Author's Note: Couple things - the "Distorted Reality" tumblr is up! It's called avatardistortedreality. Give it a follow! It's more for the webcomic than the fic, but there's all kinds of good stuff there if you're interested in the art process involved as well as an easy way to find the comic itself. And I may or may not be making guest appearances there with some of my own notes!
Also, here's another wonderful example of how I suck at math: in the literal last chapter, I established that Gyatso and Kuruk were friends in their youth (like Gyatso and Roku in canon) and didn't realize how much that messes up the timeline for THIS chapter until after I posted "The Girl in the Iceberg." I could've gone back to change it, but I did like that little detail so I decided to just run with it. So basically, Distorted!Kuruk lived longer than he did in canon (which, by extension, technically makes Kyoshi die a little younger. Oh well, she can spare a few years off of her 230 year lifespan to give to Kuruk). That completely changed the dynamics between characters in this chapter and honestly I think I like how it turned out better than it would have otherwise.
Just a warning: This chapter utilizes elements taken from the Shadow of Kyoshi novel. Nothing too spoilery, just relating to some things we learn about Kuruk's life.
Book 3: Water
Chapter 5: The Avatar and the Sea Dragon
When the Fire Nation airship arrived at the Western Air Temple, suspicious in its solitude, Katara bade Haru, Teo, and the Duke to hide within the temple and get Appa ready for a quick departure while Aang and Toph stayed in hiding and waited for it to dock. He tried not to look over the ruins of the pillar that served as his hiding place in anticipation. How dangerous could one airship be? Katara had guessed that it couldn't be a scout, because if its crew saw them from a distance it would just keep flying and report its findings to the Fire Nation.
Instead, he kept his eyes closed and cast out his senses when a metal ramp descended from the airship. Aang wasn't looking for a fight, but if it came to it… He was still too much of a novice at firebending to make much use of that, but he resolved to stay and face them this time all the same. He wouldn't run again, not like at the Day of Black Sun.
When footsteps hit solid rock, Aang tilted his head in confusion. Was that…?
"Sokka?" Toph asked, standing up from her own hiding place. "Huh? It's Zuko and… Suki too?"
Aang poked his head out to see Sokka, Zuko, Suki, and a man he didn't know emerge from the airship. He exchanged a glance with Katara, who hid behind the fountain, and they gathered to meet their returning friends. "I can't wait to hear this story," Aang said to Katara, grinning.
Her face lit up into a smile when she noticed Suki and they all ran over. She pulled the Kyoshi Warrior into a hug and laughed in disbelief. "This is amazing! What happened?"
The stranger waved. "Hi, I'm Chit Sang," he said, smiling in greeting. "I'm new."
Toph trailed behind Aang and Katara and grunted. "Where's the meat?"
Despite the happy occasion, Aang couldn't help but feel something about Sokka seemed subdued. "No meat," Sokka said. "Zuko and I, er, sort of went on a prison break."
Katara put her hands on her hips, her brow furrowed in the way it often did whenever she had to scold Sokka. "A what? Why didn't you tell us? Do you know how dangerous that was?"
Aang scratched his head. "I'm really glad to see you, Suki, but Sokka… how'd you even know where she was being kept?" He remembered Azula's words - her cruel mockery and teasing of a 'favorite prisoner.' He felt bad for nearly forgetting all of that until now. He had so many other things on his mind, but he knew Sokka must have been tearing himself up about it.
"Well, I, uh, sort of didn't," he said. He looked at all of them except for Katara. "I was looking for dad and all the others imprisoned after the invasion. I was hoping we'd find them at the Boiling Rock, but none of them got transferred there."
Katara's face fell, but she hid it quickly with another smile. "It'll be okay. Dad and all the others at the invasion are going to be okay." She stressed the final word as if trying to convince them and herself.
Suki put a hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. "I'm sure we'll figure out where they are," she said. "Maybe they haven't identified who the leader of the invasion was. That's the only reason why I got sent there without the rest of my warriors."
Aang shared a glance with Zuko. Something about his new firebending sifu's face gave him pause, a grim silence that induced a feeling of dread.
"Yeah," Sokka said, crestfallen. "Maybe."
It shouldn't have felt like such a long journey to get to the shores of the Southern Water Tribe from Peach Petal Island, but even so, the ocean seemed to stretch on endlessly.
The three of them argued for a time about what to do. Running back to the village to see if Azula or Katara went there was a foolhardy option, considering everything they went through to escape. Sokka wanted to track them down, wherever they went, in order to prevent Katara and Azula from revealing their plans. Convinced that Azula had betrayed them, he urged Aang to fly around the Chuje Islands around the Southern Air Temple to seek out any merchant vessels they could have used for their escape.
Aang didn't know what to feel. Part of him considered that Azula may have betrayed them, but it didn't add up. He was worried for her because of both Katara and Fire Lord Azula, but he tried to tell himself she was strong. He just had to trust in whatever plan she had in mind.
"Azula always lies," Zuko had said, almost in a trance, and Aang realized that those were Prince Zuko's words. Zuko hoped that was true and she lied even to Katara. Out of the three of them, Zuko showed the least concern that Azula had betrayed them, and maintained that whatever she did was to play along with Katara's schemes. Aang hoped he was right. For now, they had to stay on their course, no matter how much it hurt. He just hoped they would cross paths again on the mainland and they'd have time for everything left unsaid.
They had to.
He tried to busy himself by reading more of Gyatso's memoirs. But as they flew over the open ocean and he fought to keep from losing the hundred year-old writings in the wind, his eyes struggled to stay open until he saw Kuruk's name pop up again in Gyatso's account leading up to the war.
"I wish I had done something different on the day that Kuruk went to murder his son Aniak."
He almost tore the page in his grip when he read those words. His son? Did that mean that Sokka was descended from Aang's past life, just as Zuko was? How much were all of their destinies connected?
A boy materialized in the air in front of Aang. His younger self, the one from this world, sat in a lotus position with his finger pointed downward. He smiled with something like encouragement and nodded at him.
Aang looked in the direction he pointed, spotting a submerged shoal just underneath the water's surface. A coral reef spread out in all directions like an underwater city, schools of fish and urchins and swaying anemone splayed out in a mosaic of color. He turned back to tell Zuko and Sokka so they could see all of it, but the saddle was empty. He was alone, so he looked back toward his younger self who drifted toward Aang and held out his hand.
Before he could take it, the weight of his eyelids became too much to bear and he fell asleep.
"It's pretty scary when you jump up there, Ty Lee!"
Ty Lee swung from the crow's nest, careful not to damage the battened sails, and deftly climbed down the rope and the mast toward the deck again. She landed on her hands and bounced to her feet, beaming at Haru in the face of his concern. "It's okay!" she said. She loved when her audience worried over her gravity-defying stunts. "I'm an expert at things like this."
The boy put his hands on his hips and craned his neck up toward the top of the crow's nest, where the swampbender pirate stationed there went back to her relaxation. "I thought it was difficult enough to get my sea legs," Haru said. "But heights like that are a completely different story. You're really something, Ty Lee."
She fought to keep the blush from rising to her cheeks. Haru really was handsome with a clean shaven face and the build of a professional earthbender and soldier, with a green tunic that accentuated it well. She had tried to flirt with him already, but he didn't respond at all to that kind of attention so she gave up. "Thanks, Haru! I'm trying to learn my way around a pirate ship, since I figure if we're part of the crew they'll let us plunder some treasure with them!"
He scratched the side of his head. "Uh, well, I don't think these are really those kinds of pirates." He joined her in looking over the swampbenders who worked or milled about the deck of the junk ship, tying rope or netting or using their waterbending when the winds faltered. All three sails had been unfurled to hasten the ship to its destination: the North Pole. "I'm used to the sort of pirates that would attack Jie Duan or the Fire Nation's Outer Islands - I've been fighting them off with my father as long as I've been fighting the Water Tribe."
Not only did he look like a soldier, but Haru acted like one, too. He often mentioned his duties or certain battles or his experiences fighting in the war. Ty Lee couldn't help but admire that - he didn't seem to be driven by honor or glory like the soldiers of the Golden City, but by survival. The need to protect things important to him. "Well, that's true," she said. "But they're the good kinds of plunderers, obviously! And I've been learning all sorts of things about ships! Like, the starboard side and the larboard side, the port and the aft, how to rig the sails and pull barnacles off the hull…"
Haru chuckled. "You didn't learn all of that on your voyage to the Earth Kingdom? And, uh… that barnacle bit isn't the most important thing. It sounds like someone just gave you a job to keep you busy."
She bent backwards and propped her head up on her palms while her feet dangled in the air. "Well, I didn't really get a chance to learn all that before. On my ship, I was the princess. So I've always been kinda sheltered."
"So now you want to be a pirate?"
She beamed again. "Yeah! I'm already an aura reading rebel acrobat princess. I think it would be fun to be an aura reading rebel acrobat pirate princess!" She flipped up on her feet again, swinging a pretend sword at him. "Avast ye, mateys!"
A pair of Freedom Fighters who had been swabbing the deck overheard her and grinned at each other, brandishing their mops like weapons. "Fleetfoot, you scurvy cur! I order you to walk the plank!"
The younger girl swung her mop at him. "Uh, there is no plank, Big Redd! You better watch out or we'll feed you to the fishes on Captain Jet's orders!"
"Avast ye!" said Big Redd, swinging his wet mop handle-first. "Whatever that means!"
Ty Lee shrunk away from them as they began their duel and Haru joined her at the taffrail once more kids piled in on the scuffle to the bemusement of the swampbenders. "Oops," said Ty Lee, once they found themselves clear of it. "That was my fault, wasn't it?"
"We've been sailing for days," Haru said, staring out over the water. "And with even more ahead of us. Let them have their fun. Say, you mentioned you can read auras in that mouthful?"
"Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed. "Can I give you a reading?"
"Sure thing," he said, smiling. "So what do I do?"
She framed him between her hands. "Stand right there," she said. She peered at him closely, concentrating on the energy all around them - some called it chi, others spirit energy, but no matter what it was always with them, thrumming just at the edge of her senses. Some might have thought her special for her ability, but she just assumed it was because she could relate to people. That's all it was, really - just feelings she could pick up from people and connect to how she felt. She figured anyone could do it if they worked hard at it. "Your strongest color is brown," she said after a moment of deliberation.
"Brown?" he asked with a look of distaste.
"Hey, brown is good," she said, flapping her hands to wave off his concern. "It's a really warm color. You're stable, reliable, and down to earth. Practical and sensible. You'll keep us going steady." She rubbed her chin. "There's also a lot of green in there. That signifies how much you've grown. You're a nurturer and a really tranquil guy, huh?"
He smirked and put a hand on his hip. "I think you just got that because I'm an earthbender. Or, y'know, from the color of my clothes."
She leaned against the taffrail. "Or maybe you picked those colors because that's who you are inside! I always say my outfits for the day really speak to me." Her face fell a little bit and she spoke softly. "But all that doesn't really fit with a soldier's aura. Not that it's a bad thing."
Haru looked away and she thought for a moment she said something wrong, but he shrugged. "It's not like it's my whole identity," he said. "I've been fighting most of my life alongside my father and this is the first time I've ever been so far from home. It felt right to come along and really try to do something to make a difference, you know? Instead of just staying in one place with the Coalition and waiting for the enemy to come to us. On the way to the Earth Kingdom Iroh kind of got to me, I guess. He's a really wise man."
Ty Lee hugged her arms. "Seems like it," she said. "So you came along to make a difference? To make the fighting stop?"
"Yeah," he said, turning back to look at her again. "Didn't you?" He pushed away from the taffrail and walked past her. Perhaps it was something she said, but he gave her a subdued smile as he departed.
She thought of Mai and Jet and the way they looked when they talked about the Water Tribes and their mission to take out Chief Arnook. Haru didn't have that. He was different from them, but she had the feeling that there was more to him than she expected, too.
But if they all had their reasons for going north, what was hers?
When Aang opened his eyes again, he found himself at the edge of an evergreen forest. The ground was well-trodden and fairly barren, with only thorny brambles and thick, bushy grasses that looked like hair emerging from the hard-packed earth. Snow fell in a fine powder beneath a grey sky, coating a quiet village made up of round wooden huts. A wooden archway signified the entrance of the village and Aang found himself drifting toward it, the forest at his back. He saw no smoke from the chimneys; the whole place seemed as cold and arid as the environment around it.
His feet did not touch the earth and he did not feel the wind in his hair or the snow on his skin, and a moment later he realized he did not have his body. He looked down at his hands and then at his companion - his younger self, who was just as transparent as he was. "What are you showing me?" Aang asked him.
The boy held a finger to his lips and gestured toward the village.
A floating head rammed into one of the huts, destroying it under its weight. Aang leapt back in surprise even with the knowledge that whatever this was couldn't hurt him. Its skin, a deep purple like eggplant, stretched over a monstrous smile with rows of pointed teeth. Deep gashes cut into its face where its eyes would have been and its hair writhed with amorphous tendrils that it used to propel itself across the ground. It let out a ghastly wail that made Aang feel like he was in danger, especially in his spirit form, but it took no notice of him or his younger self.
"Is this a memory?" Aang asked.
"Avatar Kuruk's memory," said the boy. "Since he can't connect with us for a while, he wanted me to show this to you in his stead. His battle with this particular dark spirit."
"Dark spirit? Like Hei Bai, back when I first met him, and the knowledge seekers that attacked Ba Sing Se?"
Sure enough, a man in Water Tribe skins appeared in the center of the village with a sweeping kick, knocking the dark spirit back with a burst of air. Kuruk did not let up his assault, lifting two enormous slabs of stone on either side of the spirit and clapping his hands together in an attempt to catch it in a vise. The spirit's body wriggled free and launched at him with its mouth open wide, but the snow swirled together into a water whip that slapped it away with a snap of Kuruk's wrist. The spirit weathered his blows with ease - in fact, whichever feat of bending Kuruk threw at it seemed to bounce harmlessly off of its nearly intangible body, and in the rare instances of it landing blows on Kuruk he took the hit hard.
After the head knocked Kuruk away from it for a third time, it pivoted on the spot and seemed to stare directly at Aang. The gashes on its face opened up to reveal startlingly yellow eyes which widened when it spotted its prey, a long dark tongue lolling out of its mouth as its teeth gnashed and it hurtled over to him. Aang gasped and jumped out of its way, but it wasn't focused on him at all.
"Gyatso, the kid!" Kuruk shouted from the wreckage of one of the huts.
Aang hadn't noticed the man behind him, who spun out of the way in a whirl of orange and yellow robes and swung his staff. An arc of wind slammed into the dark spirit, making it howl in pain as it rolled across the ground and into one of the other empty huts. "Great spirit," the airbender - a younger Gyatso - called. "What can we do to pacify you?"
Kuruk pushed himself to his feet and stomped on the ground, following up Gyatso's attack with a triple assault of slate blocks that battered it from below. "How - many times - do I - have - to - repeat - myself?" He punctuated his words with alternating blasts of earth and fire. "These spirits never stand down!"
As if to confirm his words, the spirit's tendrils swirled and it righted itself, launching at him with its mouth wide open. But Kuruk held his hand forward just as it closed in on him and the spirit shrunk to almost nothing, swirling into Kuruk's hand as if being absorbed into his body. He inhaled and then spasmed, his eyes twisted shut as he struggled to contain its force, and then he turned toward Gyatso and Aang, eyes glowing with all the power of the Avatar State. Purple and black energy, the remnants of the dark spirit, emerged from his body and then dissipated into nothing when the brightness of his eyes died away.
Kuruk stumbled and held a hand to his temple, bent over with fatigue. "Never gets easier," he said, and when he stood up straight, Aang's eyes widened. Though he was scarcely older than thirty, his face looked so sickly and haggard that he could have been much older and it was a wonder he fought as well as he did. Heavy bags under his eyes indicated many sleepless nights and he had a quiver to his movements that Aang suspected had nothing to do with the exertions of his battle or the cold. "Is the kid okay?"
"I thought you meant to stop doing that," Gyatso scolded him. His tone of voice shocked Aang - Gyatso was never the type to sound so strict, and almost never reprimanded Aang that way as a child. "Imbibing a dark spirit's essence…"
"Is the only way to destroy them," Kuruk finished his sentence, cutting him off. "By giving it a mortal form - my mortal form - I can stop them for good."
"Or we can find what is corrupting them so!" Gyatso interjected. "Before they corrupt you to the point where the damage is irreparable! You know Sozin and the others would not approve."
"Stop fussing so much. I'm the Avatar and they don't know about all this, so it'll be fine," Kuruk said, waving him off. But it was as clear to Aang as it was to Gyatso that he spoke lies. "Where's the kid?"
Gyatso frowned, his furrowing brow accentuating his arrow tattoo, and gestured to the hut behind him. A young boy no older than ten emerged from inside, his gaze blank and steps unsteady. "He's unharmed," Gyatso said. "But half starved. We need to bring him somewhere safe."
Kuruk looked around the devastated village as if to find any others, perhaps the boy's guardian, but the child spoke. "There are none," he said, his voice flat. "Everyone's dead."
Kuruk's face softened. For a moment, he looked his age again as he knelt in front of the boy. "What's your name, kid?"
"Aniak." He held Kuruk's gaze. Aang supposed he couldn't be shy after what horrors he might have witnessed. "Of the Wolf clan."
Aang looked to his own younger self with a gasp. "The first emperor!"
"Aniak," Kuruk repeated, giving the child a weak smile. "It's okay. You've been strong, but you're safe now."
Gyatso drew back and brandished his staff at something around the back of the hut Aniak had emerged from. Another dark spirit, this one shaped roughly like a spider, creeped over the roof. "Kuruk! There's another!"
Kuruk grit his teeth and made to grab the boy, but the spirit lunged at them. Kuruk shoved his palm toward it, but the weak burst of air did nothing to halt the spirit's progress. Just as it closed in on them, Aniak held out both of his hands and the spirit halted. Its many legs quivered for a moment before snow rose up on both sides of it and glowed with golden power, encircling the spirit and restoring light to its darkness. The dark spirit shrunk to the size of Aang's head, revealing its true form to be a fuzzy blue spider that withdrew from the village and returned to the evergreen forest.
Gyatso dropped his staff. "He pacified it… brought balance to the conflicting energies inside," he said, his voice heavy with awe. "I have never seen such a technique. There are rumors of the Wolf clan regarding the wisdom of their shamans, but I never expected something like that!"
Kuruk stared at Aniak, who stared right back with the burden of knowledge unbefitting such a young child. Aang recognized it because he saw the same hardened gaze when he looked in a mirror. "Hey, Gyatso? You've been demoted. I think this kid's meant to be my spiritual advisor."
The world washed away. When everything fell back into place again, Aang found himself in a shore town somewhere in the Earth Kingdom; a busy port with merchant ships from all over the world gathering to trade all sorts of baubles and goods. Porters and dock workers carried armfuls of products to and fro while a crowd gathered around a performer on the street juggling at least five knives while he sang a song, his voice smooth and chiming with merriment. It was a fast-paced song, and most of his admirers clapped along, cheering on the Water Tribe boy.
"Now which one of you four taught him that?" a woman standing near Aang asked. She wore mostly white with gold and red accents, with her brown hair done in a plait that framed her pretty face. Aang thought she looked familiar but he couldn't place her. She and her companions stood on the periphery of the performer's crowd.
Gyatso, with a few extra wrinkles he didn't have in the last memory, stood next to her and folded his hands in the sleeves of his robes with a knowing smile. "Ta Min, you know as well as I do that our dear friend Sud is the one with any sort of musical talent." Once Gyatso said her name, the woman's identity became clear to Aang at once: in his world, she had married Avatar Roku. Even here, where Roku lived centuries before, was her life still tied to the Avatar's?
A muscular man let out a deep, bellowing laugh. He wore a cape around his otherwise bare shoulders. He must have been Sud - Kuruk's earthbending master, as he was Roku's? "Bahaha! But the boy uses what you taught him of poetry to write his songs, Gyatso! But I don't think any of us taught him how to juggle knives. He picked that up himself."
Ta Min let out an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I suppose that's better than Kuruk's coaching on how to pick up girls and boys. You turned him into a heartbreaker." She turned to the Water Tribe man on her other side.
"Hey, I did no such thing," said Kuruk, grinning. He looked over the crowd of the performer's admirers with something like pride. In contrast to the previous memory, Kuruk looked to be brimming with vitality; bulk had returned to his frame and color to his face. "I taught Aniak how to be strong."
Aang looked to his younger self. "That performer up there - that's Emperor Aniak? But he looks so different from before. So happy, even after they found him as the last survivor of his clan…"
"Kuruk looks happier too, doesn't he?" the young monk asked. "Didn't, um, Avatar Kuruk, y'know… really young, in your world?"
"Die? Yeah… I think he did."
"This Kuruk didn't. At least, not for many years later. It was all that fighting with dark spirits and even light spirits that made him lose himself. But here, he found another way. He found Aniak, and learned that method of purifying them and bringing balance back to their energy, their chi."
"Light spirits? What are those?" Just another threat he didn't know about? Based on what he saw of the purification ability, it made him think it was a modified healing skill, and he wondered if it could be done with other bending besides waterbending.
Aniak approached the gathering of Kuruk and his friends, shaking off the admirers, accepting favors, and blushing under their compliments. Now, he looked about fifteen or so - roughly the same age that Aang felt. His eyes were piercing and blue, sharp with intelligence but he also had a gentle, welcoming smile. "Kuruk," he said, inclining his head respectfully to the Avatar. "Tonight, a bunch of the other kids here are going to have a bonfire on the beach. Can I go?"
"We planned to move on from this town tonight," Kuruk said, rubbing at his beard. He looked to the man at his right, who Aang recognized with a start as Fire Lord Sozin. Or, perhaps, just Sozin in this world. "A matter in the Fire Nation requires our attention." An enormous wolf that rested at his feet - Kuruk's animal guide - lifted his head and rumbled at Kuruk. Aang got the feeling that the wolf hated the Fire Nation due to his heavy fur coat.
Sozin waved his hand, his lacquered plate armor making him look regal in the sunlight. This Sozin was no Fire Lord, but instead a regional warlord. "What, did you become as stern as Avatar Kyoshi was? Let him have his fun. And he can put what I taught him to good use and seek out potential political connections and allies from your friends here. Besides, staying an extra night will give Team Avatar some extra time together. We get so little of it these days, with all five of us in one place."
Aniak bowed to Sozin in the Fire Nation style, fist into palm. "Thank you, Lord Sozin." He grinned and waved farewell to all the others before departing with the people that seemed more and more like admirers than friends.
After Aniak departed, Sud turned to Ta Min with a mischievous smile. "So what was it that you taught the boy, Ta Min?"
She regarded him with an upturned nose. "Practicality and humility. Heavens know the boy needs it after spending so much time with all of you big headed louts." At those words, all of them laughed, even her, but after their mirth settled she elbowed Kuruk in the ribs. "So, Kuruk, when are you gonna ask him?"
The Avatar shuffled his feet under her attention. "I don't know, he might not take it too well… he'd also have to travel with me around the world while I carry out my Avatar duties."
"It's not like the boy doesn't enjoy it," said Sud, chuckling. "And you make it sound so difficult - we all know Avatar Kyoshi did all the work for you in her lifetime."
"These past six years he has more or less come to view you as a father anyway," said Gyatso. "You might as well make it official. I think it will do you both good."
Kuruk stared down the street in the direction Aniak had gone, a pensive smile on his face. "Yeah, I hope so."
Seeing them all like this, all of them friends despite their differing circumstances and relationships with each other, it made Aang wonder about how much of this could really be coincidence. "In my world, I learned from Roku that friendships can transcend lifetimes," he said to the young monk. "But does this mean that they transcend worlds, too?"
"I don't know the answer to that," said the younger Aang. "But wouldn't that be wonderful if they did?"
"I can't believe I got my hands on such a nice hat! And it's even more surprising that no one else wants to wear this! I found it down in the cargo hold."
"It's so garish and ugly," Mai said, slouching on the stairs leading to the rear deck.
Ty Lee frowned at her as she struggled to hold the hat onto her head against the rushing ocean winds, but her sour expression quickly passed. "But this just screams to me 'hey, I'm a pirate hat!' And I think it's so stylish," she said. The hat was a deep blue with a wide brim and a fluffy white feather - it didn't really match her clothes, but she could work around that. "Now I just need a cool sword and an iguana parrot. Mai, do you think it really matters if I don't have a peg leg?"
Mai sighed and buried her face into her hand.
Due overheard her as he walked by and scratched at the fish scales draped over his stomach like armor. "Uh, I don't think anyone on our crew has any of those things, and we're still pirates."
"You know, Due, you raise a good point! I don't need a peg leg or an ugly bird thing to be a pirate! Thank you!"
"Sure thing, Ty Lee," he said, smiling wide. "Though I dunno why you wanna be one to begin with! It's a tough life!"
After he strode off, Mai spun one of her daggers around her finger by the handle. "Why do you care so much about being a pirate, anyway?"
"It just seems like a fun experience," she said, leaning on the banister of the rear deck. "And it's so freeing, you know? Every day would be so different! Sailing to new horizons!"
Mai scoffed. "You're right. Just being a princess sounds boring."
Ty Lee jumped up on the banister and balanced on it despite the swaying of the ship upon the waves. "Well, I was gonna go into how I used to always feel trapped in the role of a princess until meeting Aang and the others, which helped me come to terms with my responsibilities and duties to my people. But you don't really seem to care."
"You're right."
"And then you were going to talk me through how I'm still sorta kinda running from that life. That I'm seeking thrills in other ways to avoid the issue of my future because while I've accepted my life as a princess, I still haven't heard from my older sisters and I don't know a thing about how I'm supposed to rule one day. And you were gonna give me some good advice about it or something, because you seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders."
"Sounds like you got it all figured out."
Ty Lee sat down on the railing. "No thanks to you! Y'know, if we're gonna be friends, you should really lend an ear to other people's problems."
Mai glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. "Who says we're going to be friends? What do you know?"
Ty Lee put her palms out. "Nothing, geez. You're aggressive today."
Mai's shoulders fell as she sighed. "Sorry. I just hate sitting and waiting to get to the north. I'm… bored."
"That's okay," Ty Lee said, slinking down to sit next to her on the step. "How about a nice, therapeutic aura reading? I did one on Haru earlier."
"I don't believe in auras," she said, and her long face told Ty Lee all she needed to know already.
But she persisted. "Oh, c'mon, you might learn something new."
"No."
"Please?"
"I'd rather not."
"Not even in the spirit of our newly blossoming friendship?"
"I never said - ugh. Fine. Make it quick."
Ty Lee whooped and turned at the waist to visualize Mai, concentrating on the waves she felt pouring off of the other girl. As she expected, Mai's aura was pretty drab. "I see lots of grey," she said. "It's… pretty dingey, if I'm being honest. There's lots of grief and depression there clouding up everything else."
Mai stood. "Well, that was riveting," she said in a voice that indicated it was anything but. "But I'm leaving now."
"But do you want to talk about it?" Ty Lee asked her, frowning. "Sorry if that dredged up anything…"
She crossed her arms. "I'm not the type to talk about my feelings."
"I can see that," said Ty Lee, and she continued to concentrate on Mai even though her back was turned. "But under that, I see a deep indigo. As much as you want to pretend otherwise, you're pretty deep and sensitive, aren't you? Even intuitive."
"Just because I don't want to talk about them doesn't mean I don't have feelings," she shot at Ty Lee, glaring. "Are you done?"
Ty Lee tilted her head. The auras coming from Mai, the feelings, rippled and churned in layers and ways she scarcely saw before. "Whoa, there's a lot of black energy in there, too. Pulling everything in, but capable of transformation. It's a pretty unforgiving color, but it's not bad. I almost never see that!"
Mai rolled her eyes. "I wear all black. Hardly surprising."
Ty Lee gasped, ignoring her. "Wow, and underneath all that there's a brilliant scarlet aura! It means passion and a bunch of other strong emotions. You really bury all that deep, huh? You're not a firebender, right? That's totally firebender, I never would have expected that!"
"Ty Lee, you should stop…" Her gaze darkened and her voice dropped an octave lower.
But Ty Lee didn't. Coiling out from the splash of red, like blood and fire, she saw gold - among the rarest of auras. "Amazing," Ty Lee said, standing up with eyes wide. "At your core, you're all red and gold. You're about guidance and protection, wisdom and inner knowledge…"
"I told you to stop," Mai said, cutting her off. She looked shaken but Ty Lee didn't know why. She hugged her arms across her body, almost protectively, and glared. "Just leave me alone, okay?"
She winced and sat back down. "I'm sorry," she said, and her words poured out. "I just got caught up in it and then I got excited and I hoped you'd like it but I won't do it again, I promise!"
Mai looked like she was about to say something else, but she bit back her words and disappeared into the shadows below deck.
After she had left, Ty Lee lowered her head to sulk and the wind lifted her hat around the brim and carried it away into the sea. "Oh, no! My new hat!"
The atoll emerged from the ocean just off the coast of the Southern Water Tribe, its coral forming a ring around a central lagoon where Aang spotted Kuruk and Aniak sitting together in the sand. Around the edge of the atoll, coral sprouted in all sorts of shapes - orange brain coral and coral shaped like giant oysters; purple fans and coral that looked like a bonsai tree. It twisted and curled and grew among the rocky shelf, cresting from the water when the tides ran low and containing all kinds of fish, crawling urchins, and gently swaying anemone. Crab-spiders and eelsnakes scuttled and slithered along the beach. Whelks so huge they could have housed a human being marked the border of the atoll, making it look like a natural sea fortress with a dreadful, spiky defense - perhaps an addition Kuruk decided to include purely for the appearance. With all the life and the color, Aang thought this place looked like it would be better suited for tropical waters than polar ones.
"This is Kuruk's private little island," his younger spirit said. "One of his most treasured places, meant only for him and his son for their training."
Up close, Aang took a closer look at Aniak. Based on his last appearance, something like ten years had passed; now he was a man grown, his hair loose with gentle curls that covered most of his brow, his face clean shaven and handsome with a soft, easygoing smile. He wore a tunic colored deep blue, its trim decorated with pearlescent shells that only added to his good looks. He hummed a tune while he played a pipa lute, fingers dancing along the strings in a song that made Aang think of sunsets and goodbyes, both nostalgic and wistful.
Kuruk just sat alongside him and listened, staring across the lagoon to the other side of the atoll. He looked older than Aang had ever seen his spirit, but in a way that he looked content rather than tired. Crows feet ambled at the corners of his eyes and his hair had started to turn grey at his temples, but he had no doubt that Kuruk lived a fuller, healthier life than he did back when he destroyed the essences of dark spirits.
Aniak stopped playing his pipa and Aang found himself wishing that he continued. "Father," said Aniak. He spoke with the air of divulging a great worry he had been mulling over for a while. "I've been thinking. I don't know if I should depart with you to the North Pole tomorrow."
"But why?" Kuruk asked, frowning in a way that made Aang think he didn't see this coming at all. "The whole clan will be there. It's a celebration, you'll have a great time."
The younger man rested the pipa across his lap and stared at its wooden face. "I'm... not part of your Polar Bear Dog clan. I am still of the Wolf."
Kuruk let out a sigh. "Still with the lone wolf outlook, eh? But no matter what, my son, you are still part of my family. And my cousin Amutaq will want to see us there as he becomes the new clan chief."
"He'll want to see you, perhaps," said Aniak. "But it is not my place. And that is okay," he added, stressing his words. "I've been thinking, and I've come to realize I want to do my part to restore the Wolf clan to its former glory. You are my father, and I will never forget that, but I think it's important that I do this."
"Well, you'd need a girl first. And find her for love, not just for a purpose like that."
"That isn't enough," Aniak continued. He placed the pipa on the sand and rose to his feet. "You've been so busy fighting spirits that you haven't noticed all the warring clans of the South Pole. They have so many petty disagreements, father. Over land. Over food. Spiritual matters and even women… I don't understand. It makes them all weak - a great irony where they believe it will make them stronger when instead they wear themselves down to a pathetic trickle rather than a raging river."
Kuruk leaned back, brow furrowed. "Where are you going with this?"
"I want to unite them all," Aniak said, clenching his fist with his back to Kuruk. "All of them under the banner of the Wolf. I'm stronger than any of those chiefs. Smarter. I know the way of things, the strength of men and beasts and spirits. And I can use that. I can make the Water Tribes powerful in the face of any enemy, any force that looks down on us." He stared down at his feet and his voice shook for the first time. "Never again will a clan wipe out another."
Despite lacking his body, Aang felt chills. "I knew it," he said. "He never put that behind him, even after all these years." How could he? Aniak reminded Aang, disturbingly, of himself.
Kuruk stood, his jaw dropping open in shock. "Another clan did that to your village? I always thought it was the doing of spirits! Aniak, why haven't you ever told me this?"
"What difference does it make?" Aniak asked. "Spirits wage war as much as men do."
"And it's my job to stop that from happening," Kuruk said, his voice low. "I am sorry I haven't done it as well as I should have, but I try to measure up to my predecessors every day. Your method - your idea to unite all of the clans… it won't be bloodless."
"It'll be as bloody as it needs to be."
"You contradict yourself," Kuruk said, eyes narrowed. "Looking down on people for waging war while you seek to do the same. And I can't stand by while my own son does that."
"My cause is a righteous one," Aniak said, his voice coming out forceful. His eyes hardened, like ice, in a way that reminded him of Katara. His eventual descendant, Aang supposed. "For the good of our entire tribe. Yes, you're the Avatar, but you can be impartial and stand aside to allow me to succeed. That shouldn't be hard for you, father."
Kuruk clenched his jaw, which twitched at Aniak's words. For a long time, he said nothing, but eventually he pushed back his braids and let out a scoff. "I always said you just need to find someone nice and settle down."
Aniak scoffed back. "You mean like you did? Let's face it, father - no one in this world is a good enough partner for either of us."
"You take that back." Kuruk's anger came out like the growling of a bear. "I did not raise you to think that way."
"Oh? What of all your conquests? I've heard the stories from Sud and Sozin of the way you used to be before you met me. None of those women meant anything to you," Aniak said, turning away when Kuruk had nothing to say to that. "I don't mean to accomplish my goal of reviving the Wolf clan entirely through war, for the record. I'll do it through trade. Show them my power. My connections. And I'll charm whoever I need to, just like you taught me."
With that, he stepped off the edge of the atoll and skidded away across the surface of the sea.
"Something broke between them that day," said Aang's younger self. He looked almost mournful. "Over the next few years, Aniak did work at bringing together a few different clans and forming alliances with a bunch of chiefs. And he didn't do it through fighting, just like Kuruk wanted."
"But that didn't last forever," Aang finished. His initial perception of Aniak had been stripped away, revealing the true man beneath the charismatic smiles. "He eventually became the first Water Emperor."
Ever since their departure from Slim's Cove, Jet had been stewing below deck in the cabin that all of his Freedom Fighters shared. Ty Lee ventured down there later in the day, concerned that he wasn't getting enough fresh air. But she didn't think that was good for him whether he was avoiding the waterbenders or not, so she knocked on the cabin door. She glanced up and down the hall, holding up her whale oil lamp to cast its light as far as she could.
"Hey, Jet? You in there? There's this flock of flying dolphin fish swimming alongside our ship, you've got to see this!"
He pulled the door open, peeked out at her, and ushered her inside with a hurried gesture. He had another oil lamp lit as the only light source in the room, and the dozen or so hammocks hanging across the room cast weird shadows. Jet had been sitting in here alone, apparently - he was the only one of his gang who hadn't left the cabin at all. "I don't want any of the waterbenders to overhear us," he said in a raspy whisper.
Ty Lee frowned and spoke at her normal volume. She tried not to pinch her nose - it smelled like sweaty kids in here. "But why? I get that other waterbenders are totally bad guys, but these swampbenders are super nice."
He scowled at her for speaking so loud. "Obviously they're just trying to get your guard down. I have Smellerbee and Longshot making sure we're really traveling to the North Pole like they say and not to some trap."
"I think you're just being paranoid," she told him. "Just come up on deck. Maybe talk to one of them. You'll see that they're not all bad."
"I'm gonna stay right here," he said, crossing his arms. He gestured to water jugs underneath the hammocks. "I need to make sure none of them sneak in to poison our water supply or try to steal our weapons or anything. Call me paranoid or whatever you want, but I'm not taking any chances. If you wanna be a Water Tribe sympathizer just know that you're not gonna get any respect from me."
"If they've hurt you, do you want to talk about it?" she asked, clasping her hands together. "Maybe that'll help."
Jet snorted. "With you? I don't even know you. You could be some spy, I don't even care if you're friends with Aang and the others."
She put her hands on her hips, scowling. "I'm no spy!" She pinched her nose and took a deep breath. "Listen, if you don't want to tell me your story, what if I did an aura reading?"
He raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"
"It's all about colors you give off that tell me things about your personality," she said, moving her hands as if to encompass a cloud around her body. "All you've gotta do is stand there."
Jet put a hand on his hip and released the tension from his shoulders. "Alright, my curiosity is piqued. Go ahead."
"Okay," she said, making a frame out of her hands and peering at him through it. His aura was a strong one, and in the dimly lit room it came out vibrant, almost blinding. "Wow, your aura has a ton of red, yellow, and orange - it's so bright, like staring at the sun! You're passionate and strong, so many people are drawn to you and your creativity and confidence. It's the aura of a natural leader."
He shrugged and gave her a bit of a smug grin. "Well, makes sense."
The orange in his aura came out murky and the yellow was almost sickly. In truth, that combination of colors made for a bombastic leader, something that unnerved her a little bit in someone like him. And she saw something else underneath that which contributed to the blinding factor. "Deep down there's some bright white. You're someone who seeks purity and truth, judgment, maybe even tradition. You tend to be self-righteous and can reject opposing viewpoints. That's a rare color."
"Doing aura readings again?" Mai's voice came from the doorway and both of them turned to look at her.
"Dunno," said Jet. "Do you believe in this stuff? Seems like it could be handy."
"Not really," she said. "Ty Lee, can I talk to you?"
Ty Lee puffed up her cheeks and blew air out. "No one ever does, but I'm used to it." She shrugged and followed Mai out the door and down the hallway. "What did you want to talk about, Mai?"
"I wanted to tell you that I can read auras, too," she said, without looking at her. "And I realized that you're a kind person who's just looking for a way to fit in and help us. You're trying to make friends here, and while that threw me off at first I did come to realize that you've got good intentions. And we'll need you."
Ty Lee beamed and threw her arms around the other girl's shoulders. "Thanks, Mai! That's amazing, I had no idea you could read auras, too!"
Mai stiffened and just put her arms up instead of hugging her back. "Though I'm not one for hugging. And I can't actually read auras, dummy."
"Oh," said Ty Lee, pulling back and smiling sheepishly. But she saw the corners of Mai's mouth quirk up and it made her feel relieved. "And I have to apologize… I shouldn't have kept reading your aura when you didn't want me to. I know that's really personal, and I'm sorry."
"I appreciate that," she said, and for the first time Ty Lee thought that maybe she wasn't always so intimidating. "I think that maybe we really can be friends."
Maybe, Ty Lee thought, this journey and their mission wouldn't have to be so dreary after all. Like Iroh said, she just had to keep them from losing their way. She'd be the one to illuminate the right path, wherever it took them.
Under a night sky alight with the moon and stars, Kuruk skimmed across the ocean in a canoe, his face set in grim determination to the whelk towers ahead. When he arrived at his atoll, he stepped off of the canoe and Aang got a good look at him and all the time that had passed since the last memory. Now, Kuruk's face was lined with age, his braided hair and beard entirely grey. With his stern face and sudden age, he was almost unrecognizable.
"I've never seen him this old," Aang said.
"Yeah," said his younger self. "It's kind of weird, right? He never looked like this when he visited you."
He wondered if it was his own perception of Kuruk that affected the spirit's appearance, but he didn't have time to follow that train of thought - Kuruk strode along the sand and stopped when he found Aniak singing to a crested bird with a swan-like neck and long tail feathers. It was hard to identify its coloring in the lack of light, but Aang thought it might have been crimson. He knew this was no common seabird. The bird sang along with Aniak in harmony, trilling in delight when he brushed his fingers along its feathery crest. Aang wondered if this bird was his dear pet or even an animal guide.
Kuruk watched them sing their duet for a moment and only spoke when Aniak stopped. "It's been a long time since I've heard you sing," Kuruk said. "Even after all these years, you're no less talented."
Aang thought that Aniak still had all the good looks of his youth; if anything, he had become even more striking with a chiseled jaw and neatly trimmed beard. "Thank you," he replied, and after a pause he added, "father."
"Thanks for taking the time out of your busy conquests to meet with me," Kuruk said. "Chief Aniak. Or is it Seiryu the sea dragon, now? Isn't that what your clan chief underlings call you?"
"Whatever you like," said Aniak, stroking the bird when it hopped onto his shoulder. It preened under his touch. "Though I'll have you know that the clan chiefs have mostly bowed to me of their own will, without the threat of force."
"I've heard," Kuruk said. "Though I am also aware that it is because they think it will better aid them in stomping their enemies underfoot."
"I've heard you've been busying yourself with the warlords in the Fire Nation," Aniak said in retort.
Kuruk frowned. "And I've heard that you've been fussing around in the Spirit World."
Aniak smiled down at the songbird. "I have been meditating there, on occasion," he said. "As I am wont to do, as the Avatar's spirit guide, remember? And that is where I got this lovely companion."
"That's… a spirit?"
"You can't sense it? This magnificent bird is Suza, an ancient spirit. You might know him by the name of 'Suza's Comet,' a once in a lifetime event." He crooned to the bird and Aang stared at it with disbelief - that bird, that spirit, was the being that had enabled all of his woes in his world? He had no idea that a spirit had been behind that celestial event, that it had been known as something else before Fire Lord Sozin claimed its name. "After many meetings in the Spirit World and songs we sang together, I finally convinced Suza to come and witness all the wonders of our world," he continued. "And like Tui and La, the ocean and the moon, the great phoenix chose to take a mortal form."
Kuruk clenched his fists. "You can't just influence spirits to come to our world like that! If they take a mortal form, they can be in danger!"
Aniak gingerly lifted the bird and placed him down on the ground, near the edge of a tide pool. Suza hopped out of the way of the water when it washed up into the pools and sang a little song as the water receded, nudging a starfish with its beak. Aang had no idea how such a pretty bird could be the harbinger of something so devastating.
"That's exactly the point, father," said Aniak. Both Aang and Kuruk jerked their heads toward him at those words, both of them shouted out at the same time - but they were too late for Aniak to jab his hand forward and impale the bird on an ice spike. It screeched and flapped its wings, but dark blood coated the ice and after its final death throes it fell still. Aang wanted to help, but he was only an observer here. He couldn't do anything for it.
"Aniak, what have you done?" Kuruk asked, his eyes wide in horror. It had happened so quickly, so abruptly, that even Kuruk didn't seem to know how to react.
"Aren't you proud, father?" Aniak asked, staring at him with a smile and eyes so shallow it haunted Aang, made him think of the boy Aniak used to be, who had just witnessed the elimination of his clan. "I've killed my first spirit, just like you used to."
"I've only ever destroyed unbalanced spirits! And I stopped once I met you and learned that spiritbending technique, you know that!"
"Yes, I'm well aware," he said. "But even as you get old and weak, there's still so much you don't know about spirits. Light, dark, balanced - it makes no difference. All can be overcome. Subjugated to make the world the way I want it to be. Did you know that Suza's Comet empowered firebenders beyond any reckoning, making it so that none could stand up to them? I couldn't have that, absolutely not. The Water Tribes have no need for it."
Kuruk swept his arm out, his face twisted in anger. "What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your Wolf clan? Is this it? Lording your power over other humans and even spirits?"
"If that's what it takes," Aniak said, the mirth draining from his face. "Our people will be the strongest. We must be the strongest. Oceans cover most of the world, do they not? It is as nature intends."
Kuruk stood as still as stone. "Don't make me stop you, my son."
"Stop me?" Aniak asked, sliding into a waterbending stance. "You won't even slow me down."
Aniak struck first. The surf rushed up to meet Kuruk but the Avatar spun out of the way and grabbed the water to redirect the attack back toward Aniak, who brought his hands together into a point and diverted most of its force. Kuruk followed up his retaliation by rolling the sand under Aniak's feet, but the ocean swelled and carried Aniak above the attack and pulled him out to sea. He rode the waves and circled around his father, striking him from multiple angles, but he faced a fully realized Avatar. In response, Kuruk just circled his arms and blasted Aniak away with a dome of wind, following the attack by propelling himself into the air with a pillar of stone and coming down hard on his son with blasts of fire from his knuckles.
The water underneath Aniak rose to meet the attack, absorbing the flames. He used the resulting steam to his advantage and concealed his assault of icy knives, which Kuruk punched out of the way as he fell back toward the sand. He fell into a crater in the beach and whirled the sand around him, twisting it into ropes that reached for Aniak, but the younger waterbender pulled a wave into the crater and forced Kuruk to rise above it on a wind spout. Multiple water whips struck at Kuruk, but he blasted them into steam with fiery counterattacks. In response, Aniak condensed the steam and splashed it at Kuruk, scalding him and making him grunt in pain.
Soothing water covered Kuruk's arms and began to glow to heal the burns while he fought, but Aniak did something with his hands and thin streams of water rose up on either side of Kuruk. For a moment, Aang thought Aniak was trying to spiritbend him, and even Kuruk looked confused. "You're disrupting my chi," Kuruk realized with a gruff grunt. "Neat trick."
"No healing for you today," Aniak said. "Sorry, father."
Despite Kuruk's burns, the battle continued in sprays of seafoam and sand. Aniak's talents were not overstated: he more than held his own against the Avatar and the two moved with the push and pull of the waves. As the battle raged, dark storm clouds began to blot out the stars and in the distance the sea churned. When thunder rumbled, Kuruk stepped back from the battle and took a moment to look around at the gathering storm. "Where did this come from?" he asked himself.
"You only prove my point," Aniak said, spreading his arms wide at the tip of a water spout over the ocean. "Despite being a so-called hunter of dark spirits, you are so ignorant to their ways. Do you even know what they are? Spirits in our world become unbalanced as a result of their environment. Human disrespect, human negligence, human destruction or attacks against other spirits - all of that contributes to the darkness inside of them growing until it overcomes them. Peaceful spirits of the forest or the seas become spirits of misfortune. Storms, quakes, volcanic eruptions, plague, you name it. And that kind of dynamic destruction paves the way for new growth."
"Was that your plan?" Kuruk roared over the rushing waves that he summoned to make an enormous ice wall. "To destroy Suza and call all these dark spirits to make a storm? For what purpose?"
Dark shapes with bright yellow eyes emerged from the depths of the sea, floating just underneath the surface like giant jellyfish. Aniak smiled when he saw them. "You never knew why you faced so many unbalanced spirits throughout your life, did you? Dark and light spirits are antithetical to each other; chaos and order, destruction and life, creativity and stagnation - and who did such a good job of bringing order to the tumultuous world of the past era that laws and regulations now rule the land?"
Kuruk halted, freezing his feet to the top of his ice wall. He towered over Aniak now. "Avatar Kyoshi," he said, his voice low.
"In that environment, unbalanced light spirits thrived," Aniak continued. "So much that, until you settled them down, they gathered in cities or wherever they could find humans in high volumes to feed on the darkness that exists in all of our hearts. And to preserve balance, other spirits made up for all of the light by falling to the other polarity - darkness - and thus your past life's actions almost ended your life prematurely because you dedicated your life to wiping them out. All that time, the light and dark spirits fought each other in their attempt to maintain balance and establish it again. Just like Tui and La, in their eternal dance."
Kuruk narrowed his eyes as lightning lit his features. "But I undid all of that. I destroyed many but restored balance to even more in the decades since!"
"Not all of them," Aniak said, standing at the top of a wave. He let it carry him back and away from Kuruk. "You'll never get all of them, as long as darkness and light exist."
"Well, I'm glad you never stopped being my spirit guide," Kuruk said with just a tinge of sarcasm. He touched the tips of his fingers together. "It pains me to do this, but… You leave me no choice."
His eyes flashed once, briefly, and along with that the lightning in the sky flashed and winds swirled around him. The ocean stretched to him in a caress all the way at the top of his ice wall and the whole atoll rocked. Rain began to fall in heavy sheets, the kind that made Aang sometimes feel like he could drown in it. And through it all, deep in the lagoon, Aang saw Aniak smile so wide that it made him doubt that anyone could have ever considered the man handsome.
"And what a choice that is, father," said Aniak, his face lit in childish delight. "For what is the Avatar State but the greatest light spirit of them all?"
Dark shapes shot from the water and latched onto Kuruk's arms and legs, dragging him forward into the sea, but he pulled himself free and immolated them with a torrent of flame. He melted the ice into new shapes and shielded himself with frost and sand, but more of the dark spirits crawled up the ice and swung massive fists like mighty bludgeons. They looked like no creature from the sea Aang had ever seen - horrifying monsters from the ocean's depths twisted into something even worse as a result of an ancient spirit's death. Creatures with razor teeth and tentacles and jagged maws and barbed stingers covered the atoll, once a peaceful and perhaps even spiritual place turned to ruin by Aniak's machinations.
Drawn to the light within Kuruk, the spirits ignored Aniak as he drifted away, staring back at Kuruk and watching from a distance to ensure his demise. Through the horde of dark spirits swarming him, Aang saw Kuruk's face fixate on Aniak even as the latter retreated across the lagoon - the heartbreak of a father who lost a son. When the dark and purple mass covered him completely, Aang briefly saw the golden light of his spiritbending technique attempt to rebalance all the spirits around him, but the light died out just as the whole atoll quaked again and began to sink beneath a tidal wave.
Beneath all the devastation, Aang heard the keening of a voice in the Avatar State, the mourning of all his past lives. If Kuruk had final words, Aang could not hear them.
Aniak struggled to keep his balance through the raging storm and overwhelming currents, but before he lost himself to the sea a massive shape emerged from the ocean - a serpent whose size rivaled that of the unagi or the monster at the Serpent's Pass. It bore him to safety, but before Aniak departed Aang saw his face fall before settling into the same expression of grim determination Aang spotted on Kuruk when he arrived at the atoll to confront Aniak.
The dark shapes dragged Kuruk deep into the sea and despite all of his power and rage they overcame him and the ocean stilled, his life extinguished. But just as Aang was about to turn away, a light shone from the deep and breached the surface in a pillar of spiritual power; Kuruk's final stand against the dark spirits. Their corrupted energy rose to the surface and then vanished in a pulse of white light that left Aang reeling, shielding his eyes as it lit up the whole sky.
"What was that?" he asked, astounded by the display of power. It died away as suddenly as it came, taking all of the spirits with it.
"He used everything he had left to banish them all back to the Spirit World. Pretty amazing, huh?"
"I don't get it," Aang said after a moment, as he floated above the slowly calming sea with his younger self. He half expected Kuruk to rise from the ocean depths, but nothing happened. "What did Aniak want, after all that? Does he want to control the spirits? Turn so many of them to darkness that it upsets the balance?"
"Kuruk didn't think he really wanted that," said his younger self. "All that was just a means to an end, tools for him to make his clan and his future empire stronger than any other. After Kuruk died, Aniak did everything he could to track us down. Went to wipe out our people once Seiryu's Moon came, just like in your world. He just… thought he was above everyone. Above mortal laws and spirit laws. I just wonder if Aniak really did love his father, in the end."
Aang didn't have an answer for that. He thought of Sangmu and wondered if Aniak had mistaken her for the next Avatar when he had first encountered her. Now he knew what kind of monster Aniak was that he would show no mercy to a child. "Just like Roku, Kuruk wants me to help fix his mistakes, doesn't he?"
The young monk nodded, offering a smile that hid a century of guilt that Aang knew well. "Yeah. And I'll do what I can to help."
When Aang awoke again, it was to discover that Zuko and Sokka had pulled him into the saddle, both of them leaning over him to see if he was okay while Sabi draped herself across his chest and Momo bounced up and down on his head. It felt like almost no time had passed at all the entire time Aang was unconscious, and when he looked over the saddle he could see Kuruk's sunken atoll below them, his final resting place.
He waved off their concern and let Zuko take the reins while he mulled over everything he had learned of Kuruk's life. He, too, had been ignorant of the nature of spirits. It also perhaps explained why nothing like Seiryu's Moon existed in his world - he guessed something similar might have happened at some point in his world's history. He looked over Gyatso's memoirs again, looking for any mention of Seiryu's Moon or Aniak, but his entry about Kuruk going to kill his son was one of the last. He wondered if Kuruk had really meant to do that on the night he traveled to his atoll to confront Aniak, or if Gyatso had assumed so after learning of the night's events.
But most of all, he couldn't help but think of how empty Appa's saddle felt without Toph, Katara, and Azula to help fill it.
"Why are we going to seek the aid of King Bumi and King Kuei?" Xai Bau asked on the eve before the trio was set to arrive again at Ba Sing Se. His seemingly innocuous question came out of the blue, and though Kanna thought the answer was obvious she struggled to think of what answer he might have been seeking instead.
"I thought we agreed to gather our allies among the White Lotus," said Iroh, slowing his komodo rhino to an easygoing shamble. Ozai had loaned them the beasts, and though Kanna knew Iroh to be reluctant to separate from his son again, the three had agreed they would be best suited to uniting all of their allies. "And Bumi is considered to be among them even in this world, is he not? One of the masters."
"Indeed," said Kanna, slowing her own komodo rhino so she could turn back to regard Xai Bau. "Piandao is in Ba Sing Se as well. It's as good of a start as any." The sun had begun to set over the baked earth, casting them all in a soft golden light. They meant to travel north, reach the river that stretched from the city to the ocean, and use that to guide them back into the city. They traveled along the edge of a forest situated to their west as they ventured north from Chameleon bay.
"But they are kings," said Xai Bau. "And that means their interests conflict with ours."
Kanna halted her mount completely and the other two followed suit. "How so?"
"Our society is dedicated to a world without borders," the Sun Warrior continued. "And kings do so enjoy their borders, expanding them beyond to their neighbors and conquering whosoever they please."
"No," said Iroh, his face set into a frown. "Our society transcends borders, not dismisses them. We pursue knowledge and balance, free from national and political divides. But we do not seek to eliminate them."
"I understand the distinction," Xai Bau said, nodding to Iroh. "But don't you two see the benefits of a world with no nations or leaders? We would no longer have to play to the whims of leaders who wage wars without the consent of their people. You two, above all, should understand this - united in a common goal despite both being from nations who instigated wars in two separate worlds."
Kanna narrowed her eyes - she had long known of his disdain for leaders who waged war, even as he previously sat among Hakoda's court. "A world with no borders, eh?" she asked. "Where will it end? As we have all learned recently, borders are a natural part of the order of things. The border between this world and the Spirit World. The border between our world and all the others. You saw what happened at Ba Sing Se when that border began to crumble. It would be chaos."
"No," said Xai Bau, facing her with a hand over his bare chest. "We would be free. I am not surprised that you picked up so soon where I was going with this, Kanna. Just think of all the possibilities - all the knowledge that could be gleaned from other worlds, all the people who could be reunited with loved ones who are gone in one world but alive in another. Like people in your situation, Iroh."
"The world would expand at an alarming rate," said Iroh, lowering his eyes and shaking his head. "It sounds nice, in theory, but if all the worlds merge together they would fall apart."
"You didn't," Xai Bau said to Iroh. "Against all odds, you merged fully and completely with yourself from another world - and there does not seem to be any consequences to it. What if there are others? So far, we only know of those with a connection to the Avatar, whose destinies are intertwined with his, who have connected to their living counterparts in another world. But our worlds are vast. What if people are joining together with those from any number of other worlds? What if we find a way to allow the worlds to continue to merge without them all being lost?"
"No," said Kanna, her voice rough. With every word, Xai Bau spoke with increasing zeal and it worried her. "That is not the way of things. The Avatar said that even two worlds merging would lead to ruin for all of them, the Spirit World included. We cannot allow that to happen. He sealed the connection between this world and the Spirit World for the specific reason of preventing that calamity."
For the first time since she had met him eight years ago, Xai Bau's face twisted in anger. "And I curse him for that! So, what? You just want our noble and ancient society to act as the Avatar's glorified bodyguards and enforcers? Nothing will change! War between the nations will only start again in less than a century, I'm sure of it!"
Iroh spoke and Kanna could feel the gravitas of his words even though they weren't directed at her. "Like the Lady Kanna said, we cannot allow that to happen. If you act upon that course, we will have no choice but to stand against you."
Xai Bau closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he fixed his gaze on Iroh and blue fire burned in his left palm while white fire flashed in his right. "I see the path before me and I will not lose my way." He hurled the blue fire at Kanna and the white at Iroh, who retaliated by leaping off of his komodo rhino in a burst of orange flames. Kanna twisted off of her saddle and drew a meager amount of water from her waterskin - not that it would do much good in a battle with a master firebender - and whipped it at Xai Bau.
His komodo rhino roared in fear as Iroh's attack passed over its head, but when the fire cleared Xai Bau was gone.
"He fled into the forest," Kanna observed, searching the trees for any sign of him.
"Let him go," said Iroh, his voice grave. "I am worried about what he might try to do, but we must find our allies and make sure we are united. It seems that, for the first time since its inception, there is a rift in the Order of the White Lotus."
Author's Notes: This time around, the North Pole team's side of the story was a little filler-y, but I couldn't really avoid it. I had to establish some character stuff and Ty Lee was a great vehicle for that, plus it couldn't be too plot heavy because I didn't want to detract or distract from the main plot of this chapter. And we still have a couple things to learn about Aniak…
On light spirits: Bit of lore I bent around to try and come up with something a little more complex than a good/evil dichotomy that "regular" spirits and dark spirits have (and by extension, Raava and Vaatu). I hope that makes the idea of them a little more palatable, but like I said in a previous note: I promise I have no intention of ever making Aang fight Vaatu.
Hope you enjoyed this backstory chapter. Please review!
