Author's notes: This doesn't fit the prompt very well but ehh? Also, finally done with the prompts! And only what, six months late?

Quidong Island was about the size of Seonum, but nobody lived there; the ground was too rocky to farm on, though patches of tall grass took up about half of the land, and a few scraggly trees managed to survive here and there. The only building was a small shrine, roughly in the middle of the island, with a pond in front of it.

"Are we the first ones here?" Norbu wondered as he fluttered down from the saddle.

"I guess we are," Truc said, looking around. "Well, we are a few days early."

"UGH! Boring," Dechen said, kicking at a rock on the ground. "I wanted to show Trishna off to my friends."

Yun (who had almost unconsciously deflected Dechen's rock from hitting Norbu in the leg) raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a pet, Dechen. I'm perfectly capable of showing off for myself."

"Ooh! Let me show you around!" Dechen said, grabbing his arm and starting to pull him.

"Dechen?" Jamyang said. "Have you forgotten something?"

She motioned to Truc and Norbu, who were starting to unload the tents. Dechen huffed, blowing her bangs out of her face.

After all of them had set up camp, Yun and the three siblings went for a tour of the island. "There's really nothing to tour, though," Norbu commented. "There's Zerdan's shrine, the pond right next to the shrine, and some rocks."

"What kind of rocks?" Yun asked brightly.

Norbu looked at Yun like he wasn't sure if he was serious.

They went around the pond and came to the shrine. It was a small, open structure containing only a statue of Avatar Zerdan. He was sitting cross-legged with his fists pressed together in the typical Air Nomad style. Most of the statue was made of simple gray stone, but a chunk of his face was smooth obsidian, and the Airbending tattoos were drawn on with chipped blue paint.

Norbu bowed to the statue, with Dechen and Aparna following suit. Yun did too, but he felt a dull pang as he did so. Normally when he saw a past Avatar, he had a weird little thrill remembering that that had been him in a past life. He huffed under his breath.

"Is that Avatar Zerdan?" Aparna asked, eyeing the statue curiously.

"Uh-huh."

"Why is his face all black?"

"It's a birthmark!" Dechen explained. "That means he was just born with a weird splotch on his face. Back in the old days, that made people think he was evil. But then he got older and they realized he was the Avatar."

"Ooh." Aparna looked from Norbu to Yun. "Are there any neat Avatar stories about him?"

Norbu frowned. "I don't think so, other than that. But supposedly he was born in our tribe. That's kind of neat, isn't it?"

She pulled on Yun's hand. "Do you know any, Trishna?"

"Well, he lived in a pretty peaceful time—and he died in his sixties, which is young for an Avatar. So he didn't fight in any big wars or anything. But he wrote a lot. His Conversation with Yamantaka was a big inspiration for Yangchen's political treatises."

"Bor-ing!"

"Dechen! Show some respect."

"What kind of stories did he and Yangchen write?" Aparna asked.

Yun smiled down at her. "Well, they didn't write anything together—only one Avatar at a time, right?" He felt another little pang as the words left his mouth, but he tried to ignore it. "Zerdan's story is about talking with a spirit, who told him that he actually was destined to be evil like everybody thought. But he didn't, because even though everyone is born with bad parts inside them—even Avatars and sages—they can learn to control them and become good."

That seemed too advanced for Aparna, though she considered the matter gravely. Dechen asked, "Does it end with Zerdan and the spirit fighting each other?"

"No."

"Bor-ing!"

Yun smiled, then frowned back at the statue. He had never actually read Conversation with Yamantaka; there hadn't been a copy in the mansion. It had been on a long list of Avatar-related tracts that he had been meaning to get to.

He realized that Norbu was eying him curiously. "I'm surprised you've heard of him," he said. "He's not one of the big-name Avatars."

Yun smirked. "I know a lot of Avatars."

"My favorite is Yangchen," Aparna said decisively.

"Of course it's Yangchen!" Dechen said. "She was the best."

"One of the best, to be sure. But she's actually not my favorite," said Yun.

"Who is?"

"Guess."

"Salai?"

"Uh-uh."

"Avatar—Phramali, I think?" Norbu asked. "The last one from the Earth Kingdom?"

"Ah, Phramali was great! But no. It's not even an Earth Kingdom Avatar."

Dechen screwed up her face. "That Siqiniq lady with the sea monster? Or Yadav?"

"Nope."

"Not that lame Fire Nation guy before Yangchen, right? The one with the desk job?"

"Szeto, and no. Big in the Fire Nation, not too fondly remembered elsewhere."

"Just tell us," said Norbu.

"Kuruk."

Dechen frowned. "Oh. Should have guessed him."

Yun shrugged, a smirk on his face. "Nobody ever does."

"But why? He wasn't as good as Yangchen. I don't think he even did anything."

"Well, he fought some evil spirits. Tough ones," Yun added, as his memory flashed back to Father Glowworm. "And...well. From what I've heard, he was a fun guy to be around. The kind of person I would have liked to meet."

He glanced at the statue of Avatar Zerdan and felt another ache of regret. He had been looking forward to when he would be able to contact his previous incarnations—any of them, really, but it was generally agreed that Kuruk would be the first. And ever since those days at the Makapu inn, he had heard how much he and Kuruk had in common. Jianzhu, Kelsang, Hei-Ran, even random nobles and sages had noted the similarities. Yun had been thrilled at the idea of someday meeting his other self, of being guided by another him who was older and wiser than he was.

It wasn't like Yun didn't know Kuruk's faults. But still, he felt a kinship to the past Avatar.

"Too bad I never will," he murmured softly.

"Yeah," Dechen said offhandedly. Then, "I'd like to meet Avatar Yun someday. That would be cool."

Yun let out a laugh so harsh that he choked on it.

"Yeah," he said when he'd sucked in a breath. "That'd be something, wouldn't it?"

"Anyway, come on! I'll show you the rest of the island!"

"There is no rest of the island," Norbu said, taking Aparna's hand and following Dechen away.

"There's that rock that kinda looks like a platypus-bear. Ooh! Trishna, could you earthbend the rock to look more like a platypus-bear?! Then when the others show up, we'll pretend we don't know how it happened!"

He smiled wanly, staying behind for a moment to stare at Zerdan's statue. He would never meet this Avatar, either. Or Yangchen or Szeto or Phramali or any of them.

He sighed, and gently patted the statue's obsidian birthmark with his stained hand. Then he turned and walked off after the others.