Author's Notes: I don't really have an excuse for the update gap, except that summer makes me lazy. :/ Thanks for the continued support, everyone!

(Edited Oct 18, 2020: Big rewrites for this chapter! Honestly, this and the following chapter are among the worst of the entire fic, since I think this is when I started losing interest in the fic the first time around. So I tried my best to fix this one up a lot and I plan to do the same with "The First Guru".)

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender and I am in no way associated with the creators of the show.

Book 2: Earth

Chapter 9: The Astronomer

Aang hated coming to the Burn.

From the western shores of the Earth Kingdom to the walls of Ba Sing Se, everything had been burned to ash on the day of the comet. Whole villages and towns had been reduced to kindling in Ozai and Azula's swathe across the northern reaches, and even a year later nothing had grown in its place. Animals and spirits vacated the Burn completely. The few survivors and refugees displaced by the reckoning had scattered throughout the Earth Kingdom, leading to a crisis of famine and overpopulation in the few cities left as the nation as a whole tried to limp free of the disaster.

Even Ba Sing Se, a territory of the Fire Nation since before the fated summer, had not been spared the Phoenix King's wrath. Though his immolation ended there when he met resistance and the comet flew past, taking its power with it, much of the Lower Ring had fallen. The subsequent instability and overcrowding led to plague, and that was when Haru had suggested hiding in the Burn to wait it out.

They settled at the base of Mount Makapu, which still had a half dome of hardened lava protecting the remnants of its village. Aang walked among the ruins on the first day that they arrived, wondering to himself if Aunt Wu the fortuneteller had foreseen the calamity of fire raining from the skies. The hardened lava made an effective shelter for them from the heat of the sun and storms of dust and ash - and even more importantly, Fire Nation airships that occasionally passed by overhead on their way to Ba Sing Se.

Aang was with Teo and the Duke when the Dai Li attacked.

He didn't know how Azula's personal guard had found them. But with Sokka, Katara, and Suki heading out of the Burn on Appa earlier that day to gather supplies and Toph, Zuko, and Haru closer to the top of the mountain at camp, they couldn't have been attacked at a worse time.

He fought to protect Teo and the Duke from the earthbender agents, panicked with the knowledge that Azula couldn't be far. She could have even already found Zuko and the others on the mountain and Aang wanted nothing more than to go rendezvous with them. But he stood his ground against the half dozen Dai Li, batting their stone hands out of the air with his staff and hurrying his two friends along to a safe spot. The Duke, despite his young age, had become a capable fighter in his own right, but against Dai Li he might as well have been wielding a toothpick.

Barrels on the sides of Teo's wheelchair opened up and launched a string of cylindrical bombs at the clustered agents, scattering them in an explosion of powder and blasting jelly. That gave the three of them extra room to retreat to a gutted building with a foundation of stone where they hid and planned their next move.

"You two need to stay here," Aang told them, trying to peek his head out of one of the ruined windows without being noticed. "I think that was only a small group that found us. The rest of them are on the mountain."

Teo wheeled himself over to the door and glanced outside. "They'll see you if you leave," he said.

Aang gripped his staff, knuckles white. "That's the point. I'll draw them away from you guys."

He saw the two of them share a glance before Teo lowered his eyes and responded. "The Duke and I will get out of here."

"What?"

The Duke tapped the butt of his spear on the dusty floor. "Yeah! Me and Teo will run the other way. We'll be fine!"

Teo pushed his chair toward Aang, giving him an encouraging pat on the arm. It was clear to Aang that he only wore a brave face for Aang's sake. "Ever since the Day of Black Sun the two of us have been holding you back. We can't bend like you guys or fight like Sokka and Suki. You don't have to keep babysitting us - we'll go our own way."

Aang felt his eyes burning. "It's not like that," he said. They'd all lost so much together and he didn't want to fail any more people, not even the memories of the Mechanist and Pipsqueak by leaving two more of his friends behind. "I don't care. You guys are our friends!"

"We'll keep fighting, wherever we go," said the Duke, clenching his fist and grinning. "We won't let you down, Aang!"

"And I know we'll all see each other again someday," Teo said. "As sure as stars."

He didn't know what that meant but he had no time to question it. The goodbyes tried to come out, but when they caught in his throat both Teo and the Duke hurried him away to save their friends.

He never found out what happened to them.


His aches and pains from the previous day's battles made his sleep fitful and restless, and when Azula nudged him awake in the morning he roused himself to full alertness. She said nothing as he sat up and dug his hands through Appa's fur, scratching between the bison's legs as he grumbled awake. Aang glanced back at Azula as she packed away her sleeping roll, her movements stiff, as if she tried not to even look in his direction. All of the truths that he had revealed came rushing back to him and the weight on his back lessened so much he might have been able to fly.

"Azula, is everything okay?" he asked her, his voice tentative.

Her shoulders tensed for a moment but she answered without even looking at him. "I'm fine."

He stood and crossed his fingers together. "I know you probably have a lot of questions... "

"If I had more I would ask," she said in a clipped tone. Her eyes met his and he saw the bags under them, along with other signs that her usual grace and poise had begun to slip away. Despite that, her lips quirked into a smile. "You know me. I am brisk and to the point and always precise in what I say and mean. If I had something I wanted to talk about I would say it."

He smiled back and thought better than to push her, so instead he decided to trust her words and walked around the other side of Appa, where the rest of their group waited for them in a circle that Aang and Azula completed. The forested flatland where they had fled after fighting Katara made for a safe and effective campsite, hiding them under a shelter of trees through the whole night.

"Good morning, Aang," said Kanna, once he sat among them. She had draped her shawl around her shoulders and passed him a bowl of something sweet and grainy.

"Hi, everyone," he said, pressing his palms against the heated clay. He stared down into his breakfast, trying to summon the words he wanted to say. "I know yesterday I told you all a lot of things, so if you have anything you need to ask or if you want to rethink some things, or even if you want to take some time to make sure you still want to help me…"

"Oh, stop it right there," said Toph, leaning back. "If you keep asking us then maybe I won't help you."

Zuko nodded toward him. "We're with you, buddy."

Aang glanced at Azula, who rolled her eyes. "Is this even really in question?"

Piandao smiled, sitting up perfectly straight despite his recovering injury. "You underestimate the loyalty of your friends."

"Anyone who has the best interests of my grandchildren at heart can certainly be counted on," said Kanna, her gaze and voice firm in their conviction. "Now, let us move on to our next objective. We must find the date of the next lunar eclipse."

Toph pounded her fist against the earth and pulled up a heavy stone that she leaned back against. "How'd you guys find out about the solar eclipse?"

"Well... We kind of found a Spirit Library in the middle of the Si Wong Desert where this giant owl threatened to kill us, but we did learn the date of the Day of Black Sun in a planetarium inside," Aang responded, shrugging.

Zuko was the only one who looked unfazed by that. "Okay, so we need to find that library again," he said, unfurling his map. "We're pretty close to the Si Wong."

Aang raised his bowl to his lips but lowered it again with a scowl. "Did you hear me? It's in the middle of a desert. With a killer owl."

"So? We'll deal with the owl before it can kill us," Azula said, pointing her fingers at nothing in particular with a feral grin.

"Let me clarify," Aang said. "In that same desert trip, Appa was stolen and we were forced to walk, where we nearly died of thirst and heat exhaustion and there were buzzard-wasps waiting to peck out our livers. The days were scorching and the nights were freezing. I didn't get Appa back until we went to Ba Sing Se, weeks later. Which, by the way, wasn't a very fun city either."

"Okay, no desert," Toph commented, kicking her feet up. "Man, sounds like you got into some crazy adventures."

Aang shook his head and sighed. "That doesn't even begin to describe everything we went through."

"I've heard the rumors about that place," Kanna spoke. "But I didn't know they were true. In any case, we must plan for every circumstance. I've lived through several eclipses in my time, and though I was forbidden from the logistics and planning of war I am aware of my son's potential for trickery. I am more concerned with getting an invasion force to the city to begin with rather than just defeating Hakoda." Aang hoped they could do both during an eclipse, but didn't have anything to add to that out loud.

"First we should focus on if there will be any before Seiryu's Moon, shouldn't we?" Azula asked.

"We do know of someone who should be able to predict the next eclipse with more accuracy than any other," said Piandao.

"Someone learned in the cosmic happenings of the universe," Kanna continued. "An astronomer who studies the stars for science rather than something like fortune telling."

Zuko scratched his chin and turned to Aang. "Is there any chance that this lunar eclipse could happen the same time as the solar eclipse you experienced last time, since you said things seem to be happening the same way?"

"Lunar eclipses happen every few years," said Kanna, shrugging. "But I have never seen a solar eclipse."

"Yeah, dum-dum," said Azula, though Aang couldn't help but notice her words lacked the usual edge they took when she taunted her brother. He couldn't tell if it was out of kindness or if it was related to whatever seemed to be bothering her.

"You didn't know that either!" Zuko scowled at her but then turned back to Aang. "If they occur more often doesn't that mean we'd have more chances? If we fail once, it's no big deal, is it?"

Aang shook his head. "I don't want to risk losing more people," he said. "And besides, I only have until Seiryu's Moon." He left unsaid what sort of devastation the Water Tribes had the potential to unleash. He had no way of knowing what Hakoda had planned.

"There's no use planning for anything until we learn the date - or dates, as they may be," said Kanna, leaning forward to mark Zuko's map. "When you meet her, tell her my name and that the White Lotus requires her aid."

The White Lotus. Aang had the vague memory of Jeong Jeong, Pakku, Bumi, and Iroh all wearing matching robes and speaking in secrets to each other, but since they never told him and he never got the chance to ask any of them after the comet, that was a mystery they had all decided to leave unsolved. Whatever the society was, it was short-lived. "Where will you go?" Aang asked.

"Ba Sing Se," said Piandao. "We have contacts who should be able to help us. But don't worry," he added, just as Aang opened his mouth to say something. "We won't tell anyone your secret."

Aang sighed. "Thank you. So… I guess we'll meet you there afterward?"

He wasn't enthused about visiting Ba Sing Se again, but he hoped it would be under better circumstances. This time, he had Appa.


Heartened by having the aid of Kanna and Piandao - and a solid plan that didn't involve going to the desert - they made their way to the southeast Earth Kingdom to a cluster of mountains around the bottom of a bay - Chameleon Bay's lesser neighbor. It made up one side of a channel between the Earth Kingdom and the White Tiger's Spine, a mountain range leading up to the Eastern Air Temple. He could see the mountains far in the distance, concealed by a veil of mist that muddled how far away the opposite shore really was.

Glad for the fact that Zuko was currently at the reins, Aang crawled next to Toph, who hadn't moved from her spot on the saddle nearest the luggage, clutching onto whatever she could as if she expected to get bucked off of Appa at any moment.

"Are you doing alright?" he called to her, a smile playing on his face.

Toph gripped the edge of the saddle with white knuckles. "Just fine! Or maybe a little sick, my stomach hasn't really decided yet."

Aang laughed as Sabi bounced up and down out of what he could only assume was concern for the earthbender. "You got used to flying eventually."

"Don't speak about me in the past tense, Aang. It's kinda creepy."

"Sorry," he replied with a nod of his head. Now that all of his secrets were out in the open, he found himself slipping with comments like those. "But it's true. The other you even ended up starting to like it."

"Why's that?"

"She once told me that it gave her a sort of peace. After battles, where the vibrations were usually crazy, she'd go fly with Appa for hours on end, or force me to give her a ride on my glider. Being in the air helped us both relax."

"Something tells me you guys weren't all right in the head," Toph commented, her face turning green. "Aang, I'll never, ever, fly on that flimsy stick of wood with you."

Aang laughed again. "Please, call me Twinkletoes. It doesn't sound right when you say my actual name."

Azula stared at him quizzically. "You'd actually answer to that?" she asked in distaste, sitting on the other side of the saddle with arms crossed. "You two sound like you were very close in that other world."

Aang stared right back at Azula, perplexed by her statement. "Yes, we were," he affirmed, and punched Toph in the arm playfully, to which she punched back three times harder. "I'm glad to have you with us, Toph."

"You better be," she grumbled, giving out a whoop of fear when Appa sank a few feet. "Twinkletoes," she added as an afterthought.

Kanna had told them to search for a lighthouse that the Astronomer used as her residence, beyond the stone quarries and outer reaches of the desert. When night fell, they assumed the beacon would be easy to spot from the air, but after hours of flying and their eyelids getting heavy it proved harder to find than they thought it would be. But it was a clear night with lots of stars, so he assumed the Astronomer would be busy with her work.

"There it is!" Toph shouted, pointing into the murky sea. Zuko and Azula turned to that side of the saddle to look.

Aang rolled his eyes. "Guys, she's blind," he reminded them.

"Aw, spoiled my fun," Toph said, sitting back down with her arms crossed. Both Zuko and Azula shot glares at her.

"You pulled that on me once before," Aang said, trying to hold back his smile.

"Ugh, really? And here I was thinking I was being original…"

Eventually, it was Azula who pointed out that a bright light source wouldn't be conducive to observing the stars, and after descending to a lower altitude and flying along the shoreline they finally spotted a dark tower with a long golden telescope at the top where the beacon would be, at the end of a rocky trail overlooking the channel. Attached to its base they saw what was presumably her home with a sloping roof and a wooden door, its windows darkened. Further down the dirt path, they spotted another shack with metal pipes sticking out of its roof that churned smoke. A warm, golden light shone out of its single window, a sign of a roaring fire inside from a hearth or a furnace.

When they landed, the force of Appa's weight and his grunt of exhaustion announced their arrival to whoever was inside the shack, because the door opened and a boy came out wielding a metal pole, goggles over his eyes as he stood in a guarded stance. But once he set his eyes on the sky bison, his grip on his makeshift weapon slackened and he stared up at them with his jaw hanging open.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, wonder and awe evident in his voice.

When he recognized the boy, Aang's jaw dropped open as well. Though he walked on both feet, he was unmistakably Teo.


"You remember me asking you to help me take over Ba Sing Se, right, brother?" Katara asked Sokka, kindness radiating from her words and voice.

Sokka turned his head away from his sister, his own voice cold and his one eye glaring. "Of course. Why, did you expect me to forget?"

Katara laughed. "Kind of. You're so thick-headed sometimes."

His days on the Water Tribe ship made him impatient and restless, and as much as he hated it, a feeling of guilt wormed its way into his stomach every time he thought of his grandmother and how he betrayed her. He wanted to get out and fight something, find some sort of release for his anger. He tried exercising his waterbending as much as he could, but when his mind was in as much turmoil as it was now, he struggled to control it.

The moods of his sister and the other two girls on the ship didn't help, either. Katara always spoke to him with thinly veiled false kindness, the perfectly endearing little sister who showered him with compliments and bragged to the men about his exploits. Sokka was cleverer than his sister, but she made up for it in raw power. He would not let her manipulate him. He also assumed she put Suki and Yue up to flirting with him in her attempts to control him - Suki kept trying to make conversation and Yue shyly batted her eyelashes, but he brushed both of them off every time.

There was one other woman on the ship, though, and this one creeped him out most of all. Hama approached him with her hands in her sleeves, not even bowing in respect as she neared.

"What do you want?" he asked the old woman. Katara leaned against the balustrade and gazed up at the sails, but he refused to look at either of them.

Katara seemed to think the question was directed at her. "Well, don't you want to know the plan?"

"For Ba Sing Se?"

"Really, brother. Stop letting your mind wander. Yes, I am talking about Ba Sing Se."

He turned toward her. "What's your plan?" Now that he faced her fully, he tried to wear a mask of easygoing nonchalance.

She smiled and it looked almost predatory. "Me, you, Suki, and Yue will do most of the work - we'll take down Ba Sing Se from the inside, since the walls are apparently impenetrable."

Sokka put a hand on his hip, millions of situations running clearly through his head. "And how do you plan on getting inside?"

"We'll disguise ourselves as refugees, and use the cover of a real invasion force to hide what we're doing. Some of Dad's men learned where that silly refugee ferry docks in the city, coming from Full Moon Bay. It's right outside the walls, and it's the only place where the walls are regularly opened to let in the refugees. The invasion will attack that place while we quietly slip inside."

"Obviously it'd be heavily protected," Sokka said, pointing out the flaws in her plan. "The invasion force would need stealth, too."

Katara smirked. "Of course. That's why we'll be pulling out one of your own inventions."

Sokka's eye widened, and his mouth even hung open a fraction. "But I designed that so long ago. You're telling me...?"

"Yes," Katara said with a nod. "Our engineers finally built your submarines."

Sokka's own heart leapt in excitement, surprising him. He grinned. "That's great! I have to say, I can't wait to see how they look." Katara and Hama both smiled, but then Sokka's enthusiasm suddenly faltered. "But how are a couple of refugees gonna take over the city? It's not like we can waterbend. We're supposed to be harmless people."

"That's true," said Katara. "But I have a plan in mind. And there's still some waterbending you need to learn that'll help in that regard."

Sokka furrowed his brows. "What?"

"Prince Sokka, I am humbly proposing the completion of your training," Hama said to him.

"My training?" he asked, turning to regard her with an icy glare.

"I would be honored to teach you some of the secret and incredibly obscure techniques of waterbending," Hama continued, though her lips pursed as if she tasted something sour. "I very highly doubt that your grandmother would have taught you these skills."

"I'm already a master waterbender," he stated.

Hama stood as straight as her slight hunch would allow. "But even masters should not stop learning."

That was true, he supposed. "What do you think you can teach me?"

Hama smiled, her lips stretching her wrinkled face. "The art of bloodbending."

Sokka's eye widened as his blood ran cold, but he managed to hide his reaction quickly. "I can already bloodbend."

Katara perked up in interest. "Oh? Well, let's see it."

"Have you forgotten?" he asked his sister. "Bloodbending can only be done on the full moon."

"Only for amateurs," Katara said with confidence, holding out her hands toward a passing soldier. Her fingers bent into claws and the man jerked backward, his feet sliding across the deck as she dragged him toward her as if with an otherworldly, invisible hook. "Now do you still believe that?"

Sokka was dumbfounded. It was far from the full moon, but with the ease she did it, it might have even been possible in full daylight. "But... how?"

Hama strode forward as Katara released the man from her control and he stumbled away. "With enough skill, and enough practice, bloodbending can be done at almost any time. I will further your training myself, Prince Sokka."

Sokka scratched his chin. "That would probably help if it ever came down to fighting. No one would know we were waterbending." He nodded and set his jaw, pushing away thoughts and warnings that his grandmother once gave him about bloodbending back when she first taught him the skill. "Teach me, Hama."


Teo lifted his goggles to his forehead and regarded the rest of them with wary curiosity after he took his eyes off of Appa. Though he wore goggles, had messier hair than he used to and smudges of dirt and grease on his face and clothes, he otherwise looked the same. "Uh… can I help you guys?" he finally asked.

"Yes," said Zuko, glancing at Aang when he didn't say anything. "We're looking for the Astronomer. Does she live here?"

Aang had so many questions that he couldn't ask. Would the Mechanist be in that shack behind Teo? His help would be invaluable in this war as it was in his world. But he also wondered at the sequence of events that brought Teo to live in this isolated corner of the Earth Kingdom rather than the Northern Air Temple. Whatever the case, they seemed to live here alone - they passed the closest village on their way to the lighthouse and that one lay nestled in a river valley at least a two days' journey away by foot.

Teo's eyes turned back to Appa. "That's a sky bison, isn't it? Are you guys airbenders?"

"I am," Aang said, stepping forward. "I'm the Avatar."

"Wow, I heard the rumors, but it's so amazing to see you in person!" Teo exclaimed, collapsing the metal rod so that it fit on his hip. "My name is Teo. Come on, I'll bring you to see her."

After Teo led the way back to the lighthouse, Zuko fell into step beside Aang and whispered to him under his breath. "You knew him, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Aang said, grinning. It made him glad to see that Teo still seemed open and trusting, unlike the melancholy practicality he developed after the death of his father with the other prisoners from the war. "He's a friend."

The home at the base of the lighthouse was made predominantly from dried brick, with bamboo floors and rooms sectioned off with undecorated green folding screens. A raised bed took up one corner of the house with metal pipes leading underneath it, bringing warm water and steam for heat from some underground reservoir. The whole building felt pleasantly warm and smelled of incense, the source of which Aang found against a back wall burning on two sticks. When he saw that it was in offering to someone who had passed, his heart dropped.

It was a painted portrait of the Mechanist, missing eyebrow and all. Aang hated how his first brief thought upon seeing the portrait was that they wouldn't be able to take advantage of his inventions in this world, but then the sadness of not being able to reunite with another friend set in after that. But if the Mechanist was dead, Aang wondered why Teo still acted the same way he did when they had first met, rather than the glum boy he became after the execution.

Teo pulled open a door and revealed a spiral stone staircase going up the tower. As they ascended, he began to explain the history of the lighthouse to them. "Sailors used to come up this way a lot more often back in the old days," he said. "There are lots of storms here, so it gets perilous for them. Traders from the south went through this channel to get to Ba Sing Se, and they relied on the lighthouse to guide them. Nowadays, mostly pirates and the Water Navy sail through here. And it's perfect for us, since being away from the light of any cities and towns gives a clear view of the night sky."

"And the Water Tribes never harass you, I suppose," said Azula, to which Teo shrugged.

After several minutes of climbing, Aang's legs burned by the time they made it to the top. Even Toph made comments about it, though Aang suspected it had less to do with the strain and more about the height, despite the building being made of stone. When Teo finally stopped in front of a door and opened it, all of them sighed with relief when the narrow staircase opened into a round room with glass walls, giving them a spectacular view of the world below.

A giant, unlit lantern took up most of the space in the center, but around the edges of the room they spotted signs of the Astronomer's clutter: maps and star charts, some of which had been rolled up while others lay flat; piles of books and scrolls that had been scattered haphazardly; a globe, several telescopes, instruments made of gold, silver, and iron that he couldn't identify at all. Other scrolls detailing mathematical and scientific calculations that made no sense to any of them littered the floor and shelves. He saw timekeeping candles and devices that even the airbenders used to navigate direction, along with tools used by seafarers and sailors. The whole apex of the lighthouse was cramped with so much clutter that it made it difficult for them to move around the giant lantern toward the other side overlooking the channel below.

"What is all this junk?" Toph asked, nearly knocking over the globe as she walked by. "Does looking up at the sky really involve using all this? Gotta say, I really don't see the appeal at all." She held up a book, upside-down, so Aang twisted his head to read its title, The Great Firmament Star Manual. Out of curiosity, he peered closer at some of the other books they passed, which included such titles as The Celestial Offices, the Intersection of the Heavens and Earth, and Treatise of Abbott Sui and Master Ukilik on the Inaccuracies of the Jade Dynastic Star Maps as written by the Seven Sages in the Divine Chrysanthemum Court. Some might have found those lengthy tomes to be a thrilling read, he supposed.

"Oh, visitors!" said a voice around the lantern. As they reached the other side of it, Aang took note of the strange apparatus inside that must have once been used to focus the beacon into a beam of light. More prominently, he saw the giant telescope that the Astronomer presumably used for most of her stargazing - the biggest he had ever seen, which poked out of the glass room and stretched toward the sky. "And at this hour! How lovely. Welcome to my humble little observatory."

"They came here to meet you, Mom," said Teo, gesturing to Aang and the others. "This is the Avatar and his friends."

Aang tried not to show his surprise at being introduced to Teo's mother. Tall and willowy, she wore heavy robes of deep emerald trimmed with gold and a matching cap emblazoned with the Earth Kingdom insignia, a long tassel extending from the back of it down to her shoulders. Her hair, pin straight and a lighter shade of brown than Teo's, extended all the way to her lower back. She had wide, dark eyes that seemed like they blinked a little less often than most people.

"The Avatar and friends came to see me?" she asked. "Ah, I knew you'd come eventually!"

"You did?" Zuko asked, drawing back in surprise. "Did you see it in the stars?"

"Oh, no, you're confusing me for an astrologer," she said, covering her laugh. "I don't make predictions. For the past several hours I saw a blotchy white shape flying around in the sky and you looked quite aimless, but I knew I recognized a sky bison! We used to see images of them all over the Northern Air Temple. Really quite majestic creatures, I'd sure love to take a look at the starry sky from one of their backs…"

"You've been to the Northern Air Temple?" Aang asked, cutting her off in his surprise. So this Teo had a similar history even if his mother was alive.

"Oh, yes, we used to live there," the Astronomer continued, nonplussed. "Originally we fled there as refugees when our village fell to the Water Tribes, but it was really quite difficult to adapt our people to the ways the airbenders of old used to live - no offense, Avatar - so many of us ended up leaving. Little Teo was quite young, but I imagine if he was old enough he and his late father would have made all kinds of wonderful inventions together and things would have been so different…"

"Mom," Teo said, gently prodding her. "You're going off on a tangent they probably don't care about…"

She chuckled and folded her hands in her sleeves. "Oh, silly me! I apologize. What brings you here?"

"The White Lotus wants to call in a favor," said Azula. Aang could tell she fought to keep from rolling her eyes. "Kanna told us to seek you out about the date of a lunar eclipse."

"A lunar eclipse," the Astronomer repeated. She licked her finger and flipped through one of her books. "I remember Kanna. What a darling old lady… I'll have to look into it. But in the meantime, did you know that the constellation of the lion turtle is visible tonight? And in a few months you should be able to see a blue guest star with the naked eye. I've waited so long to see it, it's a once in a lifetime event - as it nears, you will actually see that it isn't a guest star at all! The waterbenders call it 'Seiryu's Moon,' and I think it will be quite a gorgeous view to see a second moon in the sky. Though that's a misnomer, since it doesn't orbit our world like a true moon would. It would be more accurate to call it 'Seiryu's Planet.' Did you know that there are other planets out there besides our own?"

"Yes, it sounds gorgeous," Azula said, scowling. She echoed Aang's own thoughts on the matter. "Especially when they use it to devastate the rest of the world."

The Astronomer pursed her lips. "Oh, I had forgotten that it empowers waterbending. Such a shame that something so wonderful can be twisted into something as frightening as that. There also used to be a great comet that used to come every hundred years, but it seems ancient scholars miscalculated its return because it missed its last scheduled revolution. How strange." She tapped her chin and stared back at the sky, lost in thought. "I bet that would have been beautiful to see, too."

Aang wondered if she referred to Sozin's Comet. If so, was it supposed to exist in this world? Would it empower firebenders the same way Seiryu's Moon empowered waterbenders? Either way, he would have preferred if both celestial events would just miss their scheduled arrival. The comet was beautiful, sure, if one considered a blood red sky to be appealing.

"Uh, the eclipse?" Zuko reminded her, hesitant.

"Oh, yes! Well, I have to search through my records and star catalogues," she said. "Teo, why don't you bring everyone back downstairs and make them tea while I research? It might take some time."

"Sure it will, if you keep getting distracted," Toph muttered under her breath.

"We could do that," Teo said, turning to Aang with a grin. "Or there's something I could show you! I've always wanted to meet you so you could see this."


"So what's with all the excitement? Hey, Twinkletoes, this kid seems to be almost as light-footed as you are," Toph pointed out.

Teo turned back to Aang and grinned once he took them a fair distance away from the lighthouse. "Aang, spar with me," Teo said. "Most of my time is spent in the workshop making tools for my mom, or to make things easier for us living all the way out here, but I also tried to teach myself to fight."

Aang nearly jumped back in surprise. "What? You can fight?" He was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the shack was his workshop, and wondered how much he may have taken after his father in terms of his inventions.

"Yeah, but don't use your sword, or any bending besides air," Teo told him. "I always dreamed of meeting an airbender, especially a master." Teo fell into a stance that was extremely familiar to Aang. Aang gave his sword to Zuko and his staff to Azula. Aang settled into the same fighting stance while Sabi chittered nervously, as if sensing the change in the atmosphere. "Ready?"

Aang threw his arm forward as an answer, throwing a gust of wind toward the other boy. With a surprising amount of grace, Teo twisted out of the way and leapt towards Aang, but instead of attacking him head-on, the boy diverted to the side, throwing his foot out into a kick. Aang used his forearm to block the light blow, and ducked into a crouch, kicking out his own feet. An arc of wind slithered across the ground, but Teo jumped over the attack and vaulted himself over Aang's shoulders, landing behind him. Aang used his airbending to twist around and face him, but the nonbender managed to snake behind him again.

Aang punched his fists together and spread a barrier of air on all sides of him, pushing away the other boy and getting some breathing room. Teo stopped his fall with a role as Aang swept both of his arms and a leg toward him, launching bludgeoning gusts of air. Teo steepled his hands and dispersed one of the blasts and dodged the others, nearing closer and closer to Aang as he did.

The other three watched as Aang grabbed tendrils right out of the air and pulled them to block a punch from the other boy, but this only buffed him slightly and diverted the attack. Aang ducked low under another punch, but sent his own at Teo's exposed midsection. The nonbender managed to bring up his other hand in a block - almost like a parry, really, as he slid Aang's arm out of the way and opened his defenses - but then Teo slid his foot forward in an attempt to drag Aang's out of his stance. Aang's footwork didn't falter, however, and he managed to circle his arms to deflect yet another attack from Teo, but Teo repeated the same maneuver when Aang tried to return it.

All the while, the two boys circled each other endlessly, revolving on the spot; ducking, dodging, and weaving. By this time, Aang decided to forgo bending for the sake of fairness.

Aang managed to get another opening in Teo's defense, but he used the opportunity to leap over the boy's head, grabbing his shoulders as he went and locking the boy by the arms. He slid his foot and knocked Teo's out from under him, promptly ending the fight. Both boys were panting, but Aang couldn't have been more elated.

"You're an airbender!" Aang proclaimed. Appa, nearby, let out a loud yip of satisfaction.

Zuko's eyes widened. "What? But I didn't see any bending!"

"Well, not a bender," Aang clarified. "But you know the whole form! If you were a bender, you would be close to a master! How did you learn?"

"I studied all the scrolls I could find in the Northern Air Temple," Teo said proudly, still sitting on the ground. "I didn't know how good I was, because I never had anything or anyone to fight against, but I studied all their ways and everything."

"And you did this without a formal master?" Aang asked. "I'm impressed."

"Hey, I didn't have a master!" Toph protested. "Well, at least not a formal one."

"Well, I still have a lot to learn," Teo confessed sheepishly. "Do you think...?"

"Not much, actually. Your form was a little off at some points, but it's only because you don't actually airbend. There's nothing you can do about that," Aang said to him, shrugging.

"Oh," Teo said, shoulders falling. He patted the collapsible metal rod at his belt. "Well, I hope this can make up for some of those shortcomings. It helps to protect us from the occasional bandits, at any rate."

"Don't be so down," Aang encouraged him. "If I didn't use airbending, you might have beat even me."

"Great," said Toph. "Now there are two Twinkletoes around."

"Well, this was fun, but I'm going to get some rest while we can," said Azula, walking over to Appa with a yawn. "And I suggest you do, too, because I don't want your talk of airbending to keep me up all night."


The next morning Toph woke up Aang bright and early, dragging him by the hair to the emptiest stretch of land they could find. He resisted the start of his earthbending training only slightly because he wanted to relish in one of his rare moments of dreamless sleep, but she told him that she would not tolerate laziness, and it would be wise not to cross her. He knew that well.

Teo had come to watch, though Zuko and Azula were off doing other things (Aang hoped that Azula would get started on training Zuko in firebending). Aang listened intently as Toph showed him the forms and told Aang to mimic her. Even Teo joined in, if only for fun. Toph didn't mind the attention, mostly because her additional student seemed more willing to learn than her original one. Aang found himself goofing off like he used to, having fun with Toph genuinely because he wanted to. He felt more open now that she knew his secrets.

Memories rushed back to him as she taught him the steadiness of an earthbender. They had to be solid, unbendable, unbelievably stubborn and unwilling to move or back down. It was so at odds with what both Aang and Teo learned about the idea of airbending, but Aang caught on more quickly than last time. As his mind did when he had learned firebending, something seemed to click. Teo was under the impression that he was a prodigy.

Far from it, he thought. At least, he didn't feel like one anymore.

Back in his world, Aang attempted to learn every style of bending he could manage. With his friends and masters, he learned how to bend the four elements with the greatest expertise, each of them individually dwarfing the power of all other living benders - except, perhaps, Ozai and Azula, the ones who mattered most. They were stronger than the older, more experienced masters simply because there were none of those left. He supposed that arrogance might have been the undoing of him and his friends.

With Katara, he journeyed into the realm of bloodbending, facing their fears with each other and skirting with the dark art, but he learned he had as much of a heart for it as she did, and both of them vowed to use it only in the most dire of circumstances without truly pushing themselves to the limit. After they decided that, they practiced the other gifts Katara received from Hama instead, bending the water in the trees and the plants, even mimicking what they witnessed Huu doing and bending the plants themselves. They practiced Northern Style and Southern Style, refining their techniques. Returning to the North Pole, Aang even learned how to heal, and Katara mastered it to the point of surpassing the healer Yugoda.

With Toph, Aang began to learn the basics of metalbending, a skill that he had an immense amount of trouble with in the beginning and never fully got the hang of it. But as he became more in tune with the earth, and the impure metal, he got by enough to manage. When he tried his hand at sandbending, it was much easier than he realized - being more similar to airbending or waterbending, he grasped it easily. After they found that they could learn nothing more from Toph's own unique style, they decided to learn the more commonplace ones - 'Hard' Style, which the majority of the earthbenders in the world practiced, and 'Soft' Style, a rarer but no less useful form. Surprisingly, Haru was the one to teach Aang and Toph both styles. Toph made a surprisingly willing student.

With Zuko, Aang learned how to redirect lightning, and later, generate it himself. Zuko was able to do it for the first time after he had joined them and passed the skill onto the Avatar. But those skills brought back memories that they both preferred to keep buried, and beyond mastering the style of the Sun Warriors they did not dig deep into the secrets of firebending. Thinking back, Aang wondered if Zuko would be more suited to bending white fire.

As he trained, Aang realized he should have learned more than just bending in order to use every skill available to him. Why hadn't he thought to ask Sokka to train him in swordsmanship? Why not learn martial arts from Suki when she was still alive? Eventually, she taught Sokka hand-to-hand combat, which he used to great effect against Ty Lee, but as the Avatar, Aang never once looked past the apparent superiority of bending. He was glad he took on the sword in this world.

But now, he had to start all over again with the basics.

The spirits were so unfair to him.


"Zuko, Azula, take a break!" Aang called to his friends, as Azula continued to hurl fireballs in Zuko's direction. Azula labeled this as a demonstration of a firebender's oppressive attacks, but she was simply having fun with Zuko as he dodged around everything she threw. Aang, Toph, and Teo waited at the steps in front of the lighthouse for the Astronomer to emerge with news of the eclipse. He flew up there on his glider at one point to see how her progress was coming along, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of her calculations.

"I'm surprised that you're even taking a break," Zuko gasped as he ran by. "Didn't you used to be obsessed with training?"

Aang frowned. "I'm not obsessed!" Though even Toph looked at him, catching him in his lie. "Honestly, I'm surprised that Toph is even letting me take a break."

"Why bother with the constant training? You catch on pretty quick, and you said you've already learned it all before," Toph said, picking at the grime between her toes.

At Teo's inquisitive look, Aang clarified quickly. "Yeah, with my past lives and everything. But still, I don't remember what my past lives learned," he said, stressing his words and adding in a wink for good measure, which he realized the fruitlessness of a second later.

She shrugged in response. "Whatever."

Behind them, the lighthouse doors opened and the Astronomer emerged into the sunlight. She regarded them all with a gentle smile, though Aang didn't miss the bangs under her eyes. "I have determined the date!" she announced.

Aang jumped to his feet and Zuko and Azula stopped their firebending. "When is it?" Aang asked, his voice in a rush.

"Exactly one year from now!" she determined, her wide eyes almost bulging with triumph.

Aang staggered. "That's not possible! They have to happen more often than that! Don't they?"

"Not always," she pointed out, jabbing a long, bony finger at him.

"That's the soonest one?" Zuko moaned.

The Astronomer put a finger to her nose. "Oh, you wanted to know the soonest one?"

Aang's head fell in exasperation.

"Yes, now get on with it," Azula snapped. "Don't tell me we wasted our time."

The Astronomer poked her nose into her notes again but looked up only a moment later. "Aha! The next lunar eclipse is just a few weeks before the arrival of Seiryu's Moon!"

Aang sagged with relief, hoping that, somehow, they might be able to succeed with a battle plan this time. "Are you sure?" he asked her.

She lifted her index finger and smiled. "As sure as stars."

Her phrase triggered a distant memory at the back of his mind. "Huh? What does that mean?"

"Just a little saying I have," she replied, rolling her wide sleeves up to her elbows to gesture at the sky. "Over many centuries, the stars always been there. Unchanging, always watching us. No matter what happens and how much things change upon the surface of the earth, they've always been the same. We can always be certain that their light will be there."

After the Day of Black Sun, he recalled how Teo used to say that often. Now he understood why. "I see."

"So now what?" Zuko asked. "We know that it is happening, but what will we do?"

"We have to let the Earth King know, of course. Though, Kanna did say he stepped down from power, so it might be difficult to find him," Azula said, crossing her arms. "We should also let Father know," she added to her brother. Zuko nodded.

"Kanna told us to meet her and Piandao at Ba Sing Se," Aang said to them all. "We need to go there, as much as I don't want to. They said they have contacts, so hopefully it'll be safe."

"How much safer can you get inside Ba Sing Se?" Teo wondered. Aang gave him an uneasy look, but he realized he never went into detail about the political disaster that was the Impenetrable City with the rest of his friends, least of all Teo.

Azula chopped her hand into her palm. "All right, then. We just need to pass the information along and then we can sort out what to do next." She faced Aang. "What do you think, Twinkletoes?"

Aang raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her. "Uh, it sounds weird when you call me Twinkletoes. You probably shouldn't."

Azula looked over at Toph in disgust, who picked her nose. "What? So this nosepicker can call you whatever she wants and I can't?"

Toph flicked her booger off the end of her finger. "Listen, I don't know what the deal is with your superiority complex but it's really starting to get on my nerves."

Azula scoffed. "You think I have a superiority complex? If I have to hear that you're the 'greatest earthbender in the world' one more time, I'm going to have to prove that I'm the greatest firebender."

"You wish, Spicequeen," Toph said, squaring her shoulders and clenching her fists. "That sounds like a challenge to me."

Aang secretly thought that both of them had a bit of a superiority complex but thought it wise not to voice that out loud. "Uh, can we not fight?"

Azula looked down at her from an upturned nose. "I don't need to fight you to prove anything. I'll make you fear me to get my point across."

Toph craned her neck to the side and used one hand to cup around her ear. "What's that? Are you saying that you're too scared to fight me?"

Azula's nostrils flared. "That is not what I said and you know it, you uncultured boarqupine!"

"Uh, do you guys feel that?" Teo asked, spreading his stance to keep his balance. "The ground is shaking."

"Toph does that when she's mad," Aang whispered to him.

"No, it's not me," Toph said.

Aang stood protectively in front of the Astronomer and Teo just in time for a massive shape to erupt from the earth, a beast covered in fur with sharp claws that Aang identified as a badgermole. It showered them in rocks and dust and Azula went on the offensive with a barrage of blue flames that washed off of its hide to no effect. Aang tried blasting it with wind and Zuko unsheathed his swords, but his blades may as well have been chopsticks for all the good they did.

"What is it?" Toph cried out, the only one among them drawing back. "It sounds like a badgermole but it feels all funny!"

"Music!" Zuko shouted. "We need music!" When he turned his back to head toward their luggage, the badgermole swept him up in its claws and turned to flee. Appa roared and lunged forward at it, pursuing the beast from the air while Zuko called out to them in alarm.

Not pausing to wonder why a badgermole would bother to kidnap Zuko, Aang unfurled his glider and followed after Appa and the creature, Sabi gliding alongside them both. The badgermole descended into the gorge further inland, where Aang spotted a cave mouth heading deep into the mountains toward the desert. As the badgermole reached the splotch of black shadow, Aang put on a burst of speed and reached out for Zuko just in time for both him and the badgermole to vanish. Aang changed his direction and flew upward, flying around in a loop to land on Appa's back while he stared at the cave mouth with fists clenched over his staff.

Somehow, despite being far from any solstice or equinox, a spirit had crossed over and dragged Zuko into the Spirit World.


Author's Notes: Hopefully the length makes up for the long update gap. I have to apologize again for that - senior year is full of more homework than I imagined. And then there's the college search... Blah, blah...

I hope you all liked this chapter. Most of you thought they'd be going to the library. Not what you expected, is it? :)

(Edit Oct 18, 2020): You know, I wrote this long before LoK aired. Teo is basically what I headcanon pre-airbending Zaheer to be like, in terms of fighting like an airbender and doing the martial arts without any bending ability.

Please review!