No one mistakes me for my twin brother. There's never a doubt in anyone's mind who is who. We don't dress the same. We don't talk the same. We don't even have the same eye color. There's not a thing we have in common. What they sometimes do is, they pretend to not know which one of us is the boy, and which one of us is the girl.

"Are you sure you're a girl? You're so buff."

"Is that armpit hair, Jingcha?"

"You're so intense, rough, intimidating-"

Masculine is a word we learned in school recently. I had heard words like it used before, but they never felt like they applied to me. I was not a manly six year old. I did not, as a ten year old, have a desire to be a boy. I wanted to be an athlete, a pro-bender maybe, or maybe I could make up my own sport, one that only the most powerful Earthbenders could compete in. My dad and I used to go to pro-bending tournaments together. We knew all the best teams. My dad works in construction, so he knows the fundamentals of earthbending: brick making, foundations, scaffolding, that kind of stuff. He's never been a fighter. One time he told me, when he was in school, people would make fun of him for building things in the sand-but he knew that sandbending was something only some earthbenders could do, and few of them could do it very well. My father always told me that what I did with earth was my business. It was personal, and if anyone had something to say about it, I should stand my ground. My mother, meanwhile, must have been an airbender in a past life.

"Jingcha, dear, please settle down."

"Jingcha, don't be rough with your brother."

"Jingcha, help Jin out with that, will you?"

I've never been able to understand her-and the older I get, the less she seems to understand me. I know she's from Kyoshi, and I know that she used to be a fierce warrior-or least, that's what Dad tells me. He tells me that, when mother was young, she was a talented chi-blocker. The Kyoshi Warriors were trained in both the use of fans and in close-quarters pacification.

"Pacify and Protect," their motto said, and that's what my mother wanted to teach me. She would say things like, "The body contains pathways for the spirit to run through. If the energy within a person is disrupted, it changes what they are able to do, what they are able to feel." I would nod, pretending to understand, but never really seeing what she was describing. My body didn't feel like a flowing river, and I didn't want it to. I worked to make myself stronger, more resistant to pain, quicker on the draw against anyone who would try to hurt me, against anyone who would try to get close to-

"Jin!"

Jin is my twin brother, but it's hard for me to think of us as the same. We may be family, but I've always had to take care of him. He's weak and powerless and has trouble connecting with people-he always needs someone to look after him, to keep stupid boys from kicking him in the dirt. Girls aren't much better; they giggle at him behind his back. I'm not sure if he hears them, but I do. I hear every word and with every joke, with every stupid sneering smile, my heart gets harder. I wish they would stop judging him. I wish they would stop making fun of his shy nature. I wish they would stop being cruel, awful little monsters. I wish I could stop them.

The harder I try, though, the harder it gets for me. When we were little, Jin and I, we were always together, except when Jin had to go with the special teachers to calm down. I remember the first time they did this, I refused to let go of his hand.

"You can't take him! He needs me!"

"Dear, Jin is having trouble controlling himself. We need to help him learn how to act appropriately. Now, can you please let go of his hand?"

"No, I can't! Can I please come with you?"

I was scared. I was scared that if I let go of Jin's hand, he would never hold mine again. I was scared and I was angry and I just wanted-

"You need to let go," the teacher said.

I didn't struggle. I didn't shout. I had to keep my hurt inside; I had to hold everything I felt inside, for him, for her, for everyone. I had to watch Jin get taken away from me, over and over again. I had to watch him retreat further and further into himself. One day, he stopped crying out for help. One day, he stopped asking me to save him. But he never stopped needing me.

"Jingcha, please come back! We need to talk about this."

My dad was calling for me to come back to the house. He probably thought that I was running away scared, but it was nothing like that. I was pacing in the alley, trying to get my anger out. Usually I would shadowbox, send a couple loose bricks shooting down the alleyway, but a few broken picket fences ago, I decided I needed to find another way to deal with how I felt. Whether it was a better way, I didn't care.

"Jingcha, you shouldn't be upset."

That set me off. I wanted to stomp the ground and send a pillar up in the middle of the street, but that would probably cause an accident. My cousin Jampa told me that's why the Republic City police started employing airbenders-they can catch criminals without tearing up the roads. That doesn't mean they don't still need earth and metalbenders, but it's a lot easier to rescue people when you can fly.

"I'm not upset, I'm angry. I don't understand this at all." I say this, and I don't want anyone to hear me. I say this and feel my breath become heavier. They say that when you get angry, you can see red. I don't know what the world looks like to everyone else; I'm not even sure if people see the same colors as me, if my red is really red, if my gold is really gold.

"Jingcha, honey. I know you're surprised and confused. We all are. Imagine what your brother is feeling. Imagine how scary this must be for him."

"Of course it's scary! He's afraid of everything! He can't even put his hand in mud without screaming! He can't even earthbend-he can't even do anything!"

I hear the very earth around me splinter and crack. The ground at my feet looks like a webbing of lightning bolts, snaking across the concrete and up the walls of the alley.

"When the foundation of a building is broken or fractured, the whole building is almost guaranteed to fall." My father told me this, and as I watch the lightning bolts begin to slow their ascent, I realize what I have to do. I run out of the alley and back toward my house, and as I get clear of the alley's shadows, bricks begin to come loose from the buildings and fall to the concrete below. The buildings won't come down, but they'll need some surface repairs.

"Come here Jingcha, come inside now." My father's voice is calm, water flowing down a rock-faced mountainside. "Jingcha, you need to control yourself, and you need to listen to me."

"Dad, I-I'm sorry, I don't,"

"Your brother is the Avatar. He may not be able to do the things you can, right now. He may not be a powerful earthbender, like you are. He needs you to be his ally, not his enemy."

"I don't want to-"

"You may not want to help him, but you need to, just as you always have. We all need to do our part to help protect him. Jingcha, Jin is in terrible danger."

My dad is usually a very good listener, but today he had no time for my feelings. He had no time to waste listening to what I had to say.

What he thought I wanted to say was,

"I don't want to help Jin."

What I actually wanted to say was this:

"I don't want to have to help Jin. I've helped him all my life, all his life. I have fought, and I have striven, and I have grown stronger than anyone I know. I have grown stronger than my body has a right to be, stronger than my mind can handle. I am twelve years old and I am holding something inside of me that I cannot see outside of myself, something that I am afraid to see come out of myself. I am twelve years old but I feel so much older, and I am terrified of the possibility that I will die before anyone sees me for who I am inside."

What I told him was this:

"Dad, I'm scared. Dad, I'm so scared because I don't know what's wrong with me."

His firm and serious tone softened, and I could see the dad I had always known and loved as clear as day. In his eyes I could see the little sand bender he told me he was. He really was a good listener, because I knew that he cared about what I said. He really heard me, and he could see me just as clearly.

"Jingcha, there's nothing wrong with you. What do you mean?"

I wasn't sure what I meant. I just felt like, since I had heard my parents talking about Jin, about the possibility of him being the Avatar, there was something wrong with me. There had to be something wrong with me. I had been working so hard, becoming the best earthbender I could be, becoming someone strong enough to protect my brother from anything and anyone in the world-and now my brother was going to be the one; the one strong enough to protect the world from every threat, from every evil agent who would attempt to do it harm. I felt like-it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to me. He was going to become more powerful than me-he was going to become more powerful than anyone-and I was going to have to protect him, and I was going to have to stay strong, just as strong, maybe even stronger-for him.

"What about me, Dad? Who's going to protect me?"

The ground at my feet did not crack. The earth beneath me was solid, like iron-not the soft dirt I was used to. And when I fell to the ground, and my eyes pinched closed, hot tears streamed down my face. Everything felt hot, burning, searing, even. I began to hyperventilate.

"Jingcha! Be careful, please calm down!"

"Who's gonna protect me, Dad? Who's gonna help me when I'm scared? Who's gonna help me when I can't be there-for me?"

I heard the rush of wind before I felt it surround me and lift me off the ground. The current of wind curled itself beneath me and held me aloft and I-

"Jingcha, honey, it's going to be okay, let me help you."

"Jampa? What are you doing here?"

My cousin Jampa, clad in her Rescue Corps uniform, had bent the air around me into a protective sphere, and lifted me into the sky above my house. I looked down and I-I couldn't believe what I could see. There was a red circle of earth, outlined by a radius of bright orange rifts where once there had just been the softness of brown dirt. I had bent the earth below me to metal-and the earth around me had turned to magma. It was rising from below the ground, trying to reach me-and it almost had completely consumed me before Jampa had arrived to save me. How had she known? How had she known what I needed?

"The police saw the same light that the Lotus did. Your house is in my district, so I needed to confirm the reports. Turns out I was too late for Jin-your mother said he ran away. But luckily I was just in time to save you."

Jampa was like a big sister to me. When Jin and I were little, she would always play with us. She was good with kids, but she was also very strong. She would make muscles and let me feel them. "When you're my age, you'll be twice as strong," she'd say. I couldn't believe it, but that didn't keep me from wanting to make her proud.

"Thank you for-for saving me."

"Of course, cuz. You're important to me, but I would have saved you even if you were a stranger. That's just what I do."

Jampa had the most beautiful eyes. They were the perfect mix of yellow and green, and her skin was tan, like my Aunt Opal's. She looked a lot like Uncle Bolin, really. They were both amazing athletes, but Jampa didn't want to be a pro-bender. She wanted to use her airbending to help save people.

"You said," we finally touched down on the ground, and I immediately took a breath. I hadn't realized how frightened I was, being suspended in the air. Even with Jampa holding me up, I hadn't been able to notice how every part of me wanted to be back on solid ground. "You said Jin ran away? When?"

"Miss Sato told me he ran away almost as soon as she introduced herself. He wouldn't let the Lotus members touch him, or even help him get to his feet. He brought himself to his feet with airbending and bolted."

It didn't surprise me that Jin was afraid, or that he would take the first opportunity to run away. It didn't even surprise me that he was airbending like he was. What surprised me was that he could stand on his own two feet and defend himself. I had to see it to believe it. "Jampa, I think we should go after Jin. I don't want him to get hurt."

"I'm sure the police in the area can track him down wherever he goes."

"That's what I'm saying. If the police find him, I'm afraid that they'll hurt him."

Jampa's expression was-I'm not sure how to describe it. Was she offended? I don't think she was surprised to hear me say what I said. I think she was upset that even a kid could see that the police had no idea how to handle someone like Jin.

"I can bring you with me, Jingcha, but… You're gonna need to strap onto me. We're going to need to take to the sky."

"I can handle it," I said, ignoring my body's signals of refusal. "I know where Jin would go. I can show you how to get there."

"How do you know where he went?"

I smiled, just a small one.

"He's my twin. I'll find him."

I remember, a long time ago, Jin ran away from home. At first, none of us had any idea why he had done it. He had done it late at night, when everyone was asleep. We didn't share a bed anymore, so when he decided to run away, he was able to slip away without me noticing. But I noticed. I woke up just before the sunrise, and although it was dark, I knew that he was gone. I woke my parents up, and we searched the house. Maybe he was hiding, maybe he had gone down to the basement.

Maybe he had fallen down somewhere, and needed-

"Jingcha, you need to calm down. We'll find Jin, I promise."

My mother always told me to breathe deeper, to not let my feelings boil to the surface. My father told me that my earthbending was a safe place to invest my emotions, that earth could accept any feeling I could muster. And he was right. For a while, earth yielded to anger; sands shifted with my pride, bricks broke under bluster. For a while, the earth beneath me could rise at my command, even in small ways, safe for the schoolyard.

My heartbeat was steady; my breath, slow. I was stronger than anyone would give me credit for, but I got credit enough to know I was a good bender: good enough to compete with kids older than me, kids heavier than me. I was good enough that the stakes started getting higher before I had any way of saying I wasn't ready. Kids would bully Jin, and I would lay them out, without trouble. But then, the kids who would come for me got bigger. Big brothers, teenagers, tall boys, stocky boys on their way to becoming the men they thought they should be: defenders, not of the weak, but of the would-be strong.

They were the ones I was keeping humble, and telling them, with emphatic fists of earth, no. Absolutely not.

You do not have the right. And they did not have the right to harm others.

When we found Jin, he was at the park we used to play in together. Jin didn't like to put his hands in the sand, but we would build sand castles together and I would always help him give them shape and form, like my father had taught me to do. I would ask him,

"What do you want it to look like?"

I would give form to his dreams, and then they would be our reality.

I asked him what was wrong, why he had run away. He had difficulty putting his feelings into words. He was getting better, but the feeling would always choke him on its way out. What he told me was:

"I had a dream that we were here. I had… I dreamed that there wasn't any more sand. I dreamed we couldn't make castles anymore. I was scared that we couldn't play together anymore."

Jin had difficulty looking people in the eyes when he talked, and he wasn't looking at me when he said this. But then, he looked me in the eye and said,

"Jingcha, I don't want to lose… us playing together in the sand."

Then, I was the one having trouble putting things into words. I wasn't Jin's big sister, I was his twin sister. Even back then, I felt like I had to grow up faster, for him.

I had to protect him, and comfort him, and make sure he knew that I was there for him. I didn't know what to say. In the moment, I felt like anything I could say would make him cry. It would have made me cry, too.

"You won't lose me," I said. But over time, Jin did lose us, playing together. He lost me shaping his dreams into castles of sand. He lost me, holding his hand. He lost-

I lost-

"Jingcha, hey. Are you holding up alright?"

The wind whipping around us didn't bother me-Jampa was a talented airbender, so even when she was flying at breakneck speeds, she could keep herself and any rescued passengers in her care from being subject to the air pressure around them. I realized for the first time that I was crying, that I had been crying, thinking about Jin.

"I'm fine. Do you know where the Water Tribe neighborhoods are? Jin's with Iluq, I know it."

"Oh, that sweet boy? Water Tribe neighborhoods… I know a few, which is his?"

I had never seen the city from the sky like Jampa, no doubt, saw every day. I didn't know what Iluq's neighborhood was called, or what it would look like from above. I had been there once before, years ago. Iluq was kind, I could give him that. We never really got along. He was important to Jin, so I was fine with him being around, but there was something about the way he looked at me, at both of us that made me uneasy.

I remember there was a great fountain near Iluq's house. Waterbenders would go there and do street shows. Iluq's mom said the police used to tell people not to use the fountain's water for bending shows, but the city council approved the safe use of fountain water for entertainment purposes, as long as whatever water was used could be returned to the fountain and properly purified. It was always interesting to me that the police, which was mostly made up of metalbenders, thought they had the right to say what waterbenders could and couldn't do with their own water. Waterbenders were rare in the United Republic, but they always showed up when people were having problems with the police, whether it was a street water-artist or a firebender turf conflict.

They were peacekeepers, artists and politicians.

"I know there's a fountain nearby. Look for a fountain."

"Got it."

As we glide through the air, I get the sense that we're getting close. The skyline may be unfamiliar to me, but from above I see the skyscrapers I remember from when we walked the streets together, years ago. Iluq's house was embedded in a dense neighborhood of waterbender homes. From above I can see that the streets of this part of the city stretched out from the great fountain at its center like tentacles, like curved rays of the sun. I have no way of knowing which ray contained Iluq's house, but I keep my gaze along any street where I can see people. I almost ask Jampa to turn around when suddenly, I see a glittering column of white erupt from the middle of an intersection.

"Jampa, look, there! In the water!"

I can just make out the faint image of two bodies-two small bodies-suspended in the air, surrounded by glittering droplets. One of them begins to swirl in a circle, surrounding them in a layer of white-of snow, and our rescue window opens for only a short time. "I see them," Jampa says. "Hang tight."

With an agile somersault, Jampa's velocity becomes jet-like; we slice a diagonal toward the street the bodies are falling toward. The wind rushing against us, I close my eyes. I can't watch, I'm afraid of falling, of seeing them fall to their-

"Gotcha!"

A dense ring of wind had cushioned their fall, slowing them almost completely to a stop before dropping them on the ground below. Jin was safe. Jin and…

"Iluq?" I unstrap myself from Jampa's harness and step on solid ground. My legs feel numb, I can barely feel the earth or take solid steps. I approach Jin and Iluq and Iluq groans, bringing himself to his feet.

"Hey Jingcha," he manages to say, through coughs. "Glad you could make it."

"Iluq, honey, what were you and Jin doing in the air like that? You really could have been hurt. Or worse,"

"I had no choice. Jin's Avatar spirit sucked us into the underground. I had one shot," he chokes on his words, on his last memory. "I had to shoot us up through the manhole."

"Thank goodness we made it to save you in time," Jampa sounds oddly shaken. More than she was when she saved me.

"Jin ran away from the White Lotus," I said. "Did he tell you why?"

"He was clearly scared. Frankly, I don't blame him for running."

Iluq always took Jin's side. In this instance, I don't blame him, either. But I was scared to death. The thought of losing Jin for good terrified me in a way that made me angry. Even when Iluq seemed sympathetic to how I felt, his blue eyes always seemed to say, "I pity you."

"We need to get him back to the Lotus," I say, striding toward Jin's unconscious body.

"Jingcha, wait, don't-"

"Don't touch him? He's my brother, don't think I don't know that,"

"Wait! That's not,"

Light. The same light that filled my house when Jin blew a hole through the roof, except this time it's emanating from my brother's body, erupting from his eyes.

A funnel of wind, beginning at his feet and expanding outward, pushes me back-pushes all of us back. This power… it's-

"His Avatar spirit is trying to protect him!" Iluq shouts, over the whipping winds. "Jampa, can you,"

Without hesitating, Jampa protects us with a shield of air, and not a moment too soon. The funnel gives way to whipping tendrils, which begin pounding against our barrier as if with anger. Everything is happening so fast, and at first I'm not sure what I can do. I move to summon hunks of earth from the road, but Iluq stops me with his hand.

"Jingcha, you can't earthbend against Jin, he won't be able to protect himself from you. We need to wait out the storm."

"He's having an Avatar tantrum," I say, because that's what this is. "Maybe he just needs some tough love,"

"No! I don't think you understand-"

That pushes me over the edge. I grab Iluq's arm and, pulling him toward me, I stare hard into his face. "You can't tell me you know Jin better than me! You can't know how hard it's been, how long I've had to protect him, and be there-You just can't!" The ground beneath us cracks open, and dust whips around us. Jampa expands the air shield, but it's getting cloudier by the second. I send a downward launching kick into the earth at our feet and attempt to send Jin flying. Jampa can catch him before he falls, and he'll be safe, he-

"Jingcha! What do you think you're doing?!"

With the wind no longer whipping around us, Iluq's voice comes through loud and clear. Jin dodged my pillar and is tearing through the air, screaming fire at everything in his path and I-I see Iluq grasping for his canteen and a moment later, I am deluged with water, pinned to the wall. "You let your emotions get the best of you, and you almost got us all killed! This is not the time to be selfish!"

Being frozen to a wall is disorienting, so I quickly scan my surroundings and find Jampa has already left to follow after Jin. It's just me and Iluq. I look at those blue eyes, and I don't see pity. I don't even see the usual condescension. I see rage. He wears it differently than the boys I'm used to fighting. Somehow, it is more chilling, though the ice probably helps him on that front.

"Don't you dare... tell me I'm selfish," I manage to choke out, through the cold wrapping my torso, pressing against my lungs. Iluq calms his rage-filled stare and pulls the air in front of himself. The ice trapping me against the wall turns to cool water, which he circles around his body and guides toward his canteen.

"Jingcha, I'm sorry that you're upset. I don't know how the news made you feel, but… we have to be strong for Jin right now. If the police get to him before Jampa, before we can," he was absolutely right. I'm stomping mad, but I'm even more afraid for Jin's life.

"We have to catch up to him," I say, shaking off the icicles that had formed around my shoes. "Let's go."

I bolt past Iluq in the direction I last saw Jin fly toward, and find Iluq is quickly able to catch up to me. A thin sheet of frost coats the road and he's skating it like we're at the Polar Rink. I knew he wore those boots for a reason, but this is the first time I've seen him use them on a city street.

"Which way?" I ask, trying not to sound frantic. Iluq takes a moment to scan our surroundings.

"Hang a right!" he shouts.

"What?"

"Turn right!"

I slide into a turn and erect a quick curved corner in the road to maintain my momentum. Iluq kicks off the ground and pirouettes into a landing on the other side of the street. I'll give it to him, he's light on his feet, for a waterbender. He seems unfazed by his near spill, as if he was ready for it in advance, no-as if he wanted some excuse to jump.

"You're not a bad skater," I say.

"Heh, I'm glad even you can see that," he says.

I whisper something that'd get me slapped under my breath.

The streets aren't crowded with cars, but there are a decent amount of people walking around on foot. Waterbenders, mostly, and from the fearful looks of them, many of them have seen Jin already.

"Where do you think he's going?"

"He's scared," Iluq says. "I imagine he'd go somewhere safe, somewhere there aren't too many people."

"Not a lot of those places left," I say. "If he's scared, Jin would run anywhere. We need to catch up with Jampa. Wherever she is, the police will be too. As long as we can protect him from the metalbenders,"

"He'll be okay. We'll protect him. He just needs a softer touch."

I'm not sure if he was saying that for my sake or his, but the reassuring smile on his face was annoyingly effective. I can tell why Jin-why he and Jin get along. Jin needs me, but he needs someone like Iluq, too. Someone who won't give up on him, someone who won't turn tail and run when things get tough.

Another corner, and a few more blocks and our running brings us back to the fountain Jampa and I used as a landmark. When we get there, the situation is worse than I feared. A squadron of metalbender police officers have the fountain surrounded, forming a wide blockade around the square. Jampa is circling the fountain, and other airbender cops are joining her, trying to pacify Jin, contain him in a stronger air bubble than the one he is creating. Every time they get a handle on him, he slips away and slices the air with an arc of flame. Even from this distance, I can hear Jin's voice. He's not running, but he's scared.

No-he's furious. I see his glowing eyes, hear his pain-twisted scream. He looks-

"Get out of here, kid. It's not safe."
"It's not safe for him with you around. If you use your metal, you'll kill him."

The officer is easy to push past. I can hear Iluq shouting for me to wait, but I ignore him. I look up at the glowing boy, the public threat; he looks like my twin brother, and he looks, at this angle, just like me. I hear the swift-shifting, air-cutting sound of police-issue metal restraints being released in my direction. They think I'm just a bratty kid. They must think I haven't felt the sharp purity of metal in my grip. They're wrong.

"He's mine."

I whip my arms behind me and flatten them as if against a wall. To stop incoming metal, you must have a body as firm as stone and a mind like titanium. It might not work against the chief, but to these low ranking footmen, it's more than enough to slow them down. While they are keeping themselves busy keeping their metal from recoiling and whipping them in the face, I'm stomping myself into the air like a rocket. I can't aim straight for Jin-the contact would kill one or both of us-so I bring a head-sized boulder up with me for later. Jampa and the other airbenders see me as I dismount.

"Jampa, slingshot me!" I shout, and as I shoot past Jin, Jampa intercepts.

"You're crazy, cuz, but I see you," she says, preparing to throw me right back at Jin. "I'll soften your fall, just-go get em'!"

It all happens the way I thought it would as I launched into the air. I am sent flying, even faster than I launched myself, back toward Jin. My brother is distracted, trying to spit flames at the airbenders. However this exposes him to the elements; namely, earth. I take my hand-boulder and split it into two. The first I plan to turn to mud so I can take Jin's hand safely and pull him down with me, and the other-

"I've got you, Jin Hua." We connect, and I stick us together. I bend the mud back into earth, and we hurtle toward the ground. Before we reach it, the airbenders create a cushion like Jampa did earlier, but I still connect with the tiling of the fountain square. It's nothing I can't take, but I won't lie and say the wind isn't knocked out of me. "I've got you."

The glow coming from Jin goes away, and then my own light begins to fade.

When I come to, I'm in my bed, it's night and I-I want to burst free of my covers, but it feels like I've been tucked in too tightly. Really my muscles are so roughed up and scraped that it hurts to move. A slant of light from outside my room lets me know we have company at home, and a faint, but distinguishable voice lets me know one part of that company is Jampa. I'm afraid that the police have taken Jin into custody, that they're trying to protect the public from him. It takes me a moment of panicked scanning to realize that Jin is in the room with me. He's still unconscious, which is a relief. I'm not paralyzed but there's no way I can get out of my bed to see him.

A sequence of short breaths, and I'm crying. I'm crying in a way I've never cried before. I'm crying because I want someone to find me, I'm crying because I never got my answer from Dad. Even today, I was still the one who had to save him. I was the one who had to protect him from the police, from himself. But… I knew I couldn't have done it alone. I was too angry, too firm. I had to be like Jampa; strong enough to get close, but soft enough to keep him from getting hurt. I just wish there was someone like that… for me.

"Jingcha? Are you okay?" I don't know who would have been worse to hear on the other side of the door, my mother or-

"Iluq, yeah. I'm fine." My catching breaths didn't help hide my pain. "You good?"

Iluq, now stepping into our room like a child dipping his toe in the turtleduck pond, seems unharmed. Unharmed, but relieved.

"Well, yeah," he says. "I didn't play hero. That was you. And you saved Jin's life."

"I did the only thing I could," I say, unable to avoid wincing. "He needed me."

"It was stupid, maybe a little bit crazy, but," he approaches my bed. "It was also crazy stupid awesome. You saved my best friend, the Avatar. I can't thank you enough, Jingcha."

I want to shrug this off. I want to roll my eyes and not let this compliment sink in. But that's only because it's coming from him. If anyone else had been thanking me, I think I could have managed a smile, a nod, a bow. I manage to free a hand from under the covers, and find it covered in dirt, small grains of sand.

"I should be thanking you," I say.

Iluq is shocked to hear this. I wonder if a similar line of thinking is running through his head, that a thank you from me is hard to take. But I'm wrong. His smile is definite, and his eyes give the full feeling away.

"You mean that?" he says. Practically crying. Gross.

"You helped me calm down when I was furious. You told me something that I needed to hear." I don't let him interrupt. "You let me know that I wasn't the only one who cared. I wasn't the only one who knew what Jin needed."

Jin needed a softer touch, and Jin needed a friend. As Jin and I got further apart, I had to get harder, but I never needed to get harder on him. If anything, I had to be his armor. Soft on the inside, but hard in the face of anything that would seek to do him harm. If I ever needed back up, I know Iluq could rise to the challenge. Light on his feet or not, I know he would never let anyone hurt Jin.

Iluq takes my hand in his and is unafraid of the dirt on my fingers. With the last of my strength, I shake his hand firmly, and drift swiftly off to sleep.