Author's Note: Chapter 50! This is wild. Though with the Prologue, Interlude, and Book 2's finale being longer, we're a few chapters behind ATLA's 50th episode. Also, sorry this chapter came late - I needed a breather, especially since I started a new job with a new company and I just had a lot of stuff going on this month in general.
Last time with Aang's group (Aang, Sokka, Zuko): They discovered the Spiritsong Grotto, where they found the spirit Sedna who revealed to them the truth about the rest of Aniak's life and his confrontation with the airbender Sangmu. Sokka reunited with his mother, who is bound to Sedna's domain. Sedna went to unfreeze Sangmu to bring her to a previously agreed upon destination: a nearby herbalist's village.
Last time with Mai, Ty Lee, Haru, and the Freedom Fighters: On their voyage to the North Pole with Huu's pirate crew, Ty Lee took the time to learn about her new companions Haru, Mai, and Jet.
Book 3: Water
Chapter 7: The Herbalist
The growl of airship engines intruded on the quiet, misty morning, and all at once the peaceful ravine erupted into chaos.
First the explosions came and then the temple shook. All of them roused from sleep at once and took cover but Aang grabbed his staff and summoned a gale that made the protective metal shutters slam closed, protecting them from their enemy's onslaught. He did not know for what purpose the nuns installed such protective measures, but he was thankful for it now. Falling rubble nearly crushed Katara but Zuko dove into her to push her out of the way before Aang could do the same.
Sheltered from the firebender attack - or as sheltered as they could be - everyone gathered together under the bison mural to plan their next move. "We need to get out of here," Sokka said while they huddled together and flinched every time a blast shook the temple. "Chit Sang, Haru, take Teo and the Duke on the airship we stole from the Boiling Rock."
Teo frowned. "Why do we have to go? We won't be able to outrun the Fire Nation or fight them off with just one airship! We'll just get captured like my dad and all the others."
"Besides," said Chit Sang, scratching his head, "I don't know how to drive one of those things."
Katara rubbed her temples. "Fine," she said. Despite waking up only minutes before, she looked ready for war. "There's no time to argue. We'll all escape on Appa."
"I'll distract them while you guys fly out of here," Zuko said, watching the metal shields shudder. "Something tells me this is a family reunion." Before any of them could protest, he dashed outside to the battle.
It took only moments for everyone to load into Appa's saddle, and when they emerged into the morning sun it was to fire and airships intent on blasting the Western Air Temple off of the mountain and all of them with it. Aang tugged on Appa's reins to maneuver him around plumes of flame while Katara warded them with a whirling shield of water. Below, they spotted Zuko fighting with Azula on top of one of the zeppelins.
"He needs our help!" Sokka shouted, exchanging a glance with Suki. "Zuko's ex and that circus freak are both down there, too. Drop us off on a flyby!"
Toph's eyebrows disappeared into her hair. "Wait, did you just say Zuko's ex? The one with the knives? You've gotta be kidding me."
Aang agreed that Zuko needed help against all three foes, so he turned Appa back around to do as Sokka said. "Be careful!"
"This is a rematch I've been waiting for," said Suki, just before jumping over the edge of the saddle.
Knowing they couldn't leave to abandon their friends, Aang directed Appa through the airships, dodging attacks from firebenders while Katara defended them. Everything was going so wrong, they had to flee, they had to run - but he vowed to never leave anyone behind again. Atop the zeppelin where Zuko, Sokka, and Suki fought, he heard the telltale crackle of lightning, the energy dancing in Azula's hands, and with one mighty thunderclap she directed it at Zuko.
He caught it, held it like a rat-viper coiling around his shoulders, and instead of firing it back at Azula he redirected it to the sky. When all the energy released to the air, Aang felt the scar on his back sting and burn, the reminder of Azula's touch, and then he was back in the catacombs. His body convulsed and he felt lost, and for a moment he thought he was falling until Katara shouted his name and pulled him back to reality.
They went back for the others, and once Sokka and Suki made it back onto the saddle he realized that Zuko was the one falling. Azula, too.
Appa descended, the wind rushing up in resistance. Aang wondered if they could save both Zuko and Azula - if they even should bother trying to save Azula - but when Katara caught Zuko and they watched her fall ("She's not gonna make it," Zuko had said), Aang waited just a split second too long as he fought with his indecision. Would letting her fall to her death count as murder? Wasn't all life sacred, even hers? Even after she had killed him? After everything she had done? But she was so young, only a kid, just like him… Flailing like that, floundering as she fell, she looked so small, so distant.
Before he could wrestle his conflicting thoughts into submission, Azula herself absolved him of the decision, saving her own life with a jet of flame.
Zuko looked away. "Of course she did."
Near the edge of the eastern peninsula, they found a village bordered by a conifer forest topped with white snow. Kya had told them to look out for a dead, frozen tree with bare branches overlooking the forest and the village, describing it as ancient and even mystical as it continued to stand tall after all these years, and the village below would be where they'd find the herbalist who might be able to help Sangmu. Appa flew low. The winds carried in from the sea were bitingly cold and the altitude of the eastern peninsula exposed them to it, giving Aang and Zuko their first real taste of a Water Tribe winter.
When they landed in the conifer forest and its shelter from the wind, Aang felt his limbs unclench out of relief. Sokka and Zuko both slipped from the saddle and padded off in opposite directions, ensuring a safe radius around Appa. They barely crunched the pine needles underfoot as they surveyed their surroundings in silence, eventually judging the clearing to be safe. Brambles with tiny frozen black berries bordered their clearing, which Sokka encouraged them to eat, and Aang found them to be bitter but not unpleasant. Sabi and Momo joined him in picking the berries, and while he ate he looked at the distant tree that dwarfed all the others, its branches twisting and writhing to make it look flattened like a fan from this angle. Ice coated its trunk and icicles hung from the branches, visible even from a distance.
After sheltering Appa in a snow dome nestled between two trees, they left him to rest while they ventured to the village. There, the wind didn't feel so harsh, and with the sun shining the cold became far more tolerable. Most of the buildings looked to be made of snow, rounded and with thatched roofs, until Sokka told him that homes of this style had walls made from wood and clay, while the snow padded the outside for extra insulation. Aang spotted totems that signified this village as part of Manatee-Pelican Clan territory, which Sokka said he'd never heard of; many of the clans on the eastern peninsula - the Outlands - had been isolated from the mainland for years.
Despite the fact that they were outsiders, no one offered them harsh glares or unwelcoming words. Most of the warriors here seemed to be woodworkers and lumberjacks, hauling enormous logs or planks of wood across the village to be carved into tools or parts of ships, which would likely then be traded with other villages in the region. They passed by a pair of young girls who smiled and waved; distracted as he was, Aang could only manage a weak smile in return but they giggled after Zuko waved back. He blushed in embarrassment when Sokka scoffed at him.
That was when a snowball hit Sokka on the back of his parka. A lump on his back - one of the lemurs hiding for warmth inside - started to wiggle and writhe until Momo's head poked out from his lowered hood and screeched at the children. Both girls gasped and appeared at Sokka's heels in an instant, clamoring and cooing to play with him, but Momo wanted none of it; he coiled high around Sokka's head, who grumbled in annoyance.
Aang looked around nervously. While they seemed welcome so far, he didn't want too much attention drawn to the unfamiliar travelers who had come to the village, but it was Zuko who ushered everyone to the side of the main thoroughfare and knelt down to the girls with Sabi perched on his hand. The smaller lemur kept her ears flat against her head, quailing under the children's gazes, but relaxed after they started calmly petting her.
"There you go," Zuko said. "Pet her nice and soft, she's a little shy."
The younger of the girls, no more than five, gave Sabi a grin full of missing teeth. "What's her name?"
"Sabi," Zuko said. Behind him, Sokka rolled his eye and crossed his arms, but the effect of his stern impatience was lost with Momo on his head. "What're your names?"
"I'm Siku," said the elder. "And this is my sister Sura! It's nice to meet you, Sabi!"
Momo leapt down from Sokka's head, sniffing them curiously, and recoiled away with a screech the moment the girls tried to pet him. Aang couldn't help but smile - whether or not this was the same Momo as the one he knew, the lemur acted the same for sure. "Siku, Sura," Aang said, crouching down to their level. "We've heard that there's an herbalist who lives somewhere in this village. Can you bring us to her? We have a friend who needs help."
A friend, he thought. It felt strange to say that aloud about someone he'd technically never met before. But either way, he had to help her. He had never felt such a sense of compulsion since he'd lost Appa in the desert, all those years ago. His hand went to the half moon amulet over his heart, his mitts tracing the fang that made its crescent shape.
Sura's eyes widened in delight. "Old Spriggy!"
"Yes, we can bring you to her," said Siku, far more composed than her sister. "Spriggy lives just on the outskirts of the village."
Sokka exchanged a glance with Aang and Zuko, incredulous. "Spriggy?" he repeated.
A massive wall, like a fortress, glistened before them in the sunlight. The insignia of the Water Tribes gleamed at its center, a beacon that challenged anyone to try and break down the wall. Its ice had never been penetrated by any army for as long as the city stood, a stark reminder of the Water Tribe's strength. The pirate captain Huu had stressed to them more than once of that fact, that whatever they had planned to do the north's defenses were absolute, which is why the Earth Kingdom never focused an attack on anywhere but the south. He said it out of worry, but Mai and the others kept the details of their mission from him; that secret could sink his ship if word of his aiding them reached the wrong ears.
But they weren't an army. All the defenses in the world wouldn't be enough to protect Agna Qel'a or Chief Arnook from Mai.
As Huu's junk ship approached, a smooth cut slid down the wall and separated, creating a gap just large enough for the ship to sail through. Tho and Due lowered the sails and propelled the ship forward with waterbending. Mai stood on the deck and watched as they passed through the tunnel, lowering her hood as they reached the sunlight at the end. They came to a system of interlocking canals; she had never seen anything like their system of waterbenders that changed the water levels so the ship could continue sailing to a dock filled with merchant vessels, Water Navy warships, sloops, and barges.
Beyond the port, she could see the entirety of the city.
She'd heard before that Agna Qel'a had been constructed wholly from ice, but she never believed such a thing could exist until now. The city expanded outward from a grandiose palace far on the other edge, nestled against a natural wall, and seemed organized into multiple descending tiers. She could see watchtowers and clan flags, canals that snaked through the city in place of streets; everyone clad in furs and leathers riding on gondolas or buffalo-yaks or crossing over ice bridges that spanned the gaps between buildings and across waterways. Mai wondered if the people had been born from the ice - how did they not slip on it, how did they ever stay warm, how did their homes not melt in the warmer seasons? She supposed it could be beautiful, but then she remembered the view of Crescent Island at night, from the beach, and the familiar ache reminded her that she wasn't here to gawk.
Once the junk docked, Mai put her hood back up and looked over her clothing again to make sure she looked the part of a Water Tribe noblewoman. She wore a fur-trimmed cloak that was such a dark shade of purple it was almost black, with an oversized hood that drooped to her shoulders. The cloak reached the backs of her legs, clasped at her white furry collar with a thin silver chain. It covered a long, embroidered tunic with a slit up the leg that allowed her freedom of movement. She supposed that she didn't hate the ensemble, if she had to be honest.
Ty Lee had decided to forgo all the trappings of a noblewoman and instead wore a parka dyed a pale pink color, like salmon. But it was far thicker than anyone else's; she had packed in layer upon layer so that her parka swelled to a round-ish shape that she swore didn't inhibit her movement in the least. "I'm no good with cold weather like this," she offered by way of explanation when Haru asked her about her outfit. The fur trim of her hood formed a ring around her face, which was similarly pink from the cold. Her teeth chattered loud enough that Mai feared it would give them away. "Totally more of a beach girl. I'd prefer somewhere warm like Ember Island any day."
Jet leapt off to the dock to help tie the moorings to a metal spike with a ring lodged into the ice while Haru aided Tho in lowering the gangplank. Eager to reach solid ground (or the closest thing to it in this city), Ty Lee waddled off of the ship and then started jogging in place for warmth. Rolling her eyes, Mai turned to the other Freedom Fighters on deck and once again wondered how she was meant to keep track of all these children while in the city and ensure their safety. Then she reminded herself that their protection wasn't her responsibility, but Jet's. Aside from Smellerbee and Longshot, most of them sniffled and rubbed their rosy noses and shivered in their parkas.
A grizzled old warrior approached the junk with recognition and surprise, which caught Mai's eye at once. The surprise turned to fear when his eyes followed the ship's sails and he hobbled toward the gangplank using the butt of his spear as a cane. Mai was about to move to the end of the gangplank to block his path but Jet beat her to it, barring the old man's way on the dockside.
"Hold it, old man," Jet said, puffing out his chest so that his parka made him look even bigger and more intimidating. "Where do you think you're going?"
The old man looked at him with something like desperation. "I need to tell Captain Huu something immediately! I'm an old friend!"
Huu appeared at Mai's side, peering over the deck in an enormous mantle that covered his whole body and made Mai wonder if he wore any more clothes than usual underneath it. "Pahmo, is that you? You're always welcome aboard my ship."
Jet reluctantly moved aside for him, glaring and scowling as the stranger boarded the ship in a hurry. He watched the man with all the intensity of a hawklynx but didn't move, while Haru and Ty Lee instead looked out over the rest of the port in case of other surprise arrivals.
"You need to leave at once," said Pahmo, looking over his shoulder at the city. "Chief Arnook recently decreed that pirates are no longer welcome in Agna Qel'a. The moment you step off your ship you're liable to be taken away."
"But this crew is nothing like other pirates," Smellerbee said. "Why would he do that?"
Pahmo shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Things are changing in this city, I feel it like I'd feel a storm in my bones. Just yesterday he had the entire crew of the Mother's Lament arrested as soon as they set foot in port."
Huu frowned. "Then we'll have to get goin' before that happens, I'm afraid. Doesn't seem like we'll be able to sell any of our seeds here."
Due slumped his shoulders. "Well that's a darn shame."
Smellerbee stomped her foot. "What, so you're going to just turn back after coming all this way? They have no reason to arrest you! I thought pirates had an agreement in place with the navy?"
"I don't know what might've changed," Huu admitted. "But I trust Pahmo. He has a sailor's intuition."
From her vantage point, Mai spotted the approaching men quicker than Jet, Haru, or Ty Lee did. At least two dozen armed fighters closed in on the docks from both sides and Mai made the quick decision to disembark just as Huu gave the order to pull up the gangplank. Smellerbee and Longshot hurried at her heels, with Pahmo right behind them, but Mai kept her eyes on the warriors as she started cutting at the rope holding the ship to the docks.
"What's going on?" Haru asked, sensing something amiss.
"Trouble," Mai replied. "We need to disappear. Quickly. Huu and the others aren't coming."
Ty Lee clasped her hands together. "So soon? But we just got here! There's no way we could be in trouble already!"
"Go back with Huu if you want," Mai said as Pahmo vanished among the passerby. "It doesn't matter to me. But we need to split up before they try to arrest us for being pirates."
Jet swore. "I knew hanging with a pirate crew would come back to bite us!"
"It doesn't matter," said Mai. "They got us to the North Pole." Her knife cut through the rope and she nodded to Huu on deck - the only gratitude she felt the need to express.
"Raise anchor!" Huu called to his crew. He nodded back to Mai in acknowledgement. "We've gotta go!"
Ty Lee looked back and forth between the approaching warriors, who began to quicken their pace, and Mai. "You want to split up? Where are we gonna meet back up again?"
"I'll find the three of you," Mai said. She glanced at Smellerbee and Longshot. "But no more than that. We can't be a big group for this - they'll capture those kids, and if they do it'll lead to a lot of questions I don't want the Water Tribes getting the answers to."
Smellerbee moved to protest. "But you can't just leave us all behind!"
"Yes," said Jet, closing his eyes. "We have to. Mai's right. I don't want to needlessly endanger any of you. And I need the two of you to look after all the others while I'm gone."
Longshot put his hand on Smellerbee's shoulder and nodded. She exchanged a wordless glance with him and all the fight left her; she put her hand over Longshot's and then looked at Jet with resignation in her bearing and resolution in her eyes. "Rescue Bandit for us," she told him. "And bring her home."
"You know it," Jet responded, grinning. "Now go! And be safe!"
The pair hurried back onto the gangplank just as Tho and Due started pulling it back, joining the rest of the Freedom Fighters who waved and cried from the deck as the waterbenders on board started to push the ship away. Relieved to see them go, Mai separated from her allies and disappeared into the shadow between two ice structures.
When the warriors converged on the dock where the junk ship had been only moments before, they found no one waiting for them.
It was later that evening that Sedna arrived like a winter gale, leaving Sangmu in the snow on the outskirts of the village and disappearing on the back of her grizzly eagle just as quickly. Sokka carried her back to the herbalist's home, a hut with two levels joined by a ladder. Sangmu barely stirred the whole way, unconscious from her ordeal and her journey. Once they tucked her into a pile of sleeping furs in the cozy upper level of the herbalist's home, Aang sat at her bedside through the entire night, wordless; he felt like he could be in a daze or a dream.
It gave him time to think.
Sangmu was unconscious, but she was alive. Her breaths came shallow and her skin had a blue tinge that gradually turned pink through the night, but she was alive. She was here.
Aang wasn't the last airbender anymore.
She looked exactly the same as she did in the other Aang's memories, with inky black hair bound by two woven bands of silk thread that framed her cheeks. The bands matched the blue in her beaded circlet that normally rested across her forehead; while she rested, it lay at her bedside instead. He could scarcely believe that he saw her frozen in ice just days before, and now… she could share in his burden. He wouldn't be alone anymore, wouldn't be the only one who'd have to shoulder the weight of his entire culture.
It almost didn't feel real. The price of it all weighed on his mind but he pushed that aside for now - there'd be plenty of time to worry later about Sedna's deal with him, his promise to spill Aniak's blood. For now, he would revel in the fact that there was another who could understand him in a way that Azula or Katara or Zuko couldn't. Of course, he would have to break to Sangmu that they were the only airbenders left, but he hoped his presence would soften the blow. He'd be there for her.
At least until he had to return home…
Once again, he considered the thought of staying. But would Sangmu be enough for him to abandon his friends to their fates in another world? No, he decided. The more this world threw at him, the more it did its best to entice him to stay, he knew he couldn't. Gaining Sangmu made things more painful for later, more difficult, but for now he would cherish the idea of another airbender left in the world.
Through it all, he missed Azula. He hadn't had much time to worry about her, but now that he sat in one place, his mind couldn't help but to wander back to her. He never doubted her strength or her intentions, but it just made him sad to think about how she felt the need to carry out whatever she planned alone. He wondered, briefly, if she didn't trust him, but sooner decided that she had her reasons for leaving him out of whatever she planned to do with Katara. Was it something she thought he wouldn't approve of? A plan of Katara's she needed to use to her advantage right then and there?
Whatever the case, he wanted Azula there at his side. She'd help him sort out his thoughts and put a new perspective on his feelings. He wanted her to meet Sangmu. He needed Azula to keep him on his path to the South Pole to rescue Toph and Yue from the Spirit World, needed her to convince him that he worried too much and he'd reach them in time and Mai and Jet would be fine in the North Pole.
He stayed awake through the whole night on a wooden stool propped against the wall, watching the rise and fall of the sleeping furs as Sangmu slept. The heat from the hearth fire below rose to the upper level, making Aang feel toasty enough to doze off, but he fought it. Instead, he focused on his surroundings. The herbalist, Spriggy, normally slept in this upper level, but gave up her bedding for Sangmu tonight while she slept down below in a chair by the fire. Dried herbs hung in bundles from the wall, flowers and roots alike - the tools of her trade. Shells and bones and a rabbit-fowl foot hung from the ceiling like charms along with sprigs of some leafy plant that released a pleasing aroma and made him wonder if that was where Spriggy got her name. Most of the space in the upper level was taken by her jars of powders and herbal concoctions, poultices and tinctures, remedies and potions.
He didn't know how much time had passed when the herbalist climbed the ladder to the upper level to check on Sangmu. A fluffy white cat jumped up from below, slinking through the wooden railing that overlooked the lower level and situating herself at the edge of Sangmu's sleeping furs. The cat, Miyuki, meowed at him before kneading at the furs around Sangmu's feet.
"How is the girl?" Spriggy asked him, holding the back of her hand against Sangmu's forehead. "The symptoms of her snow fever have gone down, it seems."
"She hasn't really changed," Aang said. His voice came out like a croak from his exhaustion and he cleared his throat. "But you said she just needs rest, right?"
"I did," said the old woman. Despite wearing Water Tribe furs, he recognized her from his world as the eccentric herbalist who lived in solitude on top of a mountain in the Earth Kingdom that he knew for a fact fell to Ozai's burning during the Comet. He wondered if she had escaped alive. "Oh, Miyuki, it seems we won't have to break out the moxibustion sticks." The cat just meowed at her in response.
Aang didn't know what those were but thought it better not to ask. "Can I help you?" She started mixing a concoction with a mortar and pestle, pounding it until he could smell something sweet and fruity, along with ginger. "Is that food for your cat?"
The herbalist looked at him with one wide eye as the twig woven into her hair tapped against the shells hanging from the ceiling, knocking it askew. "What? No, silly, of course not - this is for the little girlie. She needs something for good health."
He rubbed at his eyes. "Oh," he said.
"But you can help," she continued. "You're a waterbender, aren't you? Come and use some of that nifty healing skill you have - I suspect her chi paths are all sorts of messed up right now."
Aang watched Momo as he climbed to the upper level and had a brief stand-off with Miyuki. "I, uh… can't heal," he said. "Not yet. I'm still new."
Her wrinkled face deepened into a frown. "What is it with you waterbenders and neglecting the most useful ability of all? Honestly, if every waterbender could heal, I swear we wouldn't even be at war. Oh, well. I suppose some good old herbal remedies will have to do the trick. Little Siku and Sura are too inexperienced themselves, try as I might to teach them…"
"You're teaching them to be healers?" Aang asked. "But you're not a waterbender."
"I am no bender, but using waterbending to heal is a teensy bit more complicated than just holding water over your patients and watching it glow," she said. "A healer needs to know how a body works, what it needs. The symptoms of illnesses and maladies and how to treat them. I'm trying to teach that to all the waterbenders in this village, though the men tend to be resistant to it. The world needs more healers, don't you think?"
Aang couldn't argue with that. His eyes fell back to Momo and Miyuki, rubbing up against each other. By this point, Sabi peeked her head up from below to watch them. "You're not just any old herbalist, are you?"
She puckered her lips as if tasting something sour. "Who're you calling old? And no, I suppose not. I've become something of an apothecary too, over the years. Maybe you can call me an apothelist! Or an herbacary?" He was spared from responding to that when Sokka appeared on the ladder and Spriggy's face lit up into a toothy grin. "Oh, good timing, dear, I'm glad you finally woke up! You're a waterbender, aren't you? Hopefully not too manly to be a healer?"
Sokka looked as if he regretted stepping on that ladder at once, but looked at Sangmu and shook his head. "Uh, hi. Yeah, I am - er, a waterbender, that is. I know some healing."
"Good, good! Squeeze on in, dear," she responded, ushering him up and moving aside so he could fit in the loft that felt more and more cramped by the second. "And where's that other boy? He isn't a waterbender, am I right? He could learn some tips about herbs!"
Zuko's head popped up from the ladder after Sokka settled in at Sangmu's bedside. "Uh… is there even any room for me up there?"
"Of course, of course!" said Spriggy, jostling Aang as she hurried to make room. "Oh, good thing the girl looks as if she could sleep for a hundred years - it wouldn't do to overwhelm her if she woke up now! What a lively morning!" Miyuki yowled when someone stepped on her tail and vanished back down to the lower level with Momo and Sabi right behind her. "Now, my two waterbender friends, you two work together to sort out her chi paths. And you, boy, keep pounding this mixture into a fine juice. Add some more water - it's still a little pasty for our needs."
She tossed the mortar and pestle to Zuko, who lunged to catch it and ended up elbowing Sokka just as the latter drew water from a clay bowl on the floor. Sokka lost control of the water and doused Aang with it; he pulled the cold water off of his clothes, his face flat with annoyance. Any traces of his grogginess vanished, which helped him focus on pulling more water from the bowl to help Sokka. The other waterbender caught his eye and covered both of their hands in water, which started to glow.
"Follow my lead," said Sokka. Aang nodded - he could feel the swirling energy as it interacted with Sangmu's chi, which felt clotted around her lungs and throat. He tried to recall his novice healing lessons with Katara in the North Pole, the feeling of push and pull inside a person's body, but like everything else the memory failed him. "She has snow fever, right?" Sokka asked Spriggy. "That means we should focus our energy on her forehead. Her inner temperature is too high."
"Oho, I'm impressed, boy!" said Spriggy. "You're smarter than you look. Yes, that's right."
"Uh, thanks?"
Aang and Sokka did so. As the cooling water went to work, Aang couldn't help but let his mind wander to the events in the Spiritsong Grotto. Moving the energy around came easily to him. "Are you okay?" Aang asked Sokka under his breath. "We didn't really get to talk about what happened with Sedna and your mom…"
Sokka shrugged. "What's there to talk about? Mom's alive. I can only see her if I go pay a visit, but aside from the grumpy ice lady who wants me dead there aren't really any obstacles in the way of that. So that's fine."
"Oh. Well, okay. If you say so…"
"Trust me, I'm fine," Sokka assured him. "I mean, as fine as I can be in a tiny hut with a crazy old cat lady in a remote village that I know nothing about, but it's all good."
"Hey! I'm not old!" Spriggy interjected. "Miyuki's the old one - but you have to watch out for her, that granny likes getting into trouble. Why, just last week, she burned down the whole village of the Eagle-Mouse Clan all by her lonesome."
"Where do you get all these herbs in a place like this?" Zuko asked after a lengthy pause. Aang was glad for his question because he didn't have time to digest everything Spriggy had just told them. "I can't imagine all of this grows around here."
"Oh, no," she said, waving her hand. "Well, some of it does, like the cloudberries. I can get some roots and tree barks, too - not to mention all the pine needles, which I can use for all sorts of things, like helping with my digestion! But I know a kind soul who brings me things from the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. Without him, a lot of lives around here would have been lost, let me tell you. Actually, now that I think about it, he should be arriving some time tonight or tomorrow…"
The question Aang wanted to ask since meeting the herbalist here bubbled forth without warning. "What is an herbalist from the Earth Kingdom doing here to begin with?"
"Oh, you know I'm Earth Kingdom, do you?" Spriggy took the mixture out of Zuko's hands and poured it into a clay cup. "Well, I could turn that question around on you - what're you boys doing with the frozen airbender from Peach Petal Island?"
Aang pulled away from the healing water. "You know?"
"Of course, dear. She's wearing orange robes. And that leads me to believe you're the Avatar, aren't you?"
Sokka scoffed before Aang could react and blew a raspberry. "What? No way this kid's the Avatar. You've got it all wrong."
"Really? Oh, darn. I thought Miyuki and I had you kids figured out," she said, shrugging and dropping the issue without any protest. "Yes, I am from the Earth Kingdom. And I've seen this girl in the ice before."
Sokka exchanged glances with Aang and Zuko as if in disbelief at how easily his lie worked. "Oh, yeah? You don't say."
Spriggy nodded as she administered the fruity mixture into Sangmu's open mouth, gently pouring it down her throat. "Years ago, representatives from the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute came to my village to recruit me to work with their physicians and healers. I've always been quite the talented and famous herbalist, if you must know. Of course, Miyuki and I were quite happy where we lived even if it did fall to Water Nation rule, but they didn't give us much of a choice, you see. I was with them for years - and, I must admit, we made many strides in health and healing. But some time ago I was one of the specialists called to that island to see if we could do anything about the poor girl. I'm glad to see that you got her out of there, however you did it."
"That guy Thod on Kyoshi Island was from that institute," Aang said, remembering the cantankerous old man that had butted heads with Mizuka the Kyoshi Warrior.
"Oh, yes, Thod! The Head Seeker," said Spriggy. "Head-full-of-chickenpig-dung, if you ask me. But yes, that man calls the shots there. They called us Seekers after that legendary knowledge spirit and his spirit helpers, if you didn't know! I'm quite foxy myself, wouldn't you say?"
Zuko blanched but said nothing.
"But their ambitions got a little too ambitious for me," Spriggy continued. "So Miyuki and I left - or rather, we escaped - and on our way back home we ended up passing through this little village and they happened to be suffering through a plague at the time… and I rather came to like it here, being needed and all, so we decided to stay."
"What do you mean, they got a little too ambitious for you?" Zuko asked.
"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," Spriggy said. "Hunting all sorts of creatures near to extinction in their pursuit of rare materials and animals. I work almost exclusively with plants, you see. Their efforts became focused on turning base metals mined on the forced labor of other men into gold, among other things. Personally, I don't think it's possible, but Thod seemed to disagree."
Sangmu stirred, cutting their conversation short. Her eyes opened, dark and unfocused, and she let out a soft groan before shutting them again. Aang held his breath.
"Well, enough about me," said Spriggy. She waved Zuko and Sokka toward the ladder. "She should be waking soon for real, but until then let's give her some time to rest, undisturbed. Who wants to help me brush Miyuki?"
Mai held her hood close to her face, partially to hide her features but also to protect it against the cold, windy night. After ensuring that Ty Lee, Haru, and Jet made it away from the port safely, they had gathered together at a communal smokehouse to find lodgings for their stay in Agna Qel'a. They had been directed to another building nearby, large enough to fit two of Mai's old dojos side by side and a high domed ceiling that made every sound echo within - and there were many sounds and many echoes, since they shared this space with dozens of other people. Mai had never known that the Water Tribes ate and lived communally like this. The travelers' lodgings were humble but they would suffice.
The original plan was to spend their nights on Huu's ship and stay only as long as they needed to. Now, they had no supplies. No money. No allies. But none of that mattered. When night fell, she left Ty Lee and Haru to fuss over money and food in hushed whispers while she departed into the cold. Unfortunately, Jet followed.
"Where are you going?" he asked, finally speaking after they had passed the smokehouse and a bonecarver's hut. "You're not doing anything reckless, I hope."
She didn't turn to face him. "Like you're one to talk."
"Hey, I told Smellerbee and Longshot to stay behind. I thought you would have approved."
"I do," she said. "Fewer people to worry about."
She heard the scowl in his voice. "Is that all we are to you? Obstacles that could get in your way? You were going on about leadership but I don't think you have the qualities of a good leader. You've gotta make use of all our strengths."
She stopped walking so he could catch up and she could lower her voice in case of passersby. Two women decked head to toe in furs walked by on a bridge above them. "Is that what I am now? Your leader?" She ignored his comment about how she lacked the qualities of a good leader.
She knew that already.
"Until you make a call I don't agree with," he said, appearing at her side with a shrug. "But so far, so good. You handled yourself pretty well back there with all the scattering and tracking us down - you found everyone faster than I would have. But then again, this isn't the kind of territory I'm good with."
Mai started walking again. "I'm headed to the palace to do some reconnaissance. Don't worry. You won't miss out on the action."
Jet quickened his pace. "I'll come with you. I bet I'm at least as good at sneaking around as you are."
"Fine. Suit yourself."
Nobody stopped them as they strode through the city's icy streets. Most stayed inside, sheltered from the cold, but they passed several longhouses full of people eating and drinking together in revelry. Mai noticed that nearly every building had a black feather charm stuck somewhere to its roof while every street corner had an alcove and an urn filled with bird feed. She knew that people in the Fire Nation used the imagery of spirits for protection and good fortune but she did not recognize these tokens.
They ascended to the next tiers of the city by climbing the ice walls separating them, unseen by guards posted above and below. Unlike Ba Sing Se, these walls were not for separation, but instead for organization, which meant they were short enough for Mai and Jet to scale. Jet's swords made effective ice climbing picks, giving him the advantage there, which he made sure to let her know by cresting the walls first and smirking at her as she trailed after him, her cloak billowing in the wind.
The palace's splendor could be seen from anywhere in the city and Mai focused on it, adding more details to her observations as they neared. A moat of waterfalls. A single bridge leading to the wide and open palace courtyard with two pools and sparse cover in the form of decorated pillars. Pyramidal tiers that made for easy climbing and infiltration but no discernable windows or doors other than the main entrance. An open lower level with long tables for feasts that cast a crystalline glow on the rest of the palace. Guards with white minkhounds patrolled the bridge and the main entrance but that was all they needed to protect; with no other entrances they only had to make occasional surveys of the rest of the palace grounds.
Having a waterbender ally would have been convenient here but Mai didn't find it necessary. There had to be another entrance. She gestured to Jet and they both rounded to the edge of the moat where it met the craggy ice wall that bordered the city and carefully climbed without slipping to slink into the palace grounds. She had to give Jet credit - he could keep up with her in stealth and speed. In another life he might have made a good Roku Warrior.
Beyond the palace courtyard and a ring of salt lamps that marked the guards' patrol routes, Mai and Jet discovered a shadowed waterway through which the moat emptied. Metal grates marked the entrances to tunnels that presumably led to the waterways throughout the rest of the city, but in the direction of the palace she spotted a metal door.
In front of this metal door, a human-sized raven roosted on a nest of pale white brambles that Mai thought for a moment were actually jagged bones.
The two of them stayed hidden and silent around the bend of the waterway, exchanging a wide-eyed glance with each other, but before they could decide what to do next they heard a voice addressing the giant raven from the other side of the waterway.
"O great protector raven," said the man. Mai peeked around the bend and saw that it was Pahmo, the eldery warrior who warned Huu to leave Agna Qel'a. "I beseech you to admit me to the palace depths." He held up a gemstone she couldn't identify from here that glinted in the moonlight.
The raven's head twitched to face him and the gem and then she opened its beak to let out a loud caw. Mai, Jet, and Pahmo all flinched and her limbs felt locked in place; based on Jet's grunts, she suspected the same force gripped him. When the spirit closed its beak, Pahmo hurried away as fast as his legs would carry him, cursing under his breath. The otherworldly hold fell from her limbs as well and without a word she followed after him. The sound of the raven's caws was sure to have alerted the guards.
Mai and Jet trailed Pahmo back to the city as he made his hasty escape; she had not expected him to be so fleet-footed, so practiced at evading unwanted attention. Jet climbed to the rooftops while she followed him from the icy walkways. Thankfully, with so few people walking about, Pahmo's parka was easy to keep in her line of sight. Behind them, on the palace grounds, she saw tiny lanterns bobbing toward the direction of the raven spirit.
Pahmo quickened his pace, apparently noticing his pursuer. Mai didn't mind, because when he glanced back at her for just a moment he stumbled right into Jet.
The old man's voice shuddered. "What do you want?" When Mai stepped closer, he gasped in recognition. "You're the kids that were with Huu earlier!"
"You were trying to sneak into the palace, weren't you?" Jet snarled at him. "I bet you told us complete lies before to try to get us to leave!"
"No, I swear by it," Pahmo said, looking back and forth between the two as they surrounded him. "That was the truth. High Chief Arnook truly has been arresting pirates and has not hesitated to execute criminals of any type lately. Something has changed within him."
Mai stepped closer, a knife sliding into her hands. She made sure to let Pahmo see it. "What were you trying to do?"
Beaded grey hair hung from the sides of his weathered face, dangling as he did his best to keep them both in his field of vision. He was a brawny man with years of fighting experience, but he was old now. Mai knew that she and Jet could take him. "I'd hoped to discover what it was that influenced him to make his laws so harsh and unbending, especially after what happened today. Before I became part of the council of elders, I used to be a pirate myself. I have a stake in this too, just like you kids."
Jet scowled. "We're not pirates."
"Then who are you?" Pahmo asked, his brow furrowed.
"We'll be the ones asking questions here, if you don't mind," Jet said, shoving him against the wall and wrenching the spear from his hands. Mai permitted the show of roughness and wondered if it had something to do with Pahmo's former choice of a career. "Tell us about that giant bird. What was that you held up to it?"
Pahmo grunted and unclenched his mitt, showing them a polished blue stone with a black cloth band. A betrothal necklace, aged and worn. "It's a spirit that seems to be under the chief's control. Once, I saw one of Arnook's First Spears hold up something similar - a kind of token - and it permitted him to pass. I assume now that it must be something unique to them to allow them entry, since even members of the council like me don't have one."
"His First Spears?" Mai asked. "A sort of honor guard?"
He stared at her. "Yes. You aren't of the Water Tribes, are you?"
"We need to get into the Spirit World," Mai said before Jet could interject. A partial lie. "By any means necessary. We'd hoped Arnook knew of a way."
Pahmo frowned. Footsteps tapped against the ice on a bridge above them but all three ducked further into the shadows. "Get me the token and I'll tell you how and you won't even need to see him."
Mai and Jet exchanged a glance and Mai narrowed her eyes at Pahmo. Of course, they already knew about the Northern Spirit Portal, so if he wanted to hold that over their heads she'd allow him to think he had that advantage. But they couldn't seem too willing. "And how do you know about that?" she asked.
"I am an elder on the council of shamans and warriors who advises the most spiritually learned man in the world, after the Avatar. I'm bound to pick up a few things."
Behind Pahmo's back, Jet smirked at her. He'd apparently come to the same conclusion as her. "Alright, where's the closest First Spear? Tell us where he lives."
"You're in luck," Pahmo said. "The closest of them is also the youngest and least experienced - a young warrior named Hahn."
Mai gripped her knife as Pahmo gave them directions. Honestly, she'd had enough of giant bird spirits.
Aang sat with Miyuki on his lap while Spriggy cooked them all a stew made from hardy root vegetables. Sabi kept trying to sneak closer, perhaps out of jealousy, but for whatever reason Miyuki intimidated her. On the lower level of her hut, gathered around the cookfire, Aang felt a bit of the outside chill seeping in despite the furs hanging from the walls and the polar bear dog pelt on the floor. Down here, the herbalist had some potted plants, but mostly the kinds with narrow leaves meant to survive in colder weather.
Someone knocked on the door and when Spriggy went to go answer it, the wind battered the door and blew in Siku and Sura, the two young girls who first directed them to Spriggy's house. Both of them shivered and rubbed their arms to warm themselves through their parkas but beamed when they set their eyes on Momo and Sabi. They dropped to their knees in front of Momo and the sudden movement sent him away screeching.
"Funny cat, come back!" Sura called to him when he arched his back at her from on top of a high shelf. "I just wanna play."
"Keep it down, girls," said Spriggy. "We have a guest sleeping upstairs."
"Sorry," said Siku, the elder sister. She held a wooden doll in her hands with its chi paths carved through its body. "We're ready to begin our lesson."
"Oh, aren't you a dear," said Spriggy. She turned to Aang, Sokka, and Zuko. "Best students I've ever had, you know. They could be my younger sisters, don't you think?"
"Ol' Spriggy, you say some funny things sometimes," said Sura, pulling her own doll out of her satchel. She approached Aang with her hands behind her back. "Mister, is it okay if we play with Momo and Sabi after the lesson? Do you wanna play with us, too?"
Aang shuffled and the movement made Miyuki mewl at him in annoyance. "Uh… I don't know. I've got a lot on my mind." The old him would have jumped at the chance, at the brief reprieve from his responsibilities and worries. Instead, he looked at Sokka and Zuko.
"We don't have time to play," said Sokka, scowling.
Zuko gave the girls a faint smile. "Maybe later," he said. "I have to go into the woods in a little while to check on a friend, but what about after that?"
"You have another friend in the woods?" Sura asked. "Why didn't they come with you?"
"Oh, he's big and grumpy," said Zuko. "But he likes the cold. He's fine, but I want to make sure anyway."
Aang never knew that Zuko was so good with children. He was about to volunteer to go check on Appa himself, but a noise from the upper level startled him. Glass shattered and he shot to his feet, causing Miyuki to yowl and run off, but Aang climbed up the ladder as fast as he could just in time to see Sangmu sitting up from the sleeping furs and swaying with a hand held to her head. One of Spriggy's glass jars had fallen over and broken, littering its powdery contents across the wooden floor. Aang knelt at her side, bracing her. "Sangmu, it's me. Are you okay?"
She looked at him, her bleary gaze focusing on his face. He lifted his hat to show her his arrow tattoo and she groaned out a response. "Aang… is that you?"
"Yeah," he said, and his eyes burned and a moment later he realized tears started to fall for a person he had never actually met. He knew those to be the tears of the other Aang when it made him so happy that he could have flown through the sky. "I'm here with you."
She tried to sit up straighter and rise from the sleeping furs but she faltered. "What's all this? Where are we?"
Spriggy appeared at his side with a bowl of a yellowish paste. "Here, you need something in your stomach. Eat this." She spooned the paste into Sangmu's mouth when she opened it to say something. "It's a banana mixture."
Sangmu swallowed it as Aang piled the sleeping furs so that she could lean against them and sit up. As he did so, she gave him a disbelieving look and Aang belatedly realized it was because of the animal furs. He averted his eyes and she hesitantly leaned back against them. "What happened?" she asked, her voice small. "I remember… the emperor…" She sat up again with a start. "Where's Minmin? He said… he said he was going to… to cut her up and eat her." Her voice trembled when she choked out those words, eyes wide with horror.
Aang felt his stomach drop. Minmin was her bison, and there was no indication that she had been frozen with Sangmu in the ice. Hating himself for it, he forced himself to lie. "She got away from him. She came to find me and that's how I knew you were in trouble." His heart broke all over again for the bison and for Sangmu and for all their people that had been lost.
Her eyes were wet. "She's okay?"
"Now, now, we can't have you being this distraught," said Spriggy, trying to ease her back against the furs. "I'm going to leave you two alone now for the time being. It seems like you have some catching up to do." She turned to go back down the ladder and Siku and Sura's heads disappeared below as soon as Aang spotted the two girls.
"Aang, what happened?" Sangmu asked him as soon as Spriggy left, her dark eyes wide. "Why are we in the Water Tribe?"
"We're safe here, trust me," he said. He didn't know how to tell her that they were the only airbenders left. He tried to think back to how Katara told him and knew he had to break it to her. He couldn't wait, he couldn't put it off - that would only make it worse for later. "I had to rescue you after you got frozen in the ice."
Sangmu leaned back and closed her eyes, her face twitching in memory of her ordeal. "So they did freeze me," she said. "Seiryu and his wife. It's… it's fine, right? Did the Southern Air Temple make it out safe from the attack? Did we hear about the north yet? Are they okay?"
Aang lowered his eyes. "Sangmu… There's something you should know."
Like a willow tree, she bent with the gales he sent her way. She listened to his every word as he explained how the Avatar Spirit kept him alive in the heart of a volcano for a hundred years - almost as long as she was in the ice - and all this time he'd been fighting to end a war that had been waged since the day she had been frozen. He spoke of how he discovered her in the ice. He called up Sokka and Zuko and introduced her to them and she had been too stunned to say anything in response to learning that Sokka was the prince and he was on their side now.
She didn't speak for a long time afterward. Sabi had curled into her lap and she absentmindedly pet the lemur until, without warning, she burst into tears. Her sobs came all at once, pent up and heartrending, and he embraced her and let her cry as she choked out Minmin's name.
"All this time I thought I was alone," Aang said, holding her tight. "But now… Now you have me. And I know it'll be hard, but we'll get through it."
She clutched his tunic, burying her head into his chest. "This kind of pain… how do you live with it? Being the Avatar, does it make you stronger than me?"
"No," he said, and he knew that better than anyone else. She didn't even know all the pain he had been through, even after all of that. He couldn't tell her that he wasn't the same Aang she knew, not now. Not after everything he'd just revealed. "It never goes away. But it… changes you."
She sniffled and repositioned herself to lean her head against his shoulder. "I want to see Appa." He nodded and she continued. "I wanted to ask if you hated me or blamed me in any way," she said. "Because my mother's Water Tribe. But then you introduced me to that boy Sokka."
"You didn't do that to our people," he said, his voice firm. He didn't know how she had come to that conclusion and it hurt him that she could find a way to blame herself for the loss of their people. But then again, didn't he? "And neither did Sokka. Just because you're part Water Tribe it doesn't make you like Aniak or Hakoda."
"I flew down here to find my parents," she said, wringing her fingers. "Remember? But now… they're not alive anymore."
He was about to answer her when someone knocked on the door and Spriggy answered it to admit a big, muscular man into her home. Aang stood and jumped down as soon as he recognized Chit Sang and braced himself for a fight. Of all people, he did not expect the leader of the Wolf's Skulls to follow them here. "Leave this place," Aang said. Now was not the time for a fight with Chit Sang - that was the last thing Sangmu needed to see just after waking and being confronted with the loss of their people. "Spriggy, step away."
Chit Sang's eyes widened and then narrowed. "Didn't think I was gonna see you here."
Sokka had his hand on his boomerang. "What do you mean? You were totally following us, weren't you?"
Zuko stood in front of Siku and Sura with a glare even as the girls behind him waved at the new arrival.
Spriggy stepped between them and swatted Aang away with her hands. "Oh, calm down, boys! Chit Sang is the one who brings me herbs and medicines from the other nations!"
Aang's eyes fell to the bulging sack that Chit Sang hefted over his shoulder. "Huh?"
The firebender stepped past Aang and dropped the sack in the doorway, scowling. "Out of respect to Spriggy and everything she does for this village, I'm not gonna fight you. This time." Sura pushed past Zuko and ran to Chit Sang, shouting his name with glee. He grinned and lifted her up, spun her around, and sat her down on his shoulder while Siku hugged him around the waist and he patted her head. "Ah, it's good to see the both of you! If you take a look in the bag later you might find a little surprise!"
"Thank you, Chit Sang," Siku said, pulling away from him with a smile.
He bounced Siku up and down a few times before putting her down in one smooth movement that made the girl scream in delight. "Now, since it looks like I'm not welcome here I'd best be leaving," he said, kneeling down in front of the sisters. "You two be good for Spriggy and your parents, you hear?"
"Yessir!" said Sura, giggling.
He stood up to his full height again and glared down at Aang. "As for you, I'd recommend you leave this village at your earliest opportunity," he said. The sudden change in his demeanor sent chills up Aang's spine. "If you do anything to endanger these people I'll make sure you regret it."
Aang returned his glare. He positioned himself in an attempt to keep Chit Sang from looking up at Sangmu and noticing her; Aang didn't know if news of her disappearance might have spread yet or not. "I was about to say the same thing."
After exchanging pleasant farewells with Spriggy, Chit Sang put up the brown hood of his cloak and disappeared back out into the night.
In Aang's world, Chit Sang may have been an ally, but he still wasn't someone he knew well. He didn't want to take any chances. "Sokka, go outside and check to see if any of his Skulls are watching. Zuko, follow him and find out how he got here. Make sure he leaves the village."
Both of them nodded, but Spriggy held up both of her hands. "Hold it," she said. "You will do no such thing. Chit Sang is a noble and good man. Without him, this village would suffer a lot more."
"I thought we were outside the emperor's reach?" Zuko asked.
"We are," said Spriggy, while the girls rifled through Chit Sang's bag and removed jars and wrapped parcels of herbs and medicines. "It was on an expedition for the emperor that Chit Sang and his men found us. But they took pity on this village and now he does what he can to help."
Sokka put a hand on his hip. "You know what they call him, right?" he asked. Aang remembered Sokka saying that Chit Sang was known as 'the Boiler' - not a really good indication of someone described as 'noble and good.'
Spriggy shrugged. "I don't care to know his past other than the fact that he was born under Water Tribe rule. We're both foreigners and we both did what we must to survive, even if we are ridiculed and slandered and beaten by the empire and our own people alike for being one of them. I suspect he feels like he's a member of two nations and none at all, both at the same time." Miyuki rubbed against her legs and she bent down to pet her. "Though it is a shame that he's allergic to cats. But that doesn't keep him from leaving some treats for Miyuki in his packages as well!"
Aang sighed. Why did everything have to be so complicated? He turned back to look up at Sangmu, who stared down at the scene below with fear in her eyes.
But that fear was focused not on Chit Sang, but on Aang.
Mai surveyed Hahn's dwelling from the roof of an adjacent building. Thankfully, the moon wasn't bright tonight, giving her and Jet plenty of cover while they planned their break-in. At three stories, his home was one of the larger ones in the city, befitting his status as a nobleman and son of one of the most respected clan chiefs in the North Pole, proudly displaying the banner of the Shelled Swordfish Clan. Pahmo also informed them that he was also one of the most arrogant.
"So what's your story, Mai?" Jet asked her out of the blue. As the night wore on and she saw the lanterns inside Hahn's home go out one by one, she had begun to regret bringing Jet along.
"Nothing special that you need to know," she said, pulling her face mask to cover her mouth and nose.
"Really? 'Cause I wanna know how you met the Avatar and started traveling with them. And if I understand correctly, you're Zuko's girlfriend?"
She scoffed. "It's not that exciting." After a pause, she considered a reply. "But yeah, he is my boyfriend. I guess. It's a little complicated right now since we're on opposite sides of the world and all."
He kept pressing her. "How'd you learn to fight?"
"Shush up," she said, creeping to the edge of the roof. "It's time."
Keeping to the shadows, both of them leapt across the gap between both buildings and landed on the first floor roof of Hahn's home. Unlike the palace, this building did have windows sealed with wooden shutters that had somewhat frozen over. Jet dug his hook sword into it and wrenched it open. Both of them paused for just a moment to listen for movement before squeezing through the window and shutting it behind them.
Hahn had covered his ice walls with pelts of beasts he presumably hunted but also mounted perhaps an entire armory. They passed wooden spears, clubs, machetes, bows, boomerangs, and slings; javelins and harpoons covered another wall and when they turned a corner they found more of the same but these had all been carved from bone and metal rather than wood. They even found a stretched animal skin painted with ink to resemble a face that Mai assumed was his. At the end of another hall, they saw a set of leather armor with the giant shelled swordfish's bivalve shell over its chest like a metal breastplate. All of the corridors smelled heavily of wood polish.
Mai peeked into one bedroom with an elderly couple she thought might be his parents, both snoozing away. Another room had a kitchen with a smoldering cookfire. Next to this one, they located a room filled with yet even more weapons and a stuffed narwhal that even Jet lingered to look at until Mai pulled him along. After passing through a den with a blazing hearth fire they finally came to Hahn's bedroom. Two spears crossed on the wall above his head and between them she saw a blue amulet set into the ice. Jet waited in the doorway while she entered the room.
He slept with silent breaths as she stepped closer. Upon inspecting the amulet, she supposed it didn't look much different from Pahmo's betrothal necklace; it was made of the same smooth, blue stone, but another brighter gemstone had been inlaid in its center, like an eye. Hahn had embedded his spirit token in the ice and she held out her hand to pull it free, keeping a close watch on the warrior. He didn't stir. It took more strength than she expected to loosen it, but after tugging at it for several seconds that dragged on for what felt like forever she managed to dislodge it.
Hahn opened his eyes and lunged for her with a shout.
She leapt back, barely reacting, and he jumped out of his bed and grabbed one of the spears hanging from his wall. "Foul criminal!" he yelled. "I knew I heard something before! You dare to think you can assassinate me, one of the First Spears of Agna Qel'a?"
Mai rolled her eyes. Well, she didn't plan to assassinate him before…
He rushed toward her with a stab but she stepped to the side and grasped the spear shaft, diverting it away from her. She brought up her knee toward his gut but he pulled a hunting knife from his hip and swiped at her with a loud grunt, but she blocked it with her own knife. Letting go of the spear, she rammed him with her shoulder and sent him careening backward. After she had some space, she looked back at Jet, who warded off the spear lunges of the older man from the bedroom they saw earlier.
"Dad! Assassins!" Hahn exclaimed.
Hahn's father had greying braids but looked no less formidable than his son. "You two dare to think you can assassinate my son, one of the First Spears of Agna Qel'a?!"
Hahn jabbed forward at Mai. "Hey! That's what I said!"
Considering that the two men had a nearly infinite supply of weapons to draw from, Mai knew they had to end this scuffle quickly. After Hahn made a low stab at her legs, she stepped on the end of his spear and snapped it with a stomp of her other foot. He then tried to cut at her with several successive bites from his knife, but she unveiled another blade from within her sleeve and parried his blow while retaliating with her off hand. She cut him - only a light, shallow wound, but still enough to draw blood - and he let out an anguished cry. His defenses open, she slipped behind him and kicked him in the back of the legs, making him drop to his knees where she slammed his head against a wooden table, knocking him unconscious.
In that moment, she remembered Xiao and Lu Mao. She could have easily ended Hahn's life right then and there like his people did to them and her other warriors, but now was not the time. Arnook would be the one to pay that price. Even so, she wondered how many people Hahn or his father might have killed in service to their nation. How many they could still kill.
Hahn's father roared and rushed into the bedroom, falling to his son's side in overdramatic despair, but Mai only rolled her eyes before following Jet down the hall and out the window they came in from.
"Did you get it?" Jet asked her as they disappeared into the shadows. Guards started to rush onto the scene - something she was already entirely too familiar with seeing after only one day here.
"Yeah," she replied, squeezing the token in her palm. "Pahmo better be happy. If I ever see that guy Hahn again I think I'd rather jump in the canal."
Aang couldn't sleep at all through the night, and when he finally rose from his sleeping roll with the sunrise he found Sangmu wide awake as well. She sat in meditation on an open spot on the floor. From what he could glean from the other Aang's knowledge, Sangmu had always been someone who took this time seriously, who could sit still for hours and still find the sanctity of it, the beauty of contemplation and the energy around her. He envied that. To him, meditation was no longer as sacred as it used to be. She'd never been ordained a master but he thought she was spiritual enough to be one.
He wanted to leave her to her meditation, but the time to depart was fast approaching. "You're awake," he said, climbing up the ladder to sit beside her.
She didn't open her eyes. "I was awake all night. Besides, I slept for a hundred years, didn't I?"
Aang's gaze fell to the neatly folded parka and sealskin boots left for her nearby Spriggy's jars. She had already changed into the Water Tribe tunic and slacks Spriggy had provided, but the animal leathers and furs stayed untouched. "You know… you can stay here, if you want. In this village. I don't want to put you through something dangerous, not after what you've been through."
She let out a deep breath and opened her eyes. "No," she said. "I don't want to be alone." She followed his line of sight to the parka and leather boots. "I'm not wearing those. I'll accept what I'm wearing now since it's made from fibers but not that."
"I understand," he said, and he really did. "But it gets really, really cold. And we need to blend in so people don't notice us. It's too dangerous."
"We're airbenders. We don't get cold. And if my big ice block was really just sitting there for so long they're bound to notice I'm gone eventually."
Aang shook his head. Her voice came out too slight to be argumentative but he figured it was only due to her weariness. "This is a Water Tribe winter. It's different from anything we've ever experienced."
She unfolded her legs from her lotus position and hugged her knees. "Can't I get a nice, heavy woven cloak or something?"
"I'll try to find you one," he acquiesced. "But… it might not be enough, just warning you."
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the occasional movement of Zuko or Sokka in their sleeping rolls below or Spriggy's gentle snoring. Eventually, Sangmu spoke again. "You've changed," she said finally. "Listening to you talk like that when that man was here… giving orders to your friends… It's not like you."
Aang put his chin on top of his knees. He'd been dreading that observation. "War changes people."
She brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "That means it'll change me, too, won't it?" She hugged her knees tighter. "I remember the attack on my home. Every time I close my eyes I see rain and ice … and blood, and people falling. It's still so scary."
"We're too young to have to face this," Aang said, leaning back against the wall. Even now that he technically aged past her, aged what felt like another century, he couldn't deny that they were all still children. And he never had to witness the destruction of his own temple firsthand like she did. Like his other self did.
She turned to look at him, her lip trembling. "How do you cope with it? How do you cope with losing our people? Our friends? Kuzon, Gyatso, the nuns, Minmin…"
Momo and Sabi chose that moment to skitter up to them, chased by a hissing Miyuki, and both lemurs sought protection in Aang's lap. He couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, I have my family," he said. "I'll always carry that pain with me but if I don't look ahead I know I'll fall. I just… focus on what's around me, and my goal."
"To end the war, you mean," she said. She looked at the lemurs and even the sight of them didn't make her smile.
"Yeah," he said. "Remember my friend Bumi I always used to talk about? He's still around, and really old, so maybe you'll finally get to see him. And I really want you to meet my friends Toph, Mai, Ty Lee, and… Azula." His chest tightened when he said Azula's name. "They're all my family now. Just like you are."
Zuko appeared at the top of the ladder next and jerked his thumb toward the door. "Sorry to interrupt," he said. "I know it's early, but we should really start getting ready to leave." He scratched the back of his head and looked to Sangmu. "I overheard a bit, and, uh… for what it's worth, I'm really glad to have you along. Like Aang said, we're a family now. We'll look out for each other."
She smiled at him briefly. "Thank you," she said. Her eyes wandered to the scene below of Sokka hanging over Spriggy's shoulder while she cooked breakfast for them and her face fell. "Do I… do I have to consider him part of my family, too? Even though he is related to the man who attacked our people?"
Aang and Zuko looked at each other before Aang sighed and answered her. "No… but we trust him," Aang said. "But you don't have to do anything or say anything until you're ready."
Tears fell from her eyes again, sudden and unbidden, and she choked out her words like a confession. "As the Avatar, aren't you supposed to kill him?"
Her words shook Aang to his core. He knew that it came from a place of hurt, an almost childish reflection of right and wrong and innocence lost, but he still couldn't find the words to answer her. Even so, it almost made him feel sick to hear her say that and he couldn't explain why.
Thankfully, Zuko answered for him. "Sokka's good now," he said, his voice low enough so the warrior in question couldn't hear. "And he's trying to fix things. That's why he's with us."
"He can't just fix it," she said, her voice shaking. "Everyone's gone. He can't bring them back, can he?"
And then Aang realized why her sentiment made him feel that way. "No," he said, shaking his head. "This is all wrong. Sangmu, you… you're the one who has to carry on our people's traditions. The nonviolent approach. Forgiveness and love. I never thought I could bring anyone back, but here you are, and it's all got to survive with us." He was the one who had to fight. Had to eat meat and hide his arrows and wear animal skins and steal and do what he needed to in order to survive. He couldn't be the one to carry on their culture, not truly. He'd already given up so many parts of himself.
She bit her lip. "With me, you mean. Aang, that's… that's not fair! You can't put all that on me just because you're the Avatar!" Her voice rose loud enough that Sokka and Spriggy turned toward them and Zuko retreated in an attempt to give them privacy. "Is that the only reason why you got me out of that ice?"
"What? No, I…"
Sangmu broke down again, her body wracked with sobs. "How could you even say that? I thought you said I wasn't going to be alone…" She rubbed at her eyes and both lemurs bounced over to her, chittering in concern or confusion. "I tried so hard to detach myself from the pain, from my feelings, but I just can't."
"It'll take time," Aang said, his voice low. "But I'll be here for you. And I've never forgotten our people and what it means to be an Air Nomad." He may have let go of all the traditions and beliefs of his people, but he never truly forgot them. As the Avatar, and no longer the last airbender, didn't he have to put his personal feelings aside so he could focus on the world's needs?
Around an hour later they'd all gotten their things together and Spriggy procured a cloak for Sangmu so they prepared to depart. Outside, in the open air and the morning sun, Sangmu's steps seemed a little lighter, a little freer. She took a deep breath and spread her arms after taking her first step into the hard-packed snow as if steeling herself for the journey ahead. Just as they turned to say their farewells and express gratitude to Spriggy, both Siku and Sura scrambled toward them from elsewhere in the village.
"Momo! Sabi!" Sura cried, holding her arms out as she reached them. "Are you guys leavin' already?"
"We have to, Sura," Zuko said, giving the two girls a soft smile. "I know Momo and Sabi will miss you."
Siku politely folded her hands behind her back. "But we hoped that you and the lemurs would play with us," she said, fixing Aang with a frown.
Aang looked back at Sangmu, who held Sabi in her arms and stared ahead without really seeing, her new cloak billowing. He turned back to Siku and grinned, a sudden mischievousness overtaking him that felt like an old friend. "I have an idea," he said, kneeling down to their level. "But you two have to keep a secret."
Sura jumped up and down. "What is it, what is it?"
"Our friend in the woods that Zuko mentioned yesterday," he said. "No one else can know about him. His name's Appa. Would you two like to meet him?"
Sangmu looked up, drawn out of her daze.
Both Siku and Sura pumped a fist into the air. "Yeah!"
"Wait, before you go…" Spriggy rustled through her satchel and pulled out a flower that she held out to Aang. "Keep it safe. This may aid you on your adventure at a future time that remains to be seen."
Aang accepted the offering, his brow raised. "This is a white lotus bud. Are you part of the White Lotus Society?"
"Huh? What?" Spriggy cleaned out her ear. "My sudden and inexplicable deafness is acting up again. I have no idea what you're talking about. It is a complete mystery."
"But we already know about it," Sokka said, rolling his eye. "Oh, whatever. Let's go."
"How is that even supposed to help us?" Zuko asked.
"I'll hold onto it," Sangmu said suddenly, and when Aang handed it to her she held it gingerly in her palms. He remembered, then, that she had always liked flowers.
Both Siku and Sura grabbed Aang's hands and pulled him along. "C'mon, let's go play with Appa!" Sura exclaimed.
Despite Sokka's complaints about the recklessness of showing them Appa, Aang couldn't help but laugh in the face of the girls' excitement.
After making sure Iroh and Kanna didn't follow him, Xai Bau found a place to meditate in solitude.
Navigating his way to the Spirit World proved to be harder than usual after the Avatar's stunt of separating the two worlds, but he sought out the places where the barrier felt weakest. Long ago, he knew, a being called the World-Borer created tunnels connecting the two worlds and even now the remnants of his work remained, fading like the markings in the sand washed away by the waves. But it was enough. Xai Bau followed these paths and opened his eyes to find himself in a green grove under a yellow sky beneath a dragonblood tree. A familiar place with rivers of red.
Here he sat and here he meditated. Here, at the nexus between all of the worlds, he cast out his will to as many as he could. Other voices answered, like echoes, and with them he worked to undo the Avatar's actions. All it required was some gentle nudging. The Spirit World didn't like to be separated from the physical world. He felt its wailing and its thrashing as keenly as he felt the tree at his back, but it could be coaxed back into place. It felt alive.
The merging of the worlds was an empowering spiritual event, greater than anything he had ever felt before.
His echoes called back to him.
Author's Notes: I hope Sangmu didn't seem too melodramatic but I really wanted to delve into some of what the show sort of glossed over. She also dealt with their genocide in a direct way that Aang really didn't, so I hope it's not too bad. She won't be like that all the time, I promise. Also, Siku and Sura both appear in the "North and South" comic, so I don't own them. I don't own that World-Borer mentioned in the last section, either. :)
Again, sorry for the wait! And also sorry for no Azula and Katara. But the next chapter may or may not focus on them...
