Hello, lovely readers. I hope you are all doing well and staying as safe as possible these days.
Thank you all of you who left lovely comments and messages telling me to focus on my upcoming test and on life - you all are the best readers I think a writer could ask for: thoughtful and kind ones.

This will be the last chapter until AT LEAST August 17th - I have a lot of stuff coming up on my plate, but I'm still of course writing here and there. I think this is probably the universe balancing itself out for my blazing-fast update speed earlier in the life cycle of the fic.

That being said, I have come up with the ending for Book 1 of our Fic :) and boy, do I think it's a doozy. We aren't too far from it. We are far from the end of this fic overall, which I think is basically becoming a complete alternate re-telling of A:TLA, which I think was bound to happen...

Thank you all, long-time regular commenters, new readers, everyone else - I hope you enjoy this chapter and I cannot wait to continue writing more.

If I do find some spare time to edit, I will post another announcement as I work on the revisions to chapters past Chapter 16, which is as far as the revisions have gone so far.

Chapter XXVI

Crescent Island – Part I

It wasn't difficult to find his quarry in the end. Whatever madness drove them to come to him, he wasn't sure, but they were here now, in his lap.

He glanced at his comrades before staring at the targets. The Princess, naturally, was the most dangerous one. She would best them if given time. She had to go first.

Then, there was the Avatar. From his reports and dossiers, he knew that the boy was a skilled airbender, though his mastery of the other elements had not been displayed. The Avatar had to go second. He did not have the same killer instinct that the Princess did.

The Waterbender was the least of his worries among the benders, but she was a warrior with potential, and therefore still a threat.

The Kyoshi warrior was a formidable hand-to-hand opponent, but she could be delegated. Perhaps Korokan or Goro, one of the new bloods, could have her.

His gaze finally travelled to the Nightwolf. Whatever it was he had expected, this was... not it.

The legend made the man out to be some hulking freak, the vengeance of whatever frigid and horrid spirits haunted places as desolate as the Poles, but this was no hulk. He was powerful, and strong, but in a deceptive way - it was strength that surprised you, that snuck up on you when you didn't expect it.

Jamukha knew that was far more dangerous than strength you saw coming from a mile away, and that made the Nightwolf dangerous. He didn't know where to place him on his priority list of threats. He was the wildcard.

They watched their quarry lay down to rest for the night in a small island - the only island they could restock at before heading into the Fire Nation. Jamukha shook his head. He still could not understand what possessed them to walk - or rather, fly - into enemy territory so willingly. The Kyoshi warrior left, announcing to her companions that she would look for kindling, and Jamukha nodded at Goro to trail her. But then the Waterbender announced that she was leaving too, to seek a stream and practice her bending. Jamukha sent a tail after her, too.

Now only the Avatar, the Nightwolf, and the Princess remained in the small island clearing, yet Jamukha still waited. Finally, the Nightwolf, too, decided he wanted to stretch his legs - Jamukha sent two men after him, just in case.

Now it was just the Princess and the Avatar - the two goals of the mission. Victory was in their grasp. Two swift strokes of the blade, and the Temple would reign again and forevermore.

He and five shadows crept from the trees and onto the ground. Two more remained in the branches, their arrows trained at their targets.

The Princess languidly tossed a fireball between her hands, playing with it carelessly. She tossed it at the Avatar, who attempted to handle it, but could not. The Avatar seemed to laugh about it embarrassedly, while the Princess began to lecture him about the basics of Firebending. Jamukha was close enough now to hear her voice, cleary.

"...So you see, Aang - control is key. If you lose it, you lose control of the fire, and you unleash an inferno. Like what happened at Chin with the forest, or the destruction of Hiragana. But if you maintain control, you can limit the spread, and you can be precise. For example, like with the two fools in the trees who think they have us in their sights."

Jamukha should have known better.

The Princess fired off two blue bolts into the trees, and the resounding screams of burning men and the acrid smell of burning flesh was enough to let Jamukha know that they no longer had the element of surprise; their quarry did.

They had been fooled into thinking they were hunters, when in fact they were prey.

The assassins jumped up and charged at the Princess and the Avatar from six different directions. Only three got anywhere close.

A boomerang struck one as he rushed into the clearing, and the Nightwolf was on him, appearing as if from nowhere, his club dripping with blood and what seemed like gray matter. More blood and more brain stained it after he was done. Another man was felled when he was tripped and his throat ripped open with a bloody metal fan. One more was lashed across the face with a fast moving tendril of water; he was unable to get up as the water whip bore down on him every time he attempted to make a move.

Jamukha's plan had been tattered. It was a trap set by the trapped. No matter - kill the Avatar, the Princess, ideally both, and the mission would still be a success. His life, for the Temple. His life for the Grandmaster.

Jamukha bore down on the Princess, and the other two took the Avatar. He lost track of what was happening there, focusing solely on the Firebender in front of him.

He danced a wordless dance with her. He created two daggers of flame, and they battled, arm countering arm, leg countering leg, jumping like a pair of acrobats performing an exciting routine. At some point he realized that all his fellow assassins were dead, and now he was simply being watched by the Princess's companions. Something in him crumbled to know that now he was just being toyed with. If they felt any danger to the princess, they would have jumped in. The Nightwolf especially, if the scouting had proven reliable. But he didn't; he simply stood at the edge of the fight, watching the Princess with what looked like a proud smirk.

It grew into a full blown grin when the Princess flew up with blast of flame and shattered his windpipe with a flying knee. As Jamukha choked, his only regret was that he had failed the Temple, failed the Grandmaster.

Then the Nightwolf brought his club down on his skull and caved it in, and Jamukha saw and thought no more.

XXXXX

"We could have questioned him," Azula said disapprovingly.

Sokka shook his head. "Fanatics. They won't talk."

"You all but assured that when you rearranged his brains," Azula teased, her voice lilting.

"It's not a big deal, I didn't kill the tail they sent after me," Suki mentioned. "We can question him."

A few moments later, the still unconscious assassin was dragged in front of them, tied and disabled. Katara splashed water on his face and the man woke with a start. His features were unblemished, and the softness of his face betrayed his youth.

"Aren't you a little young to be an assassin?" Sokka asked him.

He spat at Sokka's feet, but Sokka saw it coming and took a step back before the saliva could hit his boots.

"Gross."

"Are you a Firebender?" Azula asked. The man stared at her with only contempt.

"Traitor. False princess. You defile the gift of Agni by siding with these lowlifes." Sokka's ears perked at the man's words. They were practiced, no doubt, but not entirely genuine, not full of conviction like the dead ringleader's voice might have been.

"Tell me about the Temple," Sokka said. That seemed to surprise the kid.

"W-what?"

"I thought I spoke clearly enough. The Temple of the Sacred Flame. That's you, isn't it?" Sokka drew closer and lifted the sleeve of the man's tunic, revealing an armband with the Red Sun on it. "Nice little logo, by the way. I bet you didn't think any of us would know what it was."

The young man stared at him silently.

"How did you know we were going to be here?" Suki asked.

"That part we can answer ourselves," Azula interjected. "This is the only island within miles where we can resupply in the wilderness before arriving in populated and patrolled Fire Nation territories."

Sokka began to wipe down his club on the clothes of the dead men. "Lucky guess on their part?" He refocused on the boy-assassin. "Your masters are going to send more assassins after us. I need you to tell us where and when to expect them."

The boy spat again. "At every turn, filth. Every night you sleep, you will be tailed by our blades. You will never have rest."

Sokka exchanged glances with the Princess and Suki, rolling his eyes with exasperation.

"This will likely go faster if I interrogate him alone," Azula said, her brow furrowing.

"Torture?" Aang spoke up for the first time, his troubled eyes finding Azula's. "I can condone justice, Azula, but torture..."

"Is the most expedient way of obtaining information in this scenario," Azula finished.

"Men in pain will say anything to save their skins," Suki muttered. All eyes turned on her and she returned it with a defiant expression of her own. "We do what we have to in war, but torture isn't always the most effective method. It leads to bad information and bad information leads to death."

"He's not just an enemy combatant. The Temple is worse." Azula said. "As for veracity, well... if his story ends up being false, I have no compunctions tossing him off Appa's side and into the ocean."

The three looked to Sokka and Katara, who had both not spoken up. The siblings exchanged a glance and unspoken words, before Sokka smiled slyly and spoke up.

"Are there any carnivorous animals on the island, Princess?"

Azula arched an eyebrow at him. "Mongoose lizards are endemic to this particular island chain."

"And any kind of meat could draw them in?"

A small smile graced Azula's lips. "They naturally eat raw meat, of course, but even the domesticated mongoose lizards we had in the Royal Stables were particularly drawn to the smell of cooking flesh." She snapped her fingers, and the bodies of all of the young assassin's comrades caught fire. "I expect they will be here shortly.

Panic set into the young assassin's eyes, but he said nothing, yet.

Of course, he began to blabber when the first two mongoose lizards slithered into the clearing. Sokka felt a small tinge of satisfaction that his assessment of the young man was right - he wasn't yet blooded, not yet so far gone into the Temple's ideology that he wouldn't break.

His information wasn't particularly great - that was the downside of interrogating someone low on the rungs of the organization - but he did yield some useful information after they'd dragged him into the trees and away from the mongoose lizards, who busied themselves with feasting on the flesh of his fallen comrades. The member of the Temple that had dispatched them on this mission had also dispatched two other teams, that he did not know the location of. He did not know any high-ranking members and barely knew any mid-ranking ones. Jamukha, the man who had trained him, was laying dead beneath, his charred corpse now providing sustenance to hungry mongoose lizards. But he did provide one name, a Fire Sage named Vahram. Azula did not know him well - the Fire Nation's clergy was vast and hierarchical, and though she was familiar with the Great Sage of the High Temple in Caldera, as well as some of the High Sages of outlying cities and temples, she did not know every middling or lower ranking priest.

The only thing left after the man's breaking was to decide what his fate would be.

Azula had wanted his execution. He was an enemy to her as pretender to the throne. He was part of the organization responsible for the genocide of the Air Nomads, and he had attempted to slay his rightful ruler. Suki had agreed, though for other reasons - she was simply pragmatic and noted that they had not the time nor the luxury to stay their hands. Katara and Aang had both argued against his death, though they could not give any satisfactory alternatives.

Sokka was left to break the tie. He thought for a moment before he cut the restraints on the man. The mongoose lizards had long since scurried off into the dense foliage.

"You're letting him go?" Suki asked.

Sokka shook his head and handed the man a weapon. "I'm giving him a fair chance."

The man began to plead. He did not want to fight, he was going to give up his mission, he wouldn't fight - if the Nightwolf wanted to kill him, he'd have to take his life while he was still cowering. Sokka sighed - it would have been cleaner if the man had put up a fight and lost and died with honor. At least it would have been fair. Another solution struck him then.

"If you won't fight me, you can fight the island," he said, with a grim smile. "We will leave, and the mongoose lizards will come, and then you can duel them for your life."

The man began to beg anew, but Sokka simply looked at him with indifference. "Why did you join the Temple? Was it because you believed in them?"

"Yes... yes," groveled the young man. "I did."

"Do you still?" Sokka asked.

"No! I see the error of my ways!"

Azula scoffed. "Men faced with death will say anything to avoid it. Which, I suppose, is a point in Captain Suki's favor from the interrogation debate."

Sokka stared at the young man for a while longer, before turning away. "Let's leave the island. Before we do, I want to do a round on Appa - we need to find their ship and destroy it. If he lives because of the strength of his own hands, he lives, but I don't want him to escape his imprisonment."

He hardened his heart to the pleas and the group embarked onto Appa, flying around the circumference of the island. In a small little cove, they found a wooden cutter ship; Azula promptly torched it.

On the saddle, the companions were quiet for a while, their silence only broken by Momo's chirping and the sound of the night wind whistling past them as they sailed through a starry sky. Sokka sat next to Azula, absentmindedly stroking her hand inside his. Aang approached him after a while and sat down in front of them, legs crossed. Sokka and Aang looked at each other for a while - Sokka giving his friend time to formulate what he wanted to say, and Aang searching Sokka's face for any sign of what his response would be.

Finally, Aang spoke, "I think what you did was ultimately fair, though harsh."

Sokka's eyes widened just a hint at that. "I thought you would have asked for mercy."

Aang's cirrus eyes bored into his. "I think you showed it. Being merciless would have been torture, would have been death on the spot. He was just a young kid, my age even - I bet he hadn't even taken a life yet."

"You don't know that, Aang. You have a good heart - a tad soft, if you ask me - but he could have been a seasoned killer," Azula interjected.

Aang crossed his arms. "You're a better people-reader than that, Azula. Tell me, do you really think that was the case?"

"...no, likely not," she muttered.

Aang turned his attention back to Sokka. "What you did was imprison him but give him a chance. You got the information out of him without having to actually kill. All I'm saying is... I approve."

Sokka nodded. "Thanks."

Aang turned his attention to Azula. His expression softened. "While you and I may disagree fundamentally about certain issues, Princess... I'm still grateful to have you as a friend and ally in battle." He stood and gave her a little bow before returning to his spot next to Katara, at Appa's neck.

Azula turned to Sokka. "That went better than expected," she said drily. He simply cracked a small smile in response.

"Do you think I did the right thing? Do you think I should have left it up to you?"

Azula rubbed his knee. "I don't know. It's one thing to reprimand or punish war criminals in my nation's military. The Temple is... a hive of scum. Fire Nation scum, yes, but many have claim to meting out justice to them, not least of which is Aang, on behalf of his people. And you, as a member of the Order. And yet he chooses mercy, unfailingly," she said. "Yes, I do think you did the right thing. I would prefer him dead, from a pragmatic point of view, but he is imprisoned on that island and will likely be dead anyway. It was not an unfair sentence you gave to him. He has a chance. His fate is in his hands. It was in his hands from the moment he bought the Temple's lies and picked up a blade in defense of their ideals. A young man he may have been, but that's not a good enough excuse. We're young people too, Sokka. We're not fighting to eradicate entire cultures."

Not anymore, at least, she thought.

Her mother's voice crept into her mind. But did you think that boy could have changed his mind, given the chance?

Perhaps. But did we have the time? Was it possible, with the constraints we face? Justice is easy within a vacuum, mother.

But it doesn't cease to be the right thing to do just because it is no longer the easiest route to take.

...perhaps.

As if he could hear Ursa's voice, Sokka repeated something similar. "Do you think we could have convinced him to change? If we had time? Do you think we can change any of them in the Temple?"

She sighed. "I hope so, Sokka. So far the only justice I have handed out is the death sentence. Yes, I know, it was deserved in both Kyoshi Island and with Mongke, but I would like to hope that justice goes beyond simply swinging the sword. Perhaps it also involves changing hearts and minds, instilling a desire for fairness within people, guiding society to a better place."

Sokka leaned into Azula and rested his head on her lap. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say thanks for trying to cheer me up. But I know you meant it."

Azula smiled down at him and played with his hair. "Good," she responded, simply.

They were quiet for a few moments, before Sokka said something sleepily.

"That last thing you said... that's why I believe in you, Azula. I think you could be that monarch," he murmured, falling deeper until he fell asleep.

Azula's heart leapt and soared in a way that only he could make it, and she felt her inner fire warm her wonderfully.

x*x*x*x*x

In his dream, the silver amarok called to him.

He called back.

He saw things - half formed images, visions, things he could not explain. He didn't know if he was in the Spirit World or if he was in the corporeal world. It was all a blur.

There was a great spire. A great city of many tiers.

Water. Ice.

White hair and blue eyes; the pull of the sea.

Raven hair and golden eyes; the passion of the inferno.

A dance and a kiss.

A pool, and two fish, circling.

Grey snow falling from the skies.

Death. A red night that turned colorless. Fire.

A great blue beast.

A frozen throne.

A man upon it, with a jian sword blacker than night.

The amarok showed him all these things and more, but they made no sense. He asked the amarok to make them make sense. He struggled to see the raven hair and the golden eyes again, and the face that shimmered into his mind's eye was familiar. It was a face he'd grown to love.

But the other face, the blue hair and white eyes, that was alien to him. He did not know that face, but he felt as if he should. He supposed that it was a pretty face.

The fish seemed familiar. He remembered the pool Azula had found him in, with the two fish - it was the same one.

Little else made sense. The red night, the blue beast, the frozen throne... none of those held any meaning, but the red night terrified him the most, as if something had gone horrifically wrong. The more he thought about it, the more he thought of an unmoving, entirely becalmed sea. There was an absence and a rage there that terrified him.

Then another image flashed past him.

A man, cloaked all in black, with a white mask that looked like a skull, and shockingly golden eyes. In them was the void. Nothing but emptiness. A hunger, a wound, a terrible cut that drew in all life and let nothing escape. A terrible consciousness that was starved and sought only to devour.

It was not a spirit. It hated life. It hated spirits. It hated all energy, all matter, all being. It was a horrifying abyss. It was Nothing.

Sokka asked him what he wanted. The man simply took off his mask, to reveal his features. Despite their grotesqueness, Sokka was shocked at how human he looked. There was something familiar in the face, but he could not place it. Besides, the human features, though unmistakable, were corrupted by festering darkness. Half the man's face was destroyed, as if by a horrible wound of war.

The man did not say anything, but a horrible, noiseless response filled Sokka's ears and mind, until he could not hear or see or feel anything else.

It was not the man, but the wound that spoke. And it was nothing but hunger.

The silver amarok reappeared and simply nuzzled him, as if to say he would know everything when he needed to. The terrible Nothingness withdrew.

Sokka asked the wolf if he was dreaming or if this was real. He asked it what it meant.

The amarok simply tilted its head, as if questioning the wisdom of asking a vision if it was real. As for what it meant...

A warning.

x*x*x*x*x

Sokka woke with a jerk, startling Azula, whose lap his head was nestled in. It was dark still, the sun not yet peeking out at them. Appa continued his flying - Aang was tucked away into a roll on the sky bison's saddle, with Suki across from him. Katara sat at the reins, occasionally rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"My love?" Azula's soft voice brought him back from his wandering eyes. He could tell he'd woken her. The rare gentleness in her tone melted his heart.

"It's nothing, little dragon," he huffed. "Let's go back to sleep."

Tired golden eyes blinked at him from above as he re-settled his head into the Princess's lap. One of her hands lazily stroked through his hair.

"Bad dream?" she asked, sleepily. Sokka wished he could capture the essence of her face right now. She was so incredibly beautiful when the innocence of rest wiped her worries and cares from her face, and her hardened shell melted away.

"Something like that," he murmured in response. "I'll tell you all about it if you promise to sleep a little more."

Her eyelids began to shut, and she made soft noises of affirmation, sleep overtaking her.

Sokka wished he could steal her away to some edge of the world where no dream or nightmare would find them, and they could live their lives carefree. That would be a dream worth having.

But even as he drifted away, he thought of a red night and a frozen throne.

And that horrible, empty void.

XXXXX

When Sokka woke again, the first thing he did was shudder. It was almost as if he could feel the creeping cold of the void. It was unlike the cold of his homeland - that was blustery, and it made you feel. It cut and it whipped. This cold was just purely empty.

The earliest orange glow of dawn had finally begun to peek over the horizon. Aang was back on Appa's reins, guiding him in a lazy circle. They had stopped flying quickly. Sokka realized they were at their destination, and that today must be the solstice.

Azula stroked his hair again, and when he saw her golden eyes, the dream flashed in front of him again.

"You didn't sleep well," she remarked, softly.

"Did you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "You were being fitful. I was concerned. It must have been one hell of a bad dream, Sokka."

He made to lift his head out of her lap, but she placed a soft hand on his chest, pushing him back down. "Stay."

"You really enjoy playing with my hair, don't you?"

She smiled. "Tell me what it was that wouldn't let you sleep well." Her eyes searched his for any hint of distress. "Was it the twins you dreamt about?"

He sighed. "I wish. It wasn't even a dream, really - it was more of a flashing set of images, like little glimpses into a bunch of dreams. I saw some things that made sense. Other things... made less sense. I saw it, the silver amarok from the Spirit World."

"The silver wolf spirit?" Azula asked, her brow furrowing. "What happened?"

"I don't really know. It was like he was guiding me, showing me things. I saw a great ringed city of ice."

Azula nodded. "Agna Qel'a. I've heard the descriptions."

"I saw a girl with white hair and blue eyes."

Now the Princess frowned. "Excuse you?" she teased him, but with a little hint of jealousy in her voice.

Sokka laughed at that, a deep, rumbling one that attested to his tiredness. "I have no idea who she is, and she wasn't as beautiful as you."

"So she was beautiful," she said with an arched brow, her hands no longer gently stroking his hair but rather tightening their grip on his brown locks.

"Ouch. Okay, look, focusing on the wrong thing here," he said, wincing as a playful smile spread across Azula's face. "I saw you, too. Your raven hair, your gorgeous eyes..."

"Do go on, Sokka, I enjoy the flattery."

He stuck his tongue out at her. "I saw the fish and that pool you pulled me out of. In the spirit world. Except I think it was in Agna Qel'a. And then grey snow - the ash that Fire Nations ships make in the poles. Then it was night, and the sky was red, and then it wasn't. The world lost all color. I saw a great blue beast rise from the waters, and then I saw a man with a black sword sitting on a frozen throne."

She frowned. "You're right... very little of that makes sense - or at least, the parts about the beast, the world losing color, and the man upon the throne. Everything else sounds like a premonition of the invasion of the North Pole. That's not news to us."

"I know," Sokka said. "But there was one more thing that made no sense." He described to her as best he could the void, and the horrid man in the black robes and the white mask, with the golden eyes. A look of concern spread across her face when he divulged that.

"My father? Zuzu?" she wondered.

"No, I don't think it was Zuko. Your father... I don't know. Not from what you've described. He didn't feel human, or like a spirit. It was just... hate. Cold, cold hate. And hunger. I felt like it wanted to devour everything in its path."

Azula was quiet for a moment. "I have to admit, it rather sounds like you when you get hungry," she quipped.

He rumbled with laughter and so did she, their shared smiles and laughter cutting through the tension.

Her hand had resumed its stroking. "I want to say it was just a dream, Sokka..."

"But it probably wasn't," he finished. She nodded at him, and then bent down to kiss him softly.

"We're having terrifying dreams of late, haven't we? Perhaps the universe is trying to tell us something," she joked. She wished she hadn't as soon as the words left her mouth - it felt wrong. But he lifted his head out of her lap and sat up, pulling her into a tight embrace.

"I'd fight every spirit and monster in all the worlds for you," he whispered into her ear.

Azula melted into him. "And I'm not about to let masked men or great blue beasts take you from me. I lost you once and I felt like I was ripped apart. If I lost you now, after everything you've become to me..."

"You won't lose me," Sokka finished.

She sighed. "I know, my wolf. I suppose there's no use in worrying about things that are out of our control. Every other night I see father torturing these twins that I keep dreaming about. Now you see the wolf spirit and he tells you about these omens that have yet to pass. All these things are out of our hands for now, and it infuriates me that they cause us worry anyway. Maybe things will become clearer as we go on. Maybe Aang will get some answers out of Roku."

"We're here?" he asked.

Azula nodded softly. "Yes. Welcome to my home, Sokka. We're in the Fire Nation."

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully, once my test is over, I can post some more :)

Tell me what you think of Sokka's dream in the reviews :)