Author's Note: I made edits to "The Blue Spirit." Check that chapter out for details! Anyway, if this was a show, I'd probably imagine this as a two parter with the previous chapter. Maybe called "Legacy of the Air Nomads," or something.

Book 3: Water

Chapter 4: The Girl in the Iceberg

In hindsight, Aang realized he probably should have paid his respects to Gyatso in his final resting place before he left the Southern Air Temple. But he realized, belatedly, that he'd just been running away from having to see the corpse again, from that dark moment when he discovered a truth that he thought he had made peace with long ago. But now it was too late, and the skeleton slumbered among its enemies deep in the mountains, perhaps never to be discovered again.

Instead, he busied himself with reading the parts of Gyatso's memoirs that Sokka had brought with him while they made the short journey to Peach Petal Island. In them, he found nothing of objective value, really - but it brought him comfort all the same. Amidst his worries for the war on the horizon, Gyatso often mused about Aang in the Western Air Temple, wondered how he was doing, if he kept up with his meditations and made sure to make time for fun. He wrote about Pai Sho gambits and fruit pies he'd made, lessons with the other children, observations about the writings of long-dead monks or gurus or Avatars.

He wrote of Avatar Kuruk, who trained with him in boyhood at the Southern Air Temple. In Kuruk he found someone who dredged up all the trappings of a materialistic lifestyle in Gyatso, whose pranks induced a sense of rivalry unbecoming of a monk in training which eventually got them both in so much trouble that a friendship had blossomed out of it. Even before learning Aang's identity as the Avatar, Gyatso had drawn a comparison between Aang and his past life and hadn't been surprised at all when they discovered the truth.

But one passage stuck out to him the most, one of the last entries: I know you'll likely never see this, Aang, but wherever you go, never forget the wind at your back - the hopes and dreams and legacies of all your people. For you may be the Avatar, but you will carry the light and fun of an airbender in your heart, forever and always.

The pages rustled in the wind as he let go of them with one hand to wipe at his eyes. If only Gyatso knew… But maybe it was better that he didn't.

"There it is, down there," Sokka said, pointing down over the saddle. "Peach Petal Island."

Like Sokka said, the island had nothing on the outside to indicate its name. It had almost no greenery whatsoever aside from the pines clinging to its jagged peaks, slate grey and foreboding. Dodopuffins nested precariously at the tops of the cliffs while people bent over the tidepools far below, picking for clams through the surf and the shallow waters. In a cloud to match the grey skies, Appa descended on the side of the small island furthest from the mining village. Technically once part of Air Nomad territory, Aang supposed he might have been here before, but it certainly had a different name back then.

"I don't envy those people," Zuko said, staring at the distant villagers kneeling in the water on the rocky beaches. "Clamming and shucking in water that's close to freezing must be miserable…"

"We're not here to sympathize with the Water Tribe villagers, Zuzu," said Azula, dismounting. Aang watched her study their surroundings and judge the area for its safety. They'd landed on the beach behind an outcropping of rock stained with bird droppings, so the only way they would be seen was from above and people hopefully didn't have reason to come out this way.

"No, we're here on the Avatar's suicide mission to rescue a dead airbender," said Katara, leaning back to get comfortable on Appa's saddle since they didn't plan to bring her with them.

Aang's shoulders fell.

Azula exchanged a glance with Aang and rolled her eyes. "Katara, go shuck some clams."


Nagi found the Spirit World to be terrifying and wonderful in equal measure. The landscape shifted the way dunes did when carried away by desert winds: one grain at a time, lifting away their surroundings like a mirage to reveal a new reality beneath. The open steppe made way for frigid snowfields which faded into a mountain peak which transformed into a forest glen. Each time it happened they faced new perils, whether it be sudden drops into deep ravines appearing in front of them or an angered spirit or just extreme cold or heat.

But Nagi thought it was beautiful. Splashes of color more vivid than she had ever seen accompanied each change. Grass was greener and flowers bloomed in colors Nagi couldn't even describe, but the poet in her wanted to say they'd been grown from jade or quartz or starlight seeds. Some trees lifted themselves up on their roots, scuttling around as if they had feet when the humans came too near. One scarlet and white mushroom sang to them as they passed and Yue's musical laugh made more echo through the forest in response. More than once, Nagi wondered if she had accidentally drank cactus juice and forgot she did so.

"Is the Spirit World supposed to be like this?" Nagi asked, staring up into the sky when it seemed like a sunset had begun but a streak of night cut through it like a stripe, making it red and orange and pink around a gap of black and purple. "Changing and shifting so much?"

"I don't believe so," said Yue, her brow creased in worry. "The Spirit World feels as if it is in turmoil."

"That's 'cause it is," said the Spirit-Toph, drifting above them as their lookout. Which made Nagi wonder as well, because she had been under the impression that the other earthbender was blind in the real world and could never act as their lookout. Not to mention that she looked more like an older sister to her physical faceless form rather than her spirit expelled from her body. But she supposed it was hard to tell for sure, since the physical body had no face to compare it to. Her body trailed behind them as if lethargic, silent except for its earthbending, communicating in simple (sometimes rude) gestures. She had no idea how her body had any autonomy of its own while her spirit had been separated from it.

Yue brought both hands clasped together to her chest. "What happened that it got like this?"

"Beats me," said Spirit-Toph, drifting further away from them. As one of the Dai Li, Nagi had been trained in interrogations and reading body language in people and part of her suspected that Toph had just hidden something from them. "I'm no expert."

Nagi normally would have reacted in anger at the question but for some reason she couldn't with Yue. Despite being her enemy, the Water Tribe girl was never less than polite and courteous, with wide blue eyes full of concern for both of her enemies whenever they encountered danger. "I would think," she said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice, "that it has something to do with the Water Tribes' invasions on the rest of the world."

"But we had the blessings of the spirits from the beginning of the war," Yue said, frowning. "Seiryu's Moon shows that. And even if that isn't true, human affairs shouldn't affect the Spirit World to this extent."

Nagi brushed her hand down the bark of one of the more stationary trees. It smelled strongly of honeysuckle. "This might sound silly, but what if we just asked a spirit? And maybe we could get directions for how to get out of here."

They found a spirit that looked like a head of cabbage but it rolled away from them in high-pitched squeaking noises when they approached. Another one, a monkey-like creature with orchids for hands and a proboscis for grasping things hurled nuts at Yue and yowled at them until they ran away. Every spirit they sought seemed to revile them, fear them, or completely disregarded them when they tried to speak. Some spoke curses. One transformed into a fearsome beast when they tried to ask for aid and Toph's display of earthbending managed to scare it away.

As they journeyed through shifting environments, Nagi gathered resources so she could prepare for dealing with fatigue and hunger. She foraged plants and nuts that seemed edible even though they were foreign to her, but she felt reasonably certain she could detect anything that might be poisonous (or even venomous; she had no way of knowing if plants here could bite back or not). And she certainly didn't dare to hunt for any meat in this world. She managed to find a bed of moss and some soft, fluffy material that made her think of clouds that she thought Yue might like to sleep on (since she and Toph were earthbenders and would have no compunctions about sleeping on the bare earth), so she curled it up and carried it with a strap made from tied vines. She wondered, briefly, if they would feel a need for sleep or hunger in the Spirit World but then reasoned that they had their bodies so they would likely need it. Except, perhaps, Toph. But fear and adrenaline had pushed them forward so far.

They found a black panther with five eyes lapping water from an expansive riverland and Yue approached it without hesitation. "Great hunter spirit," she beseeched. "Please, we are lost and in need of help."

It turned to regard her and spoke in a deep voice without moving its mouth. "You will not find it here, human. You are tainted and your companion has been marked. The Face Stealer always returns for his prey."

Nagi felt cold ripple up and down her arms. "We are trying to flee from him," she said. "Or even claim our companion's face back."

"The brand of Night will not protect you," it said, and pointed its nose toward the horizon and the sprawling rivers that intersected with each other at hundreds of junctures. It sniffed the air and bounded away toward a forest that covered the sky, as if the ground had been bent and curved to rest above them. Looking up at it made Nagi feel dizzy and glad that her feet were rooted to the ground beneath her.

"Wait, I don't have time for any of that ominous mumbo-jumbo!" Spirit-Toph called. "Lemme know how to beat up Koh!"

Nagi turned to Yue and saw the way her shoulders hunched together, shaken by the panther's words. "Yue, what's wrong?"

"Tainted," she said, staring at something distant. "That spirit called me tainted. By the brand of Night."

"What does that mean?"

Toph stomped her feet to get their attention and Nagi turned back to see her pointing without looking at something to her left. A figure emerged from the river - a woman with a wide-brimmed hat under a veil that gave her an ethereal quality, shimmering and blurring at the edges like a painting splotched with water droplets. A black and white light coalesced next to her and took the form of a panda that trudged toward them alongside the woman. Nagi tensed and prepared to earthbend if she needed to, but the bear walked with a gentle gait and the woman floated toward them with her dress rippling as if she had been made of water. A bamboo forest sprouted in the wake of the bear spirit's footsteps. Neither of them felt like a threat.

"Friends of the Avatar," the woman said. Nagi did not feel the need to reveal that she had never met the Avatar, and that Yue had been his enemy. "Our kind have not all forsaken you yet. I am known as the Painted Lady, and this is Hei Bai, the forest spirit." Even her voice had a ringing to it that echoed and sounded as if she spoke to them from underwater.

"Oh, how about that," said Spirit-Toph, crossing her arms and grinning. "I remember you, lady." Nagi had been about to scold her for addressing such a noble and beautiful spirit that way, but Toph's faceless body sat on the ground at Nagi's feet without a care in the world and the words died in her throat. She tried her hardest not to be afraid of the faceless girl, but even the spirits wanted to avoid her and she couldn't deny that looking at Toph made her feel unnerved.

Yue let out the kind of awestruck gasp that Nagi had whenever she discovered an ancient piece of history. "A legendary river spirit and forest spirit… We are most honored to meet you. If you could help us, we just have two questions: how can we get our friend her face back, and how can we get back home?"

"We do not have the answers you seek," said the Painted Lady, her voice dropping in disappointment. "But Hei Bai and I can guide you to one who does - an elder spirit who knows the ways of both worlds and regularly crossed to the mortal plane since ancient times."


Azula sat with Sokka in their camp as they went over everything they knew about Peach Petal Island and worked out a plan to infiltrate the salt mines. While Zuko snuck ahead into town for reconnaissance and Aang kept an eye on Katara, the two of them hunched over a diagram of town that Sokka had drawn up as the plan came together. She didn't like working so closely with him, but if Aang was so determined to do this she wanted to make sure he did it right.

"These salt mines attract people from all over," Sokka said, positioning rocks to use as aids for his diagram. "So we won't stick out too much wandering around down there. I don't think we can get a map of the mines themselves but there's one main entrance right in town and we should be able to walk right in with a group."

"I say we go in at night when there are fewer people who could get in our way."

"No way, that's way more suspicious."

Azula crossed her legs. "And thawing out an airbender who's been frozen down there for a hundred years isn't suspicious in the least?"

"Well, once we do that all bets are off and we're gonna make a run for it," Sokka said, maneuvering the piece that presumably represented Sangmu. He'd drawn an arrow on it that looked vaguely like an airbender tattoo. "Which means you'll have to be ready with Appa to go the moment we come out from the mines."

She picked up one of the other stones despite his shout of protest and rolled it over in her palm. "Me? What about you? Why do I need to stay up here babysitting your sister?"

Sokka frowned at her. "The Avatar and I are the waterbenders so we'll need to do the thawing. And since we can't count on Katara coming anywhere near town I'll have to be on hand to heal the airbender since I can't imagine being frozen for a hundred years is good for your health. And Zuko's the best at sneaking around, so he has to come, too, and he can't keep an eye on my sister by himself anyway."

Azula dropped the stone and let it roll over his diagram. Just another part of this mission that she didn't like, but they couldn't afford to let Katara get anywhere near her own tribesmen in case she used the opportunity to escape or gather warriors to turn against them. After weighing his logic, she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "I didn't know you could heal."

He shrugged. "Barely. Hopefully it'll be enough to get the airbender back to Appa so Katara could do the rest. If she will. She says she wants to help us, so…"

"I expected you to think healing was beneath you," Azula said, staring at him out of the corner of her eye.

Sokka put his club in the sheath at his belt and stretched his legs. "Yeah, well, the women were always better at it. But I also didn't want to rely on my Gran all the time if I got hurt, so I taught myself."

"I'd prefer it if you just left the healing to your sister, if you don't mind," she said. "We can't let a shoddy healing job interfere with our objective. So I'll go with Aang because our firebending will thaw her out faster."

At that, Sokka just gave her a devious grin - smug, like he'd been proven right about something. A look that she did not like at all on him. "You just want to spend more time with your lover-boy, don't you? I knew it."

Her shoulders tightened. She saw blue, a cold-blooded fire that tore through her veins and made her feel ill. Aang had told Sokka of her confession. Perhaps the two had laughed about it together in their waterbending lessons, ridiculing her in private. The more rational part inside told her that Sokka and Katara had both probably heard her say she loved Aang right before Katara used bloodbending to make her almost kill Aang. But the other part, the darker and the wilder and the madder part, insisted that Aang must have schemed with Sokka even before that. The moment she told Aang how she felt at the Grand Secretariat's banquet he had gone behind her back to seek out Sokka. It all made so much sense. That voice spoke louder.

They'd been conspiring against her. All of them, even Zuzu. Especially Zuzu. Manipulating her and her feelings in order to dispose of her. She bared everything to Aang and he turned around and struck while she'd been vulnerable, while she'd been weak and foolish...

"Aw, I think you hurt his feelings." Katara's voice yanked Azula out of her reverie, out of her vision of a blue dragon coiling around her body. Powerful and seductive and speaking with her own voice.

Her gaze darted all around camp, from Appa to the lemurs, the beads hanging from her hair bun clicking together as she moved. The cold sea breeze, harsh enough to stifle their pitiful campfire, roused her back to reality. Aang, Zuko, and Sokka had all gone. "What do you mean?" she asked Katara, trying to keep her voice level.

The saddle had been taken from Appa's back and placed on the ground with the waterbender still chained to it. "Ouch, you didn't even realize?" She chuckled. "The Avatar tried to give you a heartfelt goodbye after your chat with my brother but you totally just blew him off."

She squeezed the furry hem of her parka. Her head spun with the implications of Katara's words, if they were even true. Had Princess Azula - or Fire Lord Azula, rather - somehow pulled her into her own mind, a trap to momentarily take control of her body? Or, even more frightening, just cause gaps in her memory and manipulate her own mind against her? Part of her leaned toward the latter, since if it was the former then the other Azula might have done a lot worse to Aang than just say something rude. It had felt like only a moment to her, but enough time had passed for her and Sokka to finish their conversation and for Zuko and Aang to go over the plan and say their goodbyes.

Azula sat down at the base of the outcropping of rock, blocking most of the wind, and closed her eyes in an attempt to meditate and steady her breathing, like Master Jeong Jeong had insisted she do more. But every time she closed her eyes she saw that blue dragon again, so she stood and walked around the perimeter of camp instead as if to patrol. Katara noticed her restlessness, however, and curled her arms around her knees.

"Why do you travel with the Avatar, anyway?" she asked. "You're so different from the rest of his little gang."

She didn't look at Katara. "It's the right thing to do. I'm fighting to end this war." Even as she said it, she felt the weight of her lie, knew that Katara would scoff and try to use it against her. Knew she'd look down on Azula for stating such a basic reason to fight.

Katara actually laughed out loud at that. The blue dragon laughed with her. "Really? You are someone who cares about 'the right thing to do'? Please, I'd believe that of anyone else in this group except for you. Come on, Azula. You're so much smarter than that. Better than that."

Azula stepped one foot into the saddle. "Of course I'm smarter and better. What do you want to hear, then? That it's revenge for what your nation did to my mother?"

Katara rocked back and forth, smirking. "I think we're getting a little closer. For a while, I thought it had to do with your feelings for the Avatar," she said. Azula felt the blue flare up in her again. "Y'know, after your big, heartfelt, dramatic declaration to him back underneath Ba Sing Se. But now that you're supporting him in getting this old dead airbender girl back, I'm not so sure."

"You think I'm going to fall for a petty jealousy ploy?" Azula scowled. "You insult me. Sangmu is of no concern to me." And why would she be, if Aang never knew her? He said it himself - she belonged to the other Aang's memories.

"Oh, no, don't get me wrong," said Katara. "I'm not trying to manipulate you into something so vapid as that."

"So you are trying to manipulate me. As I said at the temple, you're terrible at it."

Katara pulled her chains tight and let out a frustrated noise. "No, I'm trying to get you to see the truth! To admit to yourself your real reason for fighting!" She clenched her fists and leaned forward on her knees. "I can see it, so why can't you?" It was, perhaps, the most impassioned thing she had ever said to Azula.

Azula lurched forward and clenched at Katara's throat, pinning her against the saddle. Her fingers burned against her flesh, causing Katara to cringe. The movement roused Appa and sent the lemurs scattering all around camp. But when Azula spoke, it came out cold, her anger like folded steel. "You want the truth? You want to hear how much I hate the Water Tribes?"

Despite Azula's advantage over her, the fingers at her throat, Katara grinned. "Now I think we're getting a little closer to the crux of the issue."


"Walk tall, boys," said Sokka, leading the way into the mining village. "Water Tribe men don't slouch and look sneaky. We're proud warriors."

Zuko gave him a grunt of annoyance as they entered the village, careful to come from the south side so they'd look as if they came from the port. Aang tugged his hat lower over his head to make sure he kept his tattoos hidden, but straightened his back at Sokka's words. His eyes passed over the wooden pillars framing the entrance to town, which had been carved with fish and seals in the style of the ice pillars he once saw in Chief Arnook's palace. Made up mostly of wooden huts and longhouses with barren vegetation, the village would have looked fairly bleak if not for the numerous market stalls set up along the main thoroughfare, lively and bursting with color and people.

Vendors sold all sorts of products made from the pink salt crystals the island was famous for. He saw jars full of it for cooking and preserving food, hollowed out lamps with candles inside, decorative statues, jewelry, and even furnishings. All of it pink. Aang had the stray thought that Ty Lee would have loved to come here. One popular item, it seemed, was a crystal carved into the shape of a peach or peach blossoms - as if taunting anyone lured to Peach Petal Island by the implication of fair weather and rich farmland. The Air Nomads certainly never knew of this place despite the fact that it was in their old territory, having no business with anything deep underground.

Next to Aang, Zuko lifted a bracelet made from pink crystals and examined it closely, but Sokka appeared between them and put his arms around both of their shoulders. "Look at us, just three guys on a trip with no girls! It's nice, huh?" He peered at the bracelet in Zuko's hands. "Oh, is that for your dreary girlfriend who sighs a lot?"

"Uh, no, she hates pink," he said, shrugging Sokka's arm away. "I was just looking. And, uh, I'm gonna go look over there now." He sidled away from them, further down to a stall selling dried meats.

"Just trying to sell the image of us sightseeing," Sokka whispered to Aang through the corner of his mouth.

"Sure," Aang said, though he wasn't sure if Sokka's antics would just draw more attention to them. "When can we go into the mines?"

"There are some people making their way down there now," Sokka said. "We'll just melt into the crowd." As he started walking, he dug his hands into the pockets of his parka. "I'm surprised you didn't get anything for Azula."

"I told you, we're just friends."

"Oh, I dunno about that," he said. "I figured out earlier that she totally has a thing for you. I'm an expert at this."

Aang scoffed. If not for his single eye, he could have mistaken this Sokka for his own. "I already knew that. It's something we need to talk about," he admitted. "But I don't know what to say. It's complicated, not least because of where I'm from."

"That again," Sokka said, stopping at another stall with charred meat skewers. He purchased one and turned back to Aang. His face darkened.

"So you really don't believe me?" Aang asked, frowning.

"There are a lot of things I don't know," Sokka said, after taking a bite and mulling over his words. "I guess it's possible. But I don't want to believe it, y'know?"

Aang sighed. "Yeah, I get it. Sometimes I don't want to believe it either. So many horrible things happened." That was an understatement, for sure.

Sokka revolved the skewer between his hands, fixated on it. "But do you know what the worst part is? Despite all that awful stuff there, all the death and destruction and loss, that version of me has a much better relationship with my family. It's... not fair." He let out a breath and his shoulders sagged and he gestured to his missing eye. "Makes me wonder. Is my dad someone who's pretty much a big jerk at his core, only caring about us because he had to fight for something important and ended up with nothing? Or is there really good in him, and having everything just made him who he is here?"

"I don't have the answer to that," Aang said. He'd often wondered the same thing himself, about everyone in his life. Was it their surroundings that made them who they are, or was it ordained from birth, a destiny inscribed in stone? "But I can say that the Hakoda I know isn't a big jerk by any means. And I also know that I never told you anything about your father in that world. You drew that conclusion for yourself. Or maybe the other you gave you those memories." He grinned so wide it was almost cheeky.

Sokka finished eating and tossed the wooden skewer over his shoulder, fighting to keep his scowl from turning into a smile. "Whatever. Maybe it's denial. But I'm not quite ready to believe your story yet."

"That's okay," said Aang. "Take all the time you need." Before they melted into the group descending into the mines, he spotted a pink crystal pendant carved into the shape of a plum blossom and was overcome with the urge to buy it.


The black and white bear led the way at a placid pace, the world shifting around him as he walked. No matter where they went, a bamboo forest sprouted on either side of them and Nagi had the impression that it was meant to protect them from the spirits who meant them harm. Through the bamboo and the leaves she spotted wretched things; tiny spirits with spindly limbs and pointed claws, spirits that looked like bloated, floating heads with flapping ears and too many teeth, spirits made of hair and eyes that watched her wherever she looked. Where spirits laughed, the Painted Lady sang, and they felt at peace.

Only Toph trailed behind, and more than once Nagi worried that they would lose her. She kept a slower pace than the rest of them, somehow, even though Nagi felt that they didn't move particularly fast. She had no idea how far they had traveled, either, or how one measured distance in the Spirit World. But whenever Toph faltered, Spirit-Toph always pushed her forward. The spirits lingering in their wake did not carry the fear of the Face Stealer as many others did, it seemed, and more than once they tried to grasp through the bamboo barrier for Toph.

"I would like to rest now, o great forest spirit," said Yue suddenly, and at once the world stopped moving around them. A clearing had materialized from the haze with a pool that looked so dark it might have been full of ink, and even the colors of the land and the trees bled together like a painting. A blue moon lingered in the sky above them, bright like Yue's eyes.

"Are we safe here?" Nagi asked the Painted Lady, who only nodded. Nonetheless, her habits dictated that she check the clearing for any dangers. Spirit-Toph stood protectively at the edge of the clearing while her faceless body sat down in the middle and didn't move any further, staring blankly into space. When Nagi deemed it free of any dangerous spirits, she approached Yue at the edge of the pool. "Are you unwell?"

"I feel faint," she admitted, and in the soft blue light her eyes looked even more vivid than normal.

"If I could, I would brew you a tea made from a flowering cactus near my home," Nagi said. She removed the sling of moss and cloud fibers from her back, unrolling it for Yue. "It is most invigorating. But, unfortunately, this will have to do."

Yue wove her only black streak of hair back into the white and looked up at Nagi with hesitation. The contrast of her white hair with the black stripe reminded Nagi of the Spirit World sunset she saw earlier. "That is too kind of you. But why?"

"Toph and I are earthbenders," Nagi said. She too wondered why, if she had to be honest, but it seemed like the right thing to do - a peace offering to ensure they could all work together through this ordeal. "We prefer to rest on the bare earth. Think nothing of it."

She looked back toward the pool. "Even though I am your enemy?"

"You are a gentle soul, Yue," Nagi said, folding her hands behind her back. "Hard to dislike. And besides, it would be hypocritical of me to judge someone based on their cultural background. In Ba Sing Se, I was often judged for being a member of the sandbender tribes." Thinking of Ba Sing Se made her think of Wan Shi Tong and Koh the Face Stealer again, and that led to cyclical thoughts about the fate of her brother that she didn't want to dwell on right now. She knew nothing of what happened to him or the city at all, if the Avatar and his friends failed or not.

Yue smiled at her. "Thank you, then," she said. "Why don't you take the time to rest?"

"I thought you meant to," said Nagi. With Toph as listless as ever, she didn't want to be the only one sleeping. "I'm used to long shifts with no sleep. Didn't you feel faint?"

"I do, but it's more like I'm full of so much energy and it makes me dizzy," she said. "I think… it has to do with being here, in the Spirit World."

Nagi looked around them, at the flowering willow trees that made up the edges of their grove. She wasn't sure that they were there before. "Does it have to do with the brand that panther spirit mentioned?"

"I believe so," Yue said quietly, rubbing her arms. "As a baby, I was very weak. Most babies cry when they are born, but I didn't make a sound. My mother and father took me to all the city's healers and shamans but none could discover what was wrong with me." She paused and put a hand over her heart. "They say… they say I died, and they put me in the waters of our Spirit Oasis, which is a sacred place. It's where the moon and ocean spirits used to dwell in their mortal forms, but they had forsaken my tribe over a hundred years ago."

"With the beginning of the war?" Nagi questioned. "But I thought you said the spirits condoned the war."

"Only Seiryu, the spirit of the cold moon, rode with us to battle," Yue answered, casting her eyes low. "When my father prayed to him, he did not answer. The moon and ocean did not answer. But another heard his call instead - the Nightseer."

Nagi felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "The Nightseer?" She'd never heard of a spirit of the night, but even mentioning it made the sky seem darker.

"As you can probably tell, she is the manifestation of nighttime, but if she has a true name we do not invoke it," Yue said. She turned away from Nagi and unwrapped her robes, baring her back to Nagi. In the light of the blue moon, she saw a stylized raven symbol with wings unfurled in flight, its beak outstretched toward her right shoulder. "When my parents put me in the pool, my father forged a pact with her to save my life, and since then she has given my tribe her protection in place of the moon and ocean. My hair turned mostly white and I started crying, and from then on I've been okay. Except for the new moon, when the sky is at its darkest and the raven takes flight."

Nagi frowned. She wondered what happened during the new moon, but she did not want to press Yue any further and certainly didn't want to stare. "I take it she is not a popular spirit here."

Yue shrugged her robes back on to cover the tattoo. "I do not know. But either way, I am grateful to her."

"Well, at any rate, you should try to get some rest," said Nagi. "I think our spirit friends will stay on guard for us."

"I worry for Toph," she whispered. "I don't think she can rest. Her spirit is separate from her, but I think we're missing something important. Something we don't know about her predicament."

Nagi followed her gaze. The other earthbender hadn't moved, and though she sat upright her chest did not rise or fall with her breathing. Even the Painted Lady and Hei Bai kept their distance from her, as if fearful of her wrongness. She could only hope that wherever the two spirits led them, they'd have answers.


Aang, Sokka, and Zuko descended into the mines with five other people and one elderly guide who said he used to be one of the miners. Even wrapped in his parka, the old man was bone thin, and with his advanced age and poor vision Aang thought it was a wonder that he managed to lead a guided tour of its depths every day. Aang did wish that more people joined them so it would be easier to slip away when they needed to - the only person who stuck out as much as them was a young Earth Kingdom man who seemed particularly excited about the pink salt crystals and had already decked himself out in all kinds of jewelry.

"Beware," said the guide, his hand sweeping across the pink crystal he presented to them. One eye looked bigger than the other. "The salt here is known for its powers of purification - for unearthing the shames buried deep within us all and cleansing them like an ocean wave."

Aang, Sokka, and Zuko exchanged a glance with each other and then quickly averted their gazes. Sokka even whistled.

They first entered a cave mouth, but after a short tunnel they arrived at a wooden lift that operated using a pulley system. They descended to the lower levels with a pair of miners - two burly men with clubs and picks on their backs - and as the air got colder and drier the grey slate around them changed to a pale pink and then a moment later everything was covered in vibrantly colored salt crystals that did, in fact, bring the skin of peaches to mind.

At first, it looked like pink, untrodden snow. The ground and cavern walls had been smoothed so that they resembled pink ice, slick where it had been touched and worn down over the years while the ceiling had ridges instead. Sometimes it formed ring patterns like the inside of a tree. Aang saw sculptures where it seemed as if in ancient times the salt had bubbled from the earth and frozen in the shape of a fountain or a snow-covered tree. The miners had carved much of it into steps and ladders, blocks for climbing and angular walkways to help them dig deeper or reach high places. One chamber felt like an expansive ballroom, bigger even than the ones in Ba Sing Se, with wooden scaffolding in the highest reaches where men worked, covered in salt dust.

In some places, even the flames that served as their light source burned magenta when the guide hurled handfuls of salt crystals into the fire. Otherwise, many of them had been covered like the salt lamps being sold above, casting a dull glow through the caverns in all different shades of fuschia, lavender, carnation, and more that he had no name for. In a way, Aang found it all to be beautiful.

But no airbender deserved a resting place underground like this, no matter how it looked.

He hadn't realized he'd been clutching the crystal pendant he had bought in the village, but Zuko tilted his head toward Aang as they followed the guide and listened to his explanations of how the salt formed. "Is that for who I think it is?" Zuko asked him.

Aang felt his stomach flip. He wasn't sure what Zuko would think of him buying a gift like this for Azula. "I guess so," he said, watching Sokka out of the corner of his eye wander toward the outskirts of the group. They had decided before entering that it would be best to stay separate, just in case anyone started to suspect anything. "It's… pretty much a peace offering." A trifle. Even he knew it wouldn't make up for his long silences regarding Princess Azula, or going behind her back in his planning with Sokka regarding Katara. But he hoped she would like it regardless.

Zuko gave him a sympathetic smile. "Do you really think it'll work?" he asked. "That you'll get through to her?"

"I hope so. Things have been a little… difficult lately," Aang admitted, shoulders dropping. "I don't know how she'll take it, honestly, but I just hope we'll be able to talk about things." Though he felt reasonably certain Zuko didn't know the extent of what, exactly, he and Azula needed to talk about. Azula would have probably preferred it that way.

"It must be difficult," Zuko said, staring ahead down the tunnel again, "knowing how much things will change when you go home. Because that's what you decided, didn't you? When you spoke to that guru?" He fussed at the fur-lined cuff of his parka. "We never really got to talk about it."

Aang stared ahead as well, his gaze resolute. "Not until I'm done here."

Neither of them said anything for a moment, listening to the crunch of footsteps against the salt and the low murmur of the other guests. Miners and their picks echoed further down the tunnels as the guide went into applications of peach petal salt toward hot yoga and its powers of purification. As the silence dragged on, Aang felt the sadness in his stomach curdle at the idea of leaving these friends. Even though Zuko was one of his closest friends back in his native world, he couldn't deny that he'd miss this one, too.

Zuko let out a long sigh. "I hoped - no, I knew you'd say that," he finally let out. "But Azula… she thought we'd never see you again after you left to meet the guru. She tried not to show it, tried to pass your leaving off as no big deal, but she was hurt. Yesterday you called us family, but what'll that mean when you're gone?"

She was hurt. What'll that mean when you're gone?

Aang felt the world shift, his whole body tingling with a mixture of guilt and the acceptance of a truth buried as deep as these salt crystals. Zuko's words rang through his thoughts, a confirmation of what he had suspected when he nearly crossed through the veil to return to his world back at the Eastern Air Temple - connected to all the cosmic energy that was at once his own power and the culmination of two whole worlds - the thought that Azula would be hurt by his departure. He felt like he was in two places at once: deep below the earth in the mines and high in the clouds of the temple, in his own head and open to the energy of the universe, in this world and another.

He stopped walking. Of course Azula would have been hurt if he left. But he'd been running away from the thought of how much it'd hurt him, too. Confronting this truth deep beneath the earth among the purifying salts and strangers, after such an innocuous comment, felt so unbelievable he almost laughed. He'd buried it under all the lies he told himself, but at the crux of the matter was a simple issue. He hurt her, he'd been hurting her all this time without realizing it or perhaps he just didn't want to admit it to himself, and he had to make it better. He wanted to make it better, to wash her pain away and help her shoulder her other burdens like she had done for him. Azula had come to mean so much to him, but to what extent?

He was afraid. Of course he was afraid, even after all this time. Confused, too - Katara had said she was confused once about her feelings toward him. Now he knew how she felt. But he had reined in his feelings without realizing it. If he allowed himself to gain feelings for Azula, would that mean he'd lose his connection to his home? If he imagined a future with her, a whole different future could be lost. Forever.

The pendant hung from his clenched fist. Was that all it came down to, after all this time? How could he tell her that he'd been pushing away his burgeoning feelings when he had already made his choice to return home? Even before he came down into the mines, their last conversation was not a happy one. He tried to tell her good luck with Katara, but she only gave him the cold shoulder, and he didn't realize the extent of her unhappiness until now.

"Aang?" Zuko asked, brow furrowed in concern. "Is it something I said?"

"No," Aang said. Sokka and the other members of their group walked ahead while Aang and Zuko trailed behind unnoticed. "You just helped me realize something." Perhaps there was something to whatever the guide said about the salt crystals.

"Oh," Zuko said, shrugging. "Uh, okay. Well, you probably shouldn't hold that pendant too tightly. I don't think Katara would like it much if the salt melts."

"Huh? Katara?"

But before Zuko could clarify, they heard a stirring in the cavern ahead of them. The guide, Sokka, and the other sightseers clustered at the mouth of the cavern, which overlooked a work site far below them. Aang pushed his way to the front of the flimsy wooden guardrail to watch the scene below. He found himself next to Sokka, whose face was inscrutable.

A broad-shouldered man in undyed leathers had been yelling at one of the miners who was bent low over a pile of dust-covered crystals, quailing in fear at the larger man and the half dozen men in similar furs behind him. "You're really gonna creep around down here, squandering that power the emperor lets you use in service to your nation? You're not even usin' it down here! But you can fight!"

"B-but I just want to stay down here, work off my debt…"

"And you can do that with us, don't you see? Or are you too weak? Too cowardly to really serve your nation where it matters? You're an earthbender, man! Show it!"

Aang furrowed his brow. An earthbender? Then why was the bigger man talking like he owed the Water Nation loyalty?

"Chit Sang, please, I… I try not to, even down here…"

Instinctively, Aang looked to Sokka, but he turned away when Chit Sang faced their direction. Aang knew that name. They had gone their separate ways after helping him break out of the Boiling Rock, but Aang found him to be a friendly man, and loyal enough to help shelter Team Avatar once when they returned to the Fire Nation in the years after Sozin's Comet. And if he remembered correctly, Chit Sang was a firebender. What was he doing here?

Chit Sang turned away from the man, scowling. His beard was only slightly longer than Aang remembered from the close cropped cut he used to have, tied into two braids at his chin. But even from this distance, Aang could see scars all over his face from cuts and burns that had faded some over the years. "Then wallow down here forever, for all I care. Worthless trip."

"He's recruiting again, I guess," Sokka muttered.

Aang backed away from the guardrail when Chit Sang's audience dispersed, though the men in undyed leathers followed him as he disappeared down a different tunnel. "Recruiting? For what?"

He crossed his arms. "That's the captain of the Wolf's Skulls - they call that guy Chit Sang 'The Boiler.' They're a platoon of foreigners and conscripts raised to be loyal to our nation. It's a tradition the second emperor started."

Aang almost couldn't believe that the Water Nation ruled so differently from the Fire Nation in his world. The Fire Nation never would've had a whole company of foreign soldiers, least of all in any type of leadership position. Hakoda's leadership perplexed him the more he learned about the emperor. Seeing Chit Sang in that sort of role made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn't describe.

"Sorry for the disturbance, folks," said the guide. "Didn't know the emperor's personal pets liked to scamper around down here. But you know how hounds like to beg for scraps around the cookfire." A chorus of chuckles rolled through their gathering. "Anyway, who's ready to see Peach Petal Island's hidden gem? Dragged down here a hundred years ago... A great shame to warriors and historians alike. A reminder of our nation's superiority and strength." He paused and lowered his voice an octave, peering over them all with his mismatched eyes. "The last airbender."


"Here is where we leave you," said the Painted Lady. The next time Hei Bai stopped, they found themselves at a mountain peak atop a pillar of stone. Far below, Nagi could see dense green foliage obscured by heavy fog, making it seem like they floated among the heavens. Thin trees with leafy branches clung to all of the pillars she could see. In a way, it reminded her of the Wulong Forest she had read about once - but this place seemed far more grand and otherworldly in its splendor, and surely would have inspired far more art than the real forest ever could. "Cross the bridge to find the spirit you seek - Suza of the Divine Fire."

When the lady gestured with her billowing sleeve, a wood and rope bridge emerged from the fog, extending to one of the distant pillars. When Nagi turned back to thank her and Hei Bai and bid them farewell, both of them had vanished into the mist. "Thank you," Nagi said regardless, hoping they would feel her appreciation. She felt much less safe with them gone, as if the air grew colder.

"Sounds like a firebender spirit," Spirit-Toph said, punching her fist into her palm. She seemed to do that a lot. "I wonder if it'll try to fight us."

"I certainly hope not," said Yue. "I've no desire to fight an ancient spirit."

"Yeah, yeah, princess. We get it, you love spirits."

Yue sniffed. "I simply respect their power and wisdom."

Leaving them to squabble, Nagi approached the bridge as it swayed precariously to an unheard wind. She didn't like the idea of walking across with most of her earthbending inaccessible, but before she stepped onto the wooden planks she coated her feet in earthen shoes, a favored tactic of the Dai Li. After testing its durability and judging it to be safe, she turned to her companions. "Are you two coming? We have a spirit to meet."

Or three, she supposed. Toph's body stood still, her arms hanging limp at her sides.

"She doesn't want to cross," Spirit-Toph said. "She can't see on that. I guess we'll just stay back here."

"But this spirit may have information about your face," said Yue, frowning. "Come on, we'll all hold hands." She grabbed Toph's hand, who did nothing to resist, and tugged her along. Before reaching the bridge, she held her hand out to Nagi as well, who hesitated for only a moment before accepting it. Nagi led the way while Toph trailed behind them and her spirit hovered above them.

She didn't know why, but she expected Yue's hand to feel cold and soft. But she was warm, and her grip strong, her hands calloused by years of training with her blade. Nagi wondered if Yue would think her hands were too soft in comparison. But Nagi was a warrior, too, even if most of her time was spent studying the histories and cultures of the Earth Kingdom between her patrols of Ba Sing Se.

The bridge creaked as they made their way across. Nagi tried not to look down into the mist below, at the dark shapes brewing, the distant echoes of animalistic growls smothered by the wind. No one said anything as they crossed - if someone stumbled, they just held on tighter. What a peculiar group we make, Nagi thought. A Dai Li agent, a Water Tribe princess, the Avatar's faceless earthbending master, and her disembodied spirit. Focusing on one step at a time, they made it across untouched by the dark spirits below - she could only assume that they had entered the spirit Suza's aura of protection.

Now that they had made it to the next stone pillar, Nagi could make out more of its details. The ashen path coiled around it to its apex, crowned by a tree with a thick, smooth trunk that curved around a groove with a nest so she assumed it to be an aery. One twisting branch stretched over the ravine as a perch for the most magnificent creature Nagi had ever seen. Even from this distance, she knew its size rivaled that of the fabled Wan Shi Tong, but this one was much more beautiful.

Some legends spoke of a firebird with vermillion wings, a spirit so old it was said to exist during the time of the lion-turtles. Dismissing it as a Fire Nation story she never sought to learn more of, she had only ever seen one picture of it - but even that, she knew, did not do this creature justice. With every movement of its tail feathers it reflected all the colors of the rainbow. When it gazed at them, she felt its sorrow - his sorrow, for this spirit had intelligence she could not even comprehend. She could feel pain but perceive no wounds, sense loss without longing, and grief with no anger.

Nagi was not one to use the word 'sublime' lightly, but this had to be the closest she had ever felt to it.

"Humans," said Suza, and his voice came out so melodious that it made the Painted Lady's musical voice sound raspy in comparison. "You are not welcome here."

"Please, ancient one," said Yue, dropping in supplication to the spirit. Nagi did not know how she found the bravery to speak first. "We truly want to leave, but we cannot. We have been stranded here in the Spirit World, and our companion has lost her face. We had hoped you would be able to help us."

The firebird descended from his perch, a single brilliant pinion shedding from his tail. "The chasm between the Spirit World and your realm is the Avatar's doing. A human's doing. I cannot help you."

Chasm? Nagi had never heard of the space between the two worlds described that way. Had something happened? Perhaps it was as Yue said, and the connection between the worlds had faltered when Koh dragged them here.

"So what?" Spirit-Toph asked, her voice gruff. "You're saying we're stuck here? Aang accidentally trapped us and now we have no way out? They need to get home." She gestured to Nagi, Yue, and her own body as she spoke, and her phrasing confused Nagi. What did she mean by they?

Suza lowered his head to peer more closely at Spirit-Toph, his neck extending. "You should know more than most that things are not as they seem, human child. Even if you are gone from one world, you will manifest in all of the others. It is the way of things." Nagi had no response to that, or indeed any clue of what he meant.

Yue rested her weight on her knees. "I have heard of you before, Great Suza," she said. "In a story. Not an ancient legend, but a story passed down among my people. A story that tells of your passing from our world just over a century ago."

Nagi felt the weight of the firebird's melancholy again - not crushing or even uncomfortable, but still heavy. "That can happen?" Nagi asked. "A spirit can die in the mortal world?"

"In a sense," said Suza. "A spirit can only die when taking a mortal body, but we will always continue to exist in a different form, ever-changing and manifesting in a different world because we exist at our core here, in the realm of spirits."

"Like the moon and ocean in the forms of koi fish," said Yue. "Their mortal forms. But you… before you vanished, you had a specific role in our world."

Suza's beak opened for the first time, and out from his throat poured a song that invigorated Nagi, made her feel the need to rise with the sun like she never had before. "You speak the truth," Suza said. "I was and am and ever will be the spirit of the Great Comet, my flaming tail a beacon across the heavens, the blessing to all firebenders. But I can no longer fly in your world."

Spirit-Toph interjected with a sudden outburst. "You're the spirit of Sozin's Comet!"

"It is what I am called in one world, yes," said the firebird. But what did that mean? Suza made it sound like more worlds than the Spirit World and mortal world existed. "A defilement of my sacred flame and the name I bear."

"I don't understand," said Nagi. "Even if we are gone in our world, that doesn't mean we want to exist in another. We want to go home. We want to get our friend her face back."

"The Face Stealer does not return faces," he said, fixing his black eyes, like soot, upon Nagi. "Perhaps you could entreat his mother, but she is found only when she wants to be."

"We've gotta try," said Spirit-Toph. Nagi found herself agreeing, and even Yue nodded in response. Toph's body shuffled her feet.

"A foolish endeavor," said the spirit, and for the first time his mournful voice took on a sympathetic tone as he looked at Toph. "That one will eventually waste away. A face is an identity. And once the identity is lost, the entire essence fades away with it."

"That can't be," said Yue, frowning with her eyes set in grim determination. "There's got to be a way to save her."

"You would do best to simply leave the Spirit World," said Suza. "Begone from our realm forever. There are two spirit portals where you can cross to the mortal realm, body and soul together, but they exist at the very fringe of this world, in a place tainted by darkness where no mortals have set foot in ten thousand years. I am truly sorry," he continued, and Nagi felt he spoke true, "but there is almost no hope for you to succeed."

"We will track down Koh's mother," Nagi said. "We must. Who is she? How can we find her?"

The firebird straightened, drawing back from them to crane his neck toward the sky, as if considering how much to reveal to them. "She is called the Mother of Faces. And she may decide not to help you. Once a season, she ventures into the mortal world and I am not certain how she has adapted to the chasm between worlds."

"Thank you, great Suza," said Yue, bowing deep. Nagi matched her movements.

"I wish you good fortune, humans," he said, extending his wings. For a moment, his crimson wings blocked out the sun, and when he flapped them to fly away Nagi could smell something like ash and dust after rain, like a coming storm. Caught up in her dreams of distant desert rains, she did not notice that the ancient firebird had flown from the aery, his tail feathers casting a faded rainbow in his wake.


"Here she is, the last airbender. Well, at least until the Avatar came back, so they say. But I'm sure with enough time she'll be the last airbender again. Of course, she was a girl and a child, so there was no glory in her defeat for Emperor Seiryu, who needed no proof of his strength..."

Hidden away in a deep cavern dimly lit by a single salt lamp, a massive block of ice nestled into the groove of the salt around it. The ice was a deep blue like the inside of a glacier, oppressively silent. Aang didn't know what he looked like in the iceberg, but it couldn't have been like this. She had no glow of spiritual power, no movement or thrum of energy from deep inside the ice, no grand change when he approached. And she was indeed Sangmu, her robes splayed as if she floated underwater with her arms spread out and her eyes closed. Lifeless.

He must have lunged forward in anger because both Sokka and Zuko put a hand on his shoulders to restrain him. How could anyone do this? The guide's words alone were flippant and disrespectful enough that he was certain he would have lost control of the Avatar State right then and there. He heard nothing except for the blood pounding in his ears as the guide finished talking about her and the cluster of people moved onto the next site, leaving them behind with Sangmu.

"We have to get her out of there," Aang said.

Sokka stepped forward, staring up at her form. "Aang, I don't know if she's…"

"I don't care," Aang said, cutting him off. "I know she doesn't have the Avatar State to sustain her. But she doesn't deserve this."

"We both know that, Aang," said Zuko, his voice soft. "But I'll stand watch, you two do what you can."

Sokka nodded and approached the ice, putting his gloved hand on it. "As I said before, there were some people sympathetic to her, or others who didn't believe a child was worth keeping as a trophy of victory, so they tried to get her out. Healers, Seekers, shamans, all our best waterbenders and spiritualists came here over the years, but none of them…"

"I know," Aang said, taking a waterbending stance. "But I'm the Avatar."

He pulled at the ice, tried to will it to change into water, and Sokka joined him after taking off his gloves. But the ice didn't respond, didn't even feel like real ice with its unnatural blue hue, so he switched to firebending. He held a consistent flame close to the block and even though he knew it would be slower the surface did not become slick with melt no matter how hot his flames burned. After that he switched with earthbending in an effort to chip it away piece by piece if he must, threw huge chunks of salt crystal at it, spears of glittering pink gems, but the ice might as well have been made of diamond for all he did to it. How had Emperor Seiryu done this? How powerful of a waterbender was he?

He didn't care how much noise he made with his barrage of earth and fire as he rapidly switched back and forth between them, breathing heavily with every strike. He couldn't remember ever feeling so angry, not since he lost Appa in the desert. At the back of his mind he was dimly aware that he might have been able to free her by going into the Avatar State, but try as he might that option was locked away from him now.

He remembered Azula's words from when he resolved to come here to save Sangmu rather than continuing to rescue Toph: what about the people we can save? But he had to try to save everyone. Was she right? If he tried to save everyone, would he end up saving no one, like in his world?

"Aang, we've got trouble," said Zuko, running toward him and Sokka despite Aang's onslaught. Aang leaned his hands on his knees, panting with exertion and anger and helplessness. "Stand straight, let's go!"

"I think I remember the way out," said Sokka, pulling his club free.

A fireball launched toward them from the cavern entrance, which Zuko stepped in front of to disperse with his fists. The source of the attack strode toward them - Chit Sang, with four of his Skulls behind him. "Oh, would you look at that," he said. "Another firebender all the way down here. Now what could you be doing on Peach Petal Island?"

Zuko narrowed his eyes and took a stance. "I could ask the same of you."

"Looks like someone's been earthbending, too," Chit Sang continued, looking at the devastation Aang had wrought through the cavern. "You kids lookin' to join my Skulls? You're a bit young, but we can look into an apprenticeship if you're that determined."

"No way," said Zuko, backing up toward Aang and Sokka. Aang didn't take his eyes off Sangmu. "I'm not a traitor to my people like you are."

His response came out in a low growl. "You'll pay for that comment, kid." Chit Sang went on the attack, punching toward Zuko before drawing in for close combat. Zuko held his own against the assault, but when Chit Sang's three other firebenders and an earthbender joined the scuffle Aang finally turned away from Sangmu and dredged up a wall of salt crystal to enclose the three of them and give them time to come up with a plan of escape.

"Now's your chance to prove you're on our side," Zuko said to Sokka. "What's your plan?"

"I have to come up with the plan?" Sokka protested. "I barely have any water to work with, that's a lot of pressure!"

Aang closed his eyes to get a feel for the Skulls' movements around the cavern as they surrounded the perimeter to block their escape. "We don't have time for a plan," he said. "Just… attack." He wasn't afraid of Chit Sang.

Before the Skulls had completely spread out, he pushed their protective wall along the ground at them, making them scatter to avoid it. He managed to catch one of the firebenders, pinning him against the cavern wall. Aang leapt forward, and though he didn't have his staff with him he effortlessly weaved and ducked between the fire and earth attacks, lifting shields and throwing them back with blasts of fire. He didn't care about hiding his identity any longer, didn't care about the consequences, and when he found himself locked in combat with Chit Sang himself he didn't hold back.

"My, my, never thought I'd run into the Avatar here," he said, a sheen of sweat on his brow as he warded off Aang. "And is that the prince over there? We were under the impression that him and the princess were taken prisoner after their failure at Ba Sing Se… but I guess he's the real traitor here!"

"You've got it all wrong," said Aang, crouching low to avoid the enemy earthbender. This whole scenario was wrong - how could a whole company of firebenders and earthbenders be loyal to the empire? He switched targets, allowing Zuko to engage Chit Sang with his swords and firebending while Aang focused his efforts on the others.

"We're wasting time here!" Sokka called out, using his club to break through the earthbender's attack. He thrust his hand forward and shot a stream of water from the skins at his side to freeze the earthbender to the ground. "We won't be able to escape if we hang around fighting!"

"Oh, your papa won't be happy with you," said Chit Sang, rolling away from Zuko. Aang belatedly realized that was Chit Sang's plan - just to stall them while more of his Skulls arrived to overwhelm them, so Aang stomped his foot and rocked the earth beneath Chit Sang to launch him out of the way.

"It's fine," said Sokka, staring at him as he sailed away. "It's a bit more complicated than he'd think!"

"Let's go," said Zuko, leading the way out of the cavern. Aang looked back at Sangmu one last time before departing, hating the way he failed her and all his people, but closed his eyes and turned away to follow Zuko and Sokka to the exit. He made a silent vow to come back for her when this was all over. Whenever that happened. He owed her that much.


"You say traveling with the Avatar is the right thing to do?" Katara curled her legs underneath her as if perfectly at ease while she spoke to Azula even though Azula's hands were at her throat not long before. She had already healed the burns. "I know you enough already to say that's not true. Back under Ba Sing Se, you fought with the intent to kill me. In what world is that the right thing?"

"Getting rid of you would be the right thing for the world," Azula said, sitting back at the campfire. She focused on her breathing, watching the fire rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. It kept the blue away.

"Would that make you happy?"

"It'd help."

Katara laughed. "Yeah, that certainly doesn't sound like you're the good person in this scenario."

Azula leaned back and propped herself up on her arms as she regarded Katara. "I never claimed to be."

"I'd even say that makes you a monster," she said. As soon as she said those words, the blue dragon uncoiled again, burning the inside of Azula's throat. "But the world needs its monsters, I think."


"My own mother… thought I was a monster."


Azula said nothing, trying to fight the growing blue flame licking at her insides.

"But you are the only one in this little group who knows what's necessary, and the only one with the drive to do what needs to be done," Katara continued. "I can respect that."

"And what is it that needs to be done?"

"Ending the war, is what," Katara said with the air of someone explaining a basic fact to a child. "But whatever the Avatar's planning to do won't work. Defeating my father won't finish anything because the ways of my tribe won't just fade away overnight. Another chief, another emperor, would just rise in his place. The whole system is built on strength because each clan, each warrior, has something to prove. It's part of that whole masculine bravado thing." She shrugged.

Azula raised an eyebrow - this was an interesting development. "Oh? And what is it you want to do about that, Katara?"

"I still want to help my nation subjugate the others, obviously," she said. "But the system needs fixing from the inside. My father's the strongest chief there is but he's in no place to do anything about all that despite all his strength. I have to admit that he's the best emperor suited to overpowering the other nations, but even if he does that there's still going to be fighting among my people because they all have different ways of doing things. It needs to change so that our victory - our dominion - brings peace."

Azula pondered her words, piecing together just how Katara meant to accomplish her goals. "Does that mean you don't want to overthrow your father and be the empress?"

Katara scoffed. "Not overthrow him. And I would like that power one day, obviously, but I'm not so naive to think that my nation would all be okay with that. Following a woman, no matter how strong I am, is inconceivable to them. That's part of what needs to change. My father needs to change, because you know as well as I do that Sokka doesn't have the strength I have in mind."

Azula kept her voice steady. The blue dragon waited patiently. "So you want peace. I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. But where are you going with this?"

"Peace and balance don't come easy, especially this sort," said Katara, leaning over the saddle and fixing her gaze on Azula. "This kind of work needs a monster's touch, I think. You and I, we can both do what needs to be done. I'll be a monster with you, together."

The blue dragon roared. It was almost deafening, urging her forward to let it free, to become the monster she was expected to be. To let Katara free. Speaking over the din that only she heard, Azula stood. "Aang wouldn't approve of this."

"Of course not. His idea of peace and balance will only lead to more bloodshed and the eventual destruction of my people."

"So you're suggesting that we go off on our own," Azula said. The dragon unfurled its wings, brimming with energy, nostrils smoking and teeth bared, as if ready to strike.

She knew, then, that she had to go with Katara. It was the only way to protect Aang and Zuko from the blue dragon. From Fire Lord Azula's wrath. She didn't care much for Katara's plan, but if she needed to be a monster to do what needed to be done? So be it.

"Yes," said Katara, grinning. She jerked her head toward the sea, where a Water Tribe ship had departed from the island's port and headed toward the Southern Water Tribe. "And there's our ride. I mean, unless you want to take the bison."

"No," said Azula, glancing at Appa as he slumbered. She refused to put him through any of Katara's plans. "It doesn't like me." As she shuffled through the inner pockets of her parka to search for the key to Katara's shackles, she had the brief thought that she'd be at Katara's mercy if she decided to bloodbend or drown her. But a part of her knew that Katara would do no such thing, that she needed her to take the place of Suki and Yue in their absence. Katara wasn't the type to work alone.

Worst case scenario, Azula knew she could take Katara.


Airbending was next to useless for Aang in the salt mines, but his earthbending made their escape almost easy. It would have been effortless if the Wolf's Skulls didn't have earthbenders of their own, but together with Sokka and Zuko they pushed toward the exit. By the time they reached the lift, it was held at the upper levels and out of their reach, but Aang pulled up a platform big enough for the three of them and devoted all of his focus to that while Sokka and Zuko watched his back. Once they got to the top, he destroyed the lift with earth and fire.

Even outside the mines, Chit Sang pursued them through the village with the help of his own earthbenders. The merchants scattered when they all emerged without any subtlety, but though they escaped from the mines they had Water Tribe warriors to contend with up above. Aang had to pull his friends together to cover them in an air barrier and deflect a thrown bola just in time, but now Sokka had water within reach to fight back on his own.

"Hey, c'mon, I don't want to fight!" he shouted, gathering water thrown at them. "This is all a big misunderstanding! I'm secretly trying to catch the Avatar!"

Zuko reached Aang and turned back to Sokka with a groan. "Sokka, that doesn't work if you say all that right in front of us!"

He hurled his boomerang, shrugged, and rushed past the totems. "Well, it was worth a shot. Let's go."

Aang put his back against the wooden pole carved with spirits of fish and seals at the northern entrance to the village, ensuring that Zuko and Sokka would escape safely. Blocking their way with earth as much as he could, he covered their escape as they made their way back to camp.

Lungs burning, he caught up to Zuko, who gave him an encouraging grin. "Another successful escape, I guess."

"Not that successful," Aang said, dropping his gaze to his feet. This whole diversion to rescue Sangmu turned out to be a waste of time that potentially brought him further from rescuing Toph. He could only hope that Azula and Katara had Appa ready to go. He clenched his right hand, feeling the plum blossom pendant he had wrapped around his wrist. Azula had been right all along. He still didn't know what he would tell her, but he had to say something. Do something to make things right.

Would admitting his feelings give her a false hope that he would stay in this world? Would that make it harder to leave? No matter what, that wasn't fair to her. And regardless of whatever feelings started to form for Azula, he knew he still loved Katara. But had that changed? Or would that love always be there?

"Aang," said Sokka, speaking through the corner of his mouth. Aang realized for the first time that Sokka finally started to address him by name. "They're still following us. Do something!"

The rocky path from the village was jagged and uneven, with gaps between the stones liable to cause a broken ankle when traversing the road at night. An open area with coastal winds buffeting the shores, he judged his airbending and earthbending to be at their strongest here. Turning to face the stampede of warriors barreling toward them, he leapt high into the air upon the wind, unsheathed his sword, and came crashing down to stab it into the earth with a shockwave of wind and stone that exploded from the path and ripped all the Skulls and warriors off their feet, creating a crater all around him that he hoped would impede their progress long enough for Aang and the others to fly away. He saw Chit Sang caught in the attack, and wondered if they'd ever clash again.

He pulled Ozai's sword free and followed after Zuko and Sokka, reaching the outcropping of stone that marked their campsite near the shore shortly after they did. But when he arrived, he found Zuko and Sokka searching around their camp in alarm.

Azula and Katara were gone.

"What happened?" Zuko asked, kneeling down to inspect the remains of the campfire. "It's still warm. Do you think they were attacked?"

"No," Sokka said. "Appa and the lemurs are still here. And they seem fine." Momo perched on top of the rocky crag while Sabi curled around Appa's horn, who greeted them with a sleepy grunt. None of them seemed disturbed or alarmed.

Aang approached the saddle where he found Katara's shackles, which had been unlocked. He didn't see any damage to them. Even the key still rested inside the lock. His stomach twisted in on itself when he realized what that meant.

"They just… left us."


"The woman warrior is here to see the High Chief."

A stern-faced warrior escorted Suki and Ghashiun to the inner sanctum of the palace, passing them off to a guard in front of the entrance to the throne room. Suki had to hold back from rolling her eyes - it was always "woman warrior," not "warrior woman." She even would have preferred "Kyoshi Warrior, ward to Emperor Hakoda."

The guard looked over her and Ghashiun, an unlikely duo, and sneered. "You two looking to join the Wolf's Skulls or something? I don't think even those pathetic warriors admit women to their ranks."

When she didn't answer, rigid in her professionalism, the guard scoffed and turned toward the ornate ice door carved with fish and serpents and all sorts of marine mammals, inlaid with blue gemstones like sparkling tears. He used his waterbending to make it grind open, revealing a throne room that wasn't unlike the one in Aniak'to, with a raised plinth and numerous pillars decorated with more fish. But where the South had a throne, this room had a semicircle of raised benches for the council of elders and only one waterfall behind it.

Another big difference, she saw, was the row of live ravens perched on the ice shelf near the ceiling. They peered at Suki and Ghashiun as they entered. There had to be almost thirty of them, but only one squawked when it saw them.

Arnook wasn't there yet. The guard waited with them while Suki and Ghashiun knelt on the cold floor. Even in her heavy armor, Suki felt the cold seeping in as the minutes dragged on, but she knew better than to complain. Arnook had been informed she had important news for him, but he would arrive on his own time.

The waterfall at the end of the room opened up and a man with braided brown hair and a heavy parka walked in, the pelt of a black-furred creature draped across his shoulders. With a sallow face and eyes such a bright blue they seemed almost blind with cataracts, High Chief Arnook did not look like the powerful man and leader of the north that she expected. Both she and Ghashiun prostrated themselves as he entered the ring of elders' seats.

"You are Suki," he said, and at his address she looked up at him. Looking closer, she noticed that he did not hold any weapons, either - unusual for a chief in the south, at least, bender or not. "Yue's friend."

"I am," she responded. "And this is Ghashiun, a companion of ours."

"I am honored to be in your presence," Ghashiun said, keeping his head bowed. He said nothing more, as she told him. She only brought him along to explain more about Wan Shi Tong if the High Chief needed it.

"And you have come to inform me of my daughter's predicament, I gather," Arnook said. Suki was just barely able to hold back her gasp of surprise. "I am already aware that she is trapped in the Spirit World, dragged there by the Face Stealer." One of the ravens flew to his shoulder, to which he had no reaction.

"We want to rescue her," said Suki, not bothering to question how he had such knowledge. "And Ghashiun's sister. Is there anything we can do?"

"You are powerless in comparison to the spirits," he said. He stood still, almost unnaturally so, and for a moment Suki thought his dark moon amulet reflected silvery light, but she dismissed it as a trick of shadows from the burning bonfires. It hung around his neck with a necklace of shark teeth. "You will do nothing."

"I refuse to accept that," Ghashiun said, his voice low and dangerous and disrespectful. He glared at Arnook. "I didn't come all this way to save my sister and be told no." The guard who accompanied them pointed his spear at the sandbender in warning, but Ghashiun ignored it.

"That vision ends in both of your deaths," he said. He spoke it as fact, without pity or sympathy, and did not react to Ghashiun's slight. Such an outburst in front of Hakoda could have ended badly.

Suki shivered; she found the whole thing creepy. "Did the spirits grant you a vision of anything we should do?"

He shook his head and slowly turned away from them, moving like a man decades older. "I only see visions of death. Do not seek me for guidance. I have none for you." Without another word, he departed behind the waterfall and the split flow of water came together again and continued into the pools all around the throne room.

Ghashiun smashed his fist against the floor and his voice shook. "I can't accept this."

Suki frowned. "I know," she said, wondering why Arnook was so dismissive of his daughter's plight even though it went against everything she knew of him. "I'm no spiritual expert, but I do know that there are other spiritual places around the North Pole. We just have to find them."

She could attempt to go back to Ba Sing Se, she thought, to find a way to save Sokka and Katara. But that mission seemed even more unlikely to succeed. Like Ghashiun said, they had come too far to give up so easily. More than anything, they needed answers. She just hoped the place called the Spirit Oasis would have them.


Author's Note: Please review! Thanks for reading!