back together." He was still silent. "Okay?"

Aang sighed heavily. "Fine," he muttered. He turned and started marching toward the distillery.

Toph and Sokka followed him. Katara stood for a moment, watching Aang stomp away from her. She turned her gaze to the ground, shoulders sagging, and slowly followed them home.