Author's Notes: For all the guests I can't reply to saying lightning is an insta-kill move and a certain character shouldn't have survived it last chapter… in Korra, the Kyoshi novels, the comics, and, well, real life there are plenty of instances of surviving lightning strikes. In fact, more people in this series survive getting shot by lightning than actually die. Death by lightning only happens twice across the entire franchise to my knowledge! And the second one might not have even died from it.

Last time with Aang & Toph: A confrontation between the generals of Ba Sing Se and the leaders of Si Wong City nearly leads to civil war breaking out. Wan Shi Tong is drawn to the conflict, but before he can become a dark spirit Aang manages to quell his fury with the help of Toph, Kuei, Wu, and the Hearer.

Last time with Yue: After escaping the Spirit World, she splits up from Aang, Toph, and Nagi at Si Wong City, intending to head to her home as the new moon approaches.

Last time with Mai, Jet, Ty Lee, and Haru: After pursuing Arnook to the Northern Spirit Portal, Jet achieves his vengeance against the pirate who murdered his family. At the portal, they are captured by Suki, Ghashiun, and Arnook's soldiers and imprisoned. Suki reveals what she knows of Arnook's plans: that he intends for every person in the North Pole to become spiritual enough to gain waterbending like the airbenders of old, and he can only do this by appeasing the Nightseer.

Book 3: Water

Chapter 18: The Red Lotus Blooms

"Hold the Cranefish Peering into Water. Now, Wind in the Willows. Good! Breathe in, flow into Heron Taking Flight…"

Aang followed the motions as Piandao voiced each form, his pearl blade from Ozai gleaming in the white light cast from the sky above. The morning brought a sky with clouds almost as pearly white as Aang's blade, tinged with streaks of pink and even silver. As beautiful as it looked, and as peaceful as it seemed, there was a stillness and stagnancy to the air that brought with it the gleaming forms of light spirits dancing in the sky above, like glittering snowflakes.

Far away, and not yet a threat, but Aang worried all the same.

Practicing his sword forms with Piandao gave him clarity of mind as they trained on a hill overlooking Lake Laogai. The noise below of the invasion forces gathering didn't reach them here. Once, when Aang's blade passed in front of his face, he spotted his reflection in the blade's sheen; it showed Aang the apprehension and distaste of his younger self. He still didn't like the fact that Aang wielded a sword, but Aang kept telling himself he needed every advantage he could get.

Piandao's smooth voice continued. "Autumn Leaf Drifting Downward. And finish it with Swallow Swooping to its Prey." Piandao nodded approvingly as Aang finished the last form, a snapping cleave. "Good, you've improved. These forms in particular are suited to your light, dancing movements with airbending. You'd think airbending wouldn't be suited to such a weapon, but I'd say we've found forms appropriate for each element, wouldn't you say?"

Aang looked into the blade one last time before sheathing it. That time, he didn't see his other self. "You'd think," he said under his breath. Such delicate names for such deadly forms. "Yes, Master. I'd say we have," he said louder.

He'd had lots of time to train with his masters since coming here to the White Lotus camp. Jeong Jeong had been as rough as ever, but less critical when Aang showed the fruits of his practice with Azula. Training with Bumi for the first time had been a delight, if unconventional. Pakku hadn't arrived from the Fire Nation yet, but according to Kanna he was due today. Aang looked forward to seeing him again, too.

Aang winced when a giant boulder crashed on the ground near them, sliding across the grass. Bumi and Toph fought each other in a titanic clash, but Aang thought it had been far enough away not to disturb him and Piandao. They still hadn't come to the conclusion of which one was the better earthbender, even after days straight of on and off battling since even before the conflict between Ba Sing Se, Si Wong City, and Wan Shi Tong. Part of Aang suspected they both got too much enjoyment out of it to care much about who was the truly superior bender.

Footsteps approached Aang and Piandao on the hill and Aang recognized them as Iroh and Kanna before he turned. He bowed to them as a student would their master, too, even though they hadn't actually trained together yet.

"I hope we're not interrupting anything," said Kanna, adjusting her White Lotus shawl as they crested the hill.

"Not at all," said Piandao with a warm smile. "Aang and I were just finishing. If you'll excuse me, I need to see to Lord Ozai's men. Well done today, Aang."

As he departed, Kanna folded her hands behind her back and smiled. "Perhaps you and I could train together someday as well. I suspect we'd have a fair bit of fun."

"You and Iroh have been so busy," said Aang. He could understand, though. "But it would be helpful to learn how to counter bloodbending eventually." He'd hoped they would have a full moon he could use to get a feel for it himself, but the events of the night before made that difficult. Besides, with the eclipse - even the partial one in this part of the world - it would have made practice difficult.

"You will get the chance to learn, I promise you that," she said, though she looked grave. "It is not an ability I'm proud to know, but if you are to face my son you must be able to resist it, and to do that you must learn it."

Iroh looked just as somber while he gazed down at the lake. Aang's brow furrowed with worry and he leaned forward into Iroh's view. "Is everything okay? You seem distracted."

Iroh glanced back at Aang, his face brightening. "Just thinking about my own son," he said. "Now that Ozai and his soldiers have arrived from Chameleon Bay. I've already played five Pai Sho games with Lu Ten, but I'm worried he'll start to get sick of it before long!" He laughed, but Aang gave him a sad smile.

"I doubt it," Aang said. "I'm sure he loves spending all the time with you that he can."

Iroh gave him an appreciative look in return, but seemed as if he was blinking away tears.

Kanna offered a distraction. "We've come to find you so we can discuss Xai Bau, Aang," she said. "We fear that he will make his move soon. Jeong Jeong's investigation at the secret Sun Warrior village here in the Earth Kingdom has revealed something quite startling: that none of the people of that village even know who Xai Bau is."

Aang scratched his head. Jeong Jeong had only returned from his excursion earlier that morning using one of Teo's hot air balloons. "Huh? But he's from there!"

"When the delegation from the Golden City came to Chameleon Bay with your friend Ty Lee in tow, none of them knew Xai Bau, either," said Iroh. "Nor did Master Jeong Jeong himself. We didn't think anything of it at the time, since Xai Bau never claimed to be from there like he did the Sun Warrior village. But now it is concerning."

"What does it mean?" Aang asked. "If he's not from the Golden City or the secret mountain village, is Xai Bau only pretending to be a Sun Warrior?"

"We don't know," said Kanna. "Before his time as a member of Emperor Kvichak's court, I don't know where he had come from. But he was already a member of the White Lotus even then."

Iroh sighed. "All we know is that his goal is to break down the barriers between the four nations and each world. But if we wipe away the lines that define us, it would deal irreparable damage to this world, to all worlds. We have already seen the effects of it on many people and it cannot be allowed to continue."

He thought of Zhao, who was kept under close watch by Ozai's men and frequently fell into rambling meaningless nonsense to himself. He thought of General Muku, who failed to see the distinction between this world and Aang's world anymore. And he thought of Ozai himself, who told Aang in Chameleon Bay that visions of another Ozai haunted his dreams. Not to mention Azula, who frequently occupied his thoughts regardless.

"I know that," Aang said. He sat down and cradled his head in his hands. "I do. I know I have to go home. But I know for sure that I can't do that until I stop Xai Bau and Hakoda. If I don't stop Xai Bau in this world, any damage he would do could follow me home anyway."

"Stopping Hakoda may be your destiny," said Kanna. She tapped her chin. "Or, well, at least it is the destiny of the Avatar in this world. But stopping Xai Bau alone doesn't have to be. Iroh and I will both help you. He is a rogue member of our society, after all."

"But first," said Iroh, "we should focus on the invasion. Time is, as ever, working against us. Our forces will soon be ready to begin our journey to the South Pole, but I am still unsure how we are supposed to get there in time to defeat the emperor before Seiryu's Moon…"

Aang clenched his fists. He was unsure of how Kanna and Iroh would like this plan, but he felt confident about it. "We're going to go back south the same way I got here," he said. "Through the Spirit World."


"You're really just going to let them die from this? Listen to them! Can't you tell how sick they are?"

"Jet, we're fine. This is a cold. It isn't life threatening."

"I don't know, Mai. You look really pale and sickly. Every time I see your face through the bars it's like I'm seeing a ghost! I'm so worried!"

"...Thanks, Ty Lee."

Another round of coughs came from Mai's cell, and then Haru's. Ghashiun kept his distance, especially from Mai and Jet's cell doors. He still didn't trust them, and he thought they'd find some way to poke his eyes out if he ever looked inside the slit of their cell doors at them. Haru, on the other hand, curled on the floor of a frozen, suspended cage inside his cell. He looked pale, too, and didn't stop shivering. Ghashiun turned away from his cell.

"You're being dramatic," Ghashiun said. Though he didn't disagree with Ty Lee's assessment. He thought Mai always looked like that. "Mai is right. They'll live."

Jet banged on his cell door. "They need medicine," he said. "And warm meals. We've been down here for weeks - this is torture! You're letting them torture us!"

Ghashiun grit his teeth. "I've risked much by coming down here as often as I have. Any more and they'll throw me in prison with you." He already took too many chances going to visit them in the cells below the spirit portal monastery, giving them blankets or scarves and portions of his own scant meals. He was running out of money to bribe the guards with, too. All the while, he'd hoped they would eventually understand the futility of their fight. If sickness didn't claim them, continuing their fruitless battles would.

"It's okay, Ghashiun," said Haru. His voice sounded weak. "We understand. Thank you."

But comments like that kept coming, too. Why was he so infuriatingly nice?

Ghashiun rapped his knuckle on Haru's cell door. "Don't thank me too much. I'm the one who put you all down here in the first place."

"You had help!" Jet interjected, as if offended at the suggestion that Ghashiun beat them all by himself. "From your Water Tribe friends!"

Ghashiun pulled his mask up over his mouth to cover his smirk at Jet's angry eyebrows appearing through the window of his cell. "Yeah, yeah," he said. He offered the back of his hand as a sort of wave as he walked away. "Going back up to my 'Water Tribe friends' now." Which wasn't exactly true. He hated Hahn.

He supposed he could arrange to have a healer sent down to check up on them.

For the past few weeks, ever since their arrival at the monastery, Ghashiun felt restless. He knew Haru and the others had come to save Nagi and Yue and one of the Avatar's companions from the Spirit World, even if Ghashiun had no idea how they planned to do it. Even if Haru himself admitted he had never even met either of them. It was a reckless and stupid goal and Ghashiun couldn't understand why they would do such a thing at great risk to themselves.

But it wasn't as if Arnook was any closer to getting Nagi and Yue out himself. Sometimes Ghashiun wondered how much the high chief even cared about his own daughter. He spent long hours sequestered away in the monastery's inner sanctums, seeing only shamans and spiritualists. When a new moon had arrived just a couple of weeks before, Arnook had the entire North Pole fasting and praying to the Nightseer. That was the only night he had departed from the monastery, going a short distance to the spirit portal outside.

When he returned the following night, he and his followers had been furious about something.

Something changed in the monastery after that. Ghashiun had the constant feeling of being watched as he stalked its halls, even during the day. Ravens that usually kept to the monastery's highest roost showed up in the strangest of places, once even in Ghashiun's windowless private chamber. Always just staring.

Not helping the fact was the continued strange weather and even stranger dreams and feelings. Sometimes, when gazing out from the cliffside to the spirit portal forest below, he thought he saw his desert homeland appearing as if from a mirage. At first he thought it was just homesickness, but occasionally he had vivid memories of a great hairy beast trying to fly - something he vaguely recognized as the Avatar's beast of burden. But he also saw a boy with glowing eyes at the center of a sandstorm, divine in his rage, and Ghashiun would be overcome with a sense of terror so great that all he wanted to do was run as far away as he could.

When the lunar eclipse had come, Ghashiun thought something was going to happen. But aside from a conflict between light and dark spirits near the portal that they had largely ignored, it had been a day like any other.

All of it made Ghashiun feel like they were on the cusp of something, a short fuse on a barrel of blasting jelly.

He had been emerging from the cellars when he heard Suki call out his name. He stopped but didn't turn to face her. "What?"

She caught up to him. "Were you down there visiting them again?" she asked, outright disapproval in her voice.

He faced her with narrowed eyes but answered with a question of his own. She didn't have her face makeup on, but she wore her heavy layered armor for warmth. "Were you leaving the monastery again?"

She scowled and pushed him toward the nearest room and shut the door. It was small and completely empty except for a carving of some sort of amphibious creature with bulging eyes and six arms that made Ghashiun think of a cross between a salamander and a toad. It was taller than both of them, reaching nearly to the ceiling. "I don't like sitting still," Suki said once she closed the door. "And I didn't fully leave the monastery grounds."

Ghashiun leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "Then where have you been going?"

Suki fixed her eyes on the carving. "The mountain is part of this monastery too, you know," she said. "I found rooms inside the mountain where they've kept records of all sorts of things. Did you know this monastery was built as a joint effort between the Water Tribes and Air Nomads to study the spirit portal?"

It must have been old, because Ghashiun had never heard of any situation where those two nations worked together. The amphibian carving had some of its fingers missing, crumbled away by age. "No."

She rolled her eyes and continued, interpreting his curt answer and wandering gaze as disinterest. "They called it the Aurora Gompa, and those who lived here preached ascetic lifestyles. Simple and disciplined, dedicated only to the pursuit of enlightenment. Each person was a follower of a different spirit they took on as a patron who they thought would help toward that enlightenment. My guess is that whoever used this room worshiped ugly over here." Suki's hand extended toward the carving looming over them.

"You certainly read a lot, didn't you? Didn't think you were the bookish type."

She made a face. "I'm not. I just figured I'd do something with my time instead of wallowing and waiting for Arnook to rescue Yue and Nagi. If I can find something that would help him do that, all the better."

Ghashiun kicked off of the wall and stood up straight. "A woman of action. Well? Did you find anything?"

Suki averted her eyes and shrugged. "Well, it kinda sounds similar to what Arnook is doing, doesn't it? He's praying only to the Nightseer, except this time it seems to be on a much bigger scale." She examined the carving with a thoughtful frown. "Just to give an example, this spirit looks like one called Fuyou the Golden-Toed. He was said to leave riches to those he favored, giving them enough gold to become a lord overnight."

"Oh, so it is some kind of toad. I was wondering." Ghashiun looked around at the tiny room sparse of any other decoration or furnishing. "But the pursuit of something material seems… at odds with their lifestyle."

"No, it's supposed to have golden toes - he leaves coins wherever he steps." She rifled through her bag and found a scroll. "I dunno. It wasn't always in pursuit of riches. Some of it might have been political. There's one spirit, Chengzhong the Judge, who is said to appear when one dynasty in Ba Sing Se is meant to end and another is to begin. Or Baihu the White Tiger, 'elder guardian of wind'… They've worshiped all kinds here. They believed enlightenment had a different definition for every spirit, every person."

Ghashiun tried not to show it, but he was impressed. Maybe there was some merit to what Arnook was doing. "Can any of these spirits get my sister out of the Spirit World?"

Suki quirked an eyebrow and pursed her lips. "If I found one who did that so easily, Yue and your sister would be right here with me."

They heard a commotion outside in the hallway and Ghashiun slid out the door before anyone would find their gathering suspicious. Many of Arnook's men had gathered in the hall, lined up on both sides of it with a deep bow. And at the center, bundled up in furs, a woman entered the monastery and lowered her hood.

"Sorry for the unannounced arrival," she said, revealing a startling head of white hair that Ghashiun would have recognized anywhere. "I was in a hurry, you see…"

Ghashiun couldn't hide his unabashed shock and shared a glance with Suki, who pushed past Ghashiun and ran right up to the arrival.

"Yue!" Suki called out, rushing Yue with such force that she nearly took the latter off of her feet in a massive hug. "How is this possible?"

Yue looked startled at first but relaxed into the hug, closing her eyes with a contented smile. "I've missed you so much, Suki. It's a long story…"

Ghashiun tried looking around both of them, but he didn't see Nagi anywhere.


"So explain to me again how this is gonna work?" Toph asked. She shuffled her feet, looking small among the crowd of people. Earth Kingdom soldiers, Ozai's contingent, and White Lotus members all gathered in the old prison beneath Lake Laogai. Every tunnel and chamber had been filled with people. Every cell had been stocked with supplies - food, rations, fuel for the war balloons, and the war balloons themselves.

"All of the tunnels to the catacombs beneath the city have been sealed, right?" Teo asked, hands on his hips while he looked around.

"Yes, they have been," Aang confirmed for Teo. After he got the signal from Pakku that everyone involved in the invasion force had descended beneath the lake, Aang retreated from the central chamber for something quieter and with a much smaller audience. He gestured for Toph and Teo to follow him and explained as he walked. "You know how I entered the Spirit World through the southern portal and came out at the Great Banyan tree? That's how I first got the idea for how to move everyone back down south."

"But we don't need any portals anymore because the barrier between worlds is more or less falling apart, right?" Teo asked, but then he bunched up his face. "Wow, saying it like that really makes it not seem like a big deal, huh?"

Toph still sounded skeptical. "What did big scary owl guy have to do with it?"

"He used to move the library all around the desert by going in and out of the Spirit World," Aang said. "He told me my initial idea was possible. With the barriers between worlds as thin as they are, like Teo said, it should be easy, and it'll allow us to travel further than Wan Shi Tong did with the library."

"And the headquarters of the Creeping Crystal - this prison beneath Lake Laogai - is our vessel for this traversal?" Teo asked, scratching his head. "I think I get it. For Wan Shi Tong, it was his library."

Aang grinned as they entered a smaller chamber that housed Appa. He rumbled at them in greeting but went right to nudging some heavy, rusted manacles with his front feet, sniffing at them with curiosity. Aang patted him on the nose. "Right. For bringing this many people into the Spirit World, he said we needed a structure big enough to hold everyone together. We couldn't use the library itself because if we moved it then Ba Sing Se would collapse. This way, Lake Laogai will just get a little bit deeper."

Toph punched her fist into her palm. "It works out. So the Creeping Crystal headquarters is moving to the South Pole. I guess it can be our base while we figure things out. And then… it'll be time to kick the emperor's butt."

Aang gave her an uneasy grin. "I hope so." He sat down in front of Appa in a lotus position, taking a deep breath. "Are you ready to go back into the Spirit World?"

"Hold it, Twinkletoes," said Toph. "What about the other me?"

Teo blinked. "The other you?"

Aang knew what she implied. When Toph went into the Spirit World, she was able to meet her other self. But what about everyone else here? Would they all be confronted with the person they'd been dreaming about? "I thought about that, too, and asked Wan Shi Tong. He said that our 'vessel' will work to keep spirits from interfering. It's a piece of this world that'll protect us in the Spirit World. It's the same reason he didn't get a bunch of spirits straggling in his library every time he went in and out - it was always just him and the knowledge seekers."

Toph frowned. "Okay, if you say so. Not that I don't wanna see her again."

Teo crossed his arms. "I feel like there's something you guys aren't telling me."

"Uh, not a whole lot of time to explain that right now," said Toph. "But remember that copy of you that you said gave you the idea for those war balloons? He's basically in the Spirit World with … well, everyone else."

"I think I'm even more confused," he said after a pause.

"We'll explain it to you once we get there," Aang said, closing his eyes. "It's a promise."

Aang had told Toph and Teo it would be easy, but that was only to hide how nervous he felt. He was the Avatar, the bridge between worlds, but the water flowing under that bridge had swelled and flooded it out. Now he had to be the one to guide all of these people across the remains of the bridge without losing them to the raging river around them. In the dark.

Wan Shi Tong had told him to think of it like a tunnel instead. There was an ancient spirit, he'd said, who could create rifts between the mortal world and Spirit World - Father Glowworm. The World-Borer. Many places where the barrier between worlds remained thin was because of him. These tunnels made hundreds of years ago lingered, which was how Wan Shi Tong and many other spirits crossed in and out of the mortal worlds. With the barrier itself so weak now, they were difficult to identify. But Aang could see in the dark. He could see in the raging current that threatened to wipe away these tunnels, this bridge, like lines in the sand.

The ground rumbled. Distantly, he heard Teo mutter something but his voice sounded stretched out and faded away. He felt the entirety of the prison beneath Lake Laogai like it had been attached to him. It had to be both a ship and an anchor, their safety in the raging river and their connection to the mortal world. He wasn't going to lose anyone.

Water dripped onto his head. He heard a deluge, the waters of Lake Laogai rushing in to fill the space left by the prison. The rumbling turned to rocking back and forth, the sensation of spinning. He grit his teeth and felt like he was going to be sick, but he felt someone sitting down behind him, their backs pressed against each other, and he knew it to be his other self. Not physically there, but it almost felt like it. The weight felt comforting.

When Aang opened his eyes, everything looked the same. Both Toph and Teo had their feet spread as if bracing themselves for impact.

"Was that it?" Teo asked. "Or are we just halfway there? We're in the Spirit World now, right?"

Despite how they looked, Aang felt as if he'd been running for hours. He nodded through his deep breaths. He took off his headband, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. Now he had to take them back out - ideally, they'd be in a spot underground in the South Pole away from any villages or clans. But for all he knew, a battle awaited them as soon as they arrived.

Toph turned toward the wall. "Aang, hurry up and get us out of here. Now!"

He didn't need his seismic sense or Toph's exclamation to tell him danger approached. He felt the flow of energy in the Spirit World more clearly than ever before, knew it to be a dark spirit full of wrath. He focused on shifting the prison back into the mortal world, but Toph stomped her feet and pulled up a shield of earth just in time for the wall to disintegrate in a beam of blue light. The whole prison shook; panicked shouts from the other chambers echoed in the tunnels.

A massive spirit stood outside the prison, black and white with unnervingly long arms and a vicious mouth full of jagged teeth. Another, smaller pair of arms hung limply from its torso and Aang recognized the angry forest spirit with a start. "That's Hei Bai!" Aang shouted, shooting up to his feet. "He's a dark spirit!"

Hei Bai lifted his arms and gripped the outside of the prison as if trying to rip down its walls. When he opened his mouth to blast them with spirit energy again, Toph raised a fist and used a block of stone to force his mouth shut. The attack made him stumble backward and he unleashed his attack into the red sky.

"I'll hold him off while you finish getting us out," Toph said, holding her stance.

Aang clenched his fist around his staff. "No way. I can't leave Hei Bai like this, he's a friend. This'll be quick."

Toph scoffed, but he caught her grin, too. "I knew you'd say that. I'll help." Without another word, she launched herself out of the hole in the prison, continuing her barrage.

"Avatar Aang!" The metal door to the chamber swung open, admitting Ozai who had his broadswords unsheathed and ready for battle. His eyes, bloodshot and ringed by lack of sleep, widened upon seeing the gap in the prison wall and the spirit beyond it. He regained his composure and looked at Aang. "We are being assaulted by two other spirits. They're trying to break in."

With this much dark energy around, Aang wasn't sure how he knew it but he felt he would be hard-pressed to transfer them all back to the mortal world until he dealt with it. "Teo, go and see if you can find any more damage to the prison. I'll deal with the spirits."

"You can," said Ozai, as Teo nodded and departed with haste. "For you are at your most powerful in the Spirit World."

Aang held his gaze for a moment, wondering about the Phoenix King behind his eyes, but a roar from Hei Bai spurred him back into action. "Don't let anyone go outside," he said. "You especially need to stay here."

Ozai looked as if he was about to say something, but bit back his words. He nodded and Aang leapt outside after Toph and Hei Bai, unfurling his glider in midair.

From above, the prison looked like a wet, muddy mass of domes and tunnels, a complex web of chambers and connecting pathways. It was a stain on the world around it, which resembled a lake below its surface but without any water. Long tendrils of a plant that looked like seaweed swayed hauntingly beneath a scarlet sky that looked alive like fire. The forest concealed the other two spirits raiding the prison, deceptively placid until the seaweed parted and went up in flames that consumed a whole swathe of it at once like tinder. Aang managed to swing his glider at it and divert the fire with a barrier of air.

He landed on the ground just as a spirit dragon emerged from the burning forest. Nearly as red as the sky with black horns and a wicked smile, Aang had the momentary fear that it was going to eat him. He landed on the ground and drew his sword just in time for a monstrous, shaggy wolf to emerge from the burning forest, black-furred and rabid with wild eyes. These were the two spirits Ozai spoke of, he surmised. Despite their forms, something about them felt intimately familiar.

"Fang!" exclaimed a voice inside his mind. Roku's voice.

"Dart!" said another voice at the same time – this one Kuruk. "How dare he do this to them!?"

He felt the righteous fury of both of his predecessors filling him at once, took it and made it his own when he thought of how he himself would feel if Appa had been corrupted into a dark spirit. He braced himself when Fang opened his maw and belched flames as black as his horns, and as he felt the heat engulf him Aang bent the flames and wondered who Kuruk meant by "he."

The black flames circled him in a swirling dome, a constant deluge that he held at bay with his sword and staff crossed above his head. He was so focused on not burning alive that he scarcely noticed the figure crossing through the flames behind him until the man stopped and spoke into his ear.

"I never knew you'd stoop to such hypocrisy, Avatar," said Xai Bau, who he heard clearly despite the dragon's roar. He didn't sound angry - if anything, he was amused. "Denouncing me for my ways as you and yours make use of the crumbling borders between worlds to your own advantage. How is that fair? How is that balance?"

And then Xai Bau grabbed him by the back of his tunic and hurled him into the flames.


Any sense of exhaustion Yue had from her weeks of traveling felt like it evaporated when Suki hugged her tight. After everything, reuniting with one of her oldest friends after what felt like forever gave her such a sense of elation that she couldn't stop smiling, even as the tears fell.

"In all honesty, I didn't expect to find you here, either," she said, at last pulling away.

Even Suki looked as if she struggled to blink away tears. "This almost doesn't feel real."

Yue gathered herself in the presence of her father's shamans, First Spears, and other warriors as they greeted her and someone attended to her buffalo-yak outside. Just as someone else took her traveling cloak from her, more First Spears appeared at the end of the hallway, and suddenly everyone but Yue backed themselves against the walls.

"My dearest daughter," said Arnook, spreading his arms wide. His black fur and feather mantle spread with his arms, casting a shadow from the sconces on the walls. "Welcome home."

"Thank you, father," she said, inclining her head toward him. "Though even now, we are far from home. I fear I have missed much in my time away from the North Pole."

"So much, ever since you became a Water Sage, and even earlier in your stay at Aniak'to," he said. He gestured for her to follow and turned with a sweep of black feathers. "Come. We have much to catch up on before you rest and recuperate from your long journey."

Knowing she had little choice in the matter, she gave an apologetic glance to Suki before following him down the hall. As she walked, she spotted Ghashiun of all people, stone-faced and hesitant, and her heart fluttered when she thought of Nagi. She reached out a hand to him as she passed, which to her surprise he took, grasping it like a lifeline.

Yue smiled. "She's okay," she whispered. "Nagi is safe."

His hands fell back to his sides, stunned. He didn't say a word as she continued in her father's footsteps.

Her journey to the North Pole had been a brutal and restless one. Ever since leaving Nagi, Aang, and Toph in Si Wong City, she crossed the desert in a merchant's caravan to Gaipan and reunited with her people at a military outpost near the riverside village. From there, a series of Water Navy ships ferried her up through the Serpent's Pass and the Serpent's Neck River.

It was just as she arrived at the Serpent's Pass that the new moon started in earnest. Dark spirits attacked, putting their ship in peril, and there were so many that Yue thought they would drag everyone to their watery deaths. All of the waterbenders on board fought through the night, a battle that felt endless. The whole time, all Yue could do was hide below deck, hating herself for every second of it. But then the dawn finally came, and respite with it. There weren't enough healers on board.

Despite being surrounded by her people, it was a lonely journey. None of the men ever expected to have to come to the aid of the northern princess and delivered her home with all haste in a rare moment of Yue pressing her authority. When they reached the northern sea, she felt like precious cargo being passed around as a clan chief's vessel carried her to the North Pole. Despite not visiting her home in years, she didn't remain long when she learned about the rituals taking place throughout the city and that her father had departed for the northern portal.

Arnook led her to a chamber within the monastery with rows of tables that made her think it may have once been used by monks to transcribe tomes and scrolls in long hours of work. Like everything else here, it was bare of any decoration. The First Spears left them as Arnook and Yue entered, leaving her alone with her father.

"To think that you journeyed through the Spirit World in the way you did, body and soul…" Her father swept through the room, but then he rounded on her with his palms pressed flat against the table between them. "Do you feel it, Yue? Do you feel her power surging within you?"

Yue only lowered her eyes. "It's… different now." New moons had always been a time of quiet introspection for her, a full night of solitude and meditation in the Spirit Oasis every month through her whole life. Her time at Avatar Kuruk's temple with the other Water Sages was no different, except that on new moons she had a chamber all to herself instead. She spoke with fear quavering in her voice, barely above a whisper. A confession. "I always tried to avoid the presence of spirits during new moons, but now… now it seems as if they are drawn to me. I can't control it, father."

Arnook straightened. "Then it is as it should be," he said. He let out a deep breath she didn't realize he had been holding and she looked up at him in alarm. "The spirits recognize you now. Your power."

"Recognize me?" she asked, stepping back from him. "What do you mean? I… I've always felt reviled by spirits, never more so than when I was in the Spirit World. I felt that they viewed me as an aberration. That my whole life I've been cursed. I had always avoided the presence of any spirits during the new moon in the fear that they would turn dark just for being around me."

"You have a seed of the Nightseer in you," he said. He held up a hand and stared somewhere above her, beyond her, at something she couldn't see. "But now you have grown. You are as a lotus in bloom, empowered by your journey into the Spirit World. With the barrier between our worlds so thin now, you can finally awaken. And I have paved that path for you."

She clenched her fists but otherwise retained her composure despite feeling like she would be sick. "To what end? What will happen if the Nightseer awakens? Is this the reason for all the changes in the city?"

"We will have the power of a thousand spirits at our side and the strength of every warrior gaining the gift of waterbending," said Arnook, his arms spread wide. "The Nightseer's blessing in our divinely mandated mission to end this war once and for all. The spirituality and wisdom of the Air Nomads along with the power and resources of the Water Tribes. We are the inevitability of night. We are the oceans covering the world. And all with you leading the charge, my daughter, as is your duty. We didn't have you here this past new moon. But now you are home, and you are primed for her arrival."

"She is part of me," said Yue, holding a hand to her chest. "I don't understand. Why now? What will happen to me when she awakens?"

"The world has changed so much," he said, striding from one end of the room to the other. "Spirits frolic among mortals in ways they haven't in eons. You'll be just like them. Don't you see what a blessing that is? The Nightseer gave you life when you were a baby. And now she is coming to take her end of the bargain. But it is a wonderful thing, something that will benefit both of us, and our tribe as a whole. You will see."

She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. "My duty, you say…" she said. Had he known this day would come her whole life? He had changed once her mother died, but before then she always thought he'd been a loving father. She couldn't find the words to voice how she felt. Instead, she tried to imagine what Nagi would focus on. The practical things. Anything else could come later. "Is this your grand plan? Everything you and Emperor Hakoda have been working toward in order to end this war?"

"Hakoda is a shortsighted man focused only on the tangible things in front of him," Arnook snapped. "He wouldn't see the necessity of this at first. But I believe once we provide the results he will see the wisdom of it, the beauty. He has taken a northern woman as his new wife. She will show him the way."

Shadows danced in the chamber and she felt a weight bearing down on her that she couldn't handle anymore. Her chest ached. "I understand, father," she said, bowing deeply to him in a formal way she only did during public ceremonies. "I will do everything in my power to complete my duty. But for now, please excuse me. My journey was long and arduous, and I wish to rest."

With his approval, she departed. When she went out into the halls, she passed by her father's legion of First Spears and with hurried steps retreated to her private chamber reserved for royal visits. Normally, she drew comfort from shadowed places, but now every empty corner where the light didn't touch made her breath hitch. In her rooms, she found Suki waiting for her.

"Is everything all right?" Suki asked her, worry creasing her brow.

"We have to leave this place," Yue said. "So much has happened since Ba Sing Se. Things you wouldn't believe. And now my father plans to do something frightening."

Suki clenched her fist. "I believe it. And at this point I'd probably believe anything you'd tell me. I've got your back, Yue."

"The Avatar is the one who rescued me from the Spirit World," she said, the words pouring out. "We may need his help to stop what my father is doing because I am central to his plan, which is why I have to leave. I heard from the Avatar that some of his companions journeyed here to the north. Maybe we could find them and request their help, too. I don't know what else to do." She felt herself working up into a panic but the more she replayed her father's words in her head she couldn't help herself.

"They're here," Suki said, putting her hands on Yue's shoulders. "And don't worry. I've come this far to rescue you - but now that I don't need to I am still going to help you. You're my best friend, Yue. And, well, Katara's my other best friend and she might not be happy about getting the Avatar's help, but right now you need me more. I know that there's been some fishy stuff going on ever since Agna Qel'a, and while I might not understand all of it, I know that I have to do something."

She felt a surge of gratitude to Suki and a measure of calm returned. "Thank you, Suki. Where are the Avatar's friends?"

"They've been imprisoned below the monastery," she answered, stepping back with a hand on her hip. "I don't know how great of an idea it is, but I guess we'll have to break them out. We'll need all the help we can get."


Aang felt the burning of dragonfire consume him for only a moment before a rush of cold air replaced it and he rolled across the rocky ground. When he came to a stop, he winced in pain and opened his eyes again to find himself in a barren land beaten by raging winds and storms. It was a coastal plain with its shore covered in the rotten, bloated carcasses of sea creatures he couldn't identify. Even the ocean looked sick and dying, the tides weak, the water still. On land, flickering embers burned in the distance, smoke and ash choking the skies.

"You could have been the epitome of everything I ever hoped for in the world."

Aang stood, facing the direction he had rolled from to see Xai Bau walking toward him. The forest of weeds where the Laogai prison had arrived in the Spirit World was nowhere to be seen. Fang, Dart, and Hei Bai had all vanished. Xai Bau had taken him to a different part of the Spirit World.

"The Avatar is the joining of all four nations into one," Xai Bau continued. "You should have been superior to us all. Yet you take sides like any other human, show the same failings as any of us. Even when you finally manage to convince Wan Shi Tong himself to teach you something new, you immediately turn around and use it to advance your cause in war. You use the breakdown between worlds to your advantage despite denouncing me for trying to unite them."

Aang pressed his staff against the ground. "I never claimed to be superior to anyone. I'm the one meant to keep balance between all the nations and spirits, and if that means siding with one against the other to fight for someone not strong enough to fight on their own then I'll do what I have to." He remembered what Yangchen had told him once, long ago, that the Avatar Spirit – Raava – took human form to understand their people. To understand all peoples. "But what I'm doing is different from what you're trying to do."

Xai Bau stopped ten paces from him. "How so? I want to unite this world. I want to unite all worlds. With a singular purpose, all conflict would cease. With no borders there is no conflict. With no nations, no justification that any person is better than another. With no line between the mortal world and Spirit World, humans and spirits would all find enlightenment. And with no line between my world, your world, and all the others… there'd be no loss. You should know this. Doesn't the world you've been in have everything your original world lacks?"

"A world without borders sounds like it could be a great thing," Aang responded, his voice lower. "A world where people don't define themselves by what kind of bender they are, or where they live. It sounds… nice. I'm just not sure our worlds are ready for something like that yet. None of the worlds are."

"A useless notion. You justify your stance by saying we're 'not ready.' But when would we be ready? Who decides such a thing? I ask you again: the world you've come to, doesn't it have the things you truly want?"

Aang's shoulders slackened. Parts of what Xai Bau said were right. He'd often thought himself how difficult it would be to leave his new friends and go back to his original world to keep fighting in what felt like an endless struggle. "In some ways, it does," Aang admitted. "And you're not entirely wrong. I've seen people do great things when they look past their differences and unite with each other. Friends who used to be enemies. The alliance between Ba Sing Se and Si Wong City, or between the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and White Lotus."

Xai Bau shook his head, his eyes narrowing. "No, you don't see what I am saying. You still think too small. Each of those people still unite against a common enemy - the Water Nation. The world is still not truly unified. If people need conflict as their purpose to unify with others, true peace will never be found hand in hand with unity. The four nations and the spirits and every world would just go back to being separate entities."

Aang furrowed his brow. "Then what are you saying? Didn't you just try to justify everything in the name of peace?"

"I did," said Xai Bau, his arms spread wide. The wind continued to rage all around them, the smoke from distant fires making streaks in the sky high above them. The smells of the dying ocean carried to them and the earth quaked under their feet. For a moment Aang thought Xai Bau was the source of it all, but they were still in the Spirit World. It was a sign of how bad things had become. "Isn't it oxymoronic? To truly be united, all people and spirits need is an enemy. One who will never truly be able to unite with them. A singular purpose."

"I don't understand," Aang said. "Is that what you want the Avatar to be?"

"I considered that option," Xai Bau said, inclining his head in acquiescence. "But I eventually realized that is not a role suited to an Avatar. You need to be the one to bring hope, to unite all of the worlds against this singular enemy."

"Vaatu, then?"

"No," said Xai Bau. "Not even him. Vaatu is a force of nature, the Destroyer. While I admit the poetry in a clash of light and darkness sounds appealing, even using Vaatu goes against the ideals I stand for. By opposing Raava and Vaatu to each other that way, it is a clash due only to the intrinsic differences between those two beings. No, Avatar. The enemy of all humans and spirits must be a different one, a clash between your ideals and mine. This enemy is me."

Aang shifted his staff behind him and frowned. "That's crazy. Why would I fight you like that? How could you make yourself an enemy of… well, everything?"

"I'm not alone," he said. His arms moved opposite to each other, forming a circle with one moving up and the other down. Afterimages trailed behind each arm, like echoes, momentarily giving him the appearance of a multi-armed being like a mural of an ancient spirit. "Here in the Spirit World, the nexus of all worlds, I reached out to my selves in other worlds. And we are united in our purpose."

Before Aang could react to his words, Xai Bau joined his hands together and unleashed a spinning torrent of blue and white flames. When Aang pulled the ground up to block the attack, the fire raged through it and forced him to leap high above. Fire surged from Xai Bau's feet, lifting him just as high, and a spinning kick unleashed an arc of flame that covered such a wide area that Aang flashed back to battling under Sozin's Comet. Or even memories of his own firebending in the Avatar State. He cleaved Xai Bau's attack with his own firebending and landed back on the ground. Swirls of blue and white assaulted him from both of Xai Bau's hands as they both kept light on their feet, dancing around the barren landscape.

White fire erupted at Aang's side and he spun away with a shield of wind only to barely avoid getting burned by a flood of blue fire. Xai Bau's onslaught continued, his flames ever-burning.

Could connecting with all of his other selves truly make him this strong? "All of your selves? How? You really found all of them and you all have the same goal? But everyone I've met… so many people between the two different worlds have so many differences."

Xai Bau kicked a jet of flame to avoid Aang's blast of air and launched himself forward with blasts from his hands pointed behind him. "Not all of us. No, it would have been unrealistic to hope for as much. Some disagreed. Some are no longer even alive, like the one from your new world. He died as a child."

Aang pulled water from the beach to douse Xai Bau's flames and throw off his footing, but as he wove the tides under his feet Xai Bau leapt high and brought his attacks in for close combat. Aang stood his ground with earth. "What do you mean? My new world? So are you from someplace different?"

"I am," said Xai Bau, his forearm clashing against Aang's. "Perhaps it was enlightenment, or my destiny, or even just chance – but upon meditating underneath the Great Banyan, the link that tethers all worlds together, I found a way to travel to another world, body and soul. I thought I'd been given another chance, stranded somewhere to live out the rest of my days, but I realized it was a brand new opportunity. To have a new life where all I thought had been lost could be returned to me. To prevent all other worlds from being devastated by war and famine and disease like mine had been."

Aang stepped away from Xai Bau and lowered his stance. He never would have thought anyone else could have shared an experience like his. "Who was it, in your world?" he asked. "What made things different there? Who was the cause of that war?"

Xai Bau finally stood still, his face darkening. "Does it matter? All four nations destroyed themselves and each other. Four nations became six, and eventually ten. And then it dwindled down to a single nation that finally conquered all the others, uniting them all under one name in greed and a dominion they touted as 'unending,' but even that didn't last long. All of this continued until there was nothing left. I thought people would finally see the errors of their ways when the nations were no more, when anarchy and desperation forced them to fight side by side, but lacking any more enemies they just made more. Continued to find excuses to fight each other. It was reflecting upon that, and meeting Iroh who had fully merged with himself from a different world, that I realized my dreams of a united world could be a reality only if I guided them."

"But what you're doing - letting the worlds get so destabilized like this - can release Vaatu from his prison! Don't you know that?"

Xai Bau showed his palms and blue and white fireballs appeared in each one. "He'll be freed one day soon regardless. It is irrelevant. Maybe by then our worlds will be ready for him."

The spirit of Aang's other self appeared, floating above them with a worried look on his face. "Xai Bau, you'd really do such a thing? You'd really make yourself an enemy of everyone else? You don't think the world would unite for the sake of peace? Or even to share knowledge? We've learned that people can put aside differences and conflicts if they put their minds to it!"

"You're an idealist," Xai Bau said to him. "I appreciate that. But it is to the point of naivete. When factoring in the joining of countless worlds, simply 'embracing those differences' wouldn't be enough. Which is why I need to take on the monumental task of being this symbolic enemy to be overcome.

"So here I am," he continued. He flung his arms and pillars of blue and white surrounded Aang on both sides. "In your defeat, Avatar, you'll become a martyr for your world to rally behind. It'll be the first step in uniting the world in a common cause. And you won't be able to stop the merging worlds in time for your next life to be strong enough to do anything about it."

Aang spread his arms and circled the water around him. "But before you said I was going to be the symbol of hope fighting against you?"

"The Avatar State!" Aang's other self said, pulling him from his thoughts and hiding with him in the shield of water. "You'll need it to be powerful enough to beat him like this!"

He could go into it at will now, with so much spiritual energy available to him. But he still couldn't fully control himself. He never would be in control until he chose one world once and for all.

"I don't know what'll happen," Aang admitted. "I don't want to lose control and kill Xai Bau. Not if there's another way, not if I can still reason with him." And he told himself there must be a way, that Xai Bau's sad goal of making himself the enemy of all worlds was altruistic enough that he could still be reasoned with. "Xai Bau, we're both more similar than I ever could have thought. You must have lost so much, too. I know it's tempting to use the other worlds to get your people back, but would they really want you to be their enemy?"

"I will never falter in my conviction," he said, and the glow of white and blue radiating between them cast a shadow on his face that made him look menacing. "This world around us is a recreation of my world, a reminder of the devastation that destroyed it. The only way you'll stop me is if you kill me. Are you prepared to do the same if you ever face Hakoda? Or even have another clash with Ozai?"

Aang didn't have an answer for him. When he spread his arms to dissipate Xai Bau's flames, Xai Bau punched forward again and white fire roared toward him.

Water swept to shore from the rotting sea and made a barrier between Aang and the flames, a hiss of steam rising from the clash. When it cleared, Aang saw Kanna standing between them.

"Found you," she said, holding a waterbending stance. "My, my, you two don't know how difficult it was to navigate the Spirit World in such a way. Aang, didn't we tell you that you wouldn't face him alone?"

Aang smiled, but he couldn't help but be worried for them. "You're right. Sorry."

Iroh stood with her, absorbing Xai Bau's white fire and holding the form of the Dancing Dragon. "He may claim his conviction is absolute," he said. "But so is ours. We fight together - and not because he is our common enemy. Because we share the same beliefs of a world in peace and balance."

A ring of blue and white fire burned around Xai Bau and his gaze hardened as he looked at his three opponents. "If all three of you shall stand against me, so be it."


Suki's gut told her that almost every part of this plan was a bad idea.

Yue's suggestion for breaking out Mai and the others and escaping was already enough to make Suki doubt. Ghashiun's idea to dig out of the bottom of the Aurora Gompa and the mountain it was perched on with earthbending was even worse. Yue's follow up plan to dig from the cellars to the buffalo-yak stables and then steal a toboggan ride, somehow make it around the mountain to its south side, and ride free across the wastelands of the North Pole to Agna Qel'a had so many things that could go wrong that Suki couldn't even begin to list them.

Yet here she was, walking down the hallway between the cellars and storeroom while Yue and Ghashiun dealt with the warriors standing guard over the prisoners. Suki, meanwhile, had the task of retrieving the prisoners' belongings and gathering supplies and foodstuffs that she could sneak from the kitchens. Snagging those supplies and food for their journey in a pack on her back was the easy part.

Suki opened the door to the storeroom to find a trio of guards playing a game of dice. All three looked up when she arrived. Two of them stood, trying their best to look menacing.

"What're you doing here?" one asked. She recognized him as one of the guards whose duty it was to watch the prisoners. He was one of the more thuggish ones, prone to insulting her and Ghashiun just because they had Earth Kingdom blood.

"Acting on the stupid requests of a friend," she said, shrugging. She paused. "What're you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

Her awkward question took him by surprise but then he scowled. "It's not my shift. But I don't have to answer to you! Buzz off!"

Suki smirked at him and cracked her knuckles. "Well it's your unlucky day," she said. "Because you're about to wish it was your shift!"

One of the other warriors scratched his head, taking the wind out of her sails. "Why?"

She couldn't help but cringe at herself. The exchange sounded better in her head… maybe letting out witty one-liners wasn't her strong suit. "Well, 'cause then it would mean I wouldn't have to beat you up." Before they could do more than tilt their heads in confusion, she took out the closest one with a single punch to the face. When the second warrior let out a yell and brandished a jagged knife, she deflected it with her fan and jabbed her elbow into his forearm, pinning it against the table. When he dropped the knife, she pulled his arm and threw him bodily to the floor. Before the third could even stand, she spun around with a kick that knocked his chair backward into a pile of crates.

The second guard got up from the floor and charged at her with a wordless snarl but she leaned into his attack to get within his defenses, making him pass harmlessly behind her, and she swept out her legs to make him trip with his head smacking right into the table. The dice from their game clattered to the floor. "I meant what I said," she told their unconscious forms. "Yue would have gone easy on you guys in comparison."

After making sure Mai's full stash of weapons, Jet's hook swords, and Haru's mallets were stuffed into a sack with their parkas, gloves, mittens, and even a collection of silk scarves for some reason, she hefted it over her shoulder and made her way back to the cellar.

She was proven right when she arrived in the cellar and found two fully conscious guards with gags in their mouths and earthbent to the floor. She didn't have much time to regard them, however - Yue and Ghashiun had let all four prisoners out of their cells, but they seemed in the midst of a tense standoff.

"I'm telling you," Yue implored them. "Aang got us out of the Spirit World. Toph is safe with him."

Jet stood in the lead. "How are we supposed to trust what you say?"

"Do you have any other choice?" Ghashiun asked. He looked just as happy as Suki felt to be in this situation. "Would you rather freeze to death down here, forgotten? We're helping you out of here. My sister is out of the Spirit World, too. Arnook has nothing for me."

Haru leaned against the wall. He looked exhausted, pale with half-lidded eyes. His breathing came out ragged and Ty Lee was at his side helping him stay upright. "I think going with them is a good idea," she said. "We need to get Haru out of here. And maybe to a healer. He's gotten really sick."

Suki supposed it was a good sign that the two who didn't need weapons didn't seem to want to fight them. She stepped forward so they could all see her. "I've got your things," she said. "All your weapons and parkas. Is this enough for you to trust that we're helping you out of here?"

Mai locked eyes with her. She, too, looked sickly and exhausted, but she stood as straight as ever. "What if we don't want to leave here?" she asked. "Where is Arnook?"

"What do you want with my father?" Yue asked. "Weren't you here to go to the spirit portal?"

Suki saw a fire in Mai's eyes and somehow she knew what the other warrior intended. "If you intend to stop him, I wouldn't recommend it now. He's within the prayer mound in the courtyard, the most fortified part of the monastery. And you won't get far with a sick friend. We all need to get out of here and regroup, find out what exactly he's planning."

Mai looked at the sack of their belongings and a knife appeared in her hand - one Suki didn't know she still had. She would have scowled in any other situation. "Give me my weapons. Jet, you need to get everyone else out of here."

Jet rounded on her. "Mai, are you kidding? You really think you can go do that alone?"

"Calm down," she said, her answer flat. "Just go. I'll make sure they're focused on me so you can all escape. I wouldn't finish the mission without my team or whatever."

Ty Lee smiled at her. "Be safe, Mai! We'll meet you out there!"

Suki dropped the sack of their belongings, her arms crossed. Some kind of understanding passed between her and Mai as she stocked herself up on all of her daggers, throwing stars, wrist and ankle holsters, darts, and needles. Once she finished draping her fur-lined cloak around her shoulders and pulled up her hood, she vanished up the steps before the others finished dressing for the cold.

Yue looked in Mai's direction with something like worry but Suki wasn't sure if it was for Mai or for her father. She pointed at a section of the wall in the back of what was Ty Lee's cell. "If you dig through this wall we can eventually get to an old tunnel that will lead to a crevice in the side of the mountain. It was a tunnel that the waterbenders here once used to descend into the spirit portal forest down in the valley."

"And that path will lead to the buffalo-yak stables, right?" Ghashiun asked, taking a stance. Haru pushed himself off of the wall to help but Ghashiun shook his head. "You need to conserve your strength. I'll handle this."

As Ghashiun worked at carving them a path through the depths of the monastery, Suki couldn't help but feel tense. They moved slower than she wanted to, deeper and further through the inside of the mountain than she expected it to be. When they rounded a bend and the torchlight from the cellars diminished, Suki lit a torch from her pack.

"I still don't understand why an earthbender threw his lot in with the Water Tribes," said Jet. He did not put down his swords ever since Suki gave them back to him. "And now I wonder why you had a sudden change of heart."

"You don't know our histories," Suki shot at him. She didn't know why she felt the need to stand up for Ghashiun. "Or what paths our lives took to bring us here. What parts we can't help. But me, personally? I trust Yue. And I trust my gut, which tells me the high chief is up to something fishy."

Yue looked down at her feet as they walked. "And I've had my eyes opened to the true dangers of this war. I always thought it was my duty to serve my people no matter what, to end this war and bring peace on the emperor's terms, but they're wrong."

Ghashiun said nothing, and neither did Jet, but when a section of the stone fell away and the light of the moon just starting to wane came into the tunnel, all of them looked out over the vista below. They found themselves on a narrow pass, one side leading down into the verdant valley where the spirit portal rested and the other leading up to the buffalo-yak stables. Ghashiun sealed the tunnel behind him and they all filed out onto the path, so narrow that two could barely walk side by side.

Nestled between snow-capped mountains, the green valley made a sharp contrast to the night sky above. Something like a pale imitation of the sun, much smaller and casting little light, drifted across it. Constellations moved - the fire ferret's tail wiggled as it readied to pounce, the fisher cast his line, and the courtesan's fan spun in a dazzling display. But other than that, the sky looked almost natural.

"I've come to learn some things myself," Jet said, once they turned from the view and started their hike up the trail. He took the lead with Ghashiun. "I met someone who made a choice to do evil things. And… he paid for them, I think. It had nothing to do with his blood or who I thought he was."

"Some choices come easy," said Ghashiun, focused on the path ahead. "I've made some choices I'm not proud of, but many I don't regret."

"Where does this one fall?" Haru asked him after coughing. Ty Lee continued to support him on their hurried walk. "The one to help us?"

Ghashiun looked as if he was about to answer, but they rounded a bend and the path widened and leveled out. It split into a fork - one side ascended to the monastery proper while the other continued on a path that rounded around the side of the mountain. Their escape route. Here, they found the buffalo-yak stables nestled among some snowdrifts, but they also found it full of both stablehands and warriors. There was a sense of urgency here, with buffalo-yaks getting saddled by men with spears and bows readied.

"Princess Yue!" shouted one of the men, rushing over to them as soon as they saw her. "You need to come inside, it was discovered that the prisoners escaped!"

"Stand down," she said. "I have things under control. We are returning to Agna Qel'a."

The man's eyes passed over the company she kept, and then narrowed in recognition. Before he let out a shout or attacked, Jet rushed forward and hooked him by the ankles, flipping him heels over head. Ghashiun raised an earthen wall before they could be peppered with arrows but both Suki and Ty Lee emerged from behind it to go on the attack.

Even despite her heavy pink parka stuffed into a round shape with many layers underneath, Ty Lee moved as swiftly as she always did, cartwheeling through the ranks of the closest warriors and heading toward the waterbenders and archers nearer to the stables. Suki made her way there just a little slower, disarming warriors and slicing with her fans. When an archer aimed his bow at her, she snapped her fan shut and hurled it with all her strength, nailing him in the head with a heavy thwunk and unsheathing her blade and collapsible shield. She advanced toward the fallen archer to retrieve her fan while Yue covered her back, cutting cleanly through spears.

Jet took down the last two warriors on his own while Ghashiun pinned any of the still conscious ones to the ground with his earthbending. Haru stumbled forward as soon as the battle ended, but Jet pulled Haru's arm over his shoulder. "C'mon, soldier," he said, urging him on. "Still got a ways to go."

"I'm no good with the cold," Haru mumbled as Suki and Ty Lee gathered three buffalo-yaks. There was no time to hitch toboggans to them. Their steeds shuffled on their hooves nervously but consented to letting them ride in pairs. Suki was thankful that they had already been saddled and wondered how much of a ruckus Mai had been causing in the monastery. She had the mental image of all the warriors in a panic about an unseen, ghostly assailant picking them off one by one and she smirked.

Ghashiun jumped on the mount with Suki while Jet looked after Haru and Ty Lee and Yue rode together. This time, Yue and Ty Lee took the lead. Ravens perched on top of the stables, watching them.

"We must continue down this pass," said Yue. "Be careful, everyone. It's perilous at night even at the best of times."

Any attempt at going slow and steady was stopped in its tracks when they heard shouting coming from the path to the monastery. Reinforcements had arrived, and to make matters worse Suki recognized one of them: Hahn.

"Ooh, I hate that guy!" Ty Lee exclaimed as their buffalo-yaks galloped ahead. "Ghashiun, please tell me he's not actually a friend of yours."

"No way," he responded. "I can't stand him. Huge jerk."

"Well, he's not that bad," said Yue. "He can actually be kind of sweet sometimes. Before Sokka was decided as my betrothed when we were young, there were even talks that…"

"Yue," said Suki, cutting her friend off. "I don't mean this to be rude, but he only acts that way to you because you're the princess. Hahn is a major – "

"Oh," said Yue, blushing in embarrassment before she could finish. "I see."

"From one princess to another, I know the feeling," Ty Lee said, giving her a placating pat on the back.

Braziers lit their path under the mountain's shadow, lining the edge of the mountain pass and acting as their only guide to avoid the sheer drop into the valley below. Hoofbeats pounded on the stone behind them, their pursuers gaining ground fast. At the speed they were going, if they slipped on one unseen patch of ice…

"The coals," Haru choked out in a rasp. "Use the coals."

Catching his meaning, Suki tugged on the reins just enough to pull her buffalo-yak just behind the others. At her back, she felt Ghashiun raise his arms and pull them down, tearing down the braziers and spilling their flaming coals across the path behind them. The panicked shouts she heard from their pursuers told her that it worked, but she knew it would only slow them down. Ghashiun's arms continued to flap behind her as he toppled each flaming brazier they passed.

Suki was starting to think they would actually be in the clear until a row of warriors with spears raised acted as a blockade across the path. All three buffalo-yaks ground to a halt just as a duo of archers behind the warriors raised their bows. She knew Ghashiun wouldn't be able to raise a wall high enough in time and all she could do was raise her shield.

She heard something whistle through the air and unseen strikes took out both archers and Yue used the reach of her katana to slice at the spearmen from the back of her buffalo-yak while they were distracted. Ty Lee, Jet, and Ghashiun all dismounted at the same time and knocked them off the path, sending them tumbling down the steep slope and into the wooded valley. Ghashiun covered their backs before they could get trapped in a pincer attack by extending the wall across the path, cutting it off from their pursuers.

Mai appeared from the shadows of the braziers ahead. She looked out of breath but otherwise unharmed. "The way ahead is blocked," she said, only offering token resistance to Ty Lee's hug of joy. "Arnook's First Spears have mobilized. We won't be able to go out that way, they're waiting to ambush us."

"So what do we do?" Jet asked. "We're trapped!"

She gestured to where the warriors had just fallen. "We have no choice but to go down into the valley."

"But we'll be trapped down there too," said Yue. "The only way in and out of the valley, aside from scaling the mountains ourselves, is through the pass coming up into the Aurora Gompa. And we don't have equipment to climb mountains like these. All that's down there is the spirit portal and the ocean out past it."

"We'll figure something out," Mai answered. "We don't have time."

"How will we get down there?" Suki asked. "Like Yue said, we don't have any climbing equipment to make our way down."

She fixed her piercing gaze on Ghashiun. "Do you have rope? I remember that trick you did with the rope and your sandbags when you captured us. With your earthbending you'll be able to anchor it to one of the trees down there and we'll use that to cross safely down into the valley."

"I have rope," said Suki, shuffling through her pack. She wasn't sure how much she liked Mai's plan but they had no other options. "And lots of it."

When she handed the coil of rope to Ghashiun, he started tying one of his sandbags around the end of it. He let go of the rope and let the sandbag hover experimentally. "Don't know how secure this will be, or if we'll make it down fast enough. My wall won't hold them back forever," he said. He hurled the sandbag out to the sea of green and gestured while it was still in midair, aiming it to the tallest tree within reach of the rope. Suki couldn't see that far in the dark, but she thought she saw it coil successfully around the branches. Ghashiun anchored his end of the rope into the ground.

"I'm not sure I like this idea," said Haru. "No offense, but how do we know if it's secure?"

"I'll go down there and make sure it is," said Ty Lee. "I'm not afraid of heights."

"How're we gonna climb down?" Suki asked. "Just go hand over hand? Maybe we can tie more rope into a loop and slide down."

"Too much friction," said Mai. "It won't work. We need something soft or smooth."

Ty Lee clapped her hands. "Oh! My scarves! Suki, please, please, please tell me you packed them in our stuff."

She furrowed her brow. "I think I saw them. I wondered why you guys brought flimsy silk scarves to the North Pole. They won't keep you warm."

"I know, but an Earth Kingdom tailor was selling them and I bought them to commemorate my first trip outside the Fire Nation," she said, pulling them out of the sack and unveiling them. "Look how pretty they are! Here's one in pink, and one in green, and one in turquoise, and…"

"We need to hurry," said Yue as they heard more hoofbeats thundering down the path ahead. Apparently the First Spears tired of waiting for them to march right into their ambush. "That'll have to do."

Ty Lee nodded and handed her scarves to Mai, and without another word she stepped out onto the rope as if walking across the sky. She ran all the way across without faltering once, surprising even Suki and Ghashiun, and a few moments later she tugged at the rope to indicate it was safe to cross.

"There are only four scarves and six of us left," said Yue, frowning. "And I'm worried about Haru…"

"I don't need one of those," said Jet, and he leapt right off of the cliffside. Catching the rope with his hook swords, he slid down as effortlessly as Ty Lee and crowed in something like exhiliration the entire way.

"If we had more rope we could put out another line and make a kind of sling to carry Haru across," Mai said. "Sort of like a little gondola."

"There's no time for that," said Suki. "Yue, your turn!"

"Right!" she said, nodding and sitting on the ground by the rope. Wrapping the silk scarf around her wrists, she grasped it and shut her eyes, kicking off from the ledge without a peep escaping from her lips. She slid much slower than Jet did, but it worked.

"No way I'm doing that," said Ghashiun. "I'll climb down with my earthbending." He put a hand on Haru's shoulder, however briefly, and disappeared over the edge. He climbed down almost like a canyon crawler.

"Can I do that too?" Haru asked, gulping as he looked across the gap. "I'm strong enough."

"Even if you could climb without falling you won't be fast enough in your condition," said Mai. "Do you have enough strength to hold onto the scarf?"

He stared at the green scarf in his hands. His face looked nearly as green. "I do. I'm not happy about it, but I can do it."

Mai nodded and exchanged a glance with Suki before following after Yue, trusting her to take up the rear. Men shouted from behind the wall Ghashiun had made. Any minute now they'd bring explosives and blast their way through.

"Go on!" Suki urged him. "I'll follow!"

Haru took a deep breath and went for the plunge, but even from the way he kicked off of the ledge Suki knew he didn't propel himself fast enough. He slid down the rope slower than everyone before him before stopping completely somewhere halfway. Suki scowled and was prepared to slide down after him and push him the rest of the way, not knowing how long his strength would hold, but then the arrows started flying toward the stationary target.

She heard him yelp with what she could only hope was fear, but whether it was because his strength gave out or an arrow struck him he let go of the scarf and plummeted to the ground below.


The air burned with the force of Xai Bau's assault, relentless and consuming, as Aang, Iroh, and Kanna combined their strength in an attempt to match his. A conflagration of white screamed toward Iroh, who tried to dissipate it with his hands, but it knocked him off his feet. Kanna reached for the water in the dying sea but the tides swept back as if it began to dry up, and Aang summoned a wall of earth to protect her when she suddenly found herself defenseless.

"Don't you see the joys of a combined world, Iroh?" Xai Bau asked, pumping his fists. Kanna had found more water and used it to defend Iroh from his assault, and when Iroh found his feet again he unleashed a breath of fire. "You, who have died in another world to be reborn in this one?"

"I won't deny that this world has returned a great many things to me," Iroh responded. "My son and my own life, most of all. But also even a relationship with my brother and my niece. I never thought I could be so fortunate."

"Then why do you fight me?"

Orange flames circled around Iroh and converged on Xai Bau, but the Sun Warrior's flames, backed with the power of his countless other selves, devoured his. Afterimages of Xai Bau moved behind him, moved separately from him, multiple arms with multiple firebending forms. His main attack roared toward Aang but faded echoes launched toward Iroh and Kanna, too.

"You are no different from any other tyrant," Iroh said. "You seek power like all others to stand above them. But I have become part of this new world, living amongst them instead of separate and above."

Kanna's water sizzled away under the force of Xai Bau's attacks. Aang saw another old woman materialize behind her wearing a blue parka. Gran-Gran. Both Kannas spoke. "You fight against the flow of destiny," they said together. Only the physical Kanna continued. "You are like a child throwing a tantrum, rebelling against the destiny decided for you to force its flow into the path you want. It is one thing to have a choice and make it, but another to deny them altogether."

The sea behind her brightened, the currents quickening again. Waves crashed against the shore and washed away the carcasses on the beach. Kanna called forth the waves and doused Xai Bau's flames.

Aang had been warding off Xai Bau's attacks, but when he saw the ocean change he gasped. Iroh took advantage of the distraction and slammed into Xai Bau with his bulk, knocking the other man away from Aang. Above them all, the sky began to clear, a beam of sunlight shining down on them.

"What's happening?" Aang asked, looking around. The signs of devastation from Xai Bau's world had started to fade away.

"The Spirit World is an immaterial place influenced by the emotions of its inhabitants," Iroh said. "Xai Bau thought only of how his world had fallen to ruin, so that is what appeared around him. But Kanna and I reject it."

Aang kept his eyes on Xai Bau. "But what about me? What does that say about me, and the ruined world I come from?"

Kanna stepped to his side. "Instead of answering, let me ask you this - are you someone who will dwell on the past forevermore, or will you fight to save your future?"

Xai Bau stood again, calling forth even greater flames than before. "I'll destroy all three of you. I'll destroy all who stand against me. I will fight to unite this world, and all worlds!"

"To destroy it or unite it?" Aang asked him. That contradiction again. And then he knew how he would stop Xai Bau once and for all. Ozai's words rang in his head: in the Spirit World, the Avatar was at their most powerful.

I can't control the Avatar State yet, he thought. I was able to go into it before when I wanted to, back when I first went through the spirit portal, but…

"We are with you," said Roku's voice.

"Let us help, just this once," said Kuruk.

Then he heard Raava. "You are never alone."

Fire and dust circled him, and when it faded, his eyes were radiant. And he stood tall as Avatar Roku. Xai Bau raged with white fire, but when the pillars rushed toward Roku he slammed his hand down and parted the ground beneath them. Lava gushed out, a torrent of flame falling from the heavens to consume the Sun Warrior's bright fire. Xai Bau hovered above the lava, preparing his counterattack, but Aang put his hands around his mouth.

He was Kyoshi. Winds spiraled out from between her hands, spreading Xai Bau's blue and white in a funnel. When the flames cleared, they stood in a bamboo forest clearing, the earth rising up to meet Xai Bau. He bounced between the pillars of stone, kicking off of them, focused on assaulting Aang with a drilling kick of blue fire.

He was Kuruk. All four combatants stood on icebergs floating in a vibrant ocean, and a tidal wave rose up to meet Xai Bau's offense. He fell among the currents, his white fire sputtering, but a spinning spout of wind buffeted him and pulled him out of the water. He dangled, helpless, until Xai Bau righted himself with bursts of orange fire from his fists, and he propelled himself toward Aang with his feet, fist pulled back to punch…

He was Yangchen. A golden field formed on the ice, spreading life to the devastated plains of Xai Bau's world. She was behind Xai Bau in a flash, and when she spun she knocked him off balance, a hurricane of wind and water flattening him to the earth. Still, he persisted even with flowers blooming under his feet, yellow and pink and periwinkle and crimson; the colors of the night and the stars, the blue of a glacier, the amber of a firebender's eyes.

He was Szeto. He was Salai. He was Hinan. He was countless others, and he was Wan. With each change, their environment changed around them, finally stopping on the primordial chaos that might have been the Spirit World's true form. Aang stood on a precipice of stone over a sea of endless night, of stars and gaseous shapes in all the same colors as the flowers that had previously bloomed. He stood with Iroh and Kanna as if in a dream, staring over the abyss with Xai Bau sitting just at the edge of the precipice.

Far below them, Aang saw the Banyan Tree. The Tree of Time. One tree the other's roots, like an hourglass.

Xai Bau glared with hatred. "What makes you think you've won?"

"You haven't united with all of your other selves like you think," Aang said, kneeling down to face him. "They all cry out with their own wants, their own needs. Some of them might want the same things you do, but not all of them. Some want to destroy, others want peace. Some want to kill me and some want me to be the champion of all humans and spirits. You're at war with yourself."

Iroh looked at Xai Bau almost as if he mourned. "Perhaps we can work toward your vision one day," he said. "And you can help us achieve it."

Xai Bau closed his eyes as if he mourned the possibility too, all vitriol gone. "How can I achieve peace without the absolute conviction to fight for it? Why don't my other selves see the path lit before me?" He looked back at Aang. "My world achieved greatness at one time, you know. A wonderful world. A world of constant innovation and the free exchange of ideas. A history free of war and pain, so different from any other world out there. Humanity lived in harmony with the spirits, not warring with such petty squabbles as you do now. The Avatar was a guide, a mentor, a bridge. All I ever wanted was to bring that greatness back."

"It couldn't last forever," said Kanna. "Despite how much you wish for it to."

"Nothing does," said Xai Bau. "But I thought it could be reborn. Remember this, Avatar Aang. Remember my words. Remember the devastation you saw, the world I fought for." He stood. "My world teetered on the edge of a precipice just like this one, but in that world the White Lotus just watched it happen. They were so fixated on tradition, on their past, that they could not see what needed to be done. But I will keep fighting. I will never lose sight of my future or forget the past that brought me here."

Aang held out his hand to Xai Bau. "Like Iroh said, let us fight together for that future."

The Sun Warrior stepped back and Aang lunged forward with a start, but Xai Bau held up a hand to stop him. "I'll do it my way. Without the Avatar or your passive ancient traditions. Wherever I end up… I will stain those petals with blood. I'll make them see that their future is the Red Lotus instead."

He stepped backward again and fell into the abyss, a smile on his face. Aang almost jumped after him, almost disappeared with him into the endless night, but Iroh held him back. Xai Bau fell in silence, drifting away toward the Great Banyan tree, a tiny speck disappearing into the spine between all the worlds.

"I don't think you would ever come back from that," said Kanna, shaking her head. "If you followed him, you would be lost forever."

"With Xai Bau gone, the world will not yet stabilize," said Iroh. "But it won't get any worse, either."

Aang watched him fade away. "He'll find his way to another world," he said. "And maybe there it is the destiny of another me to defeat him."

Aang's other self appeared at his side again. "I'll never forget his words," he said. "I know he didn't want us to forget them. Maybe it's a bad thing to give him what he wants, but…"

"I know," Aang said, once the boy struggled to find the words for what he wanted to say. "They're memories he needed to share. I just hoped we helped him somehow, if even a little bit."

"Let us return to the Laogai prison," Kanna said after a moment. "It's time for us to leave the Spirit World."


"I'm sorry, High Chief Arnook. We failed you."

Hahn knelt before him, head bowed low. The boy quivered with shame and anger, for what First Spear let his quarry escape him so many times? Arnook took his ceremonial staff from the wall, glancing at the sigils painted onto its head. Carved mostly from the whitewood of a sacred tree, it resembled bleached bone. Cloth stretched over the top like a drum, and it was upon this cloth that the sigils had been painted, today a raven wing in flight. The sigils always changed and it was his calling to decipher them each day. Messages from the Nightseer. His hand brushed against the top of it, feeling the soft down of a raven's feathers under his fingertips.

"You won't fail me again," he said. For if he did, it would have ended in the boy's death. And Arnook could see Hahn's death. It was a long time from now, and involved water. Likely drowning. "My daughter needs to be found before the next new moon."

"They were maniacs," Hahn said. "They jumped right off the mountainside! But there's no way outta that valley. We'll chase them all the way to the ocean on the other end."

"See that you do," Arnook replied. "The Nightseer's awakening is nigh, and we cannot let it happen without her safety assured, here in our sanctuary."


Without Xai Bau's influence, the dark spirits of Fang, Dart, and Hei Bai were easily pacified when Aang used water-spiritbending on them. After seeing them all off, he helped Toph and Bumi fix the outside of the prison. Once Toph, Iroh, and Kanna headed back inside, Aang checked over his surroundings one last time.

That was when he saw Ozai among the seaweed forest.

Not the one from this world. He was the Phoenix King, resplendent in his golden armor. The man who burned his world to ash and smoke, who brought Aang face to face with death and destruction during the Comet. Aang had never faced him since. The sight stopped him. The seaweed forest withered, the grass blackening under his feet.

The Phoenix King noticed the change. He turned to find the source of it, his movement as slow as heavy heartbeats, and when his eyes found Aang he drew his head back and laughed. He didn't need words, didn't need to attack or taunt him to bring Aang right back to the events of that day. Aang's blood rushed in his ears as an image of the Comet soared by overhead, the sky burning as it did over Xai Bau's world.

A broadsword emerged from the Phoenix King's chest and he vanished in a blink. Ozai, the soldier of this world, stood behind him, his limbs shaking as he held the sword aloft. Once the specter vanished his strength seemed to disappear with it, as did its hold over Aang, so he rushed to Ozai's side, checking for wounds as Ozai crumpled to the ground. On the outside, he seemed unharmed.

The man's strength seemed to come back all at once and he grasped at Aang's arm. "If that demon ever takes control…" His voice came out in a rasp, low and desperate and trembling. "I need you to kill me. Promise me that."

Aang wanted to sound angry but he knew he just sounded afraid. "I told you not to go outside."

Ozai gripped him harder with enough strength to hurt. "Give me your word!"

Aang pulled away and stood up straight. The sky returned to what served as normal in the Spirit World. "You need to get inside the prison. Now, before any more spirits come."

Ozai said nothing, but managed to stand as well. Looking past Aang, he walked back toward the prison. Once he left, Aang unsheathed the sword that Ozai once gave him, staring into the red gem at its pommel. That encounter was another reminder of its own - that the Phoenix King waited for him at the end of his journey, that he couldn't stop fighting no matter what. With Xai Bau defeated, he still had his two greatest foes ahead of him. But before he could face Ozai, he had to defeat Hakoda first.

A chill descended on the ashes of the seaweed forest and for a moment Aang thought Hakoda had somehow come as well - he wouldn't put the possibility aside after everything that had happened - but instead a woman appeared before him. He recognized her as Sedna the ice spirit when he saw her eyepatch.

"What are you doing here?" Aang asked her, frowning.

"With the world in disarray, it is easy for me to appear in the Spirit World or the mortal world," she answered. The iron rings at the ends of her braids tapped against each other, chiming like icicles. The reminder of their agreement went unspoken, but he knew she thought of it like he did. That deal hung heavy between them. "As it is for all spirits now. But I have come to guide you out of here. Your battle with Hakoda looms ever closer."

Aang leapt into the prison through the hole that Hei Bai initially made, and when he passed into the sanctuary of the material world, the air felt warmer. "Out of the Spirit World?"

"Yes," she said. "And to your friends. They are some ways away from Aniak'to. From here until the day you invade, I promise you clear weather. No blizzards will impede your progress as you march upon the city."

Aang nodded, his expression grim as he sealed off the last hole in the prison with his earthbending. "Thank you."

He sat in meditation as she vanished back into the Spirit World, closing his eyes as he envisioned their navigation across the flooded bridge again. Back to the mortal world. It was easier this time.

The prison made no visual impact when it appeared back in the mortal world, becoming part of the landscape when it manifested under the earth and snow. Even here, in the South Pole, it would be their secret base. He ascended to the outside world and like everyone else was eager to put their perilous journey into the Spirit World behind them. Aang climbed up the ladder ahead of Toph and Nagi, opening the earthen lid that once concealed one of the entrances under the lake.

Sunlight flooded in. Wind brushed against the layer of powdery snow on top of the ice. He squinted against the light and crisp air, looking out over the vast expanse, the distant mountains, and the otter-penguins sliding across the ice. A rocky outcropping jutted from the ground not far from the Laogai prison, an igloo sheltering underneath it from the wind.

Figures emerged from the igloo, perhaps to investigate the disturbance of the prison appearing beneath the snow and earth. Three people, first - two with weapons drawn - and his heart swelled when he recognized Sokka, Zuko, and Sangmu even from this distance. Aang jumped straight up and made his way toward them with a laugh and a dance in his footsteps.

A fourth figure emerged from the igloo, one that nearly made Aang stop in his tracks. It didn't feel real to see her again after so long, and he had seen her so briefly in Water Tribe clothes that he almost didn't recognize her in them. But she was unmistakably Azula.

He didn't even notice that he had started moving again. They met in the middle between the igloo and the prison. His hands found hers. He'd never known her to be so warm.

She spoke first. "Are… are you real?"

"I think so," he said, and then he couldn't help but chuckle. He'd been about to ask her the same thing.

Azula looked down at their joined hands and he thought back to that night under the plum blossom tree when she had confessed everything to him. The pain that was in her eyes that night was written all over her face again. "Aang, I… I'm so sorry. For everything that's happened, and…"

"That doesn't matter," he said, catching her gaze again. Her words trailed off. "I'm sorry for waiting so long to tell you that I love you, too."

Her mouth parted in surprise, and Aang closed the little bit of distance left between them by pressing his lips to hers. When her arms wrapped around his shoulders, Aang fell into the kiss and didn't want to trade it for the world.


Author's Notes: Had the realization while writing this chapter that Suki, Haru, Mai, and Ty Lee are all coincidentally involved in prison breaks in canon and Jet dies in a prison. Totally happenstance that they were working together on a prison break here with Yue and Ghashiun, but that was fun to realize.

Next chapter: Spirit Lights. Please review!