Chapter 47: What Was Meant to Be

The cold wind came roaring down from places even further north, perhaps from the very roof of the world itself, as Kanoda and his companions made their way through the ruins of the Northern Water Tribe's city. He tried not to look around, much, but sometimes he couldn't help it, and when he did, he saw the jagged bones of buildings thrusting up from the snow, and occasionally bones of a more human nature as well, left by their enemies where they'd fallen. He was forced to look away, then, and concentrate on his goal. This was a dead place now, Kanoda thought, a cursed place, no matter what it had once been. The site of one of the Fire Empire's greatest atrocities, the memory of fiery death still stained the frozen earth a century on.

Every so often, he heard behind them a crash or explosion, and knew that battle had been joined between Yue and the armada. Powerful as she was, she didn't really stand a chance of defeating them, and there were times when Kanoda almost turned back to help her. Then he shook himself, reminding himself of her words. If he went back, all he would accomplish would be to die with her; if he kept on his present course, he might actually do something important that would help the world. It was small comfort, but it was all he had.

Jiazin led the way, a naked flame held in the palm of one hand, which both lit the winter night and let her melt her way through the snow where drifts had piled up that were too thick to easily walk through. Immediately behind her were the Earth Kingdom rebels, Chin and Feng carrying the spirit fish in their cages, with Hu in between them. Kanoda himself took up the rear.

He didn't know how long it took for them to pass through the dark and broken city; like an uneasy dream, it all seemed to blur together in his mind. He lost track of the ruined buildings they passed between and the icy bridges they crossed, until finally, behind what seemed like a gutted-out palace of ice, they came to a low wall through which a tunnel seemed to have been blasted. A frozen door lay in the snow to one side, looking as though it had been violently torn from its hinges, but the tunnel itself was filled with drifts.

Jiazin stepped forward and raised both hands, breathing deeply and screwing her face up in intense concentration before unleashing a torrent of the strange, blue fire that Kanoda had seen her use once before in the palace at Long Du Shi. In the face of that blast the snow melted away, and then Jiazin fell backwards; Kanoda and Hu rushed forward and caught her each on one side.

"I'll be all right," she said quietly. "The blue flames are powerful, but making them… it takes a lot out of me, especially when I'm already cold and tired." She shook her head. "The tunnel should be clear now."

It was. Kanoda knelt and slipped through, followed by the rebels and the firebender. On the other side of the ice wall was the last sight he had expected to see in this place- a grassy field, surrounding a pool of clear water at its heart. The air hear was notably warmer, though as Kanoda stepped forward he saw it hadn't entirely been untouched by war- a burned arch lay collapsed on the pool's other side. The pool itself seemed empty and forlorn, somehow, and then Kanoda knew what he was looking it.

Here was the place where the Moon and Ocean spirits had crossed over to the mortal world when time began, and here they had danced their eternal dance for countless ages, until the oasis became a place as much of the Spirit World as it was of this one. Here had been the spirits' home, and when they had been torn from it, the cycle of the world had been disrupted. Waterbending had vanished like airbending before it, the Avatar had disappeared, and the Fire Empire had ascended to power.

"So this is where it happened," Jiazin breathed, coming up beside him. "The beginning and the end."

Kanoda turned to look at her. "Are you sure you're willing to go through with this?" he asked her. "If we return the spirits to their place, it will fix the balance- and maybe doom your people."

"My people?" she asked, and gave a sharp laugh. "Zhao, Yuan, Azula? They're not my people, not really. Everything they ever stood for was a lie." She looked at him strangely with her golden eyes. "But I'm not the one who's going to be going through with anything. This is your place."

"Mine?" Kanoda asked in surprise. "Why me?"

Jiazin looked down at her hands. "My people were the ones who did this to the spirits. I don't think they'd take kindly to being handled by a firebender again, even for this purpose."

"They're Water Tribe spirits, not Earth Kingdom," Hu put in. "It should be the Water Tribe that restores them, and here and now, that means you, Kanoda."

He breathed in deeply, and let it out. "You're right," he said. "Yue should be the one doing this- it was her whole life's work, basically- but she's not here right now, and I guess I'm the best representative the Water Tribe is going to get." Kanoda looked from the boxes to the pool and back again. "It's time."

Chin and Feng knelt with great reverence and opened the boxes; Kanoda bent beside the first one and lifted the black-and-white fish from inside. He didn't know how it had survived the tight space for so long- maybe the spirits could survive just about anything, apart from someone actively trying to kill them- and he didn't know which spirit it was, but he felt a sharp tingle go through his hands as he held it. Quickly he hurried over to the pool, and placed the fish within. It began to circle, but erratically, as though waiting for its mate to join in.

Kanoda returned to the boxes and retrieved the other fish, feeling the same tingle as he placed it beside its mate. For a moment, nothing happened, as the fish still made their erratic half-circles, and then they found their rhythm again, as if it had been only minutes, instead of a century, since they'd been together.

And then the world filled with light.

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She drifted in the dark, alone, formless and nameless. She had memories of what might have once been a human life, but that didn't seem to matter any longer. She was being drawn through the void, on towards a destination she didn't understand, and yet longed for. She lay back, and let the flow take her.

Then she felt another presence about her, like a restraining presence on her arm, and it was familiar and reassuring, like a voice she'd heard all her life. She couldn't go on, not yet, and the presence began to pull her back towards the world she had known.

Awaken, daughter, a silent voice said. We have need of you again, one final time.

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Yuan saw the body lying on the shore as his boat approached, and let out a victorious crow of laughter. It was over- after so long, he'd finally beaten her! Now all that remained was the final destruction of the Moon and Ocean spirits, and his victory would be complete. The Water Tribe would be destroyed, now and forever, and with it would die the last hope of resistance against the Fire Empire. Admiral Zhao would be forgotten; it would be Yuan's name future generations spoke with awe and dread. Emperor Yuan, Slayer of Gods; that had a nicely impressive ring to it.

The boat pulled up on shore, and Yuan and his elite guard disembarked to meet the marines who already stood around the waterbender's body. "You're certain she's dead, then?" the High Admiral asked as he approached.

"Yes, sir," the commander of the initial landing party said. "It's strange, though- she's got some burns, but it looks like our attacks only grazed her. Whatever killed her, it wasn't us- it almost looks like she just dropped dead of her own accord."

"Overexerted herself, most likely," Yuan muttered; after all, he shuddered to think how much strength it had taken to resist the Fire Navy's attack for as long as she had. He doubted any human being could survive it. Pressing through his men, he came to stand directly over the body and looked down on it; it seemed small and broken and impossibly young. It was hard to imagine that this was the enemy who had given him so much grief over the years.

"It is over!" he shouted, spinning to face his soldiers. "For three generations my family has hunted this witch, the last waterbender, but tonight the chase has ended. The Water Tribe is dead, the Air Nomads are long gone, and the Earth Kingdom is in chains. At long last, the Fire Empire truly owns the world." And soon, he added silently, I shall own the Fire Empire. Azula's sun is setting, and it is time for a new one to rise- it shall be mine.

Laughing, he bent down over the waterbender's body and lifted it in his arms. He'd have his men carry it with him as they went inland to hunt down her companions, so that they could see her fate and despair. Looking down over the closed eyes and now-blank expression, he smiled tightly and raised one hand, forming fire within it. First, he would mark her, so that none could deny that this had been his victory.

Suddenly the earth shook beneath his feet, and Yuan was pitched forward so that he lay on the ground atop the corpse. Shuddering in sudden revulsion and fear, he scrambled backwards and saw that his men were staring towards the north with expressions of awe and barely controlled terror. Turning slowly, he saw what had captured their attention- a pillar of blue light, shining from the rear of the frozen valley and up into infinity. Sudden dread suffused Yuan's entire being, dread that he couldn't explain, and yet was more terrible than anything he had ever felt before.

The sound of something shifting distracted him from the light, and he turned to look at the waterbender's body- and fell back in horror from that as well. The corpse's eyes were open, and blazed with a light so intense he could hardly bear to look upon it. "No," Yuan breathed, falling to all fours and struggling to get away, no longer mindful of his dignity, barely aware that his marines were fleeing as well. "It's not possible."

She stood slowly and turned her gaze upon him, and from behind it he felt a weight of power beyond anything he'd ever imagined. What was looking out from those eyes wasn't the waterbender any more, not really- it wasn't anything that had ever been human. It was the vast force that drove the tides and governed the cycles of the moon, and beside it Yuan found himself reduced and reduced again until he was nothing, just an ant on the beach beside the awesome might of the sea. The feeling was unbearable; Yuan heard someone screaming, and realized with a start that it was him.

The waterbender raised her arms and fixed him with her gaze. "Witness," she said, imbuing that single word with a force that would have driven the High Admiral to his knees, had he still been standing. Then water rose from the ice about her feet and wrapped itself around her, bearing her high into the air.

The marines who'd come ashore died first, seized by claws of ice that sprung up from the ground and dragged screaming beneath it even as they prepared to strike back. In a heartbeat they were gone, and Yuan's mind reeled even more than it already had been. Then she turned slowly towards the fleet, and raised her hands higher still. The crews saw her in time, and aimed their weapons at her; from every ship came streaking massive fireballs launched from the catapults. She brought one hand up, and then the other; from the sea itself rose a wall of ice into which the fireballs impacted harmlessly. Then the wall came crashing down and the sea itself came alive- vast tendrils of water wrapped around the ships and broke them into pieces, while icy shards tore into them from below. Ship by ship they sank, save for the few in the rear who saw what happened and turned to sail away. In an instant, the Moon and Ocean spirits took their toll in blood for their imprisonment, and the heart had been torn from the Fire Navy by a force far too powerful for it to fight or understand.

Then the waterbender turned her attention back towards the beach, and lowered herself directly towards the cowering Yuan.

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Shiyan paced within the small cell she'd been given in the Eye of Agni's brig, pausing every so often to glare at the two guards who stood outside the bars. They were Yuan's elite marines- very loyal to him, and very skilled; even if she managed to get out of this, she'd have trouble with them. Of course, the first step was also the most difficult- from where she stood now, actually getting out of the bars would take tools she didn't possess, considering they'd taken her sword. She didn't bother trying to speak to the guards, either- as far as she was concerned they were traitors to the Empress, and as far as they were concerned she was a traitor to Yuan. There was nothing left to be said.

Suddenly the ship rocked as though it was in the midst of a terrible storm, though Shiyan knew it was still anchored in the Water Tribe harbor. She braced herself against the wall, but both guards were knocked off their feet; as they pulled themselves back up, one turned to rush to the ship's deck, presumably to find out what was going on. The second held his place, but when a second shock struck he was hurled backwards and his head struck the metal wall. He slid to the ground and lay still; unconscious or dead, Shiyan didn't know or care.

Steadying herself against the wall, she walked across the cell and towards the bars, where she could see that the guard was laying within her reach if she stuck her hand out through them. Giving a satisfied smile, Shiyan reached out and grabbed the hilt of the man's sword, pulling it from its sheath and back into the cell with her. She eyed the steel critically- it wasn't as well-made as a Chosen's sword, but it was still high-quality and should serve her current purpose well.

Hefting the blade, she brought it down on the cell door's lock.

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Yuan scrambled away as the waterbender set down on the ground and advanced towards him, slow and implacable as the great glaciers of her homeland. She stopped a foot from him, and a raised a hand to ward off her attack- but that attack never came.

"High Admiral Yuan," she said in that huge and terrible voice. "Like your ancestor before you, you sought to go to battle against the spirits themselves for your own glory. But the spirits will not be so easily defeated. Your fleet is smashed, all hope of your victory gone like frost under the summer sun. I will allow you to live with that knowledge, and you will return to your masters and tell them this; the Balance will not be denied. It may be damaged, it may be tilted, but in the end, it will return to its proper course." She gestured out to sea, and he saw his ship there, battered but intact, and the boat he'd ridden in still lay upon the shore. "For this purpose, I leave you these. Now leave this place, and remember my words!" There was a terrible flash of brilliant white spirit-light, and then she was gone, leaving Yuan alone on the beach, a broken, terrified man shivering from the cold, and moreso from what he had just witnessed and come to understand- the knowledge of his own insignificance.

It was a long time before he found the courage to move.

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Kanoda lay on the ground beside the spirit pool, shielding his eyes from the blinding light that lanced from it into the sky. He could feel the earth shaking beneath his feet, and the waves of power coursing around him, and he knew that the world was changing in ways he couldn't even begin to understand. Something that had long been absent from the Spirit World was returning; the breach in the cycle of eternity was healed. What had been broken and stagnant was now being jerked back onto its proper course.

He didn't know how long he lay there, but finally the light thinned and dimmed. Kanoda sat up slowly and shielded his eyes from the still-bright radiance, and saw his companions doing the same. Then the light faded completely, and he saw Yue hovering above the center of the pool. Her eyes were burning with a white light far more intense than she'd had when drawing on the Moon Spirit's power before, and there was nothing of humanity in her expression. Then, slowly, she blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, they were their normal color.

"It's done," she breathed. "Finally, the dark time comes to an end. Thank you, Kanoda, for what you've done- you healed the world of a great hurt. It will not bring my people back, but it might at least allow them to find some measure of peace."

"Yue," Kanoda was finally able to say. "What… what happened out there? Where's Yuan's fleet."

A shadow fell across her face. "Gone, for the most part. The spirits, they… we… destroyed them almost utterly. That wasn't something that I wished; most of those sailors and marines were conscripts merely doing their duty, but the spirits are not human, and they do not follow human morality. They demanded blood for blood. But I convinced them to spare Yuan himself; he will return to the Fire Nation and tell Azula what happened here, so that it will never need to happen again."

As Yue spoke, wisps of steam began to rise from her body, and her form began to waver as though caught in a dream. "Yue," Kanoda said, "what's happening to you… oh," he breathed, as realization dawned on him. "Oh no. That's how the spirits were able to take you so completely. You died out there, didn't you?"

"I did," she confirmed, eyes sad. "But do not mourn me. I should have died the night I was born, but instead I was given a life far longer than most in order to ensure that waterbending and the spirits from which it comes didn't perish from the world. I think it was always supposed to end this way; the Moon Spirit gave me life, and in the end, I gave it back to her. This is what was meant to be, Kanoda. Do not mourn me."

"So, is it all over, then?" Jiazin asked.

Yue turned to regard her. "For me, it is, and for the Moon and Ocean Spirits. But your war isn't yet over. Empress Azula still reigns, and she is wise enough in her way to have understood what just happened. She will feel the world slipping away from her grasp, and I do not know what madness she will plot because of it. Of all the mortals who currently live, she is the only one the spirits truly fear. Be ready for her."

Her form was growing clearly insubstantial now as she focused on Jiazin. "From where I now stand, on the border between two worlds, I see the secret you have hidden, child, though I will leave it for you to reveal when you feel the time is right. But know that the time comes when you will be tested, and if you fail, more could be lost than you know." She turned to Kanoda. "To you I give the heritage of our people. Do not forget the lessons of our history, or of what you have witnessed here. They may save you in the end, if you let them." She turned her gaze last of all on the Earth Kingdom rebels. "Tell your people that they must be as sturdy and strong as their element, for they must not break in the face of what is coming."

Yue seemed almost a spirit herself now; Kanoda could see the pool and the oasis through her body. He tried to speak but found he couldn't- this was the loss not just of someone he'd been traveling with for weeks, but of a living embodiment of the Water Tribe itself. The world, he thought, would be a lesser place for her absence. He reached out a hand towards her, and she smiled sadly and brushed his forehead with one of her own hands; it felt cool to the touch, but more like mist than flesh. Then she was gone completely, as though she had never been, with not even a body to mark her passing.

Kanoda knelt there on the grass beside the pool, staring at the two fish that circled within it and feeling the weight of Yue's charge on his shoulders. Then he felt Jiazin's hand on his arm, and looked up to see the Earth Kingdom rebels crouching nearby, and he smiled slightly, knowing that, no matter what might come, he wouldn't need to face it alone.

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Yuan was still in a daze as he pulled his boat up against the hull of the Eye of Agni and climbed up the ladder that was thrown over the sides. The crew who met him on the deck didn't seem to be in much better condition than he was; no one spoke until a lieutenant approached cautiously.

"Sir?" he asked. "What happened out there?"

"The wrath of the spirits," Yuan told him, his voice dead. "Come- let us leave this place. I need to go home, and I'm not sure I ever want to leave again." He turned to walk towards the ship's bridge, but only made it a few steps before something slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the deck.

"In the name of the Dragon Empress Azula," a cold and all-too-familiar female voice hissed, "you are hereby sentenced to death, traitor!" It was the last sound Yuan ever heard; he felt his head jerked back and a slender blade drawn across his throat, and then… nothing.

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Shiyan pulled back from Yuan's body and looked around at the dead-eyed crew. "Do any dispute the justice of this?" she demanded, and none did. Clearly, whatever had happened out here had left them completely numb; by the time Shiyan had broken free of her cell and made it to the deck, everything was over and most of the fleet was gone. Whatever had done this, it was gone and obviously extremely powerful, but if it returned, Shiyan had no doubts of the Empress's capacity to deal with it. To her mind, Azula was the most powerful force in the universe, beyond even the spirits themselves.

Stalking away from the body, she faced the crew. "Set our course for the Fire Empire," she ordered. "The fugitives we pursued are no longer important; we have treason and destruction to report." Partly out of fear, partly out of the simple reassurance of having someone give them orders again, the crew obeyed, and Shiyan walked off to stand in the prow of Eye of Agni as it turned towards the south, leaving Yuan lying dead and forgotten on the deck behind her.

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High Minister Qing Xi was in his office when the palace began to shake beneath his feet. Stumbling upright, he ducked past the scrolls and decorations that fell from his shelves and hurriedly made his way out into the corridor, where servants and guards milled around in a panic. "What's going on?" he demanded, grabbing one of them by the shoulder.

The man's eyes widened when he saw exactly who had spoken to him. "Nobody knows, milord!" he said. "The quake just started off that way and spread outwards; you should get to safety before the whole building comes down!" Qing Xi fully intended to do just that, until his mind registered where exactly the servant had been pointing. In that direction lay the secret entrance to the catacombs, and in the catacombs… the Avatar.

"Out of my way!" the High Minister shouted, feeling more panicked than he had in years. Pushing against the crowd, he made his way to the secret door just in time for the floor to explode beneath it. Qing Xi was hurled to the ground and lay dazed for a moment before turning to look at what had happened- and his eyes widened at the immense pillar of light that was rising from the ragged hole.

A figure rose from within the light, and at first he couldn't make out who or what it was; then he realized it was constantly changing. The first figure he managed to see was a stately woman in the robes and facepaint that had been fashionable for nobility in the old Earth Kingdom centuries ago, and then it became an old man dressed as a high lord of the Fire Nation. Finally, it settled on a form Qing Xi realized with a shock that he recognized- a bald child dressed as an Air Nomad monk, who looked down at the stunned High Minister and gave him a cheerfully irreverent wink. "The Avatar," Qing Xi breathed.

Then the light flared brilliantly, and was gone, along with the figure within it. The High Minister was left alone amidst the rubble that had been a wing of the Fire Empire palace, certain of only two things- that the Avatar Spirit had somehow come alive and departed for an unknown destination, and that what little illusion he had left of his carefully ordered and controlled world had just vanished beyond all recall.

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Empress Azula stood at the window of her personal chambers high within the palace's central spire and looked down over the wreckage of one of the outer wings. She had seen the light, and the human figure within it- she'd been watching too intently for her not to have- but with her mask concealing her features, it was impossible for Zhi to tell what she made of it.

"Majesty," the Chosen finally said, "what has happened here?"

Azula was silent for several long moments, still staring down at the destruction. Then she turned slowly to fix Zhi with the empty-eyed gaze of the dragon mask, so that she could feel the weight of the terrible will that lay behind it. The Chosen could practically feel her Empress's anger in that gaze, and yet behind it, a hint of fear. But that was impossible. Azula feared nothing- or rather, nothing of this world. Zhi shook her head, putting an end to that uncomfortable line of thought.

"The world has changed," the Empress said. "Already I can feel its tides turning against me. But I am not so easily defeated. We must accelerate our plans. You know what to do."

"I do, Majesty," Zhi said, bowing. Turning, the Chosen departed, leaving Azula standing alone in the high chamber, her dragon's gaze boring into her back as she left.

END OF

PART TWO