Author's Notes: Couple things! I resumed my edits of old chapters again and this time I went way back and did some long overdue edits to Book 1's "The Warriors of Roku." I intended to do pretty minor edits to it but little by little I basically ended up rewriting the whole chapter. I think it's like twice the length now, too, but I like it a lot more now.
Also, PolarMarie has also begun translating the fic into Spanish! It's posted over on Ao3, the link is in my profile! (I also revamped my profile a bit in an attempt to make everything more organized).
Q.F. Schroll has also made an ebook version of DR! The download link is in my profile and I'll try to keep it up to date.
Aaand Madam_Melon_Meow has started the DR audiobook adaptation! (You know my updates take too long when I have so many great things to mention in my author's notes). She claims to be an amateur but I don't believe her! Again, the link is in my profile! Thank you all so much!
Last time with Aang/Toph/Yue/Nagi: Having found themselves in the Foggy Swamp as the Great Banyan itself seems to be dying, Aang discovered a major truth of the world: that the banyan tree connects all of the worlds together, and with its roots it has a connection to the Spirit World. After he and Nagi discovered earth and air-spiritbending, Aang managed to cleanse the swamp, so now they're headed to Ba Sing Se again to find the White Lotus, and learn how to stop Xai Bau. But to do that, they must pass through the Si Wong Desert…
Last time with Mai/Jet/Ty Lee/Haru: As the world changed all around them due to the encroachment of the Spirit World, they pursued High Chief Arnook as he heads on his pilgrimage to the Northern Spirit Portal. On the way, they face an encounter with light spirits and Jet finally achieves the vengeance he has sought all his life.
Book 3: Water
Chapter 14: Si Wong City
The Foggy Swamp didn't quite yet live up to its name by the time they reached its edges, but Aang knew it would come with time now that it had been cleansed of Vaatu's rot. As they walked among the paths the swamp laid out for them, Aang and all the Water Tribe warriors and Ba Sing Se refugees had fallen into a silence heavy with appreciation and awe for their surroundings. Direct sunlight barely reached them through the thick canopy of trees so it almost felt like they traversed the inside of a massive cavern at times.
Nagi, Toph, and Yue led the procession while Aang kept himself busy gliding back and forth to keep everyone accounted for, while Appa took up the rear. It was slow going, with frequent stops to accommodate the children, elderly, wounded, and anyone who needed time in Appa's saddle. But they were all safe, and they had stopped fighting. It allowed his mind to wander to his next objective: to find Xai Bau and stop him.
But with every step and every problem he found himself further and further from the South Pole. He'd left Zuko, Sokka, and Sangmu behind. And he had no idea if Azula was safe…
"Twinkletoes, your heartbeat is all over the place right now," Toph said to him when he stopped once near the vanguard. "What're you stressing about now?"
"Just worried about getting all these people across the desert. We don't have much food or water," he said.
Toph huffed as if unsatisfied with his answer, but he technically didn't lie to her. He just omitted some of the truth. "Yeah, I gotta say that spirit food doesn't really do it for me. And that's saying a lot, considering I couldn't eat anything at all for a little while there."
"It really is a shame that fruits from the Spirit World aren't that filling," said Yue. "But I suppose it's fitting, since we didn't seem to require nearly as much food there."
"We should have enough to get us at least to Si Wong City," said Nagi, though beneath her copper circlet her brow furrowed just a little bit in concern.
They eventually reached the edge of the swamp and had to climb a winding trail that ascended up rocky slopes, which acted as the swamp's cradle. As they gained altitude, Aang started to find sand pooling in the crooks and crevices in the stone. The ground leveled out to a labyrinth of earthen crags, some the height of two or three men while others loomed even greater, like the teeth of sleeping giants. They spotted one sabertooth moose-lion meandering through in search of dry grass, but it quailed and left them alone upon seeing the size of the human entourage. Before they ventured too deeply into the barrens, Aang looked back one last time at the Great Banyan tree, a gigantic mushroom standing among the grass.
Not much later, the rocky maze bordering the swamp ended, and the desert began.
For a moment, Aang thought the same white, pollen-like substance that coated the swamp had also laid waste to the desert. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the desert had been covered in a thin sheet of snow.
Here at the desert's border, red sand from the southern mountains had mingled with the rest of the dunes, and this combined with the white snow and wind had created great swirls of vibrant red, pink, and white. Children yelped in glee and dug their hands into the snow, only to expose the red ocher underneath. More than a few Water Tribe men actually joined them, perhaps homesick, and Aang thought he even spotted one waterbender hurl a snowball at one of the kids and whistle innocently afterward.
"I can't believe it," said Nagi, eyes wide with awe. "Snow in the desert…"
Misu stepped up behind Aang, her footsteps crunching. "It is hard to say if this is a good omen or a bad one," she said. "But at least the sky has cleared up to its normal color, at least for now."
"I'd like to hope it's a good one," said Yue. "We could use more of those. Well, now that we've reached the desert, it is time for all of our people to go our own way. Rafa, Misu, if you could gather the representatives from each clan, we will begin our journey northwest, to Gaipan."
Nagi turned away from the snow-covered sands at once. "Wait, you're going with them?" she asked. Aang himself hadn't even been sure what Yue intended, and realized it had never actually been discussed what she would do.
"I have to," said Yue, lowering her gaze to her joined hands. "They're my people, and I should be rightfully forbidden from going to Si Wong City! It is even dangerous, perhaps, that I know about it in the first place…"
"Nonsense," said Nagi, securing her cowl. Aang suspected the movement was to conceal a smirk that was almost coy. "I think we could make an exception for you."
"Don't worry about us, princess," said Rafa, giving Yue a warm smile. "Misu and I will look after our people, and see them safely to the Serpent's Tail River and the encampment in Gaipan. There, we will reunite with the southerners again, and anyone who wishes to journey back home by sea will have that chance."
Perhaps to battle with Aang's friends, Aang couldn't help but think. That route would take them across great swathes of land that their own countrymen had reduced to desert over the years.
Yue bowed her head in defeat. "Well, I suppose if everyone's certain…"
"You're not fooling anyone, sweetie," said Toph. "We all know you wanna come with us."
With that settled, tension had lessened when the two groups split and Nagi led the venture into the desert. Despite the snow, it didn't actually feel cold there, but the heat wasn't as sweltering as Aang remembered, either, thankfully. Winds buffeted the desert dunes and forced everyone to keep their heads bowed. The soft, shifting sands made the going even more difficult than the swamp did, at least until Toph unveiled the firm, dry, hard-packed earth beneath the sandy layer above it. Aang, Nagi, and all the rest of the earthbenders proceeded to clear a path as much as they could.
"Only the desert at the southern expanse is like this," said Nagi, smoothing out the deep cracks and gouges in the earth with a twist of her wrist. "The Si Wong is more diverse than most people think, with the Barrens to the north and the Red Sands that seep in from the southeastern mountains. Most people just think of the central expanse, which is an endless sea of rolling dunes."
"Eh, I just like having some firm earth under my feet," said Toph. "I'm just glad they aren't baking."
"Some call this the newer part of the desert," Nagi continued. "There used to be forests here, supposedly, at least until the war began. The Barrens to the north get their name for the same reason, and that part stretches all the way across the Serpent's Fin River to Ba Sing Se."
"That's the river that feeds into Chameleon Bay, right?" Aang asked, shaking his boot free of sand that had gotten inside it. "From Full Moon Bay and the Serpent's Pass?" He tried to picture the map in his head - in his world a lot of that had been called the Burn for the past three years.
"Yes!" said Nagi, eager to share her knowledge. "And it's the Serpent's Neck River that connects the Serpent's Pass to the northern sea, and the Serpent's Tail that goes south instead!"
"Hey, is it too late for me to go back and join the Water Tribe guys?" Toph asked with a huff. "I didn't sign up for a geography lesson."
Aang and Nagi frowned at her but Yue only giggled.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd behind them until someone shouted for Aang's attention. "Avatar! There's a sand cloud headed right toward us!"
Aang readied his glider to get an aerial view of it, to judge whether it could be a sandstorm or another threat, but Nagi clapped her hands together and grinned. "Oh, that's a sand sailer caravan!" She turned back to the others. "What luck. That'll make our journey to the city so much easier - they usually sweep the desert for trading, but they often pick up lost refugees. Though I would say this group is much bigger than they might've bargained for…"
At first, the caravan kept their distance due to the size of their entourage, but Aang and Nagi made their way out to the sailers to discuss the best way to transport all the people to the safety of Si Wong City. Free from the burden of worrying about them now, Aang was ready to fly ahead to Ba Sing Se on Appa, but he and Toph decided to go along to the city and rest for the night. Aang had to admit that despite his misgivings about the desert he was curious to see Nagi's home; her excitement to return was palpable.
The first sand sailers took the people most in need of food and rest while other sailers in the caravan continued their route to spread the word to other tribes dispersed throughout the desert that refugees needed help. They'd been told to remain right where they were, so everyone put together a roughshod camp and waited so they'd be easier to find. Before long, more sand sailers began appearing from all directions, and Nagi identified each of them as being members of different tribes - from the Hami to the Lop Nor and even the beetle-headed merchants, all purely by their style of sailer or beast of burden.
Jin, the refugee that had been volunteered as their unofficial leader, approached Aang, Nagi, Toph, and Yue before she boarded the last sand sailer. "Thank you all for the help you've given us," she said, bowing and giving them a shy smile. "Most of us are used to relocating, sometimes over and over, but we'll make it through this. If you're ever in Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring again, come find my tea shop! It's not much, but I'll treat you!"
They said their goodbyes and waved her off, and together the four of them boarded Appa's saddle and followed from the air.
Yue clung to the side of the saddle - and to Nagi - most of the way. "This is… exhilarating!" she exclaimed, beaming. "It's unbelievable that you get to fly like this every day!"
"I've been looking forward to this!" said Nagi. "It feels like we could cross the entire desert in a day!"
Aang couldn't help but grin back - it had been a long time since anyone had been excited to fly on Appa for the first time. It was almost contagious. "Well, not quite in a single day! But Appa can go even faster than this!"
Si Wong City stuck out against the rest of the flat, featureless desert. It formed on and around a mesa that made up its foundation and central hub, which Aang recognized as the location of the buzzard-wasp hive in his world; a place with dark memories that he tried his hardest to shake away now. A tall, squared temple with wide arches and a two-tiered roof had the place of honor at the top of the mesa, but as they approached from the air it looked like other buildings had been carved out of the sides of it as well, like homes hanging on a vertical wall. Ramps and walkways descended outward, some connecting to the taller buildings on the ground spread out from the mesa. Aang made the amusing observation that many of the homes on the ground had been made from sand or adobe hardened into domes, not unlike igloos. Others were squared and had multiple floors, with wooden support beams sticking out on the exterior upon which people hung all sorts of belongings as decoration, like wind chimes or glasswork.
They dismounted Appa and walked into town from the ground before Aang realized the city had no walls. He questioned Nagi about this, wondering how they planned to defend the city from attack.
She smiled, looking above them while they passed under a series of crisscrossing walkways. "What use are walls when the desert gives us all the defenses we need?"
It was much smaller than Ba Sing Se, but it seemed livelier. As they walked through the streets, Aang found his eyes drawn to all the buildings with doorways and windows made with high arches and onion-shaped roofs, a type of dwelling he had never seen before. Children ran by him playing a ball game with earthbending. A merchant hawked her wares from a street cart while a man beat the dust from a hanging rug and a street performer tried to get the attention of passerby. Even the plant life seemed livelier - dry grasses sprouted on the roadsides and palm trees provided shade at many street corners, not unlike the ones he'd heard about at the Misty Palms Oasis a hundred years ago. Best of all, other than Nagi there were no Dai Li to be seen.
"Wow, there are people from all over the Earth Kingdom here," said Nagi, stopping at a street junction and looking around. By this point, they had attracted the attention of a large crowd, thanks to Appa. Ostrich-horses and zebra-camels gave him a wide berth. "It's grown a lot in the two years I've been gone."
Toph stopped next to her and slouched. "You're lost, aren't you?"
"No, of course not!" Nagi protested. "I remember where I live!" But even Aang could tell she looked a little unsure as she picked a direction and led the way. "I hope my father's home. He leads a mercantile caravan that deals in wines and fruits grown throughout the desert. He does a lot of traveling."
Yue smiled at her. "I look forward to meeting him."
Nagi smiled back, and once they passed through another archway she breathed a sigh of relief. The delicate sounds of a string instrument danced to their ears, the musician sitting underneath a colorful mosaic of seven hooded figures all in different hues. The smell of stews cooking in pungent spices made Aang hungry as they walked down this road toward Nagi's house. They stopped in front of a bright blue door just long enough for Nagi to nervously grin back at them and brace herself before she opened it and led the way inside. "Father? It's me, Nagi!"
Arnook's retinue rode without stopping for the North Pole and Mai wondered if it was to avoid any more light spirit attacks. It set a hard pace for them, and without any waterbenders to freeze over safe paths they struggled to follow Arnook. At one point, they almost lost him when his carriage on its sled rode across a defrosted lake, which forced Mai and the others to detour around it.
The previous day's rain had started to wash away much of the snow but the temperature dropped at nightfall and froze it all over again. Now, the sun was bright but the tundra was still cold, and the light reflecting off of frozen snow drifts came close to giving them snow blindness. Even so, they persisted. The sky, clear of any clouds, had become such a light blue that it was almost white itself, making it hard to distinguish the ground from the sky along the horizon. The spirit-sundered sky shifted even more than a Fire Nation summer, occasionally veering close to something almost normal while other times it seemed entirely alien.
They pursued Arnook's men through a ravine with snow capped peaks on either side, coming out at the rim of a basin cradling a forest so green that Mai had to blink away the color assaulting her eyes. She assumed this to be the location of the Northern Spirit Portal, because far ahead of them Arnook's men rode around the rim of the basin toward a grand temple overlooking the forest. It looked as if it had been carved from the mountainside; high walls and towers jutted out as if the mountain had pikes of its own and ice coated so much of the stone that it looked like it had been draped in icicles. She couldn't tell its age or its purpose; it may have been a monastery once meant to preside over the portal, but now it was a shrine to the same spirit they worshiped back in Agna Qel'a. A cloud of dark shapes fluttered over the highest tower - the ravens' roost.
Now that they had followed Arnook to his destination, Mai felt unsure of how best to proceed. She didn't expect a monastery as the end location for his pilgrimage. She had so many questions. Why this monastery, why leave his city for the portal now? Was it connected to the mysterious Nightseer spirit that the entire city sang in prayer to as soon as night fell? They finally stopped in a narrow cave to keep themselves hidden and catch their breath and plan out what to do next.
Mai had tarried too long in Agna Qel'a. She could have infiltrated Arnook's palace the moment she received the spirit token that allowed her entry. She could have dealt with him then, long before his flight from the city. But she wanted to wait for 'the right moment.' She kept telling herself that, kept telling Haru, Jet, and Ty Lee that, but she realized she was only trying to delay. A small part of her still quailed at the idea of assassinating someone in cold blood, even as she told herself over and over again that he deserved it. She thought of her dead warriors again and promised herself that she wouldn't fail. She wouldn't be weak.
"What's next? Where do we go now?" Ty Lee asked, rubbing her arms. A chill had descended again, but still Mai found it nowhere near as cold as the tundra was supposed to be.
"I'm thinking," Mai said. Her eyes fell on Jet, who had little to contribute since his encounter with the pirate captain. She had no idea what thoughts could be running through his head. She thought he needed time to process what he had done. She figured she'd be the same. But Jet didn't have that time, not here and not now. The captain's scroll case clung to Jet's back - and Mai had the thought that whatever was inside had to be important if the pirate ditched Arnook for it. "That scroll case… we couldn't open it while we were riding, but we should see what's in it now."
Jet looked at her as if she had alerted him out of a daze. "Huh? Oh, okay." He pulled it from his back and handed it to her.
There were several scrolls bunched together in the case instead of just one. Ty Lee and Haru both took one while Mai unfurled another, the parchment brittle. The ink was faded and barely legible, but the inscription mentioned something about waterbending and its power being strengthened by the moon. She saw a figure bending under the full moon, but next to it she saw the new moon depicted, and the bender's power increased. "That pirate said he found these in some Fire Nation jungle?" Mai asked, spreading the scroll out on the floor. She wondered why some ancient sages felt a need to collect these scrolls, and what other arcane knowledge they had compiled. But then she remembered that she didn't really care.
"This one mentions… the spirit portals!" said Ty Lee, squinting close at the parchment. "Something about how only an Avatar can open them and only during a solstice. Wow, super specific, huh?"
Both Mai and Haru looked at her, the former with a blank face and the latter in shock. "Say that again?" said Mai, her words carefully measured.
"Only an Avatar can open the spirit portals, and only during a solstice…" said Ty Lee, and then she trailed off. "Oh…"
Haru leaned against the cave wall and slid to the floor as her words settled in. "We came all this way for nothing. How are we supposed to rescue your friend?"
"We don't," said Jet. Mai didn't think he had been listening. "This plan was doomed to fail from the start. We were never going to be able to rescue Bandit. That was always going to be Aang's job."
"Then we'll finish the other thing we came here to do," said Mai, after a brief pause. "We'll kill High Chief Arnook." Ty Lee bunched her shoulders up and wrung her fingers but didn't say anything.
"Revenge!" Haru exclaimed.
Mai rolled her eyes. "Yes, you're catching on."
Haru shook his head and pointed at the parchment he had been trying to identify. "No, no. I recognized the character for 'revenge.' It talks about the spirit named the Nightseer and how she wants revenge against the ice and the ocean for forsaking her. Unlike every other spirit, she was created by severing a piece of a greater darkness, an attempt by that darkness to imitate his enemy the light. So the Nightseer was made in his image. Unlike normal, when dark spirits are made by balance being skewed, apparently."
"That tells us nothing about Arnook's goals," said Mai.
"The Nightseer, sundered from her father and abandoned by the ice and the ocean, is at her most powerful when the moon turns away from its eternal partner, the ocean. This is the new moon," he read.
"That's what all the people in Agna Qel'a were praying about," said Ty Lee.
"So all this looks like a ritual meant to take place on the new moon, here at the spirit portal," said Haru. "Arnook is doing something to empower the Nightseer. These scrolls are meant to show how to do that."
"And Sekun is the one who found these scrolls for Arnook," said Jet, turning away from the cave mouth toward them. "He got them from the Fire Nation and that put him in Arnook's favor so that his pirate crew were the only ones allowed freedom in the city. But then he realized he could get a bigger prize if he brought these scrolls somewhere else, which is why he tried to run away with them."
It was the most Jet said since Mai had found him over the pirate captain's corpse. She didn't know what to make of it, but she supposed it was better than him withdrawing in on himself completely. Maybe focusing on their next objectives gave him purpose, kept him from dwelling.
Haru frowned. "But this raises even more questions. Why is Arnook doing all this?"
None of them had an answer for that. Mai flipped one of her knives around her finger and clutched the handle between her knuckles. "Doesn't matter. We came here to do something and we'll do it before Arnook accomplishes whatever he's got planned. This is us finding our footing again. Regrouping. We're in a new place but it's less fortified than the city and we can use this to our advantage. The temple is connected to the mountainside - Haru, you can make a tunnel to get us right in there. Jet, you'll climb up the walls and guide us from above with your bird calls. Ty Lee, you'll deal with any waterbenders we see."
Ty Lee furrowed her brow. "What'll you do, Mai?"
Mai held up her knife. "I'll finish Arnook."
They were about to set out when they heard a rumbling from somewhere above them. Gravel crashed down in a cloud of dust at the cave mouth, cutting off the light and sending them into coughing fits while they all tried to shield their eyes. Before it had fully settled, Mai heard a voice, muffled by distance, somewhere outside the cave. Only a small hole near the top of the cave mouth let in light and air from outside, and the voice spoke from there.
"You guys think you'll get to High Chief Arnook? Think again, man! The First Spears of Agna Qel'a got you now!"
Of all the things that happened to them so far, Hahn getting the drop on them was the most embarrassing of all.
Haru pushed and the gravel blocking them into the cave exploded outward, letting light in again. The attack took out a trio of Arnook's First Spears standing in front of it, but sadly none of them were Hahn.
"No way!" Hahn shouted out. "They've got an earthbender too!"
That meant Ghashiun, Mai assumed. Jet and Ty Lee rushed out of the cave while Haru followed and Mai took up the rear, keeping her distance and getting a visual on the situation. Over a dozen fighters surrounded them on both sides of the cave mouth, but ahead there was only a sheer drop into the basin and forest below. Jet engaged them at once but only Ty Lee managed to down her foes; once revealed as a chi blocker, they focused on her instead. Things didn't look good - these were Arnook's elites, Hahn notwithstanding.
Haru battled against Ghashiun, the sandbender. "I don't get it!" he said, slamming his mallet into the ground, which rippled toward Ghashiun. "Why are you helping them?"
Ghashiun's root didn't break; he rode the earth shifting beneath his feet. His hands circled in quick, fluid motions unlike any earthbender Mai had ever seen, and a flurry of stones rose with his movements. She tried to dive out of the way, but it left her open and allowed one of the First Spears to strike with the blunt end of his spear against the back of her legs, making her buckle. The point of his spear pressed against her throat and she dared not move. At the same time, Ghashiun swung two bags of sand at the end of a pair of ropes and hurled them at Ty Lee, which wrapped around her and knocked her to the ground.
Hahn's voice rang out. "Stand down, all of you! You're gonna answer for your crimes against the high chief!"
Yue couldn't help but smile wide all through the meal as Nagi's father Sha-Mo fed and entertained them. They had come without announcing themselves but he warmly welcomed his daughter and her companions into his home. He hadn't seen Nagi in two years but from what Yue could tell, it was as if no time had passed at all as he asked her about her life and expressed his joy at reuniting with her. He was so lively and Nagi was so loved that it made Yue feel an ache in her stomach and she wasn't quite sure why.
He fed them a hearty rice dish filled with lambfowl and spices that made Yue's tongue burn, along with a flatbread he said had been baked under the desert sands (something that gave Toph an unexpected delight). A white, creamy sauce covered the rice and it was another taste that Yue found herself unaccustomed to, but altogether she found herself appreciating the food and the company even more besides. Aang seemed a little distracted, picking around the meats in his food, but he humored Sha-Mo when the man claimed to be a descendant of Avatar Hinan, an ancient member of his tribe who may have even been a queen.
"Fate brought you together with my daughter. We're almost related!" said Sha-Mo, arms spread wide. He nudged Aang with a conspiratorial wink. "Though it has been so long since we've had an Avatar born to the Si Wong tribes, so perhaps you could pass that on as a hint to your next lives…?"
Aang smiled. "I'll be sure to try."
Nagi shook her head. "Oh, Dad, how embarrassing…"
Yue laughed into her hand. "If I remember correctly, you were also quite awe-struck when you met the Avatar, Nagi."
Nagi batted Yue's shoulder and laughed with her. "Shush, you!"
Sha-Mo nodded understandingly and apparently hadn't heard Nagi and Yue's exchange. "Excellent, excellent. Now, will my daughter and her friends be staying long? With both you and Ghashiun gone, it has been quite lonely here in this home."
Nagi folded her hands on the table as a warm breeze came in through the open window and rustled the curtains. "I'm afraid not. There's a lot of work that needs to be done in Ba Sing Se."
Sha-Mo frowned. "You're going back to that den of rat-snakes? I worry for you, with everything happening…"
"What's been going on?" Toph asked, leaning back on her chair. "We kinda missed a lot."
"Too much," Aang added, brow furrowed.
Sha-Mo stood and walked over to the wide window, peeking out over the balcony below. The noises of the city carried up to them, from the barks of zebra-camels to the shouts of hawkers and children. He let out a heavy sigh. "This city has grown so much in so short a time. When I was a child, my family still lived out in the desert as nomads, always moving from place to place. But the war never reached us; our desert was always too dry and uninteresting to the waterbenders. And eventually people came to realize this, and thus they began coming to the desert as refugees more and more. This city was here when I was a child, but it has grown exponentially."
"And some in Ba Sing Se, like the Council of Five, find that to be a threat to them," said Nagi. "There are many who even believe we are expanding the desert itself on purpose, or colluding with the waterbenders to encroach our borders over the rest of the Earth Kingdom. It's all nonsense."
"Tensions are high," Sha-Mo continued. "Some chieftains and elders believe that Ba Sing Se might even wage war against us. And even worse, others want to fight back."
Aang stood, palms pressed flat against the table. "War? Why? They're already fighting a war against the Water Tribes!"
Sha-Mo crossed his arms. "They've accused us of working with a faction in Ba Sing Se's underbelly in order to attack them. I've even heard stories of Wan Shi Tong, the spirit owl, laying waste to the city, and since his library was in the desert there are those who think we are to blame. It all sounds so unbelievable! But now, with the great spiritual upheaval in the skies, I don't know what to believe."
Nagi scoffed. "What, they think we sent Wan Shi Tong to devastate the city? I was there, Dad. It was chaos all over the place."
"Well, even though there are many on our side who do not wish for war with Ba Sing Se, just about all of the chieftains are furious about the great Spirit Library being within their city's walls. They believe the Council of Five will defile it, hoard it, and that we are the ones who are truly entitled to all of that knowledge."
It was Nagi's turn to stand. "No one is entitled to it and no one should hoard it! This is ridiculous!"
Toph let out a sigh. "Sounds like something the council might do, though."
"The legends say that the library moved throughout the desert, thanks to Wan Shi Tong," said Yue. She felt it was an appropriate moment to contribute. "So does that mean, with Wan Shi Tong away from his library, that it is stuck beneath Ba Sing Se?"
Aang paced around the table. "I think so. Unless Wan Shi Tong comes back for it."
They all fell silent. The likelihood of that was quite high, Yue reasoned, but the last time they saw him he was intent on searching for all the humans trapped in the Spirit World to wipe them out. And she didn't think anyone wanted him to return anyway. She figured it was too much to hope that he did succeed in finding a world with no humans to live in peace.
"So both Si Wong City and Ba Sing Se wanna fight for control of the library," said Toph, neatly summing everything up. "Just great. Perfect timing, with the war we're already in that's getting crazier than ever. Who do we need to fight so they stop fighting?"
"Perhaps you should seek the Hearer's counsel," Sha-Mo suggested. "They are the one voice that acts as the leader of our city, mostly in spiritual matters but also as an advisor for the political ones between the various chieftains. The Hearer resides in the temple atop the mesa, and they discern the wills of gods and spirits that whisper in their ear. They might know why all of this is happening with the Spirit World."
Aang sighed, sagging under the weight on his shoulders. "I already know why it's happening. I'm gonna go downstairs to check on Appa, but after he gets time to rest I'll head to Ba Sing Se tomorrow and talk to our friends there. Thank you very much for the meal and your hospitality, Sha-Mo."
After he departed, Yue looked down at her empty plate and hadn't realized that she'd been so hungry. "That was delicious," she said, in an attempt to break the tension. "I've never tasted such a combination of flavors before."
Nagi turned to Yue. "Can I show you around the city? I'd love for you to experience it! You too, Toph!"
Toph waved them off. "Nah, you two go. You walk through one city and you've walked through them all. I'll go find Aang."
After bidding farewell to Sha-Mo, Yue and Nagi went downstairs to go back out into the desert heat. Earlier, before they ate, Nagi gave Yue clothes to wear more appropriate for a desert: a dress of white linens with open sleeves, cinched at the waist, and with a loose cowl like Nagi's but trimmed in indigo. Yue hadn't expected their clothing to be so colorful, and she found it beautiful, airy, and comfortable as well.
Nagi led her through the city with enthusiasm, occasionally grabbing Yue's hand or shoulder to point out the views. Mosaics depicting faces of historic figures graced the sides of many buildings along every street, though some had abstract designs instead and all splashed so much color into the city. Many people gathered around an enormous fountain with towering statues dancing in it, elaborate streams of water pooling where people filled buckets for their own use. She saw people covered head to toe in veils, a trio of nomads with garish, floral headdresses and otherwise black clothing, children in sleeveless tunics and lantern pants that came from other parts of the Earth Kingdom. Farmers shepherded a small herd of goatswine as if the city was their field and no one batted an eye. Dancers and holy men alike walked side by side. She remembered how Nagi had said once that Si Wong City was a blend of many different cultures and now Yue understood.
Best of all, Yue spent hours with Nagi, just walking and taking it all in. They looked at jewelry together on a merchant's street stall. They watched one woman work at carving a life-size meerjackal out of stone, her earthbending so precise and artistic it was like a performance. Yue didn't think she could eat more after the food earlier but they purchased some papayas imported from as far as the Fire Nation and dumplings from the northern Earth Kingdom. When they finally sat with a refreshing mint tea, they saw that a crowd had gathered around the steps of a great platform with an ornate archway stretched over the top of it. The shadow of the mesa had drawn back, bathing the archway in sunlight.
"Oh," said Nagi, eyes wide. "I think the Hearer is about to make an appearance! Yes, look, that's them."
She pointed at the crowd, which parted to admit a figure adorned in colorful ceremonial robes that obscured their whole body. When they reached the top of the steps, they knelt underneath the archway and then turned to the crowd and knelt again. Yue could only see their eyes since the rest of their face had been obscured by an indigo veil. Red, orange, blue, and yellow decorated the rest of their robes, while sashes of green and black wrapped around their shoulders and waist and a headdress of white crowned their head.
"Wondrous people of Si Wong City," they said, their voice raspy and low. It felt as if the whole city fell quiet to hear. "I come before you today to address your fears and console you. The Seven Sisters, in their mercy and wisdom, have not forsaken us. They will continue to guide our people through this journey of life, like a lantern in the night. I promise you there will be an end to these tumultuous times, and as long as we hold faith in them we will see the dawn."
"The Seven Sisters are the gods who are said to protect our people," Nagi whispered to Yue. "According to legend, they dropped the mesa in the magnetic center of the desert long ago to guide our people, so it was natural for us to form the city here."
"Actual gods," Yue said, her words touched with awe. "They must be powerful to stand above spirits like that."
"If you ask me, I just think they're particularly old spirits," Nagi admitted. "No different from Seiryu or Suza or even Koh. They could even be younger, since it's possible they were humans who became spirits long ago. But others think they worked with beings called lion-turtles to lift the earth from the bottom of the sea."
"...as such, we will prepare a festival to demonstrate our love and appreciation for them," the Hearer continued. "A great feast and celebration for the Seven Sisters."
Drums beat at their words and the crowd erupted into cheers. Nagi and Yue clapped along before Nagi pulled her by the hand and ducked down another alley. "There's one last thing I want to show you," she said. "Something special."
Nagi led her down narrow alleyways that twisted and turned in a dizzying way that made Yue certain she wouldn't be able to find her way in reverse. She walked at a hurried pace and wove through people making their own way through the alleys, eventually running when it cleared out, and Yue couldn't help but laugh in a kind of exhilaration, especially when they had to leap over a goatswine that wandered into their path. Eventually, Nagi slowed down and the alleyway opened up to a quiet little corner of the city with a yellow mosaic pattern of the sun that gleamed gold in the setting light. An acacia tree with a trunk so bent that Nagi sat on it stood in the center of the little square, its branches twisting back upward so the leaves could provide shade from the sun.
Nagi patted the trunk next to her, indicating Yue to take a seat. "I debated whether or not to show you this clearing at sunset or late at night. When the sun is out, the light reflects off of the sun mosaic and makes it look golden." She pointed straight ahead, and now that Yue had sat down facing the way they had come, she saw a mosaic of the moon opposite from the sun. "But at night, moonlight reflects off of the moon mosaic and makes it look silver. Then I remembered that the new moon is approaching, so we wouldn't be able to see the silver anyway and I had to rush here in time."
The new moon. Yue had almost forgotten. "It's beautiful," she said. It was quieter here, far on the outskirts of the city. The acacia tree settled in a square between some buildings, but beyond the sun mosaic there was only desert. "Thank you for showing me this. I can see why it's special to you."
"My brother Ghashiun and I used to come here all the time as children, climbing all over this very tree," she said, glancing up at the boughs. "I wonder where he is now. I miss him."
"I'm sure he misses you, too," said Yue, hoping her words were comforting. "When we sought to get inside Ba Sing Se, reuniting with you was the only thing that motivated him. I'm sure that, wherever he is, he is still out there looking for you."
"Thank you. I worry about him a lot," Nagi said. "We've had so many other things going on with the Spirit World and everything, so it kept me from having too much time to worry, but even so… He's my little brother. Ever since we lost our mom he always felt like he needed to do whatever he could to keep the rest of our family together. He never liked that I went to Ba Sing Se to join the Dai Li."
Yue smiled. "He might have mentioned that to Katara, Suki, and myself once or twice."
"And that's the other thing," she said, rubbing her palms. "I really let him have it when I figured out he was working with the Water Tribes and helped your warriors infiltrate Ba Sing Se. No offense."
Yue pursed her lips and shrugged. "None taken."
"He did something stupid. And it led to a lot of people getting hurt. And I don't know if it makes me a hypocrite that I've become so close to you, or if he'd just call me that, but I'm still angry at him."
Yue felt warm when Nagi acknowledged how close they'd gotten, but she cleared her throat and gathered her words. "It's understandable that you'd have complicated feelings about the whole situation. But you said it yourself - he would do whatever he could to keep your family together. It may include some things he regrets, but if he wants to I think he could make up for all of that." Like Yue herself was trying to do. She still had so much further down that road to go.
Nagi sighed. "You're not wrong," she said. "He forgets that I can look after myself. He's the younger brother, but he thinks he should be the one protecting us. It's really the other way around."
Yue nodded, but as she had no siblings she didn't know what to say to that. "Tell me about your mother," she said instead.
Nagi wrapped her arms around one knee. "Oh, she was wonderful. Her name was Yulduz, and she's the reason why I love reading and history, I think. She was the only nonbender in the family, something that never really held her back. But the sun sickness took her around ten years ago now." She looked at Yue with a sad smile. "What about your mom?"
"I'm sorry. Mine died when I was very young," said Yue, recalling the feeling of cuddling with her mother under layers and layers of furs. "Sometimes it's hard to recall specific memories, but she always looked out for me. My father changed a lot after we lost her."
"Even outside of the war, we've both lost so much," Nagi observed. "It frustrates me that Ba Sing Se is looking to start another one with Si Wong City."
Yue grasped her shoulder. "Aang will do something," she said. And then, more firmly, she added, "We will do something." Yue knew that she herself still had things she could do, things that could affect the whole war. Thoughts of her father and the new moon weighed on her mind, and a chill that made her think of the Nightseer's touch dragged down her spine.
Nagi let out a sigh and twisted around to watch the golden sun design as it faded away to yellow. "Did you enjoy your tour around the city?" she asked Yue with another smile.
"I loved it," Yue said earnestly. "Your home is beautiful. It's amazing what I can see when I open my eyes to something new and different." Her advice to Aang from the other day echoed in her mind and she felt heat rising to her cheeks. "Thank you for bringing me here and showing me all this." It was more than she deserved to be able to see this secret city.
"I really enjoyed spending this time with you," Nagi said, and her hand intertwined with Yue's in a way that made Yue's heart leap. "It was nice to be able to do this without the threat of a face-stealing spirit over us, or an omnicidal owl who wants to wipe us out. Today felt… both exceptionally normal and mundanely extraordinary."
Yue laughed and Nagi joined in. It was a wonderful choice of words, and Yue couldn't help but agree.
The four of them had been led through cloistered walkways that overlooked the forested basin below, but the path was narrow enough that they didn't dare to fight their captors without risk of falling. Up in the monastery, winds howled and penetrated Mai's parka, the chill of the north pole returning with a vengeance. The four of them had been led into the sparsely decorated temple, past the sanctum and deep into the mountain. The First Spears finally stopped in a narrow, cramped hallway with even narrower rooms made of stone, presumably used for storage of meats or grains. Before throwing them inside, waterbenders emptied a series of urns and froze the walls and floors so Haru couldn't earthbend, making it a cage of ice.
All four had been left there, shivering in separate cells, with two guards keeping watch at the end of the hall that she couldn't even see from her angle. The only light in the cell came in through the top of the door and the dancing torchlight beyond.
A gap in the ice and stone did allow Mai to see Jet in her neighboring cell, though. He curled up against the opposite wall, staring blankly ahead toward Mai. His cell got more light. She felt how he looked; trapped down here in a makeshift prison, her anger at herself for getting them into this situation festered. She pictured Lu Mao and Xiao and thought of how she had disappointed her warriors yet again.
But Xiao was headstrong. She would find a way to brute force her way out of this cell. That wasn't really Mai's style, but sometimes that was all a situation needed.
The First Spears had disarmed them when they led them down into the cells, but they didn't get all of Mai's hidden daggers, knives, and darts. She still had a whole repertoire on her. Her cell door was made of wood but it had been frozen shut under a layer of ice. She thought she might end up damaging her knives, but carving her way out was possible. All she had to do was pry the door free. Then she could deal with their two guards. And after that, she would get Haru out, but he was presumably held under even thicker ice.
Mai was starting to wonder if she should just focus on getting herself out and then go finish Arnook without them when Jet spoke up.
"Would you say what I did was righteous?" he asked.
His sudden question took her by surprise. She'd been about to start chipping away at the ice. "You got your revenge against a murderer. But I'm not really in a position to make moral judgments about that." Maybe an Avatar could, but she wondered if that sort of thing was above even Aang.
"Is revenge right? Ty Lee got me thinking," he continued. She moved toward the gap to get a better look at him. His legs and posture slackened as he leaned his head back against the cold wall, staring toward the ceiling. "I've dreamt about finding him ever since the day he killed my family and destroyed my village. But now that it's done…"
"You don't know what to do with yourself," she finished for him, sitting next to the gap. It was barely larger than her closed fist.
He looked at her. "Did it change me?"
"I don't know," she said, her voice flat. "I was just annoyed that you put the rest of us in danger for your revenge quest. Haru and Ty Lee almost got clawed to death by light spirits by the time I got there. But only you can say for sure if it changed you."
He didn't apologize. She didn't expect him to; they were far past that, and it would accomplish nothing. "I think what I did was justified," he said, staring down at his clenched hands. "It was justice. But I feel… I dunno, wrong, in a way. It made me sick to think of all the lives he could've destroyed, that just ending him isn't enough. But at the same time, I've hated the Water Tribes for what they did to me this whole time, and he's Fire Nation. It's like I've been running and running toward something ever since that day in my village and the ground got pulled out from under me, but I'm still flying headfirst toward whatever it is."
"What, are you gonna focus your revenge on the Fire Nation now?" she asked, rolling her eyes. "I'm Fire Nation, you know. So is Ty Lee."
He pressed the heels of his palm against his head. "No, no! I don't know, okay? I'm still just so angry about everything he took from me. It's not fair. I hate that there's no way to take it back."
Looking at him angry and frustrated like that, some part of her was reminded of Zuko. She sighed; Zuko, at least, had focus with everything he did. "Listen. At this point, all you can do is prevent something terrible like that happening to some other kid. But in order to do that I need you here. I need you to focus on whatever your next step is. You don't have to know everything - just the next step, one thing at a time. Whether getting your revenge changed you or not, it doesn't matter right now."
He hugged himself, shivering as his breath clouded in front of his face. "What about you then, Mai? What about the revenge you want? Is that our next step? Is that all you're focused on? You've never even met Arnook. He isn't the one who killed your warriors."
She scowled. She hid her face from the gap in the wall, her cheeks ruddy with the cold. "I know he isn't the one who did it," she said. "But along with Hakoda, he represents the ones who did. So I have to finish him." It would deal a huge blow to their conquest. Or so she hoped. "I don't care that it wasn't Arnook but I can still blame him for it."
Jet let out a breath through his nose. "Every time the Freedom Fighters managed to scare off some captain or chief in our forest, another one would just take his place, worse than before, or with more support. What if it's the same with Arnook?"
Mai turned away from the gap and leaned against the wall next to it. "It doesn't matter, anyway. We're stuck here." Even if she did manage to break herself free, Hahn and the First Spears managed to capture them with little effort. What good would she do alone? She stared down at her knife, focused on its point, which gleamed in the dim light. "I don't know what revenge will do to a person. I can't answer that. But my conclusion is that the answer is different for everybody."
Maybe it could change her, reach inside of her like a rat-viper's venom and infect her, making her lose herself in it. Maybe it would make her feel empty. Maybe she'd turn away from it, or achieve it and be perfectly content. And maybe Jet would find a different answer. Would he be consumed by it, or find a different path?
He scoffed. "So I guess I just have to figure it out myself, huh? Know myself, and all that?"
"Ugh, you make me sound like some old gasbag trying to sound wise," she said, blanching with disgust.
"Your words," he replied, and when she looked back she could see the hint of a grin.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor outside and they fell silent.
Mai heard the voice of one of the guards, muffled from behind her cell door. "What're you doing here, sandbender?"
Ghashiun made sure the guards saw the drawstring bag at his belt and let the coins inside jingle. Suki's money, because he didn't have much Water Tribe coin. "I'm half the reason they're behind bars, aren't they? I just wanted to see them for myself."
In truth, he didn't know what he was doing down there. He was curious about these people and their reasons for coming to Agna Qel'a, and especially their reasons for tailing Arnook. And one of them was another earthbender - an idiotic one, for doing what he had been doing. Ghashiun did remember another one of them, Jet, from Ba Sing Se. That alone made him want to know what circumstances brought them here. What they might know of Katara or Sokka.
The guards grunted and lumbered down the hall, far enough away to be less annoying but still close enough to keep an eye on Ghashiun. He didn't care. He opened the eye hole of the cell with the most ice on it, peering inside. Inside a hollowed out block of ice, Haru sat several inches above the ground, locked in a frozen prison with bars that gave him just enough space to sit uncomfortably, suspended away from any earth to bend. Crates of stored meats stacked against the walls all the way to the ceiling. The guards were there not just to keep watch but also to make sure his prison stayed frozen. Haru rubbed his arms, teeth chattering.
"G-Ghashiun!" he exclaimed.
Ghashiun narrowed his eyes. "I told you to keep your head down while in Agna Qel'a. You ignored my warning."
Haru's words came out in sharp breaths. "We have a job to do. It's important."
Ghashiun inched closer to the door. "Whatever it is, is it worth this? Getting captured and thrown in this miserable prison?"
"I think so." Haru looked away from Ghashiun. "For my friends it is. And I want to help them."
"You're an idiot," Ghashiun said, crossing his arms. "Who are you people, anyway?" He nodded his head back toward the cell behind him, his voice low. He wasn't sure if it was because he didn't want the guards to hear him or to prevent Jet from knowing Ghashiun had recognized him. He didn't know if the First Spears had interrogated them yet, but he didn't care enough to help their questioning. Hahn was too much of an arrogant jerk. "I know that one. From Ba Sing Se. Do you know anything of Katara or Sokka's whereabouts?"
"No," said Haru. "I've never even met them."
Ghashiun turned around to depart. Coming to visit Haru in his prison was a waste of time. Arnook might have had something for Ghashiun to do instead, something to help with whatever ritual he had in mind to get Nagi and Yue out of the Spirit World. When he started to walk away, Haru called out to him.
"Wait!" Haru said, pressing as close to the edge of his prison as the sharp ice would allow. "Help us. Please."
Ghashiun heard the need in his voice, the desperation. He hated that sound so much that his brow twitched. He turned back toward Haru, glaring through the eye hole. "Why? Whatever you're doing to harm Arnook, why are you doing it? What's the point? You're just four people and he has the backing of both the north and south poles." Anything Haru and his friends did against Arnook directly affected Ghashiun's chances of seeing his sister again. They were ignorant of the whole situation, blind to the fact that they acted in disregard for lives that hung in a delicate balance.
Haru stared back at him with something like pity. Ghashiun found that he hated that even more. "You don't need a reason to do something good, to help people. I've been fighting in this war for my whole life… and I think it's a battle worth fighting."
Ghashiun scowled even though Haru wouldn't see the expression through his veil. "Yeah, well, I did the smart thing and stopped fighting in this war a long time ago. You ignored my advice the first time. It wouldn't be wise to do so again, so listen well: this world is too far gone, ravaged by war and people who care only for money and status and personal gain. It isn't worth fighting for. Look out only for yourself and the few things important to you and no one else. Maybe then you'll survive."
Haru slumped his shoulders. "That's such a sad way to live."
"It's worked for me so far," Ghashiun muttered. He turned away from the cell again. "I'm out of here. Try not to freeze to death."
"We're trying to rescue their friend," Haru said, spewing the words out before Ghashiun could leave. "Whatever else you think we might be here to do, that's our main objective. And even if I've never met her, it's something I want to do. Because it's right. Because it's worth something."
Ghashiun didn't turn back. "Your way of life is the sad one," he said. "At least I don't cling to false hopes."
After Appa had been fed, washed, and brushed, Aang packed all of their things back onto the saddle. The morning brought a chill and a sky that was dappled with night, like great pools breaking through the endless expanse. Yet, for many people, life went on as if the Spirit World's sky was the most normal thing in the world. Farmers still herded their cattle and merchants sold their wares in the busy streets, determined to keep living their lives. Aang had to admire them for it.
He found himself holding the plum blossom pendant again, even as he worked to load the saddle, but it slipped from his fingers when he used his airbending to blow a sleeping roll onto Appa's back. When he bent to pick it up from the ground, the pendant slid away from him and he scrambled after it to see it stop at Toph's feet. She pressed her heel against the sand and it jumped up into her hand.
"Who's this for?" she asked. "Didn't think you were the jewelry type."
He didn't bother lying or trying to hide it. Toph would know. "Azula," he mumbled with a blush. "Can I have it back, please?"
She tossed it to him and he caught it, putting it safely back into his pocket. "Azula, huh?" she asked. "Y'know, I gotta say, I miss her too. It's weird that our friends are basically on the other side of the world."
"Yeah," Aang said, running his hand through Appa's fur. "I want to get this stuff over with in Ba Sing Se as soon as possible. We should be there with them."
"Toph! Aang! Are you leaving already?"
They both looked toward the source of the voice to see Yue running up to them. She stopped next to Appa and caught her breath. "Yes," Aang said. "If we leave now we'll get there by tomorrow."
"You coming with, Snowflake?" Toph asked.
"I don't think so," Yue said, straightening. "My place is not in Ba Sing Se. I think, tonight… I may depart for the North Pole. But I wanted to say goodbye before you two left."
Aang tilted his head. "Are you sure?"
"What does Nagi think?" Toph asked.
"I haven't yet told Nagi," Yue said, bringing her fingers to her lips with a worried frown. "But I should be there. It's been a long time since I've been home and I'm worried about some things. I also thought that perhaps I might find your friends who journeyed that way."
Aang nodded. "That would be great. I wish I could help them, but with everything else happening they've been on their own."
A goatswine bleated as it hurried by and Appa grumbled at it in irritation. Yue watched it pass, her mind clearly elsewhere, but before she said anything else Nagi emerged from her home and waved to them. "Did you two think you were going to leave without saying goodbye?"
"Of course not," Aang said, offering her a smile. "Thank you for everything, Nagi. And tell Sha-Mo thanks, too!"
"I will," she promised. "But hopefully I won't be far behind you. I'm going to try to settle things down here a bit, since I'm hoping the fact that I'm an agent of the Dai Li will carry some weight. But we'll see."
"Between you keeping things calm here and us in Ba Sing Se, we'll have to keep tensions from boiling over," Aang said, clenching his fist. "Nothing can be easy for us though, huh?"
Toph punched into her palm. "Nah, but when was it ever? We'll see you two around."
"It's almost strange to see you go, Toph," said Yue, laughing into her hand. "The three of us have been together for so long. We'll miss you!"
Toph turned away, and Aang knew her well enough by now to suspect that she hid an embarrassed blush. "Yeah, yeah. But we'll get to fight together again."
"Yeah," said Aang, grinning and leaping onto Appa's head. Toph clambered onto the saddle after him. "For sure. I'm relying on you both to keep things calm here!"
Nagi joined her hands together under her chin, her eyes glistening. "The Avatar's relying on me! Wow!"
Yue laughed and put a hand on her shoulder, waving as Appa took off. "See you! Be safe!"
Mai had made significant progress in quietly and carefully carving her way out of the ice prison through the night when she heard another voice outside of her cell. She couldn't hear the woman's words, but she heard the guard's response.
"Oh, look, another visitor for the trash. Getting homesick for your own people?"
"They're not my people. Out of my way." After hearing her more clearly, Mai recognized the voice as Suki's. Apparently she had caught up with them after the confrontation in Arnook's palace. "That knife you're playing with - that belongs to the girl you captured, doesn't it?"
Mai did not want to know what those guards did with the knives they had confiscated. She'd have to be sure to clean them carefully once she got them back - she dearly hoped they didn't use her knives to pick their teeth or something.
"Yeah, she had these three really cool knives on her…"
"Three? Only three? Are you two idiots? Open her cell right now. And stand in front of the doorway when you do, I don't want to be the one who's turned into a human pincushion for not confiscating all of her weapons." One of the guards yelped and Mai made the assumption that Suki had grabbed one of their arms and twisted it behind his back or something, because he yelled at her to let go through whimpers and gasps.
There was a pause. Mai suspected that the two guards looked at each other as if trying to figure out whether or not they should listen to Suki or how they could save face. Mai wondered if she should prepare to fight back as soon as they opened her cell; two guards she could handle, but not with Suki in the mix and not after a night of restless, freezing sleep. Suki being more thorough about disarming her was not something she counted on, and it threw a wrench into her escape plans. Before they could do anything else, she pushed one of her smallest daggers through the gap into Jet's cell, who silently took it.
"Uh… knife girl, turn back against the wall with your hands above your head," said one of the guards. Mai obeyed. She heard the sound of water splashing to the floor as they unfroze her door and unlocked it with a key. Torchlight spilled into her cell and Suki walked inside, patting down Mai's clothes.
"Ugh, you guys really missed all four of her holsters?" she asked, unbuckling them from Mai's arms and legs. She found the pouch of needles at Mai's belt and the longer dagger in her sleeve. Suki grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, and based on the hard look in her eyes Mai knew she had little chance in defeating her in close-range combat, and they both knew it. "I know I'm missing more. You threw a lot of stuff at me back in the palace."
Mai pulled out the darts hidden in the folds of her parka. The knives sheathed in her boots. She emptied her pockets of throwing stars and curved knives that spun through the air. Suki took the trip wire Mai had carefully coiled around her waist with something like appreciation, examining it for its quality. Mai even pulled some needles from her hair when Suki waited expectantly for more.
When Suki had finally exhausted her of all her weapons and handed them off to the increasingly dumbfounded guards, she pinned Mai against the cold stone wall. "Don't try anything funny," she said, and then spun her around again and tied Mai's hands with her own trip wire. She pulled Mai out of the cell and dragged her around a corner to a chair, forcing her in it. The guards went off to secure Mai's weapons, leaving both of them alone in a room with a short table, a torch, and a little barred window that looked into Ty Lee's cell.
"Oh, Mai, it's good to see you. Gee, you're looking a little bluer than usual. Hey, can she warm up a bit by the fire?" Ty Lee's head popped up behind the bars and she directed her last question toward Suki.
"This is as close as she gets to it," Suki replied. "I'm not taking any chances."
Mai glared at her with narrow eyes. "What do you want?"
"I've figured out that you must be allies of the Avatar," Suki said, her face makeup making it look like she had a more threatening glare than Mai's. "Sokka told me a little bit about the chi blocker princess who used to be the Avatar's travel companion."
"Oh, that was way back," Ty Lee interjected. "Sokka really remembered me? Wow, I'm honestly kind of flattered!"
Suki gave her a peevish look. "Yes." She turned back to Mai. "I don't care what you're doing here, but I need you to tell me what you found in the high chief's scroll when you stole it."
Now this was interesting. Suki had now given her some leverage. "What makes you think we understood anything in there?" Mai asked. She tried to wriggle her wrists free of her bindings, but Suki knew how to tie it well, and Mai's wire was too well crafted to break without something sharp. She would only tear her own wrists apart if she tried.
"Maybe it's too much to hope for," Suki admitted, shaking her head. She briefly looked over her shoulder for the guards, but they hadn't yet returned. "The high chief is doing something with a spirit called the Nightseer. Did it say anything about her?"
Even saying the spirit's name induced a sense of dread in Mai that prevented her from feigning ignorance. Ty Lee's shudder was all the answer Suki needed. "You're suspicious of Arnook," Ty Lee observed with a somber tone. "I see it in your aura. You're scared by all the things you don't know."
"I'm not afraid of any spirits," Suki retorted. She scoffed. "Fine, wanna know the truth? I've been doing my own investigating around Agna Qel'a. Arnook made a pact with the Nightseer when Yue was just a baby and now he's getting his end of the deal. I think he wants to become a waterbender, or to make all of his people in the city who can't bend already into waterbenders."
Mai blinked. That wasn't the answer she was expecting. "Waterbenders? Why? And what does a night spirit have to do with that?"
"Air Nomads were supposedly the most spiritual nation," said Suki. "And every single one of them was an airbender. So it stands to reason that if everyone in the Water Tribe shows the same kind of devotion to spirits, we'll all become waterbenders, according to his mindset. But I think it goes even further than that. I think Arnook wants to become a spirit himself."
"That's impossible," Mai said. But then again, didn't Zuko gain bending due to some sort of spiritual interference? Would something like that be possible on a nationwide scale? What would that mean for the war? "How does he expect to do that?"
Ty Lee pressed closer to the bars. "And are you asking us for help?"
Suki scowled. "I don't know how he expects to do it. I'm just looking for information, but if you two don't know anything then you're useless to me." She grabbed Mai under the arm and hefted her to her feet again, leading her back to her cell.
"Wait," said Ty Lee. "Why can't you help us? I know you don't like the idea of keeping us imprisoned down here, defenseless. You're really upset!"
"Now's not the time for an aura reading," Mai muttered under her breath. She heard the footsteps of the guards returning to their post and Suki's pace quickened.
"Of course I'm upset," Suki said, shoving Mai back into her cell. "I'm stuck up here at the North Pole while two of my best friends are gone. One's stuck in the Spirit World and the other is a captive of the Avatar and no one seems that inclined to help them. But hey! One day I might wake up and find that I'm a waterbender, so I have that going for me." She pushed Mai toward the back of her cell and slammed the door shut and it was only then that Mai realized what she had said.
"Wait, the Spirit World?" she asked, but Suki had already locked the cell and departed.
Under the desert moon, Yue and Nagi sat and admired the lights of the night sky. Countless stars clustered together like clouds of light. Blue gaseous shapes stained the inky blackness beyond them, blending into the trailing lights that cut streaks through the night, a starlit way that captivated all of Si Wong City. Some thought it a gift of the spirits or the Seven Sisters, a path that led the way to enlightenment or prosperity, but Yue and Nagi knew that they sat under a Spirit World sky. The last time they saw a sight like this, they had been in Seiryu's sanctuary.
The moon looked larger. Its crescent shape was more vivid than usual, almost sharpened, like a hook reaching from the sky to gouge the land below.
"The new moon approaches," Yue said. Her hand found Nagi's and squeezed. "Nagi, these past two days have been wonderful."
Nagi inclined her head toward Yue and spoke softly. "I'm afraid there's a 'but' coming on. What is it, Yue?"
"I have to go home," she said, though she wanted nothing more than to stay here and experience this moment forever. "Back to my people. Being here has been amazing but it feels like this life belongs to someone else, someone more deserving, someone who hasn't contributed to forcing all of these people to run away here…"
Nagi suppressed her words by pressing her lips to Yue's and every coherent thought left her head. Yue felt herself sinking into Nagi's touch. She hadn't realized when Nagi broke the kiss until Nagi spoke again. "You don't have to go anywhere. I'd love it if you could stay here with me."
It took all of Yue's strength to stand up. "I'm sorry, Nagi. Right now, I want nothing more than that… but I have to go." Her plan was to join a caravan headed toward the Serpent's Pass, where she would then take a Water Tribe ship up the Serpent's Neck River and then across the northern sea. But the caravan belonged to a tribe that preferred to travel at night when it was coolest, which worked best for Yue anyway.
"You can do so much good here," Nagi assured her. She didn't rise with Yue. She only looked sad.
"The new moon approaches," Yue said again, her gaze drawn to the sky. "And I can't be here when that happens. I need to find my father. I need to speak with him."
Nagi averted her eyes. "I don't understand," she admitted, and pulled herself up to stand with Yue. "But I knew this was coming and I won't stop you."
They embraced, and in that moment when they held each other Yue tried to say everything she'd left unsaid, all the gratitude she felt toward Nagi for supporting her and being with her for this whole journey. The gratitude for returning her feelings, for giving Yue a chance, even when she had to leave. She wanted to say she was sorry, and that they would meet again, but the words wouldn't leave her lips and she hoped the hug would say that, too.
Yue tried not to look back when she walked away, but right when she reached the first buildings at the border of the city she looked back one last time at Nagi. Silhouetted against the crescent moon, Yue couldn't tell whether or not Nagi had turned away from her, but she decided then it must be better that way.
Aang and Toph managed to fly all the way to the banks of the Serpent's Fin River at the northern edge of the desert by the end of the day. They made camp in the region that Nagi had called the Barrens. The dusty ground and the muddy riverbank had turned the water a murky brown. The few trees that still stood in this region had all the presence of upright twigs, and otherwise the region had no vegetation. Appa pawed at the ground and let out a tired groan until Aang fed him from a sack of grains they'd brought along.
Aang enjoyed traveling with Toph again, but most of their journey had been a silent one with Aang at the reins and Toph in the saddle alone. He felt the absence of all the people who should have been there with them, but when they landed Toph made him do some earthbending practice to ensure he hadn't forgotten anything, and the strain of sparring with her kept him from getting weighed down by his worries.
Toph rapidly slid her foot across the dusty ground, dragging up blocks meant to break his root. "There's still lots of stuff you're not telling me, Twinkletoes." She caught the boulder he sent back at her with a single palm. "Like that whole thing with Azula and Katara."
He crouched and lifted, pulling up a slab of stone beneath Toph's feet in an attempt to flip the ground over beneath her. "There's not much else to tell. Azula let Katara go and went with her, and now I have no idea where they are."
Toph stomped her feet, breaking through Aang's slab before it overturned her. Her voice came out low, almost unsure. "Was it… a betrayal?"
The crunch of stone and gravel resounded through the night as he propelled himself toward her in close quarters combat, breaking through her defenses and leading an assault with a rock glove. "No," he said, his voice firm. "It couldn't have been. I trust Azula."
"Good," Toph said, her posture loosening just enough to tell him she'd been relieved by his reassurance of that. "I'm glad. It means she's got a plan. Hopefully a really, really devious one. She's good at that."
Aang grinned, even as a block of stone rammed into him unexpectedly from the side, which he managed to block the worst of with his encased hand. "Agreed. But even so… I'm worried about her. She still has the Azula from my world stuck in her head. All this time, I've failed to keep her safe from that." It felt good to get this out, like each strike he and Toph inflicted on each other was a weight being lifted off of his chest.
Toph twisted her ankles in something like a shuffling dance, pulling up blocks that halted Aang's movement back toward her. He smashed through them all. "You don't have to keep her safe from it. Just fight it with her. You two are partners, right?"
He stopped just long enough for Toph to encase his feet, making him lose his balance. "You think so? I've… never thought about it like that."
"I mean, yeah," said Toph, pressing her attack. "We've all always had your back, but it was always different with her. Even the other me is agreeing right now."
He crossed his arms to defend himself from an attack that blasted him backward, sending him airborne. He managed to right himself in the air and land on his feet. He wondered why that was - Azula was always determined to never get left behind, always pushed him, never let him stew in his negative thoughts. But he did the same for her. He'd seen her at her worst and known her at her worst and he never let it overcome them, just like she did with him. And they'd done plenty of growing together, too.
Toph slid behind him when he didn't notice, shoving him with a wall at his back. "Stay sharp, Twinkletoes!" The attack launched him forward, making him hit the ground with a grunt of pain and roll to a stop. "Now spit it out. What's holding you back?"
His heart pumped hard as he struggled to his feet, regaining his stance. Aang punched toward her, throwing the rubble from their various attacks back in her direction. "What's holding me back? What do you think?"
Toph pulled up two slabs of stone as a shield, angled diagonally to reflect his attacks off of it. "I just think you've been making excuses all this time. I know you can't stay, but I think you're worrying too much about the future when instead you should think about the here and now."
Aang shook his head. "That's not fair to Azula. I can't… I can't act on my feelings when I've already decided that I have to go back to my world. It wouldn't last. I wish I had the luxury of acknowledging how my feelings can change, how they leave me open to something new and different and all that, but I can't. I'd never be able to live with myself if I stayed in this world, even if so many things are better here. I can't abandon my other friends."
Toph pulled her hand back and slammed her shield with her palm, sending it sliding across the ground toward Aang. He sidestepped to avoid it, but the second half of her shield nearly struck him. "Like I said, live in the here and now. What if something happens to her, wherever she is, and you never get the chance to tell her this at all? Or do you still see the face of a murderer? Is that it? I gotta say, I never understood people's focus on faces, but after everything with Koh it kinda started to make sense."
He stumbled when the ground shifted under him, but he dug his hands into the rock and pulled up a barrage of boulders. "She might have the same face as the Azula I knew, but they're not the same person." This Azula had a fundamentally different identity. He'd already learned to see past that long ago. "I don't want to lose Azula. I won't let that happen."
Toph rode toward him on an earthen wave and barreled through his defenses, throwing him down to the ground and knocking the wind out of his lungs with a grunt. "Other me says you've already lost so many people. You should know better, know that it can happen to anyone at any time."
"I know," he said, leaning on one knee and panting. He didn't rise, and instead screwed his eyes shut. "You're right, okay? Both of you. I have to live in this moment, not in the past or in the future. But… I don't think I know how."
Toph slid to a stop right in front of him and pushed him over. He'd been so tired out that he couldn't resist and fell to the ground, and was about to give an angry retort when he saw her grinning from ear to ear. "I know I'm right. And I win. Your earthbending has gotten better, but you're still no match for me." She offered him a hand to help him up and the anger drained away, so he took it. "I don't know how to tell you to live in the moment. Just admit to how you feel."
He had admitted his feelings, at least to himself. But he couldn't place when they started; it was like things fell into place little by little, building slowly over time instead of all at once. Aang brushed off the dust from his clothes. "When did you get so good with the feelings stuff?"
She flicked his forehead. "You're forgetting, again, that even though I have the same face as the other me, we're not exactly the same. I grew up with the Freedom Fighters - and let me tell you, Longshot is such a big sap."
Lake Laogai looked different even from a distance as Aang and Toph flew to its shores the next day. For one thing, it didn't look like the location of a secret underground base anymore - tents in white and indigo had been erected and people hurried back and forth, but most noticeable of all were the swathes of fabrics laid out across the fields with baskets big enough to fit four or five people in them. Rope and sandbags piled up at the edges of the field and people lifted unlit iron furnaces to put into the baskets.
It took Aang a moment to realize they were war balloons in development, styled loosely after the ones created by the Fire Nation and the Mechanist in his world.
His heart hammered against his chest when he saw them, but when he dismounted to investigate he found himself standing in the middle of the field in shock - especially when he saw a familiar face tightening some bolts on one of the furnaces.
"Teo?" Aang asked, dumbfounded. "What're you doing here?"
The boy lifted his goggles to his forehead when he noticed Aang, so fixated on his work that he didn't see Appa's approach, and his face lit up into a grin. "Oh, Aang! It's great to see you! It turns out my mom knows all these people from some Pai Sho society. We came to help prepare for the invasion!"
"Did you… did you build these?" Aang asked. There were over a dozen of them in varying states of completion, but all were still deflated and grounded.
Teo scratched the back of his head when Toph jumped from Appa's back and greeted him. "Yeah, well… kind of. I designed them, but they quite literally came to me in a dream. I've sorta been getting visions from another guy who looks like me in a wheelchair. Which had a pretty great design, now that I think of it…"
Aang beamed at the idea of the other Teo helping out, but he wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of using war balloons in this world yet. Teo's mother the Astronomer meandered over in a way that made her look like she was gliding in her robes and waved to Aang and Toph with no indication that she remembered who they were, then fantasized about the idea of looking at the skies while airborne in one of the balloons.
Appa's arrival had garnered the attention of other members of the White Lotus, which seemed full of old people, but they shared this space with the Creeping Crystal as well. Kanna emerged from one of the tents with Piandao and Bumi at her side and Grand Secretariat Wu of all people trailing behind them, all four of whom greeted Aang and Toph with surprise.
"What are you doing here?" Kanna asked, hurrying to Aang's side. "Did something happen in the South Pole?"
Piandao stroked his beard. "It's something to do with the merge, I'd wager."
Aang scratched the back of his head. "It's kind of a long story. Really long."
"You're missing the rest of your companions," Kanna noted. "Including my grandchildren."
"I wanted to talk about Xai Bau," Aang said. "Is he here?"
At the mention of his name, Kanna's expression turned grave. "No, he is not. He turned against us, and he has taken many members of the White Lotus with him to his side." Aang frowned; he wondered if it was too late to track the Sun Warrior down.
"Not me, though," said Wu, raising her hand. "I'm actually a new member. Hello!"
"What else is going on?" Toph asked. "We heard the stupid Council of Five is trying to start another war with Si Wong City."
"The Council of Five is indeed stupid," said Bumi, snorting with laughter. "But we don't know if they're trying to start a whole war. It's… rather complicated, and Kuei has been working on finding a solution to the problem of the big library that's now stuck under Ba Sing Se."
"And all that while the preparations for the invasion against the South Pole are underway," said a familiar, rumbling voice from behind Bumi. Another occupant of the tent emerged and Aang's face lit up in delight when he recognized Iroh.
"Iroh! What are you doing here?" he asked. "You're far from home!"
Iroh laughed. "That may be true, but I couldn't sit by while my niece and nephew helped to fight in this war. Especially when I haven't seen them in over three years."
Aang's eyebrow rose and he gave Iroh a questioning look. "Three years? But it's only been a few months…" He trailed off when he noticed the knowing sparkle in Iroh's eyes, the smile as he waited for Aang to piece it together. If it had been three years, then… Aang's eyes glistened with tears. "You… you're back. How is this possible?"
Iroh spread his arms. "I don't think the universe is done with me yet," he said. "It's good to see you again, Aang."
Aang ran up to Iroh and threw his arms around the old man in a hug. He had watched Iroh die but somehow he had returned, and all of his warmth and wisdom with him. Aang had so many questions but right now none of them seemed important.
Everything else could wait. Aang had one of his friends back.
Author's Notes: The sandbender tribes following a faith with actual deities - not just spirits! - is an old piece of ATLA canon (though I took some liberties and did some research on appropriate gods). It's something I've always found particularly interesting in the context of the Avatar world, where religion and gods aren't really mentioned. The closest we get is to worship of certain spirits or even Avatars, and the iconic line from Azula about "the divine right to rule." To me, that implies that there is some form of divinity that is acknowledged by some people. As for whether or not these gods are "real" in the Avatar universe, I'll leave that ambiguous!
I know we had two chapters in a row involving Aang/Toph/Yue/Nagi and Mai/Ty Lee/Haru/Jet, but next chapter… we won't see either of these two groups. I think it's time to see the Azula/Katara and Sokka/Zuko/Sangmu sides of the story again. ;)
Please review! Each one gives me serotonin!
