Author's Notes: Oof, sorry for this delay. Had a lot going on December and January with the holidays and the new job and I just didn't have the energy for writing. But part of it is that I also completely rewrote "The First Guru," so check that out! There's a lot of new info there that wasn't in the original version of the chapter.

Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is better than 2020 for a lot of people!

This chapter title is unashamedly a reference to Final Fantasy XIV. It just fit. I also didn't plan for it to be two parts, but I packed a lot into here so I had to do it.

Also, this story's thirteenth birthday has passed! Distorted Reality is now officially a teenager!

Book 3: Water

Chapter 8: Stormblood, Part 1

The gardens of the royal palace were awash with a warm glow, bathed in sunlight and with a bleary quality that made her feel like she had just woken with the morning. It took her a moment to realize she had no control; she could only observe. She thought she ought to feel discomfort about that realization, or anger or fear or helplessness, but she felt nothing at all.

Her feet were rooted in place, boots digging into the grass. She held one arm outstretched in front of her, as if grasping toward the gazebo across the turtle-duck pond. She did not know how she knew it was a turtle-duck pond; she could see none of said creatures floating across the water. In fact, she could see nothing beyond the gazebo - the gardens simply ended like the edge of a painting.

She pulled her hand in close to her body, then down to her stomach, and then thrust her other hand out. She felt like she moved in slow motion, even as she repeated it again. And again. In. Down. Out.

Ty Lee swam into view. "It's such a gentle motion," she said. Her voice sounded muffled. "I know you'll get the hang of it, Azula."

A bolt of lightning rent the clear sky. Ty Lee had probably meant her words to be encouraging, but Azula viewed it as pitying. Or patronizing. Azula said something in response but she couldn't hear her own words.

Ty Lee fell prostrate against the ground, pressing her forehead against the grass, and for a moment Azula felt mollified until she turned around and came face to face with the Fire Lord.

She went down on one knee, fist pressed against the ground, and bowed her head before her father. She waited for him to address her.

Ozai fixed her with a penetrating stare. "You're practicing your brother's technique," he said. His voice alone came out clear, unburdened by whatever affliction gripped Azula and Ty Lee.

Azula responded. Of course she practiced it. She meant to render his new toy useless. What use was redirecting lightning if she could throw it back at him again? Sooner or later, he would falter playing their deadly juggling game.

Ozai gestured, permitting her to stand. "You observed the precise technique? Each and every motion?"

Of course she did. She planned every moment of their battle at the Western Air Temple.

"What use is practicing it without actual lightning?" he asked, and when he flexed the muscles in his neck Azula's eyes widened. "You and I will learn that technique and that wretched boy will wish he never raised a hand against me."

The world came into focus and she felt a surge of joy. Her father wished to train with her. For the first time, they would learn from each other, almost like equals. But then she remembered something. No one could raise a hand against the Fire Lord without swift punishment and retribution. She voiced her concern.

He actually drew back his head and laughed, deep and bellowing. "Did you really think, even for a moment, that you would be shooting lightning at me? No, Azula. You will learn through experience and fear will be your teacher. And I will learn through observation."

Ozai's hands crackled with power and the world fell away.


Azula and Katara fell into an easy routine after just a couple of days traveling together across the tundra. Azula always set up the tent just perfectly so that the wind never carried it away and water never seeped in. Katara set their pace and decided their route. Azula was the superior hunter but Katara was the better cook. Azula tended to their fires while Katara fetched and purified the water. Azula had the better eye for navigating over dangerous terrain and Katara handled the caribou-panthers better. If they came across any villages or roaming bands of hunters, Azula judged whether it would be better to avoid or meet them while Katara did the talking and they both pretended to be someone else. In a strange way, they covered each other's weaknesses.

On the fifth day they reached the Great Glacier, a massive expanse of snow and ice that bridged the distance between the eastern and southern mountains. It was so far that Azula couldn't see the eastern mountains from their current position, but she looked toward them regardless - those mountains marked the beginning of the eastern peninsula. Toward Aang and Zuko. Her heart ached, but the further away they were from her, the better.

To their south, jagged peaks loomed. The glacier clung to them greedily, like a drowning swimmer trying to pull another beneath the waves. Beyond these mountains, Azula knew, they could reach the Southern Spirit Portal, but that wasn't their destination. She thought briefly of Toph but reminded herself Aang wouldn't be too far behind Azula. She pulled her hood down against the wind while she contemplated their next move - she didn't like the idea of traversing the openness of the Great Glacier. She'd feel too vulnerable. And if Katara was correct, several clans of waterbenders made a labyrinth of tunnels beneath it, an effective shelter from the cold.

"Isn't Aniak'to to the west of here?" Azula asked. "You said it's situated between a forked river just to the west of these mountains. We went too far south."

"No we didn't," Katara said, staring ahead at the peaks. "This is exactly where I want to be. We're gonna take a little detour before we go home."

Azula rolled her eyes. What was with Aang and Katara and their detours? Was Azula the only one who could focus on a single destination? "Can caribou-panthers even climb mountains?"

Katara's mount huffed and bucked its antlers as if taking offense to Azula's doubt. "Yes, but I don't think we'll have to," Katara said, calming it with a pat on the neck. "People live up there so I would imagine there's a trail we could use."

"And it's so important that we visit these people because…?"

Katara looked back at her and grinned. "It'll be our first step in our plan to pave the way for a more peaceful world," she said. "The Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan lives up that way, and they've been opponents to my father and pretty much every other clan in the area for years."

Azula snapped her reins with a sigh, letting her caribou-panther advance toward the mountains in something like a mix between a lunge and a trot. "Well, that name is a mouthful. Why hasn't Emperor Hakoda crushed them under his heel?"

Katara's face darkened. "They fashion themselves the guardians of the Everstorm, since they live near the border of it," she said. Azula recalled everything Katara had told her about the Everstorm: the spiritual blizzard that raged for decades and made the terrain around the Southern Spirit Portal impassable. Supposedly. Aang would figure out a way through, she knew. "And the clan leaders borrow from its power to call down lightning from the heavens and strike down any who intrude on their territory. So all the other clans, mine included, have pretty much left them alone all these years."

Azula's grip on her reins tightened. "Lightning," she said. Fire Lord Azula perked up, a dragon that sniffed its supper within reach. "So it's spiritual in origin? How do you expect to get past it?"

"Oh, I don't know if it's a spiritual power," said Katara, examining her mittens. "I've always had the thought that it was some lost waterbending art and they just fashion themselves as some all-powerful spirit storm-callers or something. Imagine if I could learn it!"

Azula looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Waterbending? How do you figure?"

"Well, lightning comes from storm clouds, right? And clouds are made of water. It's not so far-fetched to believe that a waterbender somehow gained the power to manipulate storms like that. Or maybe an airbender, I suppose, but that's even less likely. For obvious reasons."

"Your powers of deduction amaze me."

Katara made a face at her, perhaps unable to tell if she used sarcasm or not, but continued. "We'll sneak up the mountain before they can strike us down with lightning and then I'll take down their leaders from the inside with bloodbending. They'll never know what hit them."

Azula glanced at the top of her mask sticking out of her saddlebag. With an unpainted face twisted into a serrated smile and dull, black, misshapen eyes, Azula had been ashamed to admit that it gave her a moment of alarm when she first spotted it, but she picked it out from the selection without hesitation afterward. "With these masks, they'll think us spirits from the Everstorm come to punish them for their hubris," she said. And besides, taking out this clan would make Aang's path easier, too.

Katara grinned. "And that's not that far off the mark."

Azula let out a chuckle. "I can't believe you managed to convince that artisan to make you an exact copy of that old Blue Spirit mask you had."

Katara laughed along with her. "Right? He was so intimidated!"


Snow piled high enough that Aang and the others didn't have to pull the tents from their luggage anymore - instead, he and Sokka constructed an igloo with their waterbending while Zuko got a fire going right in the middle of it. After making a shelter for Appa outside, Aang ducked back into the igloo to find Sokka, Zuko, and Sangmu sitting around the fire in silence while they dried off and warmed themselves. All things considered, once the fire started it felt pleasantly toasty.

He sat next to Sangmu while she portioned out their dinner. Though she remained morose, she helped out and did all her chores without complaint, and aside from the lemurs she seemed most comfortable talking with Zuko, on the few occasions she was receptive to conversation. Not that Sokka didn't try - he seemed particularly invested in getting her to talk and open up to them, and every time she shrunk away Aang could see the guilt written plain on his face.

It was Sokka who cooked meat on a greasy pan over the flames, and when he flipped the elkhare shank it made a drop of oil splash Sangmu just as she handed Aang his portion of seaweed stew.

"Ow!" Sangmu let out a whimper and winced away from the fire, holding her hand over the grease burn on her wrist.

Sokka dropped the pan and crawled to her side at once. "I'm sorry! Really! Sometimes I'm just a little clumsy."

She winced away even more, curling her legs away from him. "I'm fine."

Aang pulled ice from the wall. "Can I take a look at it?" he asked, letting the water coat his hand like a glove.

Sangmu nodded, hesitantly, and held her wrist out to Aang. Aang pretended not to see Sokka's crestfallen look and examined her burn with his newfound healing abilities. It looked angry and red already, and when his hand started to glow she let out a sigh. "Wow," she said. "That really does feel soothing."

"Sokka just taught me how to do it," Aang said. All of them fell silent as the gentle ringing of his healing filled the igloo along with the crackling fire. "It's good to have a healer around, and not just for stuff like this."

"Spriggy was right," said Zuko. "It's an important job."

"Well, you can't expect me to be our expert at it," said Sokka, sitting back in his spot with his arms resting on his knees. "My sister's much better at it."

"No reason we can't work at it together," Aang said, shrugging. He let the water fall from Sangmu's wrist, where the burn still looked bright but less raw. "You know, there's no reason why we shouldn't all become as strong as we can. Especially now that we're getting to the heart of the Water Nation. This is the time where it'll matter most." In hindsight, he often wished he never let himself or his friends slack off in their training before Sozin's Comet arrived. Maybe now was the time for all of them to get serious.

Zuko's face darkened. "Do you mean… you should learn bloodbending?"

Aang set his jaw. "No," he said, but then he reconsidered with a short breath. "Maybe. If I'm going to have a chance against Katara or Hakoda I'm gonna have to learn it, even if just to counteract them using it against me." He hated the idea of it so much that he felt his extremities tingling as if in rebellion and his stomach churned.

"I can try to teach you," Sokka said after a moment. "But I'm gonna warn you, I'm not that great. And we'll need a full moon at least to start out."

"What is that?" Sangmu asked, hugging her knees. "That sounds awful."

Zuko glanced at her but didn't answer, and she didn't push it. "Is there anything I can learn to counteract it, too? Or do I have to be a waterbender? I don't want to be useless if I ever have to go up against Katara again."

"As far as I know only another waterbender can counteract it," said Sokka, frowning. He scratched his chin. "But are there any super hot firebending techniques out there? Azula does that blue fire thing sometimes, doesn't she? It's not the same, but it could help! Hey, remember that bounty hunter I hired to get you guys? With the explosions? Think you can learn to do that?"

Aang scratched his cheek. "You mean Combustion Man? I dunno, his ability seemed... unique."

"Combustion Man? I forget whatever his real name was, but I called him..."

Zuko let out an annoyed grunt. "Yeah, Azula can make blue fire, but she said I wasn't strong enough for that yet."

Aang stared into the cookfire, feeling himself drift away from all of them. He never wanted to reveal what he was about to say. He remembered making a vow to himself, long ago when he first came to this world and met Azula, that he would never let her gain knowledge of it. But things were different now, and he had to give his friends a means to fight. He trusted them. "You can learn to bend lightning," he said.

Silence descended on them all, as oppressive as snowfall. Aang felt his back itch as if it still felt the phantom pains of Princess Azula's touch, even if he no longer had the scar.

Sokka leaned forward. "Lightning? That's possible? Wow, did the other Zuk - er?" He stopped himself, eye widening as he caught his slip in front of Sangmu. "Zooker, did he know how to do it?"

Sangmu caught his slip, brow furrowed. "Zooker?"

"My older brother," said Zuko, quickly. A pause. Then, deadpan: "He's dead now."

Sangmu blinked. "Oh, um… I'm sorry."

Aang had to keep from grasping his forehead. "It took him a while, but he figured it out," he said. His eyes followed the trail of smoke going out of the igloo's opening. "The cold-blooded fire, it was called. I wish I remembered how it worked…"


The sky darkened as they neared the jagged peaks at the border of the Everstorm, their path cast in shadow from the mountains. Flurries swept down the mountain trail right into their faces, causing both Azula and Katara to pull their hoods as low as they could. It wasn't snowing; wind swept the snow through the mountains as if to dissuade them from climbing to its peaks. And it was loud. Azula barely heard the grunts of the caribou-panthers over the roar of the wind.

"Why would anyone want to live in such a place?" Azula yelled to Katara, burying her face in her caribou-panther's smelly hide as the beast trudged on through the snow. Even with her frequent breaths of fire, her nose and cheeks felt raw and frigid. She didn't know how Katara could handle it.

"I get the feeling they don't like visitors!"

She tried to use her breath of fire as much as she could to stay warm, but as they got higher in altitude it came out more like a cough that started to turn blue. When the slopes narrowed and steepened, Azula tried not to look back - she was not normally one to fear heights but with this much wind and unnatural darkness she didn't want to risk getting vertigo. She could only thank Katara's foresight to purchase creatures with claws great for climbing and excellent balance.

That was when Azula heard the sky-searing crackle of electricity and shouted at Katara just in time for a bolt of lightning to strike the ground in front of them.

The blast kicked up an updraft of snow and stone as Azula threw herself from her mount and tumbled, scrambling to flatten herself against the mountainside to stop her fall. The beasts scattered, baying and howling in fright, but before Azula could pick herself up another streak of lightning struck where her caribou-panther had been only a moment before. She covered her ears as they pounded and rang with deafness. She was not so foolish as to attempt to stand and risk falling over - she'd take her chances as a smaller target on the ground, hoping the snow and wind and darkness would help conceal her.

Something lifted her in an icy grip and hurled her to the side of the mountain pass and a moment later Katara skated by and joined her beneath a rocky overhang. Azula allowed herself a moment to gather her wits before scowling. "So much for sneaking in, huh?"

"I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean that the clan found us," Katara replied, crouching as she pressed herself against the stone with eyes fixed on the sky. "It could be the spirits from the Everstorm."

"So quick to dismiss your waterbender theory, aren't you?"

Katara looked at her. "Well, no, but it's wishful thinking. I just don't know which outcome I want to be true the most right now."

"There's a bender behind this," said Azula, letting out another breath of fire to warm herself again and rubbing her palms together. "Perhaps two."

"How can you be sure?"

"Its angle," she responded. "It didn't come from the sky. It came from higher up in the mountains, from two separate directions."

"Okay, then," said Katara, grinning. She held Azula's mask out toward her - apparently she had picked it up in the struggle - and put on her Blue Spirit mask. "So let's give them a fight."

Despite the situation, Azula couldn't help but grin back as she put on the proffered mask. "Oh, very well, then."

Katara swept out her hand and pulled up a wall of ice across the slope, which the lightning struck a moment later. Even with the shards of ice shrapnel Katara kept applying more water to it, thickening their defenses and baiting the enemy to continue their assault. Azula listened for the distant screeching that signified another incoming attack and kept a careful eye on the direction of its source. Wherever both blasts came from, their source stayed stationary. Perfect for her, foolhardy for them.

Timing the gaps between their strikes, Azula emerged just in time to lob a fireball as blue as their lightning into the chasm of darkness beyond the slopes, toward a further ledge where she suspected one of their foes to be standing. She didn't expect it to hit them - her attack had nowhere near the range of theirs - but she hoped it would give them pause long enough for Katara and herself to edge closer to them.

But the lightning stopped altogether.

Azula knew that could have been another outcome once they spotted a firebender.

Katara stepped out into the open, peering toward the sky as if she expected to see them. Azula didn't know if she would call that brave or reckless, but no bolts of not-so-divine retribution struck her down. "What, did you scare them off?"

Azula heard the distant braying of a caribou-panther and she felt like she knew their mounts long enough already to recognize that echoing sound as not one of theirs. "No," said Azula. "I think they called in the cavalry." The sound of a horn blaring confirmed that suspicion a moment later.

Katara's mask turned toward her and Azula could practically sense the glare beneath it. "Now they know you're a firebender. Really smart thinking."

"I don't appreciate the sass, princess," Azula said, pressing herself against the stone. "I know exactly what I'm doing. You're the one who didn't think this plan through, did you?"

Did you forget that she's a filthy peasant? Or are you just pathetic and indicative of your own station?

Azula ignored the venom behind her other self's sentiment. "But don't worry," she continued, lips quirked behind her mask. "I don't think we'll have to fight all the way up the mountain."

The bolas came first, slung at Katara, but she sliced them harmlessly to the side with a gesture. The arrows came next, but she shielded herself with ice again and deflected them away harmlessly. After that, the warriors came in on foot, but before they could reach her she turned the snow into slick ice and they slid down the mountain right past her. That didn't deal with all of them, however - several warriors were agile enough to dig their spiked boots or ice picks into the frozen trail to stop their fall.

Azula chose that moment to step in, assaulting a trio of spear and machete-wielding warriors from behind with gouts of blue flame. In the darkness and the storm, her fire seemed otherworldly - perfect for the impression she hoped to give. The force of her attacks knocked them face-first into the snow, but more came from behind her so she ducked under their blows and retaliated with bullets shot from the tips of her fingers. One particularly burly man with his hood down and long, thick braids swung a spiked piece of metal and bone that looked like a grappling hook. It whistled in circles through the air, but Azula knew his type: he did it to look more menacing than anything.

"I take it you're the leader, then," she said. The snow hissed into steam around her ankles, melting to give her more freedom of movement.

"No, not him," said a voice from behind the giant of a man. Another man emerged, though his height didn't even come up to the larger man's shoulders. "I am Chief Attohwak of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk. And you're trespassing, ash breather."

She didn't know if it had to do with the fact that he stood next to a man much more intimidating than him, but Azula found the chief to be unimpressive, with a plain face, a forked beard decorated with blue beads, and a warrior's wolf tail without being built like any of his warriors. "I knew these lands had a stench to them," she said. The burly warrior responded by letting his spiked grappler fly, but Azula dove out of the way.

Chief Attohwak snarled and pointed one hand at her, covered in a gauntlet of metal and bone that Azula found to be the most interesting thing about him. "How dare you mock us that way? You're just a girl who doesn't know her station! Both of you!"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "My station is none of your concern."

"And these two girls are about to teach you a lesson, Mr. Big, Strong Man," said Katara, sliding over to Azula's side. Her blade flashed into her grip, held flat against her forearm. "And you made it easy for us by coming to welcome us in person."

Azula's eyes caught movement toward the back of Attohwak's band. The warriors parted, clearing the way for a pair of old women in Water Tribe skins and heavy parkas, though Azula couldn't tell if the warriors moved out of reverence, fear, revulsion, or a mixture of all three. The two women and the chief gave each other a wide berth.

One of the women folded her hands in her sleeves. "Don't underestimate your prey," she said.

"Kill them," said the other.

"Before you come to regret it," they said together. With their voices in perfect sync and their eyes equally hardened and distant, Azula realized they were twins. And shockingly familiar, at that.

Attohwak spun on them. "What? No! I'll not take suggestions from crones like you! You stay silent! We're going to capture them - I have a better idea my father might like!"

"As you wish," they said at once, bowing away from him. Both sets of their eyes fixed on Azula, and even behind her mask she felt their gazes drilling into her.

During their brief exchange, they'd been surrounded. As Katara moved to fight again, Azula held her back with a gesture, her curiosity piqued. Most surprising of all, Katara listened.

Well, this has gotten interesting, said the voice in her head. I do think you'll learn a valuable lesson here after all.


It could have been days, weeks, months, or years since she had lost her face. She couldn't tell anymore. In this world where everything shifted, where the warmth never caressed her skin and the night never brought chill winds or the songs of cicadas, she had lost all sense of time. What did it matter, when she felt no need to eat or sleep? When she forgot the taste of her favorite food and the smell of it cooking? What it felt like to chew, or to smile or laugh or cry? Had she even done those things before, or were they part of a separate lifetime?

She heard voices whispering just beyond her range of hearing. They'd been accompanying her all this way. Her other self said their names were "Yue" and "Nagi." But that didn't matter…

All she knew was to continue trailing behind them. She felt their footsteps. She never let them get far. She didn't want to be alone. Loneliness was one of the only things she remembered. It gnawed at her, like talons or pincers scraping and scratching, hundreds of them bursting to break free from inside her stomach, scuttling around just under the surface of her skin. Sometimes she thought it broke free where her face used to be.

Her other self told her her name. She said it often. But it didn't matter.

Only the loneliness mattered. The emptiness. She felt that emptiness at the core of her heart, beneath the earth buried under her feet, in the void above and around them. It shifted and fell apart and built itself back up again faster than she could keep track. But it didn't matter. Not anymore.

As she walked, the world shifted again and she thought she lost sight of her surroundings. Everything, including the two who walked ahead of her, fell away in an unclear haze.

Her feet stepped on something soft. And then, distantly, she remembered sand.

"This desolation," said one of the voices. It sounded as muffled and hazy as her surroundings felt. "It's nothing like the Si Wong. My home has much more life than this."

"What are those black metal monstrosities?" said the other voice. "They're buried in the sand all over the place. Their spikes remind me of the poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk."

"That certainly sounds like a mouthful. But look, it's some kind of vehicle," said the first voice. "Look at that one appearing, it's massive!"

Her other self spoke up, her voice gruff but clearer than the other two. "That big one's a ruined airship. These are Fire Nation weapons and war machines from my world. Tanks, bombs, warships. You name it."

She heard the trepidation in their responses. Oh, how she longed to feel trepidation again.

"These are all weapons of war? They even have the Fire Nation insignia…"

"How is this possible? How are they here, in the Spirit World?"

"Dunno," said her other self. "Maybe it's the same reason I'm here."

She walked into one. Her foot stung for a moment, the pain reverberating, but it faded before she could even really register it. She didn't move or even wince. But she almost walked into it again, just because she liked the feeling.

"Toph? Are you okay?"

"That sounds like it hurt…" When she didn't respond, the voice spoke up again. "Hey, I wonder if we can get one of these working? Spirit-Toph, think you can tell us how one of these big carriages on wheels work? Or I wonder if I can fashion a sand-sailer out of these…"

"She could get these big hunks of metal moving if she just…"

She felt herself falling backward into the sand. She didn't move once she hit the ground, but the others cried out from the force of it.

A gasp. "Wan Shi Tong… Here?"

"How predictable," said the new voice. "Humans that come across weapons immediately try to make use of them again… even here, in the Spirit World, where your cold iron is antithetical to the essence of everything…"


They ascended toward the mountain's peak, waterbenders leading the way by flattening the snow under their feet. Azula and Katara had their hands tied behind their backs with rough leather bands, and the tightness of her bonds along with the cold made Azula's fingers start to feel numb. Every time she tried to use her breath of fire to warm her core, one of the warriors would strike her in the shoulder and bark at her to keep walking. For the first time, frostbite became chief among her concerns.

But then, she supposed, Katara didn't seem bothered by the cold. And if she wasn't, then Azula would bear it too. At least they let them keep their masks - that helped her nose stay warmer, if only a little bit.

No one exchanged any words as they climbed with the harsh winds at their backs, but once they reached the top, Azula felt all words leave her as she regarded the sight below them.

As they crested the snowy hill and the sparse forest of thick pines, Azula expected a pathetic village liable to be blown off the mountain at any moment. But this one clung steadfast to the flattened mountaintop, roads webbing around buildings that looked as if they had been there for centuries. Nestled against another mountainside that shielded it from northern winds, the village of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan overlooked the southern edge of the mountain range, and beyond the clouds and grey haze she saw nothing at all. It was like Azula peered over the edge of the world.

In this void, black clouds churned and within them she saw lightning flashing the color of electric blue and violet. The Everstorm looked as if it could expand and swallow them at any moment, but the village and the mountains skirted just the border of it.

Chief Attohwak brought them to a building constructed of wood and bone and leather stretched over its frame that looked like a roundhouse with an upper level decorated with spikes that Katara whispered to her came from the animal that this clan used as their namesake. Just before they entered, many of Attohwak's warriors departed - the old twins included - and when they pulled back the flaps to go inside Azula was hit with a sudden blast of warm air.

At least two dozen old and middle-aged men sat in concentric circles around a roaring hearth fire. The warriors who escorted them there forced Azula and Katara to their knees while Attohwak rounded the flames and sat at an elevated chair that overlooked the rest of the men. Only one other sat at his level, an older man who had the same facial features as him: his father, Azula presumed.

Attohwak's father spoke first. "Who do these masked devils think they are to trespass upon our sacred mountain?" He looked upon them with disgust and scorn, which only deepened when two of the warriors yanked off their masks to reveal their faces. "To think only two young girls managed to make it as far as you did."

Katara scowled. "Look at all these soldiers you have here guarding this mountain instead of fighting on the front lines of the war like the brave men of the rest of the tribe! We got as far as we did because you're all cowards rotting away up here with some false sense of importance…"

Attohwak sputtered. "You watch your tongue, girl! You speak before the vaunted Patriarch Alsek!"

"And you speak before Princess Katara of the Water Empire," she said, her voice lowering in a way that Azula had become accustomed to hearing when she'd been angered. Cold seeped back into the room from outside.

Azula rolled her eyes. "Oh, here we go…" Of course she was unable to keep her mouth shut about the important things. "So much for masks."

The assembly muttered to themselves, staring down at them with disgust in a way that made Azula feel like she had swallowed something slimy. Her gaze slid across each of their faces, taking in the way they looked at her, and she found that she hated it. At this point, Azula wasn't sure if the reveal of Katara's identity was good for them or not.

What will you do about that? They all speak of titles, but you are the one with any real power here. Even with your humble origins, you were born with a divine right to rule.

Alsek, however, barely reacted. "We've heard about you, even all the way up here. The upstart princess who thought she could conquer the Earth Kingdom capital. You've been disgraced by your own father."

"I came to negotiate," she shot back. Katara straightened her posture to uphold some dignity even bound from her position on the floor. "Emperor Hakoda is offering you one final chance to change your ways. Throughout the war, your noble clan, the guardians of the Everstorm, have sat in seclusion up in your mountains, spurning the hand of friendship offered by his father and his father's father. Up until now, he was satisfied with the tribute offered to Aniak'to every moon in place of that friendship, but the war has taken its toll. He needs your aid. All of the Water Nation needs your aid."

A pretty lie, Azula thought. One that would crumble under any halfway intelligent scrutiny, but still.

"He needs our aid now, does he?" Alsek asked. He spit to the side. "That's what I think of that. All this time he has been unable to make his way up the mountain to stop us himself because the Everstorm protects us. Compared to my clan, he is weak."

Attohwak stood and took his bow from his back, holding it out toward Katara. It was a composite bow, curved inward and made of wood reinforced with bone. "And to show how he needs us, he sends his disgraced daughter in his stead. I know what this really is. My response to his ultimatum is to let him come."

"At least this marks an end to those accursed tributes," Alsek muttered. He waved his hand at them. "Take them away, but put the ash breather with the crones. Hakoda wants one final tribute? Well, I suppose we can prepare him one."

Azula's muscles tensed but her face betrayed no emotion. She didn't like the way he mentioned a tribute. "What?"

She and Katara exchanged glances before they were pulled in two separate directions, yanked back out into the cold. The firelight danced in Katara's eyes, however, and she saw that Katara's hopes hadn't been dashed yet, which made Azula feel better about the situation too, despite herself. While the warriors took Katara into the village proper, they led Azula to a cave opening carved into the side of the mountain, separated somewhat from the rest of the village but only a stone's throw away from the congregation roundhouse.

The entrance was sealed with a partition made from a bone frame with hard leather stretched over it, along with hanging furs for insulation. The warriors wrenched it open with no concern for what lay behind it, and they led her through a drafty, winding tunnel that descended into the mountain, lit sconces illuminating their way. Azula was about to demand to know where they were leading her, and fight back if she needed to, but the tunnel opened up into a roomy cavern occupied by the old pair of twins. Judging by the separate piles of sleeping furs, hanging tapestries for warmth, a polar bear-dog rug, and two hearth fires, Azula figured this to be their home.

The warriors shoved Azula forward and she whirled around on them. "I'll not continue to be manhandled this way!"

One of the men chuckled. "Ooh, did we hurt your pride? You've got that same look as Princess Katara, it's hilarious."

"No, brother, she's an ash breather! They care about honor, not pride!"

"What's the difference?" The pair turned around and departed down the same tunnel from which they came, arguing along the way.

After they left, Azula turned to the old women. "What am I doing here?"

They both rose from their separate corners of the cavern, where one had been weaving and one had been cooking, to stand side by side. Examining them closely in the firelight, Azula surmised that these two weren't of the Water Tribes, as much as they dressed like it. "What is your name?" asked the one on the left. The question was curt, her address prompt.

She tensed again and prepared to fight if she had to. She had no compunctions about fighting against these two old ladies, even with her hands bound behind her back. "Azula," she said, steadying her breath. No use hiding her identity now - her real name would mean nothing to them. "What are yours?"

"A proper Fire Nation name, that is," said the one on the right.

"I am Lo," said the left.

"And I am Li," said the right. They began walking in a circle around her in opposite directions, examining her from all sides. Li revealed a silver knife and Azula's breath caught in her throat, but she simply used it to cut the leather binding her wrists together. "It has been a long time since we have met a firebender."

It was then that all the pieces fell into place for Azula. "You two are also firebenders," she said. "And, furthermore, you're the ones behind the lightning that strikes any trespassers - not the Everstorm."

Lo drew back in surprise. "How did you know? The art of the cold-blooded fire has been lost for centuries."

The cold-blooded fire. Azula liked the sound of that. She felt a charge in the air accompanied by a thrill that might have belonged to Fire Lord Azula. "Call it deductive reasoning," she said. "I never expected to meet firebenders here, of all places."

"We thought the same," they said together, brows furrowed. Li continued. "What are you doing here? And did we hear those men correctly? Is your companion Princess Katara of the Water Nation?"

Azula straightened. "We're on a mission to the capital. But don't you worry, there's no friendship between us."

The twins looked at each other as if letting unspoken words pass between them. Azula found it creepy. Li spoke next, her beady eyes glinting. "Chief Attohwak sent you to us for training," she said.

"Our knowledge we shall impart onto you," said Lo, turning away toward the cooking fire. "The secret arts will be yours to carry on when we're gone."

Azula narrowed her eyes, a chill dancing down her spine as the realization hit her. "They mean for me to take your place," she said. "To be the next one to pose as a spirit and strike down any trespassers upon the mountain."

They spoke together again, their intonation in perfect sync. "Indeed."

"Which means… you never intend for me to leave this mountain, do you?"


Since Aang couldn't teach Zuko how to bend lightning, they took to sparring in the snow along with Sokka instead. Though Zuko had only been firebending for a few months, he proved to pick up on it quickly, and Aang made sure to coach him in both the Dancing Dragon form and the more common, aggressive style of firebending. He knew that with enough training, Zuko would become a master just as he did in Aang's world. And without Prince Zuko's temper that only started to wane after he joined Team Avatar, he seemed to progress even more swiftly.

After their training, they piled back into the igloo just as Sangmu finished up her meditation. She sniffed the air and stared at them distastefully as they entered. "Even with the cold, you three managed to get all sweaty."

"You can join us next time," said Sokka, but to that Sangmu only lowered her eyes.

"Aang, just make sure you don't let your earthbending get out of practice," Zuko told him, pulling his parka over his head. "You don't want Toph to see that you've been slacking."

"Toph is the one we're going to save from the Spirit World, right?" Sangmu asked. She seemed to appreciate the change of subject. "Can you tell me about her?"

"She's one of the strongest people I know," Aang said, as Momo jumped onto his shoulder and even he recoiled from the smell. "Tough, but really kind once you get to know her. And she's the best earthbender in the world and won't ever let you forget that."

"Hey, since you guys can't figure out how to shoot lightning, are there any advanced earthbending techniques you could learn?" Sokka asked.

Aang's shoulders fell. "Not without Toph. She invented metalbending."

Zuko's eyes widened. "She did? You never told us that!"

"It never really came up," Aang said, shrugging. "I kinda hoped she'd figure it out herself, too, instead of me telling her it's possible. Toph wouldn't want it any other way, I think."

"Huh?" said Sangmu. "But I thought you just said she invented it?"

"Okay," Sokka pushed on, thankfully wise enough not to let Sangmu dwell on that question. He held up four fingers. "If we can't do bloodbending, or lightning, or metalbending…" He put down the first three. "Are there any super cool advanced airbending techniques?"

Aang scratched his head. "I don't think so. I'm a master, and none of the monks ever mentioned something like that. It's not really their style."

"There is." All three of them whirled to face Sangmu, who hugged her knees. "When Seiryu's Moon started and I flew to the Southern Air Temple, I met Monk Gyatso. When I told him I wanted to go to the South Pole, he tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen. And I think he realized I had the right idea." She looked up at Aang. "Before the day was up… he actually came with me."

Aang's chest pounded. "What? So he wasn't at the temple during the attack?"

"We hid together in the sea caves among the Chuje Islands," she said, shaking her head. "I told him I meant to find my parents. He didn't want me venturing to the South Pole after everything; he said we should stay together, try and regroup with others who might have escaped. And in order to protect myself, he thought I should learn a secret technique." Sangmu fussed with the hem of her shawl. "I didn't get much time to learn it, since I ran away during the night, and then… and then…"

"You ran into Aniak," Aang said, his voice soft. "But… what happened to Gyatso?" He dared not hope, especially not a man his age after a hundred years. Now that he thought about it, he never sought the place where Gyatso made his last stand against the firebenders in his world. He never found the skeleton here. Didn't want to see it.

"I don't know," she said, and she looked up at him with eyes wet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have abandoned him."

"What did he teach you?" Zuko asked, after allowing her a moment to compose herself.

"He called it soundbending," she said, taking in a deep breath. "It's not something normally taught, even to the senior monks and nuns. But he said these were special circumstances, and coming from the Western Air Temple I might have a better grasp of it than most."

Aang furrowed his brow. "What does your temple have to do with it?"

"The All Day Echo Chamber," she said, leaning back against the igloo's wall. "Soundbending works by manipulating the sound waves carried through the air. The nuns used that chamber to study it, the way sound moves and interacts with the world. When amplified, it can be really dangerous, he said."

"Like when you blow a horn into someone's ears," Sokka said. "It can blow out your eardrums! That makes sense."

Aang remembered, once, when he blew his bison whistle so that it could be heard all through Ba Sing Se by just about every animal. "How much of it did you pick up?" he asked.

She frowned. "Like I said, not a lot. But it can do things other than amplify sound." She shifted onto her knees, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. All of them watched her with rapt attention as she pressed her palms downward slowly. Aang felt his ears pop and suddenly the world felt muted, the fire dancing in complete silence. Momo and Sabi must have felt it, too, because both lemurs jumped up and opened their mouths, but Aang didn't hear a sound.

Aang tried to say something. He felt his throat vibrate as words came out, but he couldn't hear them at all. When Sangmu lifted her hands back up, all of the sounds came back all at once, from the fire to the screeching lemurs. "Wow, that can come in handy!" Aang exclaimed. He felt a bit of childish enthusiasm flood in - when was the last time he ever learned a truly new bending technique? And this one was from Gyatso!

Sangmu gave him a tiny smile, but before she could respond they heard Appa roaring outside, the ground shaking with a massive struggle. Aang slid out of the igloo to see a vicious brown and black furry creature just over half the size of Appa with snarling jaws. It had massive spikes sticking out from its shoulder blades and claws that looked to be the length of swords, with a fearsome cry as it faced down Appa.

"That's a poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk!" Sokka exclaimed, drawing his sword and machete. He paused. "That's a really big mouthful, I know, but we've gotta get out of here!"

"It's going to hurt Appa!" Sangmu shouted.

Aang rushed forward to his bison's side, ignoring Sokka's shouts to do otherwise. He thrust his palms forward and blasted the beast with wind, but it gnashed its teeth and turned to him as if he only threw a slight breeze. It lunged for Aang, paws padding against the snow, a white stripe going down its middle from head to tail. Aang summoned the snow to divert the beast's attack above him, but then it continued right on toward his friends. Sokka shouted again but Appa swung his tail and smacked it away with even stronger winds.

"We've gotta go!" Sokka repeated. "One bite from that thing has enough venom to take all four of us out!" He already collapsed the igloo with a sweep of his hands and moved to gather their belongings with Zuko.

Sangmu leapt into action as well, buffeting it with blasts of air to help distract the monster while they piled onto Appa, and dancing out of the way of its swipes when it came for her. Once they packed all of their things, the beast let out a howling shriek and clamped its jaws onto Appa's hind leg just as he leapt off into the air. Appa let out a roar of pain, and both Aang and Sangmu unfurled their gliders to jump off and hit the creature with the mightiest swings they could manage.

It released its hold on Appa and fell back to the earth, itching to continue the fight, but both airbenders circled around back to Appa's saddle. "Put some distance between us and that thing before we look after the big guy," Sokka said, sheathing his weapons. "They're relentless hunters. Not even the bravest warriors mess with those once they mark their prey."


Azula slept in Lo and Li's chamber that night in a sleeping roll they provided. They had told her that her training would begin at dawn, like proper firebenders, and Azula didn't object. She knew she was a prisoner here, and they intended her to stay and spend the rest of her life there, but the promise of bending lightning enticed her too much to raise too much of a fuss about that yet. Besides, she would grasp it as quickly as she did anything else.

But when they said her training would begin at dawn, they didn't mean they would rise at dawn. No, they prodded her awake with sharp pokes even before that.

Her irritated, imperious tone came out before she could stop it. "What is the meaning of this? How am I expected to devote my fullest attention to my training if I cannot get a full night of sleep?"

Lo - or was it Li? - held a stick of incense that she pinched between her fingertips to start it burning. "We will forgive your disrespect this time. But do not forget, we are your teachers and expect to be treated as such." She placed the incense into a holder and began lighting more, placing them in a circle around Azula. "To generate lightning, we must prepare. You need to be in the proper mindset."

"The cold-blooded fire is a dangerous beast," said the other, hanging chimes with characters inked on paper that people like her uncle might have used as meditation guides in the old days. "If even one hair is out of place, you risk losing control. And shocking yourself can have far deadlier consequences than burning yourself."

"So first, we must meditate," they said together. Holding back her retort, Azula sat up while they circled around her. By the spirits, they were the ritualistic sort. She never found a use for any of these performative techniques. It brought to mind Jeong Jeong's tutelage and she didn't have the patience for it then, either.

In her eagerness to learn the power of lightning, she realized she had forgotten something. "What will Chief Attohwak do with Katara?" she asked, right as the twins began humming.

Both of the sisters stopped their movements. "What concern is she to you?" Li asked.

"She is Water Tribe," said Lo. "Her fate does not matter."

Azula combed her fingers through her hair in an effort to alleviate her bed head. "She's a useful ally," she said. "And I need her to accomplish my goals." She pursed her lips and her eyes fell on a faded wall painting that depicted the Everstorm itself, a swirling mass of blacks and purples. To them, it was likely the symbol of their power. "For two old ladies who have been living in the Water Tribes for as long as you have - and I'm guessing it has been a long time, judging from the state of this chamber and how worn down everything is - you seem to revile it. And they revile you in turn."

"And what gives you that impression?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Azula responded. "They call me 'ash breather,' for one. And from what I could tell, you're the only two who were shoved underground into a cold and dreary cave, separate from the rest of the village but still under the watchful eye of the chief and the patriarch. And they use you to uphold their power and independence from Hakoda under the guise of a mysterious, spiritual benefactor." She paused, and when they looked at each other and did that irritating thing they did where they seemed to communicate silently, she knew she was right. "But what I don't get is why. Why would you do it? Why the loyalty? What's in it for you?"

"You mistake our obedience for loyalty," said Li with a scowl. "We do what they say in order to survive."

"With vengeance as our motivation," said Lo. "You think we came here of our own free will? No, Azula. We were taken from our home, many years ago, when we were scarce more than girls."

"From an island in the southern archipelago of the Fire Nation," Li continued. "The clan raided our village and recognized our talent, and coveted it for their own uses. Over many years, they cut down all of our firebenders and warriors… except for us."

Azula's mind raced. "The southern archipelago," she said. Her eyes widened. "The Twins. I've heard stories about you two - about the firebending sisters! According to my uncle Iroh, the twin volcanoes began erupting on the day that you two left and haven't stopped since. The last firebenders seen in the whole archipelago… until I came along."

Both of them joined her on the floor, grasping each of her hands in theirs. "We always thought that the island's spirits keened at the loss of its children," said Lo, wiping away at her eyes. "What a blessing it is to see that there is yet another to carry on our traditions."

Li laughed. "And Iroh, you say? Oh, that is a name I haven't heard in many years. He was such an adorable little boy."

"So they took you here," said Azula. She consented to their touch; after all, they were a living legend that she had been told about all through her youth. Becoming as talented as they were said to be was part of why she wanted to hone her skills, after all. "But you speak of vengeance. Why, after all that, would you serve them?"

"We tried to fight back, of course," said Lo, lowering her hands to her lap. "But they would always find ways to hurt us. Even with our power, we were always outnumbered. So we did what we had to in order to survive."

"Kept our heads down, played along," said Li. She clenched her bony fist. "But do not misunderstand. We had plenty of opportunity to strike down many members of the Water Tribe. And they encouraged it. As long as we acted as their weapons against their enemies, we took our vengeance one waterbender at a time."

Azula drew away from them. She wasn't sure if it was disgust she felt, but she felt no closer to understanding them. "That's not vengeance. You're just tools to them. Vengeance would be striking back against Alsek and Attohwak. Against all those who oppressed you."

Lo's eyes fell. "It is not as easy as you say. Especially when you have a broken spirit."

"Besides," said Li, "the true target of our vengeance, Alsek's father who captured us in the first place, perished long ago to illness. You don't understand. It is enough that we managed to survive this far."

Azula stood and walked away from them. "And now you are content to let me take your place once you wither away."

"No," said Lo, her voice unexpectedly harsh. "We would never wish these horrors upon you."

"When we first saw you firebending on the mountain - and even blue fire, a rarer talent - we knew what they had planned for you," said Li.

"We thought to strike you down right then and there," they said together. It gave Azula chills again. "To spare you our fate."

Azula turned back to them. "But you didn't."

"We couldn't," said Lo.

"Please, forgive our weakness."

Azula put a hand on her hip, her tone dismissive. "Well, you don't have to worry, because I don't plan to stick around here for long. I just want to get started. Teach me how to wield lightning."

Once again, the twins looked at each other, took equal breaths, and then nodded. "Very well," said Li. They stood again.

"Follow us."


Author's Note: Splitting this into two chapters kind of threw off the way chapters were aligned to episodes in canon, but what can ya do. Since these are kinda long, mind reviewing both? ;)