Author's Notes: Chapter 10 and 11 were supposed to be my unofficial two-parter "mid-season" climax but due to Stormblood being split into two parts it's gonna be Chapters 11 and 12 instead.

In other news - I'd like to mention a Distorted Reality "reimagining" called Avatar - The Last Firebender by Carrotine Clara (forgot to mention this in my last update, I'm so sorry!) and An Honest Conversation, an AU oneshot in the DR-universe by Northern Goshawk. You can find both of them in my Favorites list in my profile. Thank you both so much for the support!

In addition to that - it has been brought to my attention that Gabulo on YouTube has been working on an animated version of Rocket Axxonu's Distorted Reality comic! I'm just blown away by all the feedback from everyone, and everything this story has evolved into every single day! (This old man had to get a new Youtube account just so I could thank them, as well as Zelda Black for her Azula readings from the comic).

Last thing - I finally got around to making edits to "The Carnival," but it was mostly minor stuff so there's really no need to reread it.

Last time with Mai, Ty Lee, Jet, and Haru's group: They arrived at the North Pole city, Agna Qel'a, and though they had to separate from Huu and the Freedom Fighters they made an unexpected ally: Pahmo, one of Arnook's elders, who told them of a spirit token they had to steal from Hahn, one of the First Spears, in order to bypass a guardian raven spirit blocking a secret entrance to the palace.

Book 3: Water

Chapter 10: The Great Glacier

When Zuko had told Aang that there was a time when the royal family actually acted like a family, Aang hadn't believed him.

Now, seeing the Fire Lord's home on Ember Island, he found evidence of that claim. Portraits of smiling faces. Children's handprints in ceramic tiles. Old, discarded, and broken toys - once loved, even cherished. Zuko said that he had been here not long before with Azula and they'd burned so much of it in a huge bonfire on the beach, but plenty of evidence of their childhood escaped their cleansing by flames.

An uncharacteristically chill breeze swept over Aang as he sat on the edge of the balcony overlooking the beach. Palm fronds swayed high above him, rustling against each other, and he inhaled the scent of salty air as he let the melancholy settle over him. He wanted to sit around the fire with his friends in the courtyard and talk about the play they planned to go see later tonight but he didn't have his heart in it. His eyes kept falling to the portrait of a woman in his hands, burned on wood. Even she had an unexplainable sadness etched into her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

He felt his muscles tense at the harshness of the question but when he looked at the speaker it was only Zuko. "I'm just thinking," he said. He looked back down at the woodburning. "Who is this woman?"

Zuko glanced at it and the skin around his scar stretched into a scowl. Aang knew enough of Zuko at this point that the scowl wasn't directed at the woman or Aang, but rather the circumstances around her. "My mother."

"She's beautiful." Aang leaned his arms on the balcony rail and Zuko did the same at his side. "And she looks a little sad."

"She had plenty of reason to be, even in those days," said Zuko, letting out a sigh and turning to lean his back against the railing instead. "But thanks."

"Were you happy, back then?"

"I guess so," he said. "Mostly ignorant, though. I still had the idea in my head that I could impress my father." He crossed his arms and glanced at Aang. "Why do you want to know?"

Aang's shoulders fell. "I don't know. It's just… I'm trying to make sense of things. Why the world ended up the way it did, why the war is going so badly. Coming here, it's… given me a lot to think about. Like what kind of person Ozai is, or was, or could be."

"Are you having doubts?"

"No," Aang said. It came out firmer than he intended. He knew he had to defeat the Fire Lord before the Comet came. Just… not how. Or how far he would have to go. He took a deep breath. "I need you to tell me something."

Zuko's good eye narrowed to match the scarred one. "What is it?"

"Sokka and Katara and the others, they can't know," he said. He thought of them, and Toph, Teo, Haru, the Duke, Suki. "Or, well, they might suspect it, but if they find out, I don't know… I don't know how they'll all take it."

Zuko turned toward him fully. His voice came out hard. "If you're asking what I think you're asking, reconsider it. Really think about whether you want to know or not. Whether you're ready."

Aang squared his eyes with Zuko's. "I have to be ready." He swallowed. "What happened to the prisoners after the eclipse?"

Zuko broke his gaze and looked out toward the ocean. "I can't say for sure," he admitted. "But my guess is… they took no prisoners." He clutched the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. "I'm sorry. It's wrong. It's barbaric. It's a war crime, what my father and sister did. And I bet it was Azula's idea. From their point of view, who would they have to answer to?"

Aang felt his footing keel out from under him, like the balcony jerked away from the side of the house. He steadied himself on the railing, his chest tight. "They'll answer to me," he said. "Both of them."

He thought of Hakoda. Bato. The Mechanist. Pipsqueak. Tho, Due, Huu. Their friends and allies from the Earth Kingdom. All their names, all their faces, all gone. All of them who stayed behind so Aang and his friends could escape, who put their lives on the line for him. He'd failed them all.

"You're not just a kid anymore," Zuko said to him. His hands grasped Aang's shoulders. "You have to be strong. Now that you know… how horrible everything can be…" He trailed off, his teeth grit and voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I didn't listen to my uncle. I should have left all that behind earlier, back in Ba Sing Se. Maybe it would've changed things."

He thought of all his people, gone for a hundred years. He'd always known how horrible things could be, but peace and harmony were supposed to prevail. Those were the tenets he'd been raised on, like Zuko had his… "Honor was important to you," Aang said. He felt hollow, like the wind passing through a cavern. "You thought you'd get it from them. But they never had it. How could they, if they could do something like this?"

"They're capable of so much worse." Zuko bowed his head. "But now you know. And I guess… it'll be our burden to bear."

"Yeah," Aang said. Just another burden to bear, another truth, another source of anger that he tucked away into that same part of himself he discovered back in the desert. He buried it deep, for how could he fly if he carried that weight with him?

The floorboards creaked behind them and they heard a gentle knock. Katara opened the door a moment later and peeked out at them. "Are you guys okay?" she asked, her face lit by a candle. "That play about us is starting in twenty minutes. We've got to get to the theater."

Aang glanced at Zuko and pushed himself off of the balcony railing, taking a deep breath and wearing the barest of smiles on his face. He could be strong for Katara, at least. "Everything's fine. Let's go, then," he said, hardening his heart to the pain. He would become used to it in time, and maybe it would change him more. "We can't be late to our own show."


It was a slathering, ravenous beast, Chit Sang thought, and even with a chain and a collar around it he made sure to keep his distance. But he supposed the tracking abilities of a poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk were second only to shirshus. And it had tasted the sky bison's blood, so nothing would stop it now. They were far more aggressive than a shirshu, true, but one of the newest members of the Wolf's Skulls had tamed the beast as a pup.

Chit Sang's second in command, Xin Fu, knelt down in the snow and sifted through the remains of a campfire. Chit Sang and Xin Fu had always been good trackers, but the beast was on a whole different level. "The Avatar isn't far ahead now," he said. He scowled at the beast. Then again, Xin Fu scowled at just about everything, as Chit Sang knew since the day he met him at the sacking of Gaoling. "That thing's tougher than it looks. And it looks tough to begin with."

"Same with its master," Chit Sang said with a grunt. He stared ahead to the mountain peaks, much of it bare of snow now that an avalanche had fallen. "Who would've guessed that a man like Yanhuo'li would be good with animals?"

Xin Fu shrugged. "However you got your lead that the Avatar would travel down the eastern peninsula, it was a good call."

Chit Sang grunted again in response. If he'd really made a good call, he would have apprehended the Avatar back in Spriggy's hut, but held back out of respect to the herbalist.

It didn't matter anymore. They weren't far behind now, and he owed the emperor an Avatar. And when Yanhuo'li walked up beside Chit Sang, his heavy, uneven footsteps clanging, Chit Sang knew that the boy stood little chance of escaping him this time.


The slate grey skies darkened overhead, but their pace as they flew over the mountain pass had already been slowed out of consideration for Appa's bite wound. But when the blizzard came, as oppressive and torrential as a Fire Nation rainstorm, it had grounded them and they'd been forced to progress through the mountain pass on foot.

It felt just as cold and wet on the ground. For a time, they all huddled together in Appa's saddle as the bison trudged through the snowy mountain trails until Sokka told them it would be best for them to walk as well in order to help the blood flow through their limbs. So they marched, cold and miserable, while the snow pelted them sideways and the wind bit at their noses. Aang and Sangmu tried their best to divert the wind and make it less brutal while Sokka pushed the steadily deepening snow out of their path.

Zuko envied Aang and Sangmu's ability to use airbending and regulate their body temperature, but he was also thankful for his breath of fire. The journey was still awful but at least he didn't feel like he would lose his extremities anytime soon.

As far as mountain passes went, the East Ipik Peaks were more unusual than most. Paths snaked through the mountains and crossed natural bridges of stone and ice, many of them suspended over dizzying drops. Every time they crossed one, Zuko feared the wind would blow him clean down the mountain. Aang didn't dare to earthbend, either - any amount of dislodged stone ran the risk of the trail crumbling and taking them with it. Zuko felt vulnerable and he hated it. If any clan scouts or hunting bands saw them, escape would be difficult.

The amount of falling snow was nearly blinding. After a while, they stood behind Appa, whose massive bulk shielded them from much of the snow and wind. Due to all those factors, Zuko didn't notice when the path curved around a bend and he stopped himself just in time to avoid crashing into Sokka.

They came to a gap in the mountains that caught all of them awestruck.

It showed a vista of the Great Glacier, a massive expanse of ice and snow that stretched further than Zuko could see. According to Sokka, beyond it lay Aniak'to, and - more importantly - the southern mountains surrounding the spirit portal. But they faced the northwest now, and the blizzard continued to howl, so flying across the expanse wouldn't have done them any good. Even so, they allowed themselves a moment to rest, to catch their breath and enjoy the view.

Sokka pointed at various features of the landscape, his face lit up in something Zuko might have been inclined to call glee. "See that geyser shooting up down there, on the ice field? That's an ice volcano. What's an ice volcano, you ask? It's a result of the build up of gases underground that shoot up a ton of water and ice. And over there, see that smoke? We call those ice chimneys, which means there's probably a lot of geothermal activity going on under that."

Zuko hugged himself and shivered. "Someone's enjoying being home."

Sokka gave him a sheepish shrug. "Well, y'know… it's been a while. I thought I would be as glum as you look but it's actually making me a little nostalgic."

Zuko's face set into a deeper frown out of annoyance.

Aang stretched to help keep warm. "You're not… nervous about being home? Or bitter, or anything?"

Sokka looked out over the frozen landscape again. "Nah," he said. "Coming home like this is nowhere near how I expected it."

"Life surprises you," Sangmu observed. Momo poked his head out of her parka when she turned away from the wind and she took the moment to feed both the lemurs and Appa. "I guess, in some way, this is my home too. And I never expected this either."

Appa let out a mumble and they took that to mean he felt ready to go again. Zuko pulled his hood low and followed in Appa's wake with the others while they trooped along the trail. He felt it ascending again, settling into a steady incline that made his legs burn. He supposed he should have been thankful for that over the numbness, at least.

It was when they traversed another section of the path bridging a deep chasm that a gust of wind made Zuko lose his balance on the ice.

"Careful!" Aang called out when he floundered, and before Zuko fell off the pathway he felt ice secure his feet in place. He windmilled his arms to catch his balance again, his heart leaping into his throat, but when he looked behind him he saw a blue blur careening off the side of the path.

"Sangmu!" Sokka shouted from behind Zuko. Zuko fell into a crouch, unable to reach her in time due to his feet being locked in ice, and gaped in horror when she fell into the darkness. "Oh, no! She tried to grab Zuko and slipped!"

"She'll be okay!" Aang cried out to them. "Falling will never kill an airbender." He looked down below, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to find her in the haze of snow and ice. "But… with all this wind, her glider will be useless. You guys get somewhere safe, I'll go find her."

Zuko wrenched his left foot free of Aang's ice just in time for a spear point to be leveled at his face. He hadn't even seen the warrior sneak up on him, blending into the snow with a parka the color of frost.

Appa growled, but the warrior - a woman, Zuko realized - didn't even flinch. Her face paint seemed to set her face into a permanent scowl. "An airbender, you say? Could she have been the Avatar?"

Surrounded on both sides by warriors across a narrow overpass, Zuko didn't want to risk trying to fight. Neither Aang nor Sokka moved to mount Appa, either, so apparently they agreed that flying away was out of the question while Sangmu was missing. Appa growled, his six legs spread as if ready to defend them. Zuko remembered, then, that Sabi and Momo had been seeking shelter in Sangmu's parka.

None of them answered the woman's query about Sangmu being the Avatar. Zuko cursed their carelessness in letting these people sneak up on them, but it was as if they emerged from the snow itself. Thankfully, both Aang and Sokka rolled with her assumption - better to let them all think the most powerful bender in the world was down in the ravine rather than right in their midst.

"Is it true?" the woman asked, holding her spear to Zuko's throat. Her face paint gleamed black and silver against the snow. "Has the Avatar returned?"

"Airbenders had these beasties back then, didn't they?" said a man from behind Sokka, prodding toward Appa's flank. "So I would say she has."

"But I wonder what she's doing in our lands," said the first woman, looking into Zuko's eyes. "This one's not Water Tribe."

"This one is," said the man, presumably gesturing to Sokka. "What clan are you?"

"You're really isolated, aren't you?" Aang asked, eyes narrowed into a glare. "If you weren't you'd have heard the Avatar's a bo -"

"Bothersome kid!" Sokka interjected. "Yeah, you know, she's slippery and hard to keep track of. But isolation is good!" he added, voice rising several octaves. Zuko assumed he had a spear pressed to his throat as well. "You're so isolated that we didn't even know you were here! So if you'll let us go find her and we'll be on our way… I'm from the Buffalo-Yak Clan, one of Emperor Hakoda's most loyal, so you found us just as we were escorting her to the city."

"Absolutely not," said the woman, her voice rough. "We're bringing you to the chief. All of you, Avatar included."

The man chuckled. "You're in Beaver-Bear Clan lands now, boys."


One thing about coming to the North Pole that Haru didn't expect to struggle with was simply walking around.

Everything was made of ice. The walkways alongside canals. Stairs and ramps. Floors inside buildings. All of it had been smoothly carved with a perfect sheen, like opaque glass, and his soft sealskin boots did little to help him keep his balance. He'd lost count of how many times he slipped walking up or down stairs and narrowly avoided sliding into the canal. He didn't know how everyone else did it; Ty Lee, Mai, and Jet had no such issues. He tried to blame it on his boots at first but then just came to the conclusion that he just did better with good old earth under his feet.

Without his earthbending, he felt vulnerable as well. If they planned to sneak into the High Chief's palace he needed a weapon. Back with the Coalition, he sometimes used a pair of war hammers in conjunction with his earthbending, especially whenever he needed to board a raiding Water Tribe vessel. He figured it wouldn't be too difficult to find similar weapons here - bending ice must have been similar enough to bending earth that he wouldn't look too out of the ordinary with hammers. Did waterbenders bend ice with hammers? He didn't see why not.

After hours of fruitless searching through various crisscrossing streets and bridges (why did a city need to have multiple levels? They should have kept everything near the ground, it was less confusing that way), he came to the conclusion that Agna Qel'a didn't have a single weapon shop or blacksmith. Or if it did, he couldn't find it. He supposed it made sense - he vaguely remembered hearing that part of a warrior's coming of age meant making his own weapon. And perhaps having something as hot as a forge in an ice house made things difficult. Maybe he was just looking in the wrong places. Maybe he was just... lost.

Eventually, Haru made his way near the docks where he had been directed to a shop that sold goods for fishermen. Hooks, poles, lines, ice picks, bait, tackle, boots, and even whaling harpoons lined the walls and after wandering through it he came out with a pair of heavy mallets that were supposedly used for ice fishing. He listened patiently and politely to the enthusiastic shopkeeper's explanations for punching clean holes in the ice and eventually came out smelling vaguely of something fishy.

He carefully walked back toward the communal lodge he shared with Ty Lee and the others, examining his new weapons and testing their weight. The handles had been carved from a pale type of wood with a leather grip dyed blue and engraved with darker triangular patterns. The mallets' heads were weighted with moosebone and shaped with more of the same pale wood, though the backs had been sharpened to a wicked spike meant to be used for digging into ice. The middle of the heads had been decorated with leather straps that displayed more of the design on the grip, and felt pleasantly soft when he rubbed his thumb across it.

"This'll do," he said, grinning to himself. Now he just needed to figure out how to pass time until tomorrow night, when they planned to sneak into the palace. Haru could be patient, but the more they sat and waited for the 'right night' (Mai's words), he felt restless. They had the token they needed to pass by the raven spirit that guarded Arnook's secret entrance, and the longer they spent in Agna Qel'a they ran the risk of being discovered. One of Arnook's elders, Pahmo, already knew they planned to sneak in, and neither Haru nor Jet felt ready to trust him. They certainly didn't want to work with Pahmo, but Mai said repeatedly that they weren't going to.

Haru let out a sigh as he gave one of his new mallets an experimental swing. He supposed he would just be a soldier awaiting orders, as always. He wondered how his father and the rest of the Coalition fared back on their journey toward Jie Duan. Not for the first time, he wondered if he made the right choice in coming here with complete strangers, even if Iroh encouraged this.

A disturbance up ahead distracted him from his thoughts. On a street corner where the walkway met the canals at four junctions, Haru saw a group of four boys around his age surrounding another who knelt on the ground, glaring up at the speaker with composed rage that Haru could read all the way from where he stood. The kneeling boy wore a shabby brown mantle over clothing the color of clay, with padded headgear covering all of his head except for his face.

"Someone broke into my house the other day," said the one standing over him, fists raised. "You know who I am, right? I'll tell you, outsider - I'm Hahn, one of the First Spears of High Chief Arnook! And I think an outsider like you might've had something to do with the theft!"

But the one on the ground said nothing and continued to glare up at him. Haru grit his teeth. Why didn't he say anything to defend himself? He just eyed Hahn; stone-faced, unblinking.

"So? Have anything to say for yourself, thief?" Hahn drew back his fist to strike.

"Wait!" Haru rushed forward without thinking. He knew that name - that was the original owner of the token Mai and Jet stole in order to sneak into the palace. He didn't want to let Hahn know who was really behind the theft, but he wasn't about to let someone innocent take the blame, either. "If you're gonna bully him, why don't you - oooh!"

Whatever dashing and gallant thing Haru had been about to say had been drowned out by his shout of alarm when his feet slipped out from under him and he slid right into the frigid waters of the canal.

At that point he wished he would just sink to the bottom and freeze there in shame. But his lungs burned in protest and he floundered to the surface on the other side of the walkway, pulling himself up so that only his traitorous feet dangled in the water. Laying flat against the ice, waterlogged and panting, he listened to the First Spear and his lackeys howling with laughter.

"Did you hear something, boys?" Hahn jeered. "Sounded like some brave warrior tried to come to the rescue of this little earthbender here, but I just heard some fish splashing in the water!"

Haru pulled himself all the way out of the canal and couldn't find the energy to move, his face burning, but eventually the laughter died down as Hahn and his friends wandered off. A few moments later, a face crouched down over Haru's, peering at him with something like curiosity. It was the same face that had glared at Hahn, and while he lacked his earlier harshness he still looked wary.

"They're gone," said the stranger. His voice was mild and smooth like polished amber. "Fled in terror."

Haru didn't know if he said it to make Haru feel better or to mock him. He wished something clever or funny would come out in response but wit was never his strong suit. Not that he was dumb or anything. "I guess I made a good distraction, huh?"


Sangmu had fallen from the overpass in a whirl of wind and snow, unable to right herself but just barely able to maneuver so that she fell with the gale. Instead of smashing against the rocks, the blizzard swept her up and carried her through the ravine, and with her vision obscured by the storm it took all of her power and concentration to use airbending at just the right times to avoid a sudden and painful death.

So she had no choice but to just go with it, letting the wind carry her where it would, until it dragged her deeper and deeper into the ravine and then a cavern where it opened up and spread out into a wide open area surrounded on all sides by slick mountain ice, like an impenetrable wall. Here, she found pools of water in multiple levels, like rice paddy terraces, and when she spotted the steam rising off of them she realized she found herself among natural hot springs. Sabi and Momo both poked out of her parka as if sensing the warmth of the area.

Staff in hand, she wandered into the hot spring carefully balancing on the slick stone, and it took her a moment to realize she wasn't alone. She saw the enormous machete first, almost as long as Sangmu was tall even without its hilt. It leaned against the wall near the entrance to a tunnel, and next to it, in the water, she saw a woman submerged in the hot springs up to her shoulders in deep relaxation. Sangmu froze, both out of fear and the fact that she had intruded on someone else's privacy.

The woman opened her eyes and regarded Sangmu but didn't move. "Now, what do we have here? I've never seen a little girl drop down from above the glacier before."


They'd been taken to the Beaver-Bear Clan's village at the bottom of the ravine, nestled in the midst of the East Ipik Peaks, their hands tied into tight knots. The igloos rested comfortably, hidden from outsiders and the worst of the blizzard's rage. With the way the warriors treated Sokka after he revealed an allegiance to Hakoda, Zuko got the feeling that they didn't much care for the emperor. And with how secluded it seemed, visitors in general - especially since they lacked any current information at all about the Avatar.

"Please, the Avatar's our friend," said Aang. "If she fell, she could be hurt."

"Could be," said one of their captors, the man. "The chief will know what to do with you."

Villagers stared at them as they passed with barely concealed hostility. Some even raised weapons, especially when they saw Appa, who growled at anyone who came close to him. Zuko wondered if their chances of success at fighting back lessened with every step into the village they took, but he kept trying to convince himself that fighting back and escaping would get them nowhere with Sangmu gone. But with the clan's apparent disloyalty to Hakoda, Zuko wondered if the possibility of their safe passage had some merit. Even so, he carefully burned away the ropes binding his wrists just enough so that he could snap his hands free when it came time for it.

The chief's home lay on the far end of the village against the mountainside, at the top of a set of ice block stairs. When they approached, Zuko expected the warriors escorting them to start climbing the stairs but instead they veered toward the left, into a tunnel, where they pulled Zuko and the others along. Warmth clung to the inside of the tunnels, uncomfortably like the inside of a beast's maw but tall enough to fit Appa, but the tunnel walls eventually turned to ice and opened up to another ravine filled with tiered pools of steaming water. Ice lined the rims of the pools, shaping them like chalices. Inside one of the pools, they spotted Sangmu up to her neck in water, eyes closed while the lemurs floated lazily around her. It took Zuko a moment to realize that it was actually the inside of another cavern, with the ceiling so high that it was concealed in shadow. Salt lamps lit the hot springs in a gentle glow.

"Sangmu!" Aang exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes and smiled, her braids pooling around her. "Oh, yes! The water's lovely! But, um, do you guys mind turning around?"

"Yeah, give the girl some privacy." Zuko blinked in surprise but when he turned away from Sangmu he saw a woman leaning against the wall with an unruly head of long black hair and a beaver-bear pelt hanging from her back, its head clinging to her left shoulder. Beside her, he saw the biggest machete he'd ever seen, nearly as tall as its owner and resembling an oversized cleaver. One arm was covered in cloth wrappings while tattoos snaked up and down the other, with a few even reaching her face. "You're the friends she spoke of, I take it."

Their first captor, the woman, nodded and spoke in a low voice. "Chief Lirin, that girl is the Avatar."

Lirin crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, examining Sangmu with a critical eye. "Is she, now?"

Sokka shook his head and gaped. "Wait, wait, wait." He pointed at Lirin with his bound hands. "You're the chief?"

Zuko spoke through grit teeth. "Sokka, now's not the time for sexism."

"Huh?" Sokka looked at him for a moment, confused, and then shook his head vigorously. "No, it's not that! I've heard stories about a clan led by a woman chief! They live outside the laws of the Water Tribes - they're cannibals! These hot springs are meant to boil us alive so they can eat us!"

Zuko froze and he felt Aang tense up next to him as well and both of them pulled their wrists apart, ripping free of their bonds. While they prepared to fight, Lirin threw her head back and laughed.

"Cannibals?" she barked, giving them a shark-like grin. "Oh, that's my favorite rumor about us. The men over at Aniak'to can't help but demonize a clan outside their sphere of control, especially one that's led by a woman. No, little boy - these hot springs aren't for boiling meat. After you passed through the village you ended up underneath the Great Glacier. To you, it may be the belly of the beast. To me, it's paradise."

Aang lowered his hand from the hilt of his sword. "Katara did mention the possibility of a cannibalistic clan out here. I guess she believed the rumor?"

Sokka groaned. "Katara did? Ugh, I get it now. Hoping we'd get captured by a cannibal clan led by a lady chief is something that sounds right up her alley. That's why she wanted us to come down the eastern peninsula."

And then a different opportunity with Azula came up for her, but Katara knew if they continued their course they still had the chance of running headlong into danger. Zuko frowned as the pieces came together. He turned to Lirin. "So if you're not with Hakoda, could you let us go?"

Lirin crossed her arms again and the beaver-bear head on her shoulders looked like it glared at them, making her look imposing. "Oh, I don't know if I like the idea of Hakoda's lackeys delivering the Avatar right to him. Didn't you say you were Buffalo-Yak? And you mentioned Princess Katara, didn't you?"

Sokka chuckled nervously. "I did say that, huh? Well, that was before I knew you didn't like Hakoda. We don't, either. And I promise you we're also not close to Katara."

Lirin raised an eyebrow. "So you lied."

"Well, yes, at first, but…"

She cut him off. "Then why are you here?"

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. In his head, he imagined Mai scolding them for failing to maneuver through diplomatic negotiations. "We told you, we were just passing through. On the way to the South Pole."

"I have a different idea," said Lirin. She looked past them, back toward Sangmu. "Avatar, I'm gonna be honest. Your arrival presents us with a great opportunity."

Sangmu, who still hadn't emerged from the hot spring, blinked in surprise at being addressed as the Avatar. "Um, excuse me?"

"My clan has always disliked the rule of the empire," Lirin continued. "And since they never liked us in turn, we've had to sit out of this war. But my people love fighting. We make an art of it." She sat down on the ice at the edge of a pool, legs spread with her hands on her knees. "And here you are, quite literally falling right into our lap. If you intend to do battle with Hakoda, let us join you. Use us, and we'll use you. We're tired of sitting in the bottom of this ravine."

Before Aang responded or Sangmu revealed their bluff, Zuko grunted. "This sounds too good to be true. What makes you so sure you can trust us? We all only just met."

"It's too good to be true for us as well," said Lirin, grinning. "But it is true. We've been waiting for an opportunity to strike for some time. We don't like the way the empire treats its own people, see. Marrying off the women like property. Telling all of our great and varied clans how to live their lives. Forbidding us from fighting - I would have happily fought in the war in the beginning, but it's their loss, I suppose. Treating taboo-breakers as if they don't even exist and letting them die in the cold is also sickening. If you ask me, we do better under our own sovereignty."

Sokka shrugged. "Hey, I'm not one to question the universe's blessings. Thank you, universe, for throwing us a bone every so often."

"My clan has been hidden and demonized for decades thanks to those views," said Lirin. "My mother and my mother's mother fought to keep this village safe, but I'd say it's time for some direct action." She leaned forward. "So yes. Thank you, universe."

Zuko tried to gauge his friends' reactions to her words. Aang stayed silent but looked contemplative, Sokka looked agreeable, and Sangmu had her lips pursed. Two of their captors from the mountain pass stood sentinel on either side of Lirin, their eyes fixed expectantly on Sangmu.

Sangmu pulled Momo closer to her face as if to hide behind him. "Can I, um, change into some warm, dry clothes first?"

The ice all around them quavered. Far away and above them, something rumbled and they all stood still, looking up. Then they heard it again.

Aang clenched his fists. "Are those… explosions?"

"Sounds like it," said Lirin, her tone casual. "Sorry, Avatar. Unfortunately I think your cold, wet clothes will have to do. Someone followed you and we're going to show them they're messing with the wrong clan. I wanted to throw you a feast, but I guess a demonstration of trust would work better for everyone involved."

Another warrior rushed into the cavern from the direction of the village. "Chief, our scouts have reported that it's a group of warriors with undyed parkas directly above us. They number at least four dozen. And their firepower is…" She gulped when another explosion shook the cavern and she sought the right words. "...something else."

Zuko felt anger flare in his stomach. "Chit Sang," he said. Or, rather, the Wolf's Skulls. "They know we're here. Somehow."

Lirin glanced at him and nodded, then turned back to Sangmu. "Well, Avatar, it's time for you to make your choice. Do we have a deal, or not?"

"We're not going to attack Hakoda now," Aang said, his voice firm. "Or the Skulls. We're leaving. We need to get to the Southern Spirit Portal as soon as possible. I'm tired of all the delays - they'll follow us instead of attacking your village."

"I didn't ask you, little boy," Lirin said, narrowing her eyes in a way that made her face tattoos look fierce. "I asked the Avatar."

Sangmu smiled sheepishly. "Actually, it's our turn for honesty. I'm not the Avatar, he is."

Lirin rounded on Aang slowly, drawing in a deep breath. "So you mean to tell me, Avatar, that you intend to rush out of here with those Skulls on your heels, in the middle of a blizzard, all the way across the glacier to the southern mountains? Where you'll surely meet the opposition of the mountain's guardians, the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan? And even if you make it through all that you will still face the Everstorm, with its ferocity the stuff of fables. And perhaps the stupidest and most dangerous part of all that is that you lied to me. Twice. What in the world is so important that you'd put yourself through all that?"

Aang didn't back down. "Our friends. They're trapped in the Spirit World and they need our help."

The silence after his response was punctuated by another booming from above, louder this time. Lirin looked at him for a moment, stunned, and then drew her head back in uproarious laughter. "Well, Avatar, I don't know if you're brash or foolish but if you made it this far with decisions like that I can't help but think you've got it in you to succeed. And y'know what? I'm in. Our warriors could use that kind of excitement."

Prince Zuko's voice echoed inside him, somewhere far away. I've always been told that I never think things through, but that's just crazy.

Zuko blinked in surprise. He rarely heard his other self as clearly as that, and he must have felt it to be important if he felt the need to make his presence known. "Aang, I think that's a big risk - even for us."

Though I bet Sokka will think it's just crazy enough to work.

"Something doesn't feel right," Aang admitted, clutching the pendant hanging from his neck. "The Spirit World should be blocked off from us now, but I can feel it. Faintly, but it's there, and it feels even more unsettled than before."

"There's a little voice in my head that's telling me this idea is crazy enough to work," said Sokka. "We've gotta save Yue and Toph. With the Beaver-Bear Clan fighting off Chit Sang's Skulls for us, it'll give us an opening. I know it's not much of a plan, but I've realized lately that I can't get so caught up in the overthinking part of it. Sometimes the situation just calls for action."

See? I told you.

Aang fixed him with a stare. "Hearing a voice?" he asked, eyes wide. He turned to Zuko. "I knew the Spirit World felt off again. When did they come back?"

Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Uh, the connection never really left."

"You never told me that! Azula said they were gone!"

Zuko faltered. It wasn't just voices - it was thoughts, feelings, memories. Prince Zuko wasn't a spirit, so breaking the connection to the Spirit World didn't get rid of him. In a way, Zuko felt part of him now. He didn't know Azula had told Aang that the connection was broken. "With everything going on…"

"Whatever's going on with you kids, there's no time for that now," Lirin interjected as another explosion shook the cavern. "It sounds like they're tearing their way through the ice. We've got to go." She hefted her massive machete over her shoulder. "There's a tunnel that'll let us out on the surface of the glacier. It'll be out in the open, but me and my warriors will hold them off there."

Aang took a deep breath but closed his eyes and turned away from Zuko. When he opened them again, Zuko saw all the resolve in them that he knew Aang possessed. "Let's go," he said.

Sangmu managed to dress by this point, and though she shivered her clothes had been dried with Sokka's waterbending. Before everyone left through the tunnel Lirin indicated, she looked at Aang and frowned. "There's something you're not telling me."

"No," he said. "But I promise I'll tell you the next chance we get."

Zuko ran ahead with Lirin, wondering how long it would take for Aang to get that chance again.


Looking at the other earthbender more closely, Haru realized he was a native of the Si Wong Desert, judging by the way he wore his headgear. Haru wondered if he looked just as much out of his element.

"Why'd you do that?" the stranger asked. His voice sounded almost accusatory now, with a harshness to it that made Haru think of silt instead of amber.

Haru sat up and leaned against the side of the building, taking off his mitts and wringing the water from them. He tried to look anywhere but at the other boy. "I wanted to help. Why'd you just sit there and take his harassment? He was gonna hit you."

"He would have hit me regardless," the boy said. "I know his type. Considering my current environment it's best I keep my head down." He stood up straight. "And unless I'm wrong, you should too."

Haru pushed himself to his feet, dripping wet with a puddle growing underneath him. "What's a guy from a desert doing in a place like this?"

"I could ask the same of you," the boy retorted. "Friendly advice: this city is not as welcoming to outsiders as they are in the south, from what I hear. Besides, if either one of us fought the First Spear they would have found reason to arrest us."

Pahmo's words about how Arnook had been executing criminals left and right rang in Haru's ear. "I guess so… That might've been a little too rash of me."

The other boy scoffed and turned away.

"My name's Haru, by the way," Haru blurted out.

The other boy didn't glance back at him as he walked. "Ghashiun. See you around, Haru."

After he left, Haru lifted up his foot, which made a squelching sound after it left the ice. "A 'thank you' would've been nice," he grumbled to himself.

Back at the lodge, Haru warmed himself by the hearth fire, sitting in front of it without his boots or parka and holding his hands as close as he could without burning himself. His teeth chattered as Ty Lee helpfully hung up his parka to dry. Behind him, Jet paced while Mai sat in place and stewed.

"You seriously told him your real name?" Mai asked, keeping her voice so low that it came out almost like a hiss. They had a little bit of privacy in the form of a leather and wood partition separating their sleeping furs from others, but not as much as they would have liked, and they risked others hearing them. They had Pahmo to thank for the accommodations, at least.

"He could be a helpful ally," Haru said, unable to look at either of them.

"We don't know anyone in this city," Jet said. "Trust no one."

Ty Lee knelt next to Haru and put her hand on his shoulder. "I think it's cute," she said with a sympathetic smile. "We've all done heroic things like that without thinking. I bet that boy was handsome, wasn't he?"

Haru's shoulders hunched with embarrassment and his face burned. "Yeah," he said in a small voice. He heard Jet groan and quickly added to his statement. "But that wasn't the only reason! Like I said, helpful ally."

Ty Lee patted his shoulder, nodding wisely in understanding. "Yeah, yeah."

"Or he'll just turn us in," said Jet.

"He wouldn't," Haru said with a frown. "He's from the Earth Kingdom. He's not one of them. Listen, I know better than most what it's like to be raised in a nation that's not your own. I haven't been to the Earth Kingdom since I was a kid." Then again, that wasn't even six years ago.

As soon as he spoke, Mai rose and pressed herself to the partition, looking around it to see if they had any eavesdroppers. "I wouldn't have expected you to have loose lips, Haru. We can't do anything to draw attention to ourselves."

His face burned even more. "I don't have loose lips! I don't see what the big deal is. Yeah, maybe helping that guy was stupid. But I could have done a lot worse." Even as the words left his mouth, he knew how childish it sounded, and how fruitless it was to argue with them. He probably should never have brought it up in the first place, but Ty Lee questioned him about why he was soaking wet as soon as he got back.

"Of course you could have done worse," said Mai, throwing her arm out wide. "That's not the point. Ugh, seriously, between all three of you I feel like I'm arguing with children sometimes."

Haru's stomach fell.

Jet stopped pacing. "You're the same age as us, aren't you? Can't you stop acting like you're so superior already?"

"You want to talk 'acting'? You're a kid who's acting like a revolutionary." She pointed at Haru. "You're a kid who's acting like a soldier." Lastly, she spun on Ty Lee. "And you? You're just a kid!"

Ty Lee frowned, and when she spoke she had none of her usual levity. "Exactly, Mai. We're all just kids. Even you."

"You're unbelievable," Jet said, his brow pinched in anger. "You don't know me or what I've been through."

Mai's voice lowered even more and her eyes glistened. "And you don't know me. What I've been through. What I've lost." Her voice broke. "Brave warriors who served under me, listened to my orders, and died on them. Kids who were our age, or younger, because all the older warriors stayed home on my island since they saw the folly of fighting on foreign soil in a war that wasn't ours to begin with. Lu Mao was fifteen and great at impersonating voices. Jeongson was fifteen with footsteps as light as a leaf. Lian was sixteen and he loved to sing. Tala was fourteen and she loved tea ceremonies. Yuna was fifteen and loved the water and swam like a fish. And Xiao, she… she was only thirteen."

She trailed off, voice raspy, staring into the fire at something the rest of them couldn't see. Haru didn't look at her face long enough to see if she shed any tears, and he didn't want to know. He'd never heard her talk so much, or so openly.

Jet crossed his arms. "You're not the only one who's lost someone important to you," he said. "And you'll never forget their names, their faces."

Ty Lee wrung her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry, Mai. What you said, it's… really eye-opening. To be responsible for people who look up to you. I get it."

Mai looked at her and sighed. "Right. Princess. Of course."

Haru was about to speak up, to contribute and validate his own experiences, when they all heard singing from outside.

Mai slid aside the partition to see that the rest of the lodge had emptied out. All four of them moved toward the door, following the sound of the voices all singing in tandem with each other, and when they went out into the streets it seemed like the whole city came out as soon as night fell to sing as one.

No one held lanterns or torches, singing only by the light of the waning moon. Young and old, they joined their voices together, a haunting melody with occasional drum beats from ornately decorated goblet drums on street corners. On rooftops, priests and shamans led them all with their throat-singing, a thrum that echoed through the whole city. Taken aback by the suddenness of it, Haru didn't realize at first that they sang with words.

They sang of the first night of a waning moon. The sheen of a raven's wing in flight. The cold embrace of winter. The snow rat in its nest and the fox in its den. The moon's light giving way to the new moon and the night's grace. Sanctity and piety to a spirit called the Nightseer.

"It's not just a song," Haru whispered to the others. "It's a prayer."

All four of them looked at each other, bewildered, and pretended to sing along. But just as suddenly as the singing began, it stopped, and everyone retreated back to the warmth of indoors.

Ty Lee looked as stunned as Haru felt. "Did that really just happen? Am I dreaming? Tell me I'm dreaming."

"No," said Jet, melting into the shadow of their lodge. "It felt surreal, but that happened."


By the time they emerged from underneath the Great Glacier and had been noticed, the Wolf's Skulls were tiny specks far below them. Lirin's warriors rode out to meet Chit Sang and his men on the backs of buffalo-yaks and they clashed in the middle of the massive snowfield, but before long Zuko couldn't see them anymore. The blizzard drowned out the sounds of their war horns, its titanic rage isolating. Zuko clutched Appa's reins with freezing fingers while Aang and Sokka diverted as much of the snow and ice around them as they could. Sangmu sat in the saddle, shaken, front-facing and staring ahead at their destination.

"Is that what war is like?" she asked, and despite the low volume of her voice Zuko could still hear her. It echoed beyond the wind and the storm, and Zuko got the feeling that the others were deaf to it. "How can he leave them like that, fighting for their lives?"

"He's had to make lots of hard decisions," Zuko said, though he didn't know if she could hear him in turn. He didn't know if it was comforting or helpful either. "He's been through a lot." He stared ahead back into the grey haze, but then an explosion tore the sky apart and Appa veered sharply to the right to avoid it.

"What was that?" Sokka yelped, clinging onto the saddle.

"Fireworks?" Sangmu guessed.

"No, wait, I recognized that attack," Sokka said with a gasp. "It's that explosion bender!"

Zuko pulled on the reins to make Appa go higher, especially after another explosion rent the sky. "The one you hired to kill us back then!"

"It wasn't to kill you! Honest!"

They didn't have time to wonder why the Combustion Man hunted them again. Zuko felt like a sitting target in the sky, unable to see their pursuers far below them. If the Combustion Man was one of Chit Sang's, did that mean he had gotten by Lirin? He didn't know how far they were from the southern mountains - but if they couldn't yet see them, he reasoned it was too far. If the blizzard blinded them, it must have blinded the Combustion Man in turn. But he didn't know how much longer they could use that to their advantage since it wasn't too far-fetched to think he could score a lucky hit eventually. Appa could only fly so far, and the cold penetrated every fiber of Zuko's being. His parka was wet and stiff with ice. Frost crawled into his hair and clothes. His breath of fire could only do so much, and he had no idea how Sokka or Sangmu felt without it.

"Fly low," Aang called out to him. "If we can see him, maybe we have a chance to fight back!"

Unable to think of a better idea, Zuko did so and they all braced themselves. Once they flew low enough that he could see the ground again, Zuko spotted their pursuers - just three men on buffalo-yaks, still far behind them; perhaps the only ones to make it past Lirin and her warriors. One of the riders had an arm that glinted with a metallic silver, its shine visible with every blast that rang out. Bounding alongside the three of them, Zuko's eyes widened when he recognized the poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk.

"Oh, seriously?" Sokka groaned. "The big mind-bending explosion guy wasn't enough, but they had to bring the fiercest predator animal in the world along with them? How is that fair?"

Aang pumped his fists and crimson fire rained down on them, but he was too far away and the attacks fell short. But now that Zuko could see the source of the explosions, he found it easier to steer Appa out of the way of incoming blasts. Sokka stood alongside Aang and raised his arms, straining, and a peal swept across the Great Glacier like a thunderclap as the ice below them cracked, shifting so that great ice spikes jutted from the surface. Two of the buffalo-yaks wove through the spikes with practiced ease and the third fumbled and lost its balance, but its rider leapt from it with surprising agility just in time and another rider scooped him up.

Zuko almost didn't notice the southern mountains coming into view and it took him a moment to realize that the blizzard had started to clear. Appa let out a roar and put on another burst of speed and Zuko couldn't help but grin when he felt rare sunlight peeking through the gloom. He spotted a gap in the southern mountains - a valley that would lead them into the even worse Everstorm, if Lirin was correct - and steered Appa toward it. The Combustion Man seemed to guess Zuko's intentions, however, and renewed his assault with several consecutive blasts of firepower that deterred Appa from flying in that direction.

"We can't outrun them forever," Zuko realized. "Aang, take the reins!"

"What're you doing?" Aang asked, eyes narrowed. "He can't follow us forever, not on one of those buffalo-yaks!"

Zuko made Appa descend and grasped one of Appa's horns, hanging from it. "But the wolverine-skunk can."

Sokka grimaced. "Oh, man, you're about to do something crazy, aren't you?" He ducked when one of the explosions came close enough to singe Appa's fur. "This is suicide, but… I'm in!"

Sokka's right. This is suicide.

My sister would be confident enough to do something like this. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from her.

If you knew my sister, you'd realize how much of a bad idea that is.

Before either Zuko or Sokka could jump down from the saddle, Sangmu beat them to it on her glider and swung it so that the wind tore toward their pursuers. "You almost hit Appa!" she shouted.

Zuko and Sokka looked at each other and shrugged, but Sokka leapt off the saddle first to join her. Before Zuko did the same, he turned toward Aang. "You've got to continue to the portal," he said. "Don't worry about us. Save Toph and Yue."

"But I can't leave you guys!"

"You can. We've got this - trust us," he said. And before Aang could protest further, he jumped.

Before landing, he snapped his arms to his sides and forced as much fire from his fists as he could to slow down his fall. His feet crunched against the ice and he rolled to avoid breaking his legs, but he leapt right back up into an attack, just in time for the buffalo-yak bearing Chit Sang and an unknown man to come down on him raining fire. Zuko kicked out and spun his legs, releasing arcs of fire from each foot that spun toward them and knocked them off their mount.

Sokka slid across the ice, constructing a wall that blocked their enemies' path to Aang and the Everstorm, but the monstrous wolverine-skunk slammed right into it. Cracks webbed through the ice and when Sokka worked to reinforce it, the Combustion Man - for it was indeed the same man they had encountered months before - rode up on his buffalo-yak and blasted it to pieces. Zuko swept out his hands and unleashed as much fire as he could manage in the direction of the wolverine-skunk, forcing it to recoil away from him and back to the side of its master. The Combustion Man, in turn, looked at Zuko and sharply inhaled but Sangmu slapped him with an arc of wind before he could strike.

Sokka pulled out his boomerang and club. "I hired you once before, can't I hire you again to help us instead?"

"Oh, so you know our new friend Yanhuo'li? I don't think you'll find that his services are for hire these days," said Chit Sang, grinning, as he raised his fists. "He's found some more lucrative employment."

Sokka's eye widened and his mouth opened in surprised recollection. "Oh, yeah! That was his name!"

All three Skulls faced them, standing in a line. Yanhuo'li towered over all of them except for his wolverine-skunk, which he held by the collar with his metal claw. It padded at the snow, lunging toward Zuko, Sokka, and Sangmu.

The third man, the stranger, cracked his neck as he faced them down, his eyes on Sokka. "Come on, little princeling. Your father's quite angry with you. Where's your sister, anyway? He wants his traitor son and wayward daughter back in the palace."

"Xin Fu, shut up," Chit Sang said, scowling. Something his comrade said struck a nerve, Zuko noticed. "Our main priority is the Avatar. And it's a problem if he went into Wolverine-Skunk Clan lands." He noticed Sangmu and his eyes widened in recognition. "Ah, so the little girl in the ice lives. You know, you'll find that the world has changed a lot since you last walked these lands. You'd do better with different friends to show you how things work now."

Sangmu gripped her staff. "Your ancestors would be ashamed of you," she said, frowning. "I'd know - I probably met them."

"I know I am," Zuko said, holding his stance. "A firebender turning against his own people… you have no honor. You're the traitor."

Chit Sang's face darkened. He struck that nerve again. "You'll regret that, kid. You're the only one I don't care to drag back to Aniak'to in one piece." With an angered shout, he threw a fistful of fire at Zuko, who stepped forward and dispersed it with his forearm, retaliating with his own punch.

Yanhuo'li let go of the wolverine-skunk and it barreled toward them, forcing the three to scatter. Sokka shifted the ice underneath it, but Xin Fu flexed his arms and pulled up a great weight from underneath the snow, revealing himself as an earthbender. They'd made it to the end of the Great Glacier.

Sangmu kept the beast distracted from the air, weaving in and out of its snapping bites, while Sokka took on Xin Fu. Chit Sang hurled himself into battle with Zuko, his fists a blur of red and orange. Zuko met his fury head-on, moving like the Dancing Dragon, and despite his relative lack of experience he held his own. The force behind one of Chit Sang's attacks knocked him backward, and he only had just enough time to reorient himself before one of Yanhuo'li's blasts shook the ice field and almost blew him to pieces. He fell back into the snow, landing painfully on the ice and rolling across it before he came to a stop.

He distantly saw Sangmu diving toward Yanhuo'li before Chit Sang fell on Zuko with a blazing kick. Zuko managed to push himself directly toward Chit Sang, getting within his defenses, but the larger man rammed him with his broad shoulders. Zuko barely held his balance, but when he found his footing he delivered an uppercut to Chit Sang, burning the front of his parka.

Chit Sang patted at his front, glowering. "What use is honor in this world?" he asked. "Where everything is determined by personal strength, or blood, or the spirits? Emperor Hakoda doesn't care about any of that. I got here on my own merits, and it's all thanks to him."

"I'm not sure," Zuko said, his eyes narrowed. "And I don't care. All I know is what's important to me, and that's taking down tyrants like the wolf you serve."

The older man scoffed, shoving his elbow forward to disperse Zuko's attack. "What, like leading the world into an era of love and peace or something? That what your so-called honor tells you to do?"

Zuko dodged Chit Sang's attack and slid into a stance, gathering fire into a spinning circle with both hands before pushing it forward. "That's exactly it," he said. "And I'll fight whoever it takes and do whatever I must to protect the people important to me, the ones who'll make that world a reality."

"And that's not you, is it?" Chit Sang asked, jumping up and kicking forward. "That's gonna be what other people do, while you just sit in their shadows. And you're just content with that, huh? Letting others move and shake the world while you fight who you must to get by. Not so dissimilar to me. Maybe you would make a good Wolf's Skull, kid."

Zuko spread his arms wide, causing Chit Sang's fire to hit the ice with a hiss of steam. "I am content with that," he said, his voice steady. "But while I support those I love from the shadows… you're just nipping at your emperor's heels, eating his scraps that fall from the table. You really think you mean something to your emperor?"

"Love," he spat, a torrent of flames blasting from his joined knuckles. "Peace," he said with a grunt, turning the torrent into two writhing whips. "And honor? Where were they when my own people scorned me? Where were they when - no matter what I did to make Fire Nation lives better under Water Nation rule - my people hated me and spit at me and called me 'traitor?' Where were those things when the people of the Water Nation called me the emperor's lap dog? Derided me, looked down on me, no matter how many accomplishments I made in their service? Honor is a Fire Nation value. And I am no longer Fire Nation."

"But you're not Water Nation either," Zuko managed to say through the onslaught. "To them, you'll never be."

He heard something cracking ahead; he thought it was ice, but Sangmu had found herself caught between the Combustion Man and his beast, and she ducked under his close-range lunges, spinning around him with snapping fingers to disorient him with screeches of sound. The wolverine-skunk hissed, its barbs rippling, but Zuko saw its tail slam into Sangmu just in time for her to touch down on the ice. The attack sent her sprawling, but Sokka caught her with a cushion of snow and launched icicles at Yanhuo'li, who blocked them with his prosthetic limbs.

Zuko saw Xin Fu attacking Sokka from his blind side. He was about to shout out a warning but Chit Sang renewed his attacks, the heat washing over Zuko with enough ferocity to make the steam from the ice beneath his feet feel scalding. He scampered away from Chit Sang's strikes, drew his broadswords, and when the fire blazed all around him he swept it up around his blades and launched it right back at Chit Sang.

The attack hit him right at his core, its force breaking through his crossed forearms and throwing him backward. He fell bodily into the snow, and Zuko threw flaming daggers with pinpoint accuracy to keep him from getting up before he closed in and held his crossed broadswords to Chit Sang's throat.

"Finish it," Chit Sang spit. "You've won. I've been shamed by a kid. The world will be closer to its path for 'love and peace' with me outta the way."

"No," said Zuko, eyes set on him. "Someone told me once that shame isn't the opposite of honor, but its source. You can transform that shame into something else - something that can transform the world in turn. There's no honor in killing you." He found that he couldn't remember who had told him that, but it sounded familiar. It sounded right. When he stepped back from Chit Sang, the other man paused enough to make Zuko think something he had said got through to him, but he bent his legs and kicked out at Zuko, making more flames lick up at him.

He might not be listening, said the voice of Prince Zuko. But I am. It took me such a long time to find out what honor meant to me. And I like the answer you've found.

Chit Sang used the momentum from his attack to flip back up to his feet, using Zuko's lowered defenses to his advantage to scuttle back toward his companions. Zuko frowned at his retreating back, but an explosion from Yanhuo'li sent Sokka and Sangmu running toward Zuko instead, clothes smoking. The poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk hunted right at their heels.

"Okay, now what?" Sokka yelled out.

Zuko was about to reply when he heard something galloping toward them. He tried to find the source of the sound but the flurrying snow concealed the new arrival until their buffalo-yak was right on top of them. He saw the massive machete first, and then heard the animalistic shout of Lirin as she leapt from her mount and sliced at the wolverine-skunk's neck. It stopped just in time to avoid being decapitated, but Lirin struck again with the reverse side of the blade and the strike bludgeoned the beast into whimpering unconsciousness.

She hefted her machete over her shoulder with a toothy grin and faced Chit Sang, Xin Fu, and Yanhuo'li. "Alright, you think you can get past me when I've smelled blood? Think again!"


The strangeness of Agna Qel'a unnerved Haru more and more as he slipped through the streets along with Jet. It was as if the entire city had descended into a ritualistic silence, with priests and shamans patrolling the rooftops and dropping handfuls of black feathers that fluttered to the ground. All the lights in the city had gone out, making it easy for Haru and Jet to move undetected, but an uneasy silence had blanketed the city as well. Even the water in the canals seemed as if it had stilled.

After the citywide prayer, the four of them had all decided to split into two pairs to see what they could learn about what happened. If this was going to happen every night until the new moon, that put a damper on their plans to infiltrate the high chief's palace the following night. Haru and Jet volunteered to go take a look at the palace to see if anything significant had happened there, and the chill that Haru felt as they made their way across the city had little to do with the temperature.

The palace loomed over the city, dark and foreboding. Otherwise, Haru saw nothing out of the ordinary. Guards still patrolled the grounds, forcing Haru and Jet to hide in an alcove on the balcony of the tallest building they could find near the palace entrance. His eyes were drawn to the sky when a flock of black shapes flapped in the vicinity of the palace; it took him a moment to realize they were ravens.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Jet. "What is it?" Haru asked. But Jet wasn't fixated on the sky - rather, he watched the ground, his eyes on a person walking toward the palace.

A wide-brimmed hat concealed most of the person's features, black trimmed with silver. He wore a heavy blue overcoat rather than a parka, but his most distinguishing feature was an iguana-parrot on his shoulder whose vivid colors stood out in the night. Grey hair hung down to his shoulders, lank but not yet wispy with age, and a jian hung at his belt. He had already walked past Haru and Jet's vantage point so that Haru couldn't see his face, but Jet had gripped the icy balcony and watched the man with such intensity that he looked as if he would jump down right then and there.

The man looked so much like a pirate that Haru felt he could hazard a guess at the man's face: perhaps an eye patch, or a thin beard and piercings. But then he remembered Pahmo's warnings about pirates and how none were welcome in the city anymore, despite the Water Tribe alliance with pirate fleets. So what was this man doing here?

And then the surprise in Jet's eyes turned to hatred, a seething vitriol that made Haru think he would jump down and murder him on the spot. Haru had seen that look in so many soldiers back home, women and men who fought and lost so much to the Water Nation. The kind of hatred only trauma could induce.

"I know him," Jet said, and it looked like he exerted an enormous effort to rein himself in. His voice came out low, dangerous, and dripping with all the heat Haru saw in his eyes. "That's the monster that slaughtered my family."


Aang hated to leave his friends behind.

But he had never felt a sense of urgency deep in his gut like this. The world thrummed with energy, not unlike the night at Ba Sing Se when Wan Shi Tong had crossed over into the world. He knew he didn't have forever before it happened again but it had happened so alarmingly fast, as if the bridge he had burned to the Spirit World had somehow reconstructed itself. Roku had told him that he and the other Avatars would hold back the merge as long as they could, but had the unstoppable tide overcome them?

He had to get through the portal. He had to save Toph before she was lost to him forever. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could do something about the merging worlds while he was there - hold it off just a little longer. Just long enough to defeat Hakoda.

The Everstorm churned, black clouds swirling in the darkness of the South Pole - the bottom tip of the world. Violet streaks of lightning lit up the inside of the clouds, like a pulsating core, its energy roiling in a way to make Aang almost feel a sense of nausea. He had felt spiritual power like this only rarely, but he was certain his world had no such storm. It felt as if it would spill over to the rest of the world, its chaos all-consuming. How had things gotten so calamitous in the Water Tribes that this could happen, that this many dark spirits could gather and coalesce into something so unnatural?

From high above, with Appa, he saw no sign of the clan that had appointed themselves the guardians of the Everstorm. He wondered if Lirin's information was outdated or incorrect, but no one came out to attack. All he saw below him was a twisting, skeletal forest of trees, nearly as dark as the sky above it. Further ahead, he saw a massive block of ice with an opening like a cave, and Aang knew with all certainty that it must be the entrance to the Southern Spirit Portal.

Dark shapes scurried by far below him. Others looked caught up in the storm clouds above him. But as he flew onward, he found his thoughts drifting to what Zuko had told him about how, all along, he continued to hear the voice of Aang's friend. Sokka did, too. Aang could have tried to communicate with them, could have heard their words, and be eased by the comfort it would bring to be reunited with them again - if only indirectly. Even if he couldn't do the same with Toph or Katara, it was something. Anything to help him keep moving forward.

You won't move forward if you keep looking back, whispered the voice of his other self. After Aang had broken his connection to his past lives, his other self promised to stay with him. And he had. Maybe your friends knew that. Maybe they realized they couldn't distract you from what you need to do - which is save both worlds. You said you'd save this one first.

But if they still hear my Sokka and my Zuko… then that means Azula can hear her other self, too.

And that scared him most of all. Azula had lied to him. She hid her struggles and her pain, the anguish of having Fire Lord Azula as a constant presence in the back of her mind. He remembered, all too vividly, the fear and sheer exhaustion in her eyes back at the Ba Sing Se gardens. He had failed her. Again. She lied in order to appear strong, to keep from burdening him with her troubles.

But he ached so much with the need for her to share those troubles with him. He wanted to shoulder them with her. Together. But now she was gone, somewhere far away with Katara, possibly in even more danger than he could imagine.

Lost in his thoughts, it took him a long time to notice that he had flown through the Everstorm without any difficulties. Dark spirits were said to haunt this place. Why hadn't any of them attacked him yet? If anything they all seemed to be flooding to the outskirts of the Everstorm, and the realization dawned on him just as his other self gave words to his thoughts.

Don't you remember? Dark spirits are beings of misfortune, drawn to conflict.

Conflict. He had left his friends locked in conflict at the border of the Everstorm.

He pulled on Appa's reins, ready to turn the bison around and head back. "The dark spirits are heading for Zuko and the others!" he exclaimed aloud. And with an adversary as dangerous as the Combustion Man to worry about, he knew they wouldn't be able to handle spiritual interference as well. But he couldn't turn back now - could he?

Wait, don't you remember what else dark spirits are drawn to? We saw it in Kuruk's memory!

Aang remembered. "Light!" His eyes fell to the reins gripped in his mitts. "But… I can't use the Avatar State. I lost my connection to all my past lives in order to hold the Spirit World at bay. And besides, I never learned to control it in the first place!"

You don't need all the knowledge of our past lives, said the monk. Just the power to draw all the dark spirits to you. We can still use the Avatar State!

"How?"

Remember what Avatar Wan said? No matter what… Raava is still with you! With us!

A pulse of energy jolted through him. He remembered Wan saying that name, but he had no idea who that was. Even so, it stirred a sense of familiarity in him, like an old friend. A partner. His mind swirled with doubt, fear, and longing - caught between two friends, two choices, two worlds, two everything.

You have to do it. I know you can. You can connect to Raava - deep inside. You don't have to go all the way back anymore.

He felt the torrent of spiritual energy above and below him. It vibrated just under his skin, and as he sat on Appa's head in the middle of a raging storm, the worlds falling apart at the seams, he reached deep inside of himself and roused the ancient light intertwined with his soul. With all this power, all this energy around him and the Spirit World so close, tapping into it came easy. The sky above crashed down on him and he heard unearthly keening somewhere far below, but he screwed his eyes shut and drowned out everything else.

Duality was all around him, pulling and threatening to split him in two, but he and Raava were one. And the need to protect his friends overpowered everything else. Most of all, he focused on the one emotion he felt every other time he went into the Avatar State.

Grief.

He had no control. Not yet. He saw and felt the light flood into his being, helpless in the face of its overwhelming power that felt something like righteous fury. Right now, he simply borrowed it. Distantly, he heard Appa let out a roar as he saw darkness swirling toward him. The dark spirits had picked up the scent of a powerful light and focused on the beacon that had appeared right in their midst.

Great winged beasts made from the Everstorm's dark clouds streaked toward him, but his arm raised high and summoned white flames that devoured it in a conflagration that swept out from Appa, vaporizing more dark spirits in its wake. He felt the wind shift, pulling Appa toward the ice cavern, but Aang floated above the saddle nonetheless as they moved and faced all the dark spirits that pursued them. Below, the snow rippled outward, burying the amorphous beasts on the ground. Beyond even that, the earth cracked and shifted as he wrenched up massive stones and hurled them at the monstrous tusked faces that flew at him, howling for his blood, his light.

Through it all, he felt her presence. Her order. A blinding radiance, so overpowering that he was at a loss as to why he never felt her the other times he went into the Avatar State. The ice cavern below him split apart with a bang as it fractured in two at one chop of his arm. The fissure lengthened and split it apart, revealing a glowing orb and more naked trees coiling around it, as if grasping for its power. As the dark spirits converged toward Aang and Appa, he dimly heard the soft voice of the monk.

Normally, this can only be open during a solstice when the barrier is at its weakest… but now…

Now, things were different. The barrier was almost nonexistent, a veil thrashing in the wind.

Once you touch it, the portal will be opened. And we'll be able to connect with our past lives again.

Eyes still radiant, he dropped from Appa directly down to the surface of the spirit portal. Dark spirits reached for him - longing, yearning spirits that hungered for his light - and both he and Raava ignored them as they wrapped around his body. Tendrils snaked around his torso, his ankles, his forehead; but when he reached for the entrance to the portal, frozen in glass, he had just enough reach to press a single fingertip against its surface.

White light burst from the portal at his touch and a pillar stretched to the sky that devoured both Aang and Appa.


Author's Notes: Lirin is a minor character from the "North and South" comics. She had a bit part, but I liked her design and we are so strapped for canon Water Tribe characters that I gave her a (slightly) bigger role here!

Anyway, this chapter was meant to be pretty low key but halfway through writing it I completely changed the structure and moved it along a lot quicker. It was supposed to be the last "chill" chapter before things get intense - which is why there's a bit of a disconnect in the tone between the Aang and North Pole plots. So buckle in, friends, 'cause from here on out I won't be hitting the brakes much.

Please don't forget to leave a comment!