Green eyes opened, staring over slush and cold rain, and over a grey and listless sky that covered over Caldera City. Those eyes saw many worlds. They saw the physical, with an entire people having to learn in weeks what cultures more encultured to the cold had developed over generations, how to make houses built to vent heat instead trap it. How to spread warmth, as the price for not, was freezing to death. And he saw the spectral. A physical world torn to shreds, holding together only by the collective will of those who didn't even know what they were wishing for. A world that ached and groaned. A world on the edge.

Beyond that, he saw the spiritual. He saw the blackness, with its rushing water and twisting terrain. He saw a place devoid of color or life, a place without hope or mercy or a champion to save it. And he knew in his heart, that it was time.

"No," he whispered, though nobody nearby could have seen what he was talking to. "This is not the way. What you see is not all that is."

The National youth beside him said something in annoyance, something which Sharif, were he still able, would have heard as 'Is he talking to us?'. Now, not so much.

"I doubt it," Hisui answered in a tongue which Sharif could follow. She turned his shoulder, a concerned look on her face. "What's going on out there?"

Sharif turned, seeing Form of the void spirit which floated beside him in the Outer Sphere. It pulsed and shone, its voice the voices of time and space, the mysteries and the answers. A voice of ignorance and revelation. "You do not see as we do. Not in this. We must do what we can."

"Do what, Sharif?" Hisui asked. It was mildly annoying to the mind-stricken boy that they'd put a fresh death-ring on him. This one barely worked at all, only preventing his transition between worlds, and disallowing him to remove it.

"We must go. The spirit world is waiting, and a deed must be done. Oblivion..." he shook his head, unable to come up with the words to explain what he was trying to say. The void offered some, but with the material world as it was, they slid off of Sharif as water off of a turtle-duck's back. "Nothing will happen if we don't."

Hisui leaned back. "Nothing or... 'nothing'?" she asked.

"Y...yes," he said.

"I'm guessing the bad one," Hisui said. "If we pull this thing off, are you going to bugger off on us?"

"I don't understand," Sharif said.

The brother asked something to the tune of 'are you sure this is a good idea?'.

"No, but I for one don't want to become one with oblivion," Hisui answered snippily. Her brother rolled his eyes, and made remarks about difficult sisters. She reached to his neck. "You promise that you won't... run away."

"Much must be done. There is nowhere that any could run," Sharif said, his anxiety clear in his tone, in the way his brow furrowed. A mind smote tried to grapple with the intensity of the fear he felt, but there wasn't enough mind left to fully understand it, so it manifested in him only as a distant alarm.

"Well, I'll take it," Hisui said, and tugged the ring from Sharif's neck. Sharif took in a breath, and the voice of void became louder.

This is an act without purpose. He cannot change what is to come.

"You are wrong. You do not see," Sharif said. "You cannot see."

We see all that is, all that was. All that will be.

"Do you see Imbalance?" Sharif asked.

Stony silence.

"We must go," Sharif said, striding toward the doors which led out into the rain-drenched courtyards. Hisui and Hai found themselves in hot pursuit after the Si Wongi shaman who ignored the freezing rain as it slammed into him as the fist of a dying world.

"Where are you going?" Hisui asked.

"There is a rift. It will take us where we need to go," Sharif said simplistically. The brother and the sister gave a confused glance to each other, and she to he, a shrug.

What do you intend? We cannot see an effect of this action. It is outside our sight.

"I intend to awaken one who can help us. Who must help us," Sharif said.

"Who would that be?" Hisui asked. For all the girl could, in the face of every understanding that the mind of Sharif had about Void, which was itself one of the most intensive knowledges that existed.

"All will be clear very soon. We must meet another. We cannot do this alone. We have not... not the strength," he said, after waving his hand and trying to find the word to best explain himself.

The wind was driving the rain and stinging near-ice into Sharif's face as he descended a short, broad set of stairs, into a frigid pool of rapidly icing water. It crunched under every footfall, searing at bare feet with a pain that would have crippled any other man. Sharif, though, had a deadened sense of pain. He knew only the intensity of the cold, and ignored the rest. He trudged through that half-solid mess, until he reached a spot somewhat near the middle, and stopped, turning to the southwest. "I wish..." Sharif began, and the words failed him.

"Wait a second. I know this place," Hisui said, turning around, splashing slush as she spun to take in the plaza they stood in.

'Yeah,' came Hai's response yet unknown to Sharif, '...this is where we got back from that silver world, with the cat-bird-men...'

"Sharif, where are we..." Hisui asked, but was cut off by Sharif grabbing each of them by the shoulder, right where it met the neck, and pulling them together until their shoulders touched.

"Into the naked shadow," he said. And with a blast of vanilla light flaring from his scar and from the pupils of his eyes, they all vanished from the world of man.


"Can't sleep, huh?" Sokka asked, as he plunked himself down at Nila's side in the train which housed so many sleeping people that it boggled her mind. Both that so many could fit, hanging from hammocks cut and sewn from potato-bags, and that they could sleep with the din of the train moving.

"I feel as though I have not slept in months," Nila admitted, leaning against him in one of the few comforts that she could really allow herself. "I am not given to easy despair but... I cannot help but to wonder. Are we acting in a folly? Do we pursue a hope that does not exist?" she asked, pitched quietly as though it were a sweet-nothing for a lover's ear.

"I've gotta think that it does exist," Sokka said, somewhat louder because he wasn't saying something that would sap the spirits of those around him. "You've got to have a bit more faith in Aang. He's going to find a way to make this work."

"I am not a creature of faith," she said with a testy note. "Faith is for the blind, for those who trust feeling over fact."

"Well, if we were operating based on facts," Sokka said gently, "then we'd all be corpses fed to Azul's pets right now. Or," he said, ticking off a finger, "we'd be the brainwashed puppets of Long Feng," he ticked off another finger, "or, I would have died of terminal barbeque-itis on the winter-solstice and you'd have never fallen for me."

"I have fallen for noone, you Tribal fool," she said, giving him a shove that he had to lower his fingers and catch himself from.

Sokka gave a smirk. "You won't want to hear this, but everything's got some faith in it. Even science comes from faith at its heart."

"You lie."

"What's the big thing about science?" Sokka asked. "That the future resembles the past. Why must it? Because that's how science works."

"That's... You are misrepres... there is more..." Nila stammered, trying to point out how Sokka was wrong.

But in checking his thought-processes, in scrutinizing the foundations of accepted causality, she saw the flaw. And she had a brief existential crisis. And she let out a few swear words to punctuate that uncomfortable admission. "That's what I thought. You've got to stop worrying about trying to make the world make sense. I know that we're going to succeed, because if we don't, we won't be in a position where anybody can say 'I told you so'."

"Shaky logic," Nila said.

"Who said anything we do is logical?" Sokka asked.

"...point," Nila said. She raised a tattooed finger to pursue her own line of thinking, but with something like the crack of the whip that reverberated through her soul, she was cut short. Her eyes bulged, and she rose away from the Tribesman, staring into the distance through the wall of the train. The direction, as it turned out, was northeast. "...Sharif..."

"You know where he is?" Sokka said, grasping her shock well enough that she could only laud him. "Is he alright?"

"He lives but..." then, the sensation faded. "...but he has gone into the spirit world."

"Not good, I'm guessing?" Sokka asked, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. She tipped her head against his shoulder.

"You've seen the world," she whispered. "The Spirit... is far worse."


"Waaaakey wakey."

Aang mumbled to himself, too comfortable after all the running around, all the panic, to relinquish his hammock so easily. He waved out a hand, trying to let whoever thought it'd be a good idea to wake him to leave him alone.

"Waaaakey wakey."

"Sleeping," Aang burbled, feeling the cobwebs in his head very acutely.

There was a scoff, and then, with a grunt, Aang felt himself being dumped straight out of the hammock and onto the floor, offering only a clipped yelp for warning before landing on Azula, and rolling off onto the floor.

"What in the HELL?" Azula snapped, rolling out of her own bedding, only to find Aang on his back at the feet of a statuesque Tribal woman who had a condescending smirk on her face. Azula's gaze locked on her, and her outrage became something a lot more sour. "...you!"

"Ta-dah!" Irukandji said, flaring her hands dramatically. A lot of other people were rousing from their sleep from the yelling and the cursing. Zuko's was clearly amongst them because with a thud, he put his feet to the floor and moved to interpose himself between Irukandji and his sister. "Oh, don't be like that."

"Stay back," Zuko said.

"If I wanted to get past you, human, you wouldn't be able to stop me," Irukandji said. "Now... where is the other airbender?"

"Why?" Aang asked.

"Because, you idiot Avatar, there's still a chance that the original plan could... Ah! There you are. Waaaakey wakey..." she now prodded at Malu's hammock, where she was still asleep despite the growing concern that bubbled from those around her.

"Irukandji, what are you doing?" Aang asked.

"Waking an airbender, what does it look like?" she asked. Then, she looked up, and sighed. "Right. Just told a train-car full of Fire Nationals that the Avatar's here. Just a second," Irukandji turned to her audience which surrounded her on all sides. "May I have your attention, please?" Then, with a twinned snapping of both fingers, there came an electric zorp which seemed to travel through the whole of the traincar. Most of the people rousing toward wakefulness now dropped straight back into their hammocks, utterly unconscious. "Won't even remember it. Easy as pie. Now where was I? Oh, right. Waaaakey wakey!"

"Go 'way. Don' wan' bre'fast..." she muttered. Irukandji sighed, then did as she'd done with Aang, dumping her out of her hammock and onto the floor. While she landed on somebody, that person didn't do more than grumble and roll over back into sleep. Malu sat up, bewildered for a moment, directly beside where Aang hadn't yet taken his feet. "Wh...whut?"

"Alright. So, good news, the universe hasn't ended," Irukandji said brightly. "Bad news is, it'll probably still do that soon. So, Malu," she said, clapping her hands together and rubbing them together. "Let's just get Imbalance back inside you, and we can get this all sorted out, right?"

"What?" Malu asked, horror dawning on her face.

"No!" Aang said, kipping to his feet and standing between Malu and Irukandji. "We agreed this wasn't going to happen!"

"It's the only way that'll work," Irukandji said. She leaned around Aang. "Come on, airbender; take one for the team."

"I'm not going to allow this," Aang said. Irukandji's face twisted into a rictus of contempt.

"Stop being so me-damned selfish! This will work. This will save everybody. Two people for every person who ever existed and ever will; I'd call that a damned fair price."

"I'm not sacrificing anybody. There is another way," Aang said.

"I've looked. There isn't," Irukandji said. Malu rose a finger.

"...two?" she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Of course," Irukandji said with a dismissive wave. "Stuff Imbalance into you, then use that one," a finger pointed toward Azula, "to form a bridge back to where she came from. Then, pitch Imbalance over the side into the oblivion between existences. And to make sure It never comes back, pitch the princess as well."

"Excuse me?" Azula asked, her tones as dark as her hair.

"Well we wouldn't want It coming back a couple of realities from now, would you?" Irukandji asked.

"How would we even notice?" Aang asked. Irukandji raised a finger, then fell silent. "This is all pointless. I am not sacrificing people."

Irukandji growled. "You have no perspective, kid! You don't understand the realities of the world you live in!"

"And you don't understand that the Avatar isn't about simply taking the easy way!" Aang shouted back, causing Irukandji to lean back, a mildly surprised look on her face. "Everything is hard, as it always is, because the easy roads all lead down! And I'm not going to give away people I care about simply because I'm too afraid to do the right thing, no matter what it takes!"

"That's... a lot more fire than I'm used to getting out of you," Irukandji said. She straightened herself, striking dust from her sleeves. "Good. You'll need it. I still think you're an idiot child who can't see the world for what it is, but... there's no positive way to end that sentence so I'm just going to abandon it."

"Why are you here?"

"You were going to throw me outside of existence?" Azula asked, now on her feet between Aang and Zuko.

"Of course I was. Not like one of you didn't deserve it," Irukandji said with a dismissive wave, which started to make Azula's face slowly turn red. "Look, we can stand here and debate how you're wrong all day, or we could do what the Big Fish told me about a little bit ago."

"The big... fish?" Zuko said, torn between outrage and confusion.

"Koi-zilla? Big Stompy and the Moon? Come on, you've got to know this one," Irukandji said, then sighed. "Fine. Whatever. There's a powwow in the Orchard Asunder, and you're supposed to be there," she said, thunking Aang right at the point of his arrow. He adjusted his headband back into place when she was done.

"Why?" Aang asked.

"Because this is the kind of thing which really kinda needs the Avatar. And Korra, gotta say, I like her grit, but the big bug won't answer to her any more than I answer my hate-mail."

"Your what?" Malu asked, rubbing an eye.

"It's... nevermind," Irukandji shook her head. She looked at the others. "Seriously? It'd just take me ten minutes. Ten minutes to save the world."

Aang didn't try to look dangerously angry. He simply did. "Not. Going. To. Happen."

"Very well; it'll be your fault when everything, everywhere, everywhen stops existing, then," Irukandji said, pulling Aang close and dropping him onto the floor, one of her arms looped around his shoulders like she was one random act of childish impulse from headlocking and noogie-ing him. She swept her gaze across those gathered, one of them almost apoplectic with rage, the other angry, but not as much as his sister, and the third alarmed but still half-asleep. "Alright, I'll try to bring him back with his face intact. Try not to die."

"Wait, what was that about my f–" Aang managed, before there was a voooyp, and the two vanished from the traincar.

"I... Will... Destroy her," Azula promised.

"Get in line," Zuko muttered.

"Guys... what if she was right?" Malu asked, her voice still quiet. The wrath was starting to bleed away from Azula, as was obvious by her complexion, but her jaw still had an angry set. "What if this really is the only way that we can save everybody? I can't just... just let everybody else suffer because of me."

"It's not because of you," Azula muttered. "There's no point in feeling guilty for something which isn't going to happen. Instead, plot revenge. It's a lot more productive."

"No it isn't," Malu said, mildly mortified. Azula rolled her eyes.

"You have no sense of justice, airbender," she muttered under her breath. She gave her brother a nudge aside. "I'm going back to sleep."

And she wouldn't say anything to anybody, but a part of her still had a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling that the Avatar had stood up for her to what was as so frighteningly powerful. Azula had a confused moment, where she actually examined that sensation, only to find that under scrutiny, it quickly vanished. It still took her a long time to go back to sleep.


Chapter 15

The Face Stealer


Aang opened his eyes to a spirit world gone mad.

He looked around, to a place which resembled the Great Divide, but was so alien that the comparison was essentially worthless. Waters raged up hill, jumping between chunks of terrain that hung in defiance of gravity over a black and everlasting oblivion. In the distance – for there was no real horizon for things to vanish into, it seemed – Aang watched as a great, crumbling blackness drifted lazily through the nothing, until it crashed into a spire of stone that twisted upward. He knew that spire; it was the place that he'd first met Korra, at the beginning of spring. The blackness struck against it, and the tip of the spire cracked and drifted a short distance away. But the blackness crumbled, like gravel falling off of an inflated bladder, growing smaller and smaller, until it vanished completely. Aang swallowed nervously, not sure what he'd seen, but knowing it was bad.

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"The Megalopolis," Irukandji turned Aang, toward the nest of buildings which floated, insubstantial, without streets or foundations, above the ocean of black. "Imbalance wanted to eat two cities for the price of one. Because of the other Shaman, it didn't get either. Instead, it got a slap. Didn't know you could slap something that didn't exist. Color me shocked."

Aang shrugged his way out of Irukandji's grasp. "That doesn't explain this."

"The Spirit World only has so much... stuff... to go around, these days," Irukandji said with an uncomfortable shrug.

"No, I mean, I was in the spirit world not too long ago. When I found you! What happened since then?" he asked.

Irukandji winced a bit. "...this might kinda be my fault," the spirit said. "A bit. Not entirely. Just a sliver."

"...why?"

"Well, who do you think was making the Spirit World make all that sense that you so enjoy causating?" Irukandji asked snippily. "I'm just amazed that it hasn't defaulted to colors-out-of-space, kings in funky pyjamas, and huge squid-gods living in undersea cities by now."

Aang blinked in confusion at the spirit.

"...long story. Funny story. Well, funny from a certain point of view," Irukandji said. She looked around, and pointed to a chunk of rock that was floating significantly above them. "Now if you don't mind, it's rather imperative that we wake up the Face Stealer. He's got a big part to play in this, whether he realizes it or not. Where is... Ah! There's the path. Follow me."

"How? I can't fly in the Spirit World," Aang pointed out.

"Come on, it's as easy as..." Irukandji said, pointing to a chunk of iron that floated in the void, then paused, and looked back at Aang. "...right. You can't turn into a lightning bolt at will."

"The last time I checked, no," Aang confirmed. Irukandji shook her head.

"Why do you humans have to be so damned squishy! You can never get anything done in those meat bodies," she said, giving Aang's belly a pinch to prove her point.

"Hey! I like my meat-body," Aang said.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Irukandji said. She sighed, and palmed her face. "Right. Give me a couple of minutes, if a Blowout hits, try not to die. I'm pretty sure there's a safe-place in the Spirit world. Don't know where it is, but it's probably still there."

"Wait!" Aang shouted, as Irukandji turned away.

"What?"

"What about Korra?"

"What about her?"

"I think... that's her apartment," Aang said, pointing toward a room which drifted in the darkness, drawing slowly closer to him. The two of them simply watched as the window-bearing box slid toward their outcropping of rock, dust, and dead roots, before bumping into it. Aang gave a look to Irukandji, who's expression was easily as querulous as Aang's own. The apartment shifted, grinding against the stone, as though slowly sliding past, until it caught on the roots of a now absent tree, and spun itself. Doing so, Aang could see into the hallway that ran through the structure. "Would it matter if I waited in there?"

"Couldn't hurt, I think," Irukandji said. Aang nodded, and when the timing was right, took a running start and jumped across the darkness, landing – barely – inside the hallway of the apartment that no longer had a city around it. He turned, looking back at the spirit. "Now just stay out of trouble until I can build a path for your stupid meat-feet to follow me. Shouldn't take long."

With a crack of lightning, she was gone. Aang turned, and looked into the hall. The lighting was uneven now, but there were no shadows to be seen. He walked, his fingers dragging along peeling 'wallpaper', as he moved to the corner. He frowned, as he saw the sights that awaited him. He looked back, and could see the grey land slowly drifting past, but ahead, he could see the next corner of the apartment, one he knew for a fact didn't exist on the outside. "Bigger on the inside. Weird," Aang said.

Then again, he had been in Zha Yu's shack. This was pretty much the same thing.

Aang moved to the doorway into the 'piano room', and knocked on it. When there was no immediate answer, Aang pushed the door open, and when he did, he was damned near blinded. There was so much silver light inside that room that the black-form of the 'piano' was last amongst them. So, too, was the spectral blue of a to-be-Avatar. "Korra? Are you in there?"

"Aang?" her voice came from within the center of that blinding mess. "Calm down. It's not Imbalance. You can stop."

The lights began to dim down, one upon the other, until the forms of near a thousand silver sparks stood distinct and floating in the air of the room. Korra was pushing herself to her feet from her spot near the center of the side-wall. "Korra? What's going on?"

"Wish I could tell you," his future self said. "All I knew was that one minute, I'm talking with shiny-pants here," a motion toward one of the near-countless Void spirits in the room with them, "and the next, I can't see out of my window anymore. Which I'm guessing is a bad thing?" she chanced.

"Very bad," Aang said. "Korra... do you know anything about something called 'the Face Stealer'?"

It was a strange thing watching something spectral blue turning slightly grey. "More than I wish I did," she said. "You're... not going after Koh, are you?"

"Who's... Koh is the Face Stealer, right," Aang put two and two together. He rubbed the back of his head, and the hair which was increasingly becoming... familiar. "I kinda, sorta... think we are."

"...why?" Korra asked, the confusion clear in her body-language, let alone her face.

"I don't know, and Irukandji never bothers to tell me!" Aang complained. Korra nodded.

"I've had plenty of that in my time. Gods, but it's annoying," she said.

"I hear that," Aang said. "So... Koh, huh?"

"Listen here, kiddo," Korra said, plunking him onto the stool before the piano, barely noticing how the Void spirits were flowing around them like an ideal gas. "Koh is one of the most dangerous things in the Spirit world. Or was, when I had to talk to him. And when you talked to him. He's nasty, he's smart, he's malevolent, and he's... creepy."

"Then why hasn't somebody gotten rid of him?" Aang asked.

"Because nobody's nearly strong enough to try, let alone succeed," Korra said. "Your words, not mine."

"I'd really like to have a talk with myself some time," Aang said, arms crossed in annoyance, oblivious to the bizarre thing he'd just said.

"Koh's crazy old, crazy powerful. He can – and will – steal your face if you show any expression at all. Damned near got mine," she rubbed at her face as though confirming to herself that she did, in fact, still have it. "I can't imagine what Irukandji wants him for."

"She said it was less what he can do, and more what he is," Aang said.

"...what is Koh, anyway?" Korra said. "Besides a massive bug with ten thousand faces?"

"I'm not sure," Aang admitted. And that had him worried.


Yue knelt in the grasses of the new Spirit Oasis, and she was anything but alone. The entire village had pulled up roots, and settled within the broad chamber that Tui and La had claimed for themselves; they'd had to. The temperatures outside had gone from simply winter-frigid, to hellishly lethal. Flesh, no matter how covered, would freeze in the matter of minutes. Flames couldn't hold out cold, no matter how high they were stacked. Only here, with the unnatural warmth of the nearby Spirit World could the people live, tolerably.

The de-facto Chief of the South desperately hoped that her patrons would tolerate the humans around them, because without them...

"Yue? Are you awake?" Hahn asked, moving to sit beside her, looking over the people who now slept, all huddled in masses, trying to give enough room for everybody. Food had been left in easy reach, and the frigid temperatures ensured that it never spoiled. They were using far more than Yue had hoped.

"Yes," she said.

"You should sleep more," he said, a hand resting on her shoulder. "There's nothing more that can be done."

"There must be. Alulbitavut hasn't sent a message in days, and everybody has pulled into the deepest caves of Rough Lee, but..." Yue shook her head. He cupped her cheek.

"Yue... you've done all you could," he stressed. He looked out over the hundreds who packed this tiny place. "And to be honest, you've done more than I thought possible."

"Then why do I still feel like I'm failing?" Yue asked.

Hahn kept his eyes on the pool, which was now, despite not having strictly shrunk, only large enough for Tui and La to circle each other, and then a hand's-breadth of water beyond that. "When we were fighting at Summavut, I was sure we were all going to die there, before the winter was out. Instead, we survived. If you'd have told me that we'd be living, in relative peace, after all that, a year ago? I'd have called you a liar."

He was right, she knew that. In her mind, it was clear as the waters that the gods swam in. But her heart was a different matter, and it wasn't nearly so amenable to reason.

"How long do you think they'll be able to keep doing this?" she asked, so quietly, looking at all the people trying to sleep under storm-clouded skies. Hahn leaned back.

"The Northerners? As long as they have to," he said with a bleak confidence. "The Southerners? I couldn't say." He turned to her, and even though he wasn't even twenty, he looked decades older. Aged prematurely. Then again, so many of those who survived Summavut and the Spikerim were. "You should rest. They need you as much as ever, and they need you bright."

She nodded, but she couldn't shake the sensation that they were sliding off of a cliff, and had nothing to grab 'hold of to stop themselves. A sinking sensation, that wasn't entirely – or rather, that wasn't simply – her own. Hahn patted her cheek, and moved back to his particular spot in this pile of humanity, before curling up on the grass. Yue, though, puffed out a sigh, and looked down.

La was staring at her.

"Now?" she asked, in its own tongue. The answer the fish gave was less words, and more an idea that began in Yue's soul and radiated out through the rest of her. "Will this place be safe?" she asked, looking around. If the cost was too high... But Tui continued to circle, even without its partner. "Oh. Oh, I see. Thank you," she said. She looked around, then crawled over to Hahn's side. She leaned close. "Shhh. You have to trust me.. I'll be back... soon," she said. Hahn turned a confused eye to her, but didn't question her. Whether because he trusted her, or for whatever other reason, she couldn't say. She rose, taking a breath of crisp air, the smell of grass overpowering sweat and fear, and the grease of cooked food. She stepped onto the pond; despite its fluid state, it held her aloft. She looked straight up, through the canopy of this new Spirit Oasis, toward where the moon would hang were it visible. And then, she held her breath.

And dropped down through the surface of the pond, bearing the whole soul of her god into the Spirit World. For better, or for worse.


The sound of a thunderstrike called the attention of both Avatars in the room to the door. Irukandji appeared in a puff of smoke with a dramatic hand-wave. When both Avatars simply stared at her – Korra coughing lightly – Irukandji rolled her eyes. "You people have no flair for the dramatic. Come on. I've called in the Long Road. Should work wonders for us, but the folks in 'the crest' might be a little pissed if they find out."

"Find out wh... what did you do, exactly?" Aang asked, Irukandji turned the corner, then gestured broadly. Aang turned, and his eyebrows rose. Leading away from the hallway was a path of sun-baked clay, grey as all other clay in this place, and just as desolate. It turned and rose, without any mooring to any surface, twisting out of sight. Aang tentatively prodded at its beginning with a toe. Korra, on the other hand, scoffed, and shoved him aside – albeit gently – and started walking up that path. "...what? This is all very confusing to me."

Irukandji pointed up to the chunk of rock that hung above them. "As I said, they're up there. I've got to go grab Yue. La is an impatient bastard, and didn't wait until she was somewhere convenient to enter the Spirit Asunder," Irukandji said. The flurry of terms had Aang blinking dumbly. "Just go and talk to the guys waiting for you," the spirit said, annoyance clear.

Aang could only shake his head, and walk the clay path. Korra had slowed down, so that he could catch up to her. "Does any of this make sense to you?" Aang asked.

"Hey, I tend to defer to you when it comes to this spirit mumbo-jumbo," she said with a shrug. She paused, though, rubbing her foot against the clay. "I do remember you telling me to never walk on this road. Don't remember why, though."

"...greeeeat," Aang drawled.

Korra obviously found his discomfort hilarious, as she started walking again, making headway over him on the clay. He picked up his own pace, but didn't catch up to her without running – which didn't seem like a productive exercise in this place – until she was already on that chunk of rock in the 'sky'. When he reached it, though, he didn't have time to reproach Korra, because his eyes widened at the sight of who was with them.

There were two who were only vaguely familiar at the best of times, and not at all from behind as they currently were. The third was Sharif. His scar was glowing, and light wafted out of his pupils, as he knelt before a fallen tree, and spread out a faintly glowing scroll upon its petrified bark. His face was one of intense focus, until the crunching of the ground reached him, and he glanced up.

"Ah. I wondered when you would arrive," Sharif said, slowly furling the scroll back up. The pair with him turned, and looked Aang up and down. One was a girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. The other, a plain-looking young man likely a year older. Both looked enough alike each other that it was obvious they were siblings. The two of them got a very uneasy look on their faces after that summary glance.

"Why do I think I've seen this guy before?" the girl asked. Aang scratched at his temple where the band was rubbing it. One of these days, he'd have to clean this thing. So many other things just kept coming up, though.

"Disregard them," Sharif said with a dismissive wave. "I assume that you've turned down Irukandji's sensible plan?"

"What? Even you think it's sensible to kill two innocent women?" Aang asked, mildly aghast.

"It is the smallest sacrifice to the greatest gain," Sharif said with a shrug. "But as it is obviously not one you would pursue, we must adapt."

"Nila's worried about you," Aang said to the lad. He sighed, and shook his head.

"Would that I had the time to be as worried of her," Sharif said. "As it is, my mind is often struck and shattered, and when not, too busy dedicated toward the business of averting apocalypse. She would understand. She's a sensible young woman," he said, waving that topic away as though it were an errant fly.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Aang asked.

"Awakening a great spirit, obviously," Sharif said. With a shrug, he continued. "While the difference between absolute oblivion and relative oblivion is one which is for the most part academic, if nothing else, I should like to ensure even if we are defeated, that Imbalance be foiled."

"Wait, what?" Aang asked. Sharif turned to him.

"You do not know of the Face Stealer's purpose?" he asked. He waggled a scroll. "Ah, but you haven't read the same words I have."

"What is that, anyway?" Aang asked.

"Seriously, this guy is really familiar," the other brother said toward his sister, his amber eyes locked on Aang.

"This?" Sharif asked. "Scroll from the Library of Wan Shi Tong. Which is currently right over there," he pointed to a crumbling doorway that hung in the ether, a short hop away from a bend in the cracked clay road. Sharif cracked a smirk. "Say what you will of the end of the world, it certainly makes for convenient study."

Aang took the scroll, and unfurled it. Instantly, he had a sensation as though the pages were infested with centipedes, crawling under his fingertips even as he simply held it. He gave a 'geh' and dropped the scroll. It was utterly still when it settled onto the mud. Sharif palmed his face. Aang picked the scroll back up, and the crawling feeling returned instantly. "What the..."

"As I said, there are certain barriers to readership," Sharif explained. "This one has an aspect of its subject within it."

"You never said anything," Aang said. Sharif's brow rose, then furrowed.

"Damn. I simply cannot trust myself to be a useful dispenser of knowledge," he said, kicking the dirt for good measure. Aang's attention turned back to the scroll, now that he could at least tolerate the crawling feeling, the unsettling sensation of something almost, but not quite touching the back of his neck. The choice of centipedes as his metaphor was immediately apparent; wrapping behind the words was something like a watermark, a creature of many segments, and many legs. Something that curled and coiled, showing no beginning and no end. And the words... the words had Form.

When Aang opened his World Eye to them, he saw them with more clarity than any non-shaman ever could. He saw the form that the scroll ascribed to 'Koh', but even still, it was like reading a description of a person you'd never met. It was never perfect, and sometimes, it just didn't make sense. The ideas clashed. Ancient and powerful. Silent and deadly. The apple and the worm within it. Quietly hating those that had purpose, or at least, a purpose more immediate than his. A hatred which festered long and festered cold, one passing just over the line into cruelty.

"I don't understand what this means," Aang said.

"You'd better," Sharif said with a chuckle. "You will be the one to speak to that beast."

"Speak to this?" Aang asked. He thought back, to the time when he was in the presence of the one Irukandji called Koh, the one that Roku had sent him toward, before vanishing from Aang's life completely. He remembered a creeping dread. "What is Koh?" he asked directly.

"The answer," Sharif said.

"The answer to what?" Aang asked. Sharif raised a finger.

"That is the greatest question of all. And one I have only recently deduced. He is the answer to nothing."

Aang blinked at him.

"Don't feel bad; he does this to us all the time," the girl said to Aang over Sharif's shoulder.

"You're the shamans that captured him?" Aang asked. "Why? Why'd you do that?"

"Trying to do what we thought was right," the girl said defensively. She gave a shrug, "and when that turned out to be a big stinking lie, we tried to fix it. Why? What's this kid to you?"

"A friend," Aang said. The brother scoffed and shook his head.

"Please. This brat only had his sister and the Av..." he trailed off. He turned to Aang. And he went gray. "No. No, that isn't possible."

"What isn't?" Aang asked. The sister's eyes started to widen, and her posture hunch like a hissing cat.

"Hisui... that..."

"You're the Avatar," the girl called Hisui said. Aang gave a shrug.

"Yeah," he said.

He was answered by two shrieks of terror, and the two of them sprinting over the 'hill' in the center of the rock, vanishing from sight. Aang blinked at them, and Sharif glanced between the Avatar and his now absent jailers.

"So you have met them, I presume?" Sharif asked. He waved a hand toward them. "Don't be too concerned. There is no great distance they can run; this island is only so large."

"I..." Aang began, and suddenly, he remembered them. "They're the guys who summoned that spirit at the wall of Ba Sing Se!"

"Hence their terrified response, I presume," Sharif said, taking the scroll and furling it once more. He pointed the thing at Aang. "Now heed; Koh is a creature which can be held to its word, but only just. It will take any opportunity to betray the spirit of its dealings to uphold the letter. If you show emotion, no matter how counterproductive it would be for him, he will take your face. And believe me, not even the Avatar can get it back."

"...is that why they call him the Face Stealer?" Aang asked.

"He has a sizable collection," Sharif said dryly.

"Why is this all so difficult?" Aang asked. "I could have woken him up back in winter, the last time I was here."

"All respect due the powers of the Avatar, no you couldn't," Sharif said. "Koh is dreaming, and when one such as he dreams, it is a thing beyond any mortal ken to reach him. It will require a greater power than you alone are capable of producing, let alone directing. You will have to plunge into the nightmare of Koh, and drag him out of it."

Aang felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. "Okay. That should be easy," he said, trying to lie to himself. He only got that sentence out, when a glaring point of light burned into his eye, before expanding in blazing glory at the crest of the hill. Agni, clothed in flame, glaring of golden eye, stared down.

THERE WILL BE NOTHING EASY ABOUT IT. KOH IS THE ELDEST OF THE FUNDAMENTS. HIS DREAMS RUN DEEP. HIS NIGHTMARES, DEEPER AND DARKER STILL.

The powerful, grand and above-all-else loud voice of Agni billowed back Aang's clothes as the words reached him. "I was being sarcast...ic..." Aang said. Agni glared down at him. "...it's a thing humans do."

PITY, THAT THE AVATAR CHOOSES TO BE HUMAN.

Aang blinked at that for a moment, and looked to Sharif. "Chooses?"

"You'd need to ask her," Sharif pointed to Korra, who was fiddling with a weird looking branch nearby.

"Korra?"

"You'd need to ask somebody else," Korra said, warding his question instantly.

"Um... Agni?"

THE BEQUEST OF THE AVATAR IS A SPIRIT AND A SOUL, BOTH AND NEITHER AND GREATER. IT DEIGNS TO FACE LIFE IN A SMALL, MORTAL SHELL, TO UNDERSTAND SMALL, MORTAL LIVES.

Aang winced at the blast of heat and noise that came off of what amounted to a god, before turning to Sharif. "Does she know how to talk normally?"

"She's the sun. Of course she doesn't," Korra pointed out. Aang gave her a look. "Hey, if I was the sun, I'd be shouting all the time, too."

"I shudder to think of that one as the sun," Sharif said. He leaned aside. "Are you two quite finished? The Avatar has better things afoot than to further terrorize you."

"You don't know that!" the girl called Hisui shouted, peeking around a dead tree on the side of the hill.

"Hai, stop trying to creep up on the Avatar," Sharif said, impatience clear in his tone. Aang looked around, not understanding, until Sharif reached aside him and made a swat, which ended with 'Hai', staggering forward as he was cuffed upside the head. "Now, can we all be civil?"

"How did you..." Hai began.

"I am five times the shaman you are, Hai, do not think your meager tricks could fool me," he said brashly. "Agni, who else comes to this mad quest into the vortex's heart?"

YOU NEED NO OTHER THAN I. THERE IS NO STRONGER IN THE COSMOS.

Sharif clucked his tongue. "Be that as it may, who else is coming?"

Aang was answered by his shadow starting to distort, twisting and warping like a flag in the breeze. Then, he looked down and realized that his shadow was supposed to be directly away from Agni, not off to the side of him. He froze solid, eyes wide, as his shadow broke free of his feet, slithering to one side near Korra, before massing up. Darkness welled, and then split. But not with crimson, as Aang had been fearing. Instead, it sliced open with panes of silvery light, mirrors floating in an ebon fog. After a few moments, the mirrors rotated within themselves, and lowered to the ground, assuming the form of a gargantuan panda. "Heibai!" Aang said brightly. The panda gave a low grunt, and sat down, staring intently at Agni, who glared down at him.

"Wait, did you just say that that's Agni?" Hisui asked, pointing to the nude woman, clothed in flames and smoke.

"Please, try to keep up," Sharif said, kneading his brow.

"I can't believe that I'm the one to have to do this, but can you all please shut up and take a number?" Korra asked, obviously her patience completely spent. "I get that we're all stressed out, some of us terrified, and most of us a little confused. But we're trying to save the world, and we can't do that if we're running around like a lizard-chicken with its head cut off!"

"Korra is, for a wonder, right," Sharif said. "Hisui, Hai, stop flinching and plotting. Agni, stop insulting the Avatar. Heibai, mind your manners; if Sohma heard that, he'd eat you, and you would ill enjoy that, I think."

YOU DARE!

The insult of a god was cut off by a thunderclap, as Irukandji returned with all the bombasm that she typically employed. "Alright, who's dead?" Irukandji asked, and looked around. "Nobody? Booooring," Irukandji said with rolling eyes. Then, she clapped and rubbed her hands together. "Alright, Yue and La should be here any second now. And after that, it's just a short walk to the Nightmare Hallow."

Sharif scowled. "No it isn't."

"It is if I want it to be. Who's holding the Spirit world together? You, or me?" she asked. Silence. "That's what I thought. Five, four, three..."

On an unspoken one, there was a sudden brightness, as Aang looked down, and noted that he did indeed have a shadow once more, pooled around his feet. His hands seemed to shine slightly, with a white light that was all the more muted on his tattooes. They seemed positively black. When he looked up, he could see why. Where once the heavens hung empty, now the pristine white orb of a moon unmarred by what craters and whatnot had come, shone down with light not technically reflected off of anything. A beam of that light, mellow and soft contrasting the harsh incandescence of Agni, came flowing down, touching the baked soil. For a moment, the cracked clay shone like pearl. Then, standing when the beam retracted, was Yue. "Yue!" Aang cried. "It's been so long; what's happened!"

"This isn't the time," Sharif cut off.

"Things are well," Yue said, then there was a twitch in her face, and she looked down. "No, things are not well. We're freezing. The world is dying, and..."

"And we're all where we need to be to do something about that," Irukandji interrupted. "Ladies, gentlemen, and miscellaneous supernatural other, please follow in the path that I lead, follow my footsteps exactly, keep your arms and legs inside the path at all times, and thank you for fl... no, wait, that's a century too early. Nevermind," She waved a hand. "Just keep up."

And with that, followed by a confused look and a grunted 'I dunno' to Yue, they all set off, walking a path that leapt up before Irukandji, crossing an ocean of blackness.


"That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Fire Nation," Zha Yu said, pointing ahead of them, as they crushed through inch-thick ice in their boats. "...more or less."

"Are you certain?" Sativa asked, and her suspicion wasn't exactly unwarranted. Zha Yu had heard of a lot of things in his fairly long life, but snow in this part of the world? Never. The clouds which hung perpetually over the edge of the continent were no great surprise; instead, the surprise came in the form of the white that covered black sands.

"I'd stake my reputation on it," the earthbender said. He then gave a glance to the Water Tribesman next to him.

"By that, he means he'd stake my reputation on it," Bato said dryly.

"This is not how we planned things," Sativa said. "Attrition will be cruel."

"Not if we can contact the Avatar's group soon enough," Zha Yu hastened. "You don't put a lot of faith in your girl, Sati."

"I put as much faith as the girl deserves; it is an impossible situation, and had she not barged out the door in her foolish quest, I would have forbidden it! And even then, she would have done it anyway, to spite me!" Sativa snapped.

"Her mother's daughter," Zha Yu said, leaning toward Piandao. The swordsman didn't crack so much as a smirk, though. And the Mountain King had a fair notion why. It was the first time that Piandao had come home in years. And to see his home like this?

"I see a signal; that must be them," Bato said, moving along the ice-limned rail and toward the prow, leaning as though the few inches would make the difference. He leaned aside. "Helm! A-starboard comes a flare! Turn to!"

"Aye! Turning to!" came the call from the far end of the ship, and with a creak of wood taxed beyond what its creators had ever intended, it turned its path, breaking a new furrow through the skin of ice. There was no one ship of Water Tribesmen in this rag-tag fleet; instead, every single one had a Tribesman at the helm, and as many as they could spread. They'd needed them to get across the oceans as the summer began.

But ever since the solstice, the oceans became frighteningly calm. Like they'd given up fighting.

"Think that ice'll support my weight?" Zha Yu asked, as they turned once more, putting the port to the shore.

"Probably not," Hakoda said. "It's not nearly thick enough."

Zha Yu shrugged. "I'll improvise," he said. "Sati?"

"Of course," she said, gesturing him forward. She paused and turned to Hakoda. "You should come as well. You have as large a stake as most in this."

Hakoda nodded, and then cracked a smirk. "And it'll be interesting to see what mischief my children have gotten to in the 'belly of the beast'," he offered a chuckle.

"Knowing them, they probably started a revolution," Bato said.

"Hah, hah," Sati said flatly. While news was very, very scant during their slow crossing of the hellish seas, the news that they did get told them of the Blue Turban Rebellion in the Ember Archipelago. Which surprised the hell out of Zha Yu, because he didn't expect that out of people like Jet and Mai. They seemed so much more... subtle.

The other ships were beginning to turn and slow, coming into view through the falling snowflakes even at very short distances. The Mountain King looked down, off the port side, toward where the signal of red light cast out to sea, muffled by so much snow, looked out to them. He looked down at the ice, and pulled a hand up. With a crunch, the earth erupted out of the water, pushing the ice aside. He squeezed his fists, forcing the water out of the sand, and turning it into something of a jetty. With a satisfied nod, he hopped over the side and slid to a halt on newly formed sandstone. He turned back just in time to catch Piandao from falling off the side, and he in turn caught Sati.

He struck the snow from his shoulders as he started toward the proper shore, raising up the sandstone before him as he went. Once he'd gotten closer, he could see that the beacon was a permanent structure, much to Zha Yu's surprise. He gave a glance back, wondering if this might be some kind of trap, but he had faith that he, at least, would be able to get out if push came to shove. Say what you would about him, he could shove pretty hard. Past the beacon there was a path, set with interlocking stones, leading up the hill. He could see a building that overlooked the water, but no sign of whose it would be.

He continued to walk, and noted the stand beside the path. Unlike this place, where his boots cut furrows into essentially virgin snow, there were recent, dainty looking footprints heading up and toward that house, and a small fire cast flickering light while the wind gusted against Zha Yu's back and blew snow ashore from the sea. He leaned to one side, trying to get a better view; the stand was empty, its seat vacant. After sucking air through his teeth for a moment, spent in mildly paranoid contemplation, he turned, and saw somebody carefully descending toward him. It looked to be a girl, from the shape of her, one well bundled and head down. Her mittened hands were cupped around a bowl of something that cast up steam. She was walking straight at the Mountain King, but with the snow in her face, she didn't look up to see him.

"Excuse me?" Zha Yu asked in the language of the land. The girl froze instantly, big brown eyes turning up toward him, before they winced and flitted half-closed once more to keep the fluff from banging into them. "You wouldn't happen to be in the market for some fine textiles, would you?"

It was something of a gamble to ask a stranger – a teenager at best – the code phrase to contact the Seamstress, but given all of the other problems that he'd faced, this would be a drop in the bucket. "You're th-th-th-the Mountain K-k-king," she said, obviously shivering so much that her teeth were chattering. Not the answer that Zha Yu was expecting.

"What? That's preposterous. He died years ago," Zha Yu scoffed. The girl rolled her eyes, though.

"Ab-b-bout time," she chattered. "N-n-none of my sisters w-w-would come out in the c-c-cold. M-m-mother is waiting for you."

Zha yu blinked in confusion at the girl, who turned around and moved up toward that house once more. He then glanced back, and noted that from here, you could barely see the water. Well, no great surprise that somebody needed to keep a watch. Sati was only now stepping onto the shore, Piandao close at hand – pardon the pun – as he always was. He gave a nod upward to the house. "I suppose we've been expected. But not by who we think."

"What do you mean?" Sativa asked as she came to a range where she wouldn't have to shout to converse, as the Mountain King had.

"I might be mistaken, but that looked like one of Nami's interchangeable brood," he pointed out.

"Do you suspect treachery?" she asked him.

"From Nami? No. She's sensible. She would have had a lot more reason to oppose the government if Ozai was still in power, but I think she'll be amenable anyway," Zha Yu said. He cracked a smirk. "I'm amazed that you're asking my opinion on these things. Wasn't it your idea to go full-steam-ahead, and damn the torpedoes the last time you tried something like this?"

"And you will clearly recall how abject a failure that attempt was," she said. "Secondary objectives to not a success make."

"True enough," he said. A wave toward Bato told the Tribesman all he needed to know. Hakoda, though, had taken ashore and was now catching up to them. He looked around, somewhat confused when he reached their place, at the foot of a stairwell that went up and toward the side of the manor-house they had reached.

"This doesn't look like our doing," Hakoda mentioned.

"It might be, peripherally," Piandao mused. The Tribesman had to accept Zha Yu's shrug and keep step with them, else be left behind with a swordsman's musings. They reached the door to find it open. Another of the identical sextuplets – with their single obviously fraternal 'twin' sister rounding out the seven – held the door open, and gave those entering a wide berth as they did. The girl with the snow-covered mantel shook it off, and began to sip at her bowl of soup, sitting down out of the way.

"Mother is expecting you," the girl at the door said as she pulled it shut behind them. Zha Yu pushed the door open before their doorwoman could reach it, to her chagrin, and found the next room well appointed, and housing the rest of their confusing litter. One, though, was obviously older, more weathered even as she was curvaciously mature. She looked up from a cup of tea, breaking off mid-sentence whatever the glamorously dressed of her daughters was saying. She took a sip, then set the cup down, and gestured to one of the couches nearby.

"Well, you must be the invading army, here to topple the Burning Throne," she said lazily.

"And you must be the traitor who sheltered the Avatar and foments discord everywhere you go," Sativa answered just as easily.

The woman paused, though, and turned to Hakoda. "Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that your usual companion wasn't here. We haven't been introduced," she trailed off, and looked to Zha Yu. "Does he speak Huo Jian?"

"Hakoda, High Chief of the Water Tribe," he said.

"So you do. Apologies, I can't be too sure," she said. She rose, and gestured once more, and more elegantly aside. "Hakoda, I am Nami Baihu, of House Baihu, inheritor of Di Huo and the Hotomaya Factory City. And, as was said, I'm going to help you bring down the Fire Lord."


The Spirit world was getting more solid, which was in its way both comforting and concerning. Aang knew full well that every part ought be as blasted and disconnected as the floating rocks had been back where Sharif had waited for him. That the cracked earth was passing through more and more 'islands', all of which having almost the same level... he wasn't sure what that meant.

"Yue?" Aang asked.

"Yes?" she answered.

"How... how bad is it, really?" he asked, his voice pitched low so that it wouldn't carry far.

"Very bad," she said, and left it at that.

"Is it this bad everywhere?" Aang asked, concern clear.

"Doubtless, it is as bad in the East," Sharif said. "Although they have much more experience with cold, either in winters or through frigid nights upon plains or sands."

"Their wells are starting to freeze," Irukandji said, and not more. "You need to focus; all this is just going to distract you, and," she snapped her fingers, "like that, you've got no face, and we're all deader than dead."

"I'll be alright," Aang said, breathing deep. He was going to be alright. He could do this. He could stare down what all described as an eldritch horror beyond the mortal ken, plunge into its nightmares, and poke it with a stick until it woke up. How was this a good idea, again? "Why is this place more... together?"

Sharif shrugged, but the National shaman trailing at the back of the pack raised a finger. "Um... I actually know this one."

"Do tell," Sharif said with a dubious expression.

"We're entering Koh's genius loci," she said. "Really powerful spirits have places which are as much a part of them as their own flesh. I'm guessing this Koh and the tree he lives in are part of the same... legend, I guess?" Sharif gave a begrudging nod. "As long as Koh still exists, then so will the place where he lives."

"Which begs a question," Aang said. "Why hasn't Imbalance eaten Koh? I mean, it's eaten just about every other spirit in the Spirit world..."

"That is a question for which the only answer would come from Koh himself," Sharif said, as the tree came into view, the darkness not so much parting as sliding away like some sort of oily curtain from its surface. A glance up, showed the ring of light hanging above; Agni, framing the much softer light of La who stood before it. Astronomically impossible, as every eclipse was necessarily a new-moon, despite the full-moon glow coming down, but... it was comforting, to have both so readily at hand. He looked forward, to that great tree, and his feet bore him ever forward. He'd walked a path like this before. Half a year ago, maybe a bit less. Once he left the cracked mud, and stood on old and cracked roots, he could feel the difference. It ran like a chill up his spine, a whisper he couldn't quite hear. A touch on the hairs of the back of his neck. This was not a place for those such as he. He leaned down, touching the roots underfoot. They were different from the trees that Aang had found before. This one... it wasn't dead, mocking a tree in petrified death. This one was stubbornly, hatefully alive.

He bounded along the roots, taking the shorter path while the others simply circled around the harder terrain, and reached the cleft that headed into the heart of this tree long before the others. There was a darkness so great that it formed something like a wall. The combined light of Agni and La couldn't push the shadows loose of that aperture. Aang glanced to the others, who were slowly ascending to the point that he'd already reached. He reached forward, touching that point where light seemed to die.

It felt cold, but otherwise, there was no sensation at all. Even though he couldn't see the tips of his own fingers, his hand, his wrist as he grew more confident that nothing was going to eat him, there was nothing but an otherworldly cold.

"I wouldn't get too grabby," Irukandji shouted up to him. "Koh might not be awake yet, but there's no saying that a horrible beast of darkness couldn't be hiding in there, waiting for a morsel of human-flesh."

"Stop frightening him," Yue rebuked. The Spirit rolled blue eyes, not looking contrite, but not exactly arguing, either. She turned to the other shamans, and called them closer to her. "I believe I know what must be done."

"Really, and upon what authority?" Sharif asked.

Yue pointed straight up, to the great, mellow disc of La. Even Sharif couldn't dispute that one.

Aang took the spot of the circle farthest from the two Fire Nationals – because they'd actively sought that position, while each of Sharif and Yue took his hands. "Aang, you need to picture in your mind, a dream."

"...um, how do I do that?"

"Think back to every dream you've ever had. Think back to the absurdity. The randomness. The strange thoughts and strange logic. Think to the things you've done, impossible in the real world. The ecstasies of your wishes fulfilled, the agonies of your worst nightmares," Yue said. "Imagine it. Bring it into you. Hold it close."

Aang blinked at the white-haired girl, and tried. Dreams, huh? Well, there was that dream that he, Sokka, and Katara were sword-fighting over the rights to a pie. Or... or the one where Toph's head was a melon, and Momo kept eating her. He tried to hold those thoughts, but they sifted through his hands as the finest sand. So he tried something else, something more vivid. Something he would never forget, no matter how much he wanted to.

The path of failures.

In his mind, he was already reliving the dream, the nightmare that he'd had, over and over, each time growing longer and darker, more and more adding up and grinding down on him. Jeong Jeong, shaking his head in disgust, as Aang left him to die. Pakku, spitting on the ground before his feet, for failing to save him, and worse, for failing to save Summavut. 'Some Avatar you are', they'd hiss at him. 'You're going to let everybody down'.

Azula, slapping his face, telling him that she would never care for him, that he wasn't worth loving.

Katara and Sokka, leaving him behind, because he was slowing them down.

Malu, screaming and gnashing teeth at him, her eyes twisted scarlet, shot through with black veins, roaring at him with the same question 'why did it have to be you? Why did you get to be Avatar?'

He never had an answer for her. He never had answers for everybody.

Aang looked up, and he didn't see anybody else around him. There was no tree. There were no other shamans. He could feel something like a tether, something that trailed up from the crown of his head, but he couldn't see it. And he didn't know where he was. He looked around. Dirt, cracked and dry. A smell... of copper. No, it was the smell of blood. There was a rush of a river running nearby. He walked toward it, his steps crossing the distance far faster than they should have. He looked down in the water, and he could hear not a babbling of a river, but the distant, quiet sobbing of people in terrible need.

"Where am I?" Aang asked.


"The Unholy Highest awaits..."


Aang looked at himself. He seemed to still be wearing his clothes, but there was a fragility to them, an impermanence. They were something foreign here. Much like he was. "I'm in Koh's nightmare," Aang said, understanding. He looked up into the sky, to the moon which hung, cracked in two as though cleft with a chisel. Then, he walked away from the waters. A few steps, each miles long, brought him to sands. Si Wong? No, he realized. This was no place such as Man had ever stood. A place which didn't yet exist. A place which might never exist.

The Avatar walked, his strides eating ground, moving him along the river. But there was something that slowed him. He stopped, running his hands along wild-grain, that grew aside the river. There was something about it. He looked down, and saw how the roots spread atop the ground as well as under it. Rodents and frogs were trapped in the ever twisting grasp of those roots, and ever-so-slowly dragged out of sight. In the scant few seconds that Aang looked upon the wheat, he felt it clinging to his feet. He let out a yelp, and bounded back. It continued to writhe, those bits which clung to his footwear, for almost a minute after he kicked them off.

"I don't understand. What am I supposed to look for?"

There was a notion which came to him, the only answer he would get. Find a way to go deeper. Into the darkest recesses. Find Koh. Wake him.

He walked again, but his steps grew shorter, and not by his desire. He saw a city in the distance, a hulk which pressed darkly against the night sky. Some of the buildings seemed impossibly high, great pyres burning on their cloud-scraping roofs. The whole city stood, unabashed and brutal, on one side of the river. The other... the other lay monuments. He walked closer; and the closer he came to the city, the shorter his steps, until they were almost a normal, human stride. He could see a pad of stone, but upon that stone, a glass cat, staring at the city. He walked up to it, and put his hand to it. No, not glass. A ghost of a cat. A memory of a cat. Why? He then looked beyond, to mighty, enormous ziggurats, which dwarfed any that had existed in the abandoned home of the Sun Warriors. They were old, and weathered.

"What am I supposed to look for?" Aang asked.

A buzzing hit his ear, and he looked up, just in time to let out a yelp of terror, as a swarm of locusts bore down on him, raining out of the sky and slamming into the water, into the buildings, into the monuments. When they struck, forms, twisted and mutated, raced out of the tall buildings on the far side of the river. They scooped up great handfuls of those vermin and shoved them into their mouths. Even from the distance of Aang standing on one side of the river, and they on the other, he could see that... that they were once human, and turned into something else. Something profane and wrong.

A scream pulled Aang's attention away from the horrible spectacle before him. The scream came from within one of those ziggurats. He gave a final glance toward those once-people, wishing that he could help them somehow. Undo the horrors which had been done to them. But this was somebody else's dream. It was beyond Aang's power.

He moved across the sands, and paused; at the foot of the ziggurat, there were profane offerings. Burnt people. Statues of horrid design, depicting centipedes writhing up out of the ground. Of tiny, twisted men offering each other to them. It was obvious that this Koh guy had some really serious problems.

He moved past the statues, and the people prostrating themselves before them, begging for a release, for an end to their suffering. An end to their pain and their hunger. Aang passed into the structure, through a passage cut into the stone of the pyramidal temple, and straight into its heart. Another scream, this one a woman, where the other was a man. He kept moving, and finally entered a new room. A throneroom.

Upon the throne sat a man, but a man as twisted as his deeds. He had cut the skin from his own face and head, and pulled it back into a sort of hood, so that his red-meat face stared out through his own gaping lips. A hand with black fingers reached toward a man with yellow hair, and twisted, and the yellow-haired man screamed. Aang's eyes widened, as he crossed the line of others who were spread-eagled in the air before the throne. One of them was a woman, wearing clothes much more like Korra's than anything Aang had seen before. The other... looked like an older, greyer, more weathered Zha Yu.

"What's going on?" Aang asked. Black, soulless eyes glared not at the Avatar, but at the three in the air.

"I am Unholy Highest!" The foul king spat, sand running out of his mouth instead of spittle. "I was to bear the world into darkness! But you... you insolent animals..." he turned his attention to the woman, rising from the throne and pressing his hand to the back of her neck. She let out another scream. This time, though, Aang noticed something about that scream. It was loud, yes, and horrible... but it was empty and hollow. There was no pain there. Nothing was hurting. It was an echo, a wish never granted. "You with your stupid tricks and your evil technology... I had the killers of gods on my side! And what did you have? WHAT?"

Aang side-stepped around the edge of the room. "I'm not here. Don't look this way. I'm not here," he said, trying to avoid the insanity. He saw a pit, filled with a blackness such that even the shadows of the rooms were pale against it. The mutilated madman didn't heed Aang's wishes though. His head turned, and bleak eyes looked on him.

"And who are you? Another worshiper of the great Paradox? Or are you one of theirs!" the Unholy Highest demanded, casting a crushing fist toward the yellow-haired man, who let out another loud, but hollow scream. "Answer me, boy! Do you feast on the Maggot Bread? Have you heard the whispers of the Monarch of a Thousand Voices?"

"I'm just passing through," Aang said, weakly, a terror nesting in his belly. Here, he was not the Avatar, the demigod in human flesh that could rewrite the very landscape if he needed to. Here, he was just a scared teenager, in the presence of horror. "I just need to..."

"No. No, you're not going anywhere," the Unholy Highest said, a hand reaching up, and shadows weeping away from their natural place to pool in that fist. "I may have been denied my birthright, but I WILL BE WORSHIPED!"

Grey eyes flit aside, then legs followed eyes. He sprinted, toward that pit beyond the grisly throne. Bleak eyes turned, following him. He heard profanities screamed at the back of his head. Promises of agony and anguish eternal. He heard threats. He felt something coming closer, reaching toward him. The pit was of unreadable depth, and the blackness was absolute. He swallowed, but shot a glance over his shoulder. That once-human thing was moving toward him, a hand outstretched. Aang didn't want to know what would happen if that black hand touched him. He bounded over the wall of that 'well', and plunged into oblivion.


No, not oblivion. The court of the King of Glass...


Aang landed hard on his chest, and his eyes instantly burned. He pressed them shut, but they still glowed pinkly through his lids; it wasn't until he held his hands over his eyes that he had something like darkness. He scooted, blind, across the floor until his back hit something. Then, he sat.

The burning of his eyes didn't last forever. Slowly, minute by minute, the glare pulled back. Not completely by any stretch; it was harder to see than if Si Wong had been coated in scintillating glass, rather than sand, and that the sun glared full, searing, and far closer than it ought. He opened squinting eyes, pupils pin-pricks and still almost blinded for glare, as he slowly pushed his way to his feet. The wall he was leaning against was hot as stone in the desert. A careful look around showed that the terrain was much as his metaphor had predicted. Sand that glittered as diamonds stretched in every direction, save one. The air was stifling, stripping the sweat out of his pores and evaporating it in an instant. It did little to cool him.

He looked up at the structure he had pressed against. It was a beacon, of sorts; the lamp atop it burned brighter even than the sun, such that he could never look directly at it. Under his feet was a thoroughfare, built entirely of shining mirror-glass, that lead to a great structure; he'd landed beside the nearest beacon to the rotating pillar of shining glass and confusion. But he was not alone. Standing in proud rows were thousands of people. Their bodies were made of light, and they all stared reverently into the sky; circling above, something like human beings circled, flapping ivory wings and singing a song that continued eternally. There wasn't anything that resembled a shadow here at all. Everything was too bright.

"I've got to get out of here before I bake," Aang muttered, shielding his eyes from both directions, boxing in his vision so that he could only see the pillar-temple. If he got out of the sun – a sun which seemed like it hung a mere league above the ground – maybe he'd find better luck.

His feet were starting to sting and blister by the time he mounted the last of those glass-cut stairs, and entered the halls. If anything, it was getting ever brighter. Doors, leading ever inward and upward, were flanked by nude, winged people, androgynous of feature, and neuter of sex. The only reason that Aang knew they were 'people' and not statues, was because they breathed, and as they breathed, they prayed to something that they guarded. Their eyes... their eyes were missing, absent as though they never were.

"Praise the sun; Praise Him. Praise the sun; Praise Him" the litany continued, growing ever more clear. This didn't make any sense. Why would Koh be worshiping Agni, even in a nightmare? But... but that didn't seem like Agni. Agni was about heat, burning, not blinding. She was interested in flame, not radiance. And most notably... Agni was not a 'he', even by spirit standards.

Music began to vault higher, as the rings of rooms, flanked by winged near-humans gave way to a procession of daises, each one mounting higher. The highest was a room unto itself, its walls swelling up, toward the sun which beamed down from the heavens. By now, Aang was only able to see by peering between his fingers; even that was now painful. But in all the structure, it was all glass and mirrors. There wasn't a shadow to be found.

"I must have jumped into the wrong hole," Aang murmured dryly, with mounting horror. The only place to go was up. Androgynous near-humans gave way to beasts with eight or ten or sixteen wings, the heads of vipers or wolfbats or... or 'lions', every one bearing with them a burning sword and a flaming flail, crossed over their chests. They didn't move so much as an inch to prevent the rapidly dehydrating Avatar from moving beyond them, though. In its way, this place was almost as bad as the last one. Only the horror here was that... well... the songs were starting to worm their way into Aang's head.

He wondered if he stayed here much longer, he might start singing their song, and whispering their praises just like they did.

A long, hard shove on almost searing-hot metal bore the door open, and revealed a room every bit as bright as the ones behind. There were no winged beasts here, though. The only inhabitants of this room, were a fair-skinned, white haired and bearded man, laying on his knees, and the massive mirror set on the floor before him. Aang blinked, looking at the man. He had to be thirty or forty feet tall, and his lips moved as Aang moved closer to him.

"Hello? Who are you?"

"I am great. I am one. I am all. I am great. I am one. I am all," the man whispered to himself, staring at that mirror. Aang shook his head. The more that giant whispered, the more Aang started to believe it. That he, the Avatar, was just a figment of this person's imagination. A distraction from the city of glass and mirrors.

Aang cut himself off by slapping himself very hard across the face. Focus! Find the shadow!

He looked to the throne, which sat unoccupied at the end of the room. The instant he looked at it, he saw the shadow. For all the brightness of this room, the shadow was all the more absolute. A hard line of black against the relentless light. He first stumbled, then jogged, before racing toward that shadow with all he had in him.

He hurled himself into the darkness, hoping beyond hope that the light would end. That the chanting would end.

That the lies he was starting to tell himself would end.


...or perhaps the God Emperor?


This time, when Aang hit the ground, it was in blackness. But that was a blackness that came from his eyes being essentially shut. Slowly, the world resolved itself around him, and he found himself in... in a marketplace. He looked around, wary of abominations, of mutants and beast-men and madness. He saw fruit and jugs of water, left alone. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he looked up.

He shouldn't have looked up.

The sky was no sky. Instead, it was a sort of liquid chaos, churning and roiling. Things unseen pressed against the surface of that alien heaven, things that couldn't be understood by the minds of Man. They pressed, almost coming into view, before their strangeness proved too much, and the rules of What Was demanded they leave. It didn't help. Aang still knew that there were things in the heavens. Terrible, mad, insane things. He limped on blistered feet to a table, and tipped a basin a bit. The water which came out looked, smelled, and felt absolutely normal. His mouth felt like he'd been gargling sand. "I'm probably going to regret this," Aang said, his voice croaking. Then, he tipped back the jug, and drank in great and desperate gulps.

Water, and nothing more.

He finished one jug, and moved on to the one beside it. It went down just as sweetly. When he could drink no more, he let the water rain down over him, then just lay on the table, waiting until the heat of his flesh finally cooled. It must have been a while, because he was long dry by the time he even tried to get to his feet. He puffed out a breath, one that he'd been holding for a while. It came out hot, and the breath which replaced it was cool.

Better.

He slipped down off the table, and looked at the rest of what was offered. This was but one stall, one that offered refreshments and exotic looking fruits. Another, nearby, offered cloth by the bolt; a third, cobbled footware that bore a style somewhere between Fire Nation and Whalesh. Beyond that? More food, some sort of hanging, plucked fowl. Beyond that, a man, standing, staring at him.

Aang jumped back with a yelp of alarm.

"You... aren't part of this, are you?" the man asked, his tones regal, but quiet. Aang almost redefined him away from 'man', because now that Aang had a moment to look at him, he seemed like somebody had stitched together parts of a dragon onto human form, his eyes vertical slits, his nostrils flat and tall. He took a step toward Aang, who in turn took a step away. "You are no Primator of Dawn or Dusk, no Herald, no assassin of gods," the man said. He took another step, and Aang retreated again. This time, he held up a clawed hand. "Calm; if I wished you harm, it would have landed on you by the thousand-weight already."

"W...who are you?" Aang asked.

"An incorrect question," the man said. "A more apt one would be 'who was I?'"

Aang glanced to an alley, but had a fair notion that this strange man was speaking simple truth with that veiled threat. "Then who were you?" Aang asked.

"Now? Dead, and what I was passed on to another in my place. My power, usurped by my enemy and those who fought beside him. But before?" he nodded slowly, his gaze sliding around the market, then up into the sky where Aang's eyes dared not linger. "Before... I was the God Emperor."


"You have to forgive a certain level of suspicion, Lady Baihu," Piandao said, carefully pouring tea with his single remaining hand. "We were given to understand that we'd be meeting with the Avatar and the Seamstress, not with a member of the Embiar elite in good standing."

"Understandable, if misguided," Baihu said. "From what I have heard? The Seamstress is dead. Of course, I've also heard the same of the Spider, but that simply goes to show how far you can trust the rumor mill in times like these. I don't doubt that the Spider is still alive, trying to retake his throne, even if not with a fraction of what he once commanded."

"Where is the Avatar?" Sativa pressed. Baihu only shrugged.

"I could only tell you his whereabouts at the time he was under my roof. Since then, he went to Boiling Rock, and from there, I couldn't say," she said. She raised her tea to her mouth, but paused there. "I do believe that he had no small part in the recent 'earthquake' that so destabilized Azul's rule, however."

"Why?" Sati asked.

"Because at the exact same time, Caldera City almost erupted. I haven't survived as long as I have by cleaving to coincidence," she said. She looked out into the hallway. "Gwen?"

"The ships are dropping anchor in the bay, Mother. We need to find some way to conceal them."

"Sweetheart, you overthink. Has there been so much as a day since we came here that hasn't had torrential downpours or snow?" she asked. The teenaged girl, who had much of the expression of her mother if not quite her features, tensed her jaw, but didn't respond. Baihu sighed. "You should deal with the messengers. There's trouble with them. I can smell it."

"Yes, Mother," she said, before departing. Baihu turned to her guests.

"Gwen... she's got a good start, but she still has a long way to go if she wishes to be the next matriarch of this House," Baihu gave a shrug.

"So no reconnaissance, no allies, and no Sato," Zha Yu muttered under his breath, his usually jovial expression very dark and brooding. It was often said that the man ran hot or cold, with nothing in between. Seeing it in action was another thing. He turned to Sati. "I'm starting to think the universe is trying to make us fail."

"You're missing the obvious," Gwen's voice came from the next room. Baihu turned toward it. "Message from a friend of Tzu Zi; Sato is with the Gorks, and the Gorks are following the Avatar."

"Why did you not mention this before?" Baihu asked.

"I didn't feel it was relevant," the girl said, leaning around the door. "What was that about having a long way to go?"

"Sweetheart, not now," she said. Gwen rolled her eyes and went back into the other room.

"She's a fiery one," Piandao said. "I wouldn't dismiss her lightly."

"Says the man with no daughters. I've learned my lessons," Baihu said.

Not exactly true. He was pretty sure he had a daughter and a son. And he had no legitimate claim to them.

"What is that?" the Mountain King asked, pointing to something at Baihu's belt. It looked like a leaf made out of soft white light. "That's a Battery. Where did you get that?"

"My daughter gave it to me. What's a Battery?" she asked.

"Long story, complicated answer, probably not relevant," Zha Yu said, his expression still distant. That man thought on three levels at once, and only one of them had any semblance to sanity.

"If this Blue Turban Rebellion is as strong as you claim it is," Piandao said, pulling the conversation back to topics that mattered, "then we might be able to find allies there as well. Having a significant portion of the Embiar will be a massive boon."

"Doubly so, if members of the Fire Lord's army are unwilling to attack those who come from their towns, or even families," Sati agreed.

"I'm still surprised that Zhao is the Fire Lord," Piandao muttered. Almost a decade of exile, ended by the passing of one man to another on the Burning Throne. And still, he was going to have to slit the hand that served him, because he knew that morally, there was no way that the man would be a good Fire Lord, and practically, there was no chance that he would end the War before Sozin's Comet returned.

"Many more surprising things have happened," Baihu said.

"These Rebels," Zha Yu interjected. "Their leadership?"

"Essentially nonexistent, as I'm given to understand," Baihu said. "How such a force managed to march a mile, let alone besiege, storm, and capture Grand Ember City, I couldn't tell you."

"Somebody's going to have to do something about that," Zha Yu said. "So far, they've been dealing with token forces. As soon as they cross the strait, they'll be ground into paste by seasoned units. Without somebody lead them, and lead them well... they'll be wiped out in detail."

"That's a pessimistic way of looking at things," Piandao said.

"Realistic," Zha Yu said. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out that orb that he so often carried. Piandao leaned away from it.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?" Piandao asked.

They looked at him, trying to untangle the net of negatives and implications he'd said. Huh. He usually found himself more clear than that. It must be the weather.

"If you're thinking that some military leadership has to go to the Turbans before they do something stupid, then yes," Zha Yu answered. "I'll go. Sati, you can..."

"Go with you," Sativa cut him off. He frowned at her. "You have some small talent in mustering irregular forces. My own is far greater."

"What about the rest of the army?" Baihu asked.

"How can deal with them readily enough," Sativa said. Piandao rose from his seat and moved next to her. "Yes?"

"Well, as you go, so goes my nation," Piandao said easily, his remaining hand on the shining blade which had served him so many years. Sati gave him a look, one that laid heavy with things unsaid, before giving a silent nod.

"How are you going to get there?" Baihu asked. "They're a thousand miles away."

"Easily crossed," Zha Yu said. He moved to stand before Piandao, and raised the globe. The swordsman caught his arm before it could raise too far.

"No, not here," he said. Zha Yu frowned at him.

"Why not?"

"I might be somewhat behind in Fire Nation etiquette, but I'm fairly sure it's in poor form to tear out a chunk of your host's floor," Piandao pointed out.

"Tear my what?" Baihu asked, incredulous.

The Mountain King sighed, and rubbed his face with broad fingers. "Right. Wasn't thinking," he cast a thumb toward the hallway they'd entered. "Well do this outside. Thank you for your hospitality, but the War waits on no man or woman either."

"I... see," Baihu said, obviously not doing so.

Piandao followed as the three of them left. And when they did so, Hakoda raised the cup from where he had sat, ignored, for the last fifteen minutes. "This is good tea, Ma'am," he said.

"...thank you?" Baihu said.

Outside, though, in the blowing snow, Piandao hitched his cloak tighter to his neck. It was fortunate he had such experience outside the Fire Nation, otherwise, he'd be absolutely paralyzed from the cold. "We could be walking into a massive trap," Piandao noted.

"If we are, then we do so as we always have," Sati said with a shake of her head.

"With open eyes," Zha Yu finished. He picked his spot, on the ground outside the stone-bricked path. He then raised the Dirak orb above his head. He paused, though, and turned a look to Sati. "You're not afraid of bees, are you?"

"Why would you ask that?" Sati snapped, but the nervous swallow told the story her words didn't.

"No reason," Zha Yu said. And he whispered in the language of spirits, choosing their destination. The orb reached out, pulling them all into a place outside of reality itself.

The Si Wongi woman's terrified shriek when they came out the other side with a few more guests than anticipated could practically be heard all the way in Ba Sing Se.


"...God Emperor?" Aang asked.

"Indeed," the hybrid man said, moving closer. Aang backed away. "Stop that. Unlike many of the other shades in this place, I understand that my time was at an end. Skaros, God Emperor of Adahlis is dead, his purpose fulfilled. I am an echo. A shadow. A ghost. No, that's not quite it. I am a dream."

"You know you're a dream?" Aang asked.

"I have been here for a very long time, outsider. I've had a lot of time to think," he said. He motioned for Aang to follow. Aang gave a glance to the sky, and its absolute wrongness, before moving with the older man. Still, he kept a fair distance from him. "You, for example. You don't seem as any of those I had known in life. You seek neither Dawn nor Dusk. You are not a god. And you don't have the twisted, vile taint of the Things Unknown... and yet you are every bit as powerful as the Fundamentals that underlie this reality. What does that make you, little Fundamental?"

"I'm... the Avatar," Aang said.

"A meaningless name to me, but obviously one of great importance to you," Skaros said.

"Can you tell me where the darkest shadow in this place is? I need to go deeper," Aang said.

"You can go no deeper than this," Skaros said. Aang pulled back, and the hybrid man sighed. "Not by my doing. Simply that there is no deeper layer. You have passed through some of the more recently unmade, humiliated, and conquered, I imagine. From your sunburn, I guess that you've stood before the King of Glass. The fool never believed he could be outthought. See what's become of him."

"It looked like he was lost in solipsism," Aang said.

"He is," Skaros said. "The Primators of Dawn have won. They need only fight the Things Unknown. My time is ended, and the dreamer can awaken."

"You sound like you know that this is all a dream," Aang said.

"It is. And at the same time, it is a reality every bit as true as whichever one you come from," Skaros said with a equivocating gesture. "Such is the power of the Dreamer. What is, is what he demands. He demanded I be, thus I was. He demanded that the Man Outside Time, that She Whose Name Is Knowledge, that the Lawgiver, be, and thus they were. He demanded the gods be, and they were. He demanded that they fight a foe every bit as powerful as they... and so were the Things Unknown."

"Wait..." Aang said. "These 'Things Unknown'. What are they?"

Skaros turned a lizard-eye toward him. "Those things which exist in contradiction to reality. The things which can never be, the things which unmake those that are. Those things which demand oblivion."

"Imbalance," Aang said.

"A new name, then?" the once-God-Emperor said.

"That's what I'm fighting. Something that sounds like these 'Things Unknown'. Did... did Koh create them?"

"I could not say," Skaros said, running a clawed hand up and down a pillar, which ran straight and true with a scroll-like cap at its summit. "It is certainly within the Dreamer's power. He can create anything he wishes. Even things he cannot control."

"But did he?" Aang asked.

"I don't know," the man said. "Why do you want the Dreamer's attention?"

"Because it's the only way that I'll be able to fight Imbalance in my reality."

"Then your timing is immaculate," Skaros said with a sharp-toothed smirk. "Even now, the great battle swirls within this dream. A battle which I cannot view. That I'm only aware of because the Dreamer wants me to be."

"What were you?" Aang asked, still confused. At least he wasn't trying to brainwash or attack him. That was a plus.

"The villain," he said. "I sought a night for the gods, to overthrow them, to consume them, to take their power and use it for my ends. My opposite sought a daybreak, with much the same goals, but different means. I almost succeeded. And then, not."

"Everybody I've seen has been... well, kinda evil," Aang admitted.

"The Dreamer does love his villains," Skaros gave another smirk, but this one full of schadenfreude. "He doesn't want the Dawn Primators to win, but he will allow it. That is his way, you understand? He will give you nothing; nothing but a chance. And it falls to you to use it. I failed in this. The Saoshyant did not."

"But... if reality ends, he'll die too. He's got to help me," Aang said.

"The Dreamer can simply Dream another world into existence," Skaros said. "All he needs is to know it must be done. He has no stakes in your world, any more than he has in mine. He just wants to know how things end. Where they go. What becomes of the things he's made."

"But..."

"There is as much arguing with the Dreamer as there is punching down a tornado, or killing your own grandfather before he sires your father. Impossible, and pointless besides," Skaros said. "You will need to do ask a very specific thing of him. And only you could know what that is."

"How?" Aang asked.

"Because of what you are," Skaros said, looking Aang up and down. "You are the opposite of the Things Unknown. Had I had you in my grasp, I would have destroyed them ten thousand years ago. I feel it is so with your world," the once-God-Emperor gave a nod, then turned away. He cast a clawed hand down a street which was laid over with darkness, but not the pristine black that had lead him layer upon layer deeper. "The one you seek is there. The Dreamer upon his bed. Beware him."

"Okay..." Aang said. The dragon-man continued to walk, and the heavens reached down to him, that fluid chaos slowly enveloping him. He offered words over his shoulder, not even turning back.

"Farewell. And good luck. You will need it."

With that, the heavens pulled up, and he was gone. Aang turned down the street, and took a deep breath. No expression. No fear. No surprise. No expression at all.

He was sweating by the time he started walking. And he didn't like how creeped out he felt as he went.

The street continued, growing blacker, until the lines of a crumbled civilization gave way to something that seemed to be blindly emulating it, not understanding what it was meant to be, and not understanding what went where. Trees grew in the shapes of buildings, their roofs the canopy of leaves. Conversely, shrubs were rendered in marble, their leaves locked in place forever. The darkness continued, and Aang wished he could light a flame for himself. He held out a hand, and gave it the distant shot.

He was honestly shocked when the flame came into being. And when he looked ahead, he saw legs tapping on the half-natural pathway before him. There were hundreds of them. He forced his face to neutrality, and looked up, staring up the bark of a great tree which had overtaken a palace, and saw, clinging to its side, a creature out of horrors. The body was much like a centipede, rendered in unspeakable scale. But at its end, which now swung toward him, there was an aperture like an eye. Its edge was an angry red, and when it opened, for an instant, Aang took a step back in alarm, thinking that the Eye of Terror had opened before him. Instead, a mask appeared, staring down at the Avatar below him.

"Avatar. We meet again at last."

It was not the face which spoke, but rather, everything. The stone under Aang's feet. The air around him. Every part of this reality spoke as one. "I have tried to contact you. You were asleep," Aang said, keeping his tones very flat, and his face even flatter. That mask drew closer, as the great bulk of Koh skittered down that great palace-tree, and began to coil around Aang, that head watching him with unbreakable scrutiny.

"And I've been sleeping for quite a while. How rude of you, to intrude on my dreams."

"We need your help," Aang said. The eye blinked, and when it opened once more, it showed a different face. This one, of an old man, wizened and lank-haired. "There is a force which is unmaking reality, trying to consume everything. But we don't know how to fight it."

"And why would you fight it?"

Aang almost frowned, but managed to school his expression before he did. He watched Koh out of the corner of his eye, as the behemoth continued to mount up and down, to slither around him. "Because if we don't everybody will die. It will be as though nothing ever was."

"So why fight at all? You yourself have said that you don't know how. Why waste effort?"

"Someone has to fight it," Aang said.

"And that must be you? The Avatar, rising to defend that which is, once again. The stakes, so hopelessly high, the enemies so hopelessly great..."

"Yes," Aang said simply. The eye blinked again, and a face like a demon, miscolored and four eyed, glaring at him.

"Why must it be you?"

"Because there is nobody else," Aang said. The demon face lunged toward him, stopping a hair from touching its flat nose to Aang's own.

"Your sin has always been hubris!"

Aang leaned back from the scream that came from all directions. The face then blinked once more, and became a brown eyed, dark haired Tribal woman. "I don't know anybody else who can fight this. I just want to protect what I love."

"And you deny that to your enemy?"

The Avatar almost rose his eyebrows at that. But he didn't. Barely, but didn't. "Imbalance has loved ones?" he asked. He never knew.

"Does that matter? Do only the things which you bother to understand matter? Are you so arrogant as to think yourself the arbiter of what deserves to exist?"

There was a question that he needed to ask. One that only he could say. What was it? It was at the tip of his tongue, like the words he used to call forth the spirits.

"Does Imbalance exist?" he asked.

"It does now."

"What?" Aang asked. That'd been a delaying tactic, but the answer...

"Before, it didn't exist. Now it does."

"What do you... Wait. That dragon-man was right about you. It exists because you say it exists!" Aang said, his face slipping somewhat. He tried to pull it back, but only then noticed that the Face Stealer wasn't looking at him. The scuttling continued as the body uncoiled, only to ascend the wall and then dangle the face of a young, white-haired man with a braided beard before him.

"I simply recognize the obvious. But in its way, that is a power in the Spirit World beyond compare, now isn't it?"

"Koh," Aang said. "Can Imbalance be undone?"

"No."

"So there's no way to defeat him..." Aang said, trying very hard not to let the dread slip onto his features.

"What's done, cannot be undone. You're asking the wrong questions."

"Then why can't you just tell me what I need to know?" Aang asked, an edge of annoyed anger in his words, and only they.

"I have as many answers as wise Wan Shi Tong. But not the way he does. He is knowledge. I am the riddle. Ask me the question, and I can answer it. Ask me nothing, and know nothing."

In a weird way, that made sense. He only knew the answer if somebody asked the question. He couldn't volunteer it, because he didn't know it until the question was out there. "So if Imbalance can't be unmade, can it be defeated?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Sacrifice."

Aang almost raised a brow. "Sacrifice of what?"

"Everything, of course."

"How is that better than Imbalance winning?" he asked. The creature's eye closed, and opened to that mask once more.

"That is something you'll discover for yourself. Unless you decide that the price is too high. Then, well... I can always find a new dream to distract me."

The mask pulled back, and he let out a tension-filled sigh. "Is there any help at all you can give me? Any advice? Anything?"

"Only that the future is bleak in victory. The only thing sadder than a battle won is a battle lost. Although not in this case, ironically enough. Because were the battle lost, there'd be no sadness at all. There cannot be, if there is nothing."

"So we're on our own," Aang said, tones deflated. The head swung back toward him, looming close enough that the painted nose almost brushed against Aang's own.

"You are never on your own. That is your greatest strength, your only weapon, and your only hope."

Aang's eyes widened just a little. Hopefully not enough to constitute an emotion. Since he could still sense his face being there, he figured it didn't. "Together we can win?"

"With sacrifice. Great... terrible sacrifice."

Aang puffed out a breath. "Thank you. I don't know how much it helps, but it's better than nothing," he gave the horror a bow. "I must be going."

"Indeed you must. One way or another, though... we shall meet again."

The Avatar turned, his feet moving mechanically before him, bearing him out of that place. The scuttling noise of Koh faded into the background, and then, into a white-noise that suffused the realm. He stepped forward, and with a start, he found himself standing on ossified roots, with the sun and moon hanging in a bleak-black sky. The other shamans all started, as though surprised, when he appeared before them. "I talked to Koh," Aang said.

"What? So soon?" Yue asked.

"You were there a matter of a few minutes at most," Sharif said. Then, he paused, staring into the distance with those wispy glowing eyes. "Which could be an eternity within the dream. Answer, obvious. What did he say?"

"That Imbalance can be beaten... but only with great sacrifice," he said.

The Tribeswoman in the bright blue dress rolled her eyes. "Well that was about the least helpful advice ever," Irukandji muttered. "That's like saying 'oh, guess what, the planet will still be spinning tomorrow'."

"Given the circumstances, that might not be a good prediction to make," the Fire Nation shaman said. Her brother gave an agreeing nod.

"Who asked you? You two don't figure into this at all," Irukandji snapped.

"They do now," Sharif said, bleakly. Aang wasn't sure why.

"Whatever," Irukandji said, tones of patience wearing out completely. "Go give away whatever it is you're supposed to. I'm going to go look for some way to kill the unkillable, since glowing-baby here can't do the smart thing."

"That's not sacrifice. That's murder," he said.

"Enough!" Yue shouted. "We're not helping anything by arguing with each other. Irukandji, you look through the Spirit world for something that can help us. Sharif, Hisui, Hai? Look in the Mortal world."

"That's for the best," Hai said, giving a glance toward a non-existent horizon. "It's not safe for a shaman in the Spirit world. We're long overdue for a blowout."

"Huh?" Aang asked.

"They're supposed to happen daily," Hai said, turning amber eyes to Aang. "We haven't had one in two months. That's got me nervous."

"And that has me confused," Irukandji said. "Right. Everybody wake up, back to your spots. Gotta do this right or there'll be hell to p–"

In the space of a blink, Aang wasn't standing on petrified roots. Instead, he was freezing. Snow bounded in on him from all directions, chill air cutting to the bone. Where was he? He saw snow in all directions, but couldn't see very far at all.

"Did you just drop me at random back into the Mortal world?" Aang asked the blizzard. It answered him by throwing snow down his gullet, and setting off a coughing fit. Take stock, Aang. Pajamas in a blizzard, no staff. No Appa. That wasn't good. "No, they wouldn't leave me where I'd die. So I must have to..."

Aang was answered by a flare of fire nearby. He recoiled from the brightening of the snow, and then, through the wind, heard the great mechanism moving. The train? He trudged through the snow, which was thicker and wetter here than it had been before, until he outright fell into the cut that they were in the process of creating, showing the tracks to the sky for so brief a time. A firebender gave a start and stopped his snow-boiling.

"Are you alright, kid? You look like you're half frozen!"

"I need to get back aboard!" Aang said, seriously hoping this was the same train.

"Back? You just wandered out of the storm!" the firebender shouted back.

"It's a long story!" Aang shouted. If there was one thing working for him, it was that he still had his headband, so they couldn't see his arrows. Then again, with visibility this poor, it would be doubtful they could anyway. The firebender shouted something, lost to the wind, to the others, and then trudged Aang to the conductor's train. Please be the same guy. Please be the same guy...

The door opened. It was the same guy. He looked down at his worker, then to Aang. "What? What are you doing out in the snow, boy?"

"I... Don't know!" Aang said, honest as a bell.

"Well get back on before you freeze to death! The last thing I need is a pissed off noble on my ass!"

"Yes sir!" Aang shouted. Then, with all the vibrancy and glee of a man walking to his own execution, he returned into the relative safety of the train.


To say that Zuko slept restlessly was an understatement. He'd never been a very good sleeper at the best of times. When he was stressed, it got to the point of insomnia. But the thing was, there was only so long that a human body could go before it simply declared 'no more', and dropped wherever it was standing. Thus it was, even after that arrogant bitch of a spirit more or less said that it wanted to throw his sister out of reality, he still ended up curled up in a corner, dreaming of quietly frightening things. Dreams as usual, really.

Until he shifted, and he bumped into something. It wasn't much, but just enough to get his attention.

"Mrphwhat?" Zuko said, with all the dignity that royal blood could bestow. He tilted his head, and saw...

"I was cold," Toph, who'd scooted up next to him, said quietly. And a bit defensively. "...shut up."

"Didn't say a thing," Zuko murmured. He really should do something about this. Because he was hardly in any sort of frame of mind to... nah, too tired.

He just flopped his arm over her, and went back to sleep.


To answer some feedback I'd gotten:

Combustion Man died exactly as I'd always planned him to. I remember not a few years ago when I read a story where they follow a man who survived hardship and trials, surmounted impossible odds. How he became something of a minor living legend to those who knew about him. How he lived with a Zen forged in hardship, and had a fire burning in his eyes.
And in the first paragraph that he meets the protagonist, said protagonist shoots him dead.
It's not about 'spectacle' or 'awe'. Sure, the looming spectre of a sparky-boom man didn't fall upon them very often. Sure, he died like a chump. That's because it's not always about what would be the most dramatic fight, or who deserves victory more. Sometimes, it's just about who can reload their gun first. And in his case, that was unfortunately him, Nila. I live to subvert expectations. That's pretty much what Avatar loves to do as well, so... yeah.

I'll be the first to admit that I might've bitten off a lot more than I could chew with the narrative the way it is. But the thing about that is, the only thing I can do at this point is chew harder. As I am not a man to abandon a story just because it becomes mired or complex, it's going to reach its end, even if a few threads need to be abandoned until the Epilogue. Sad, but it's the way it has to be for the sake of cohesion. After all, the very heart of this story, if you pare it down to its very essence, is how Azula and Aang finally end up together, and everything else just kinda... swirls around that.

Bah. I should just let my story speak for itself. But then again, I'm also desperate for attention. It'll work out. Somehow.