Last time with Aang: After forging peace between the people of Si Wong City and Ba Sing Se - and most importantly, Wan Shi Tong - Aang gets the idea to transport the entire invasion force through the Spirit World. But in the midst of that travel, he encounters Xai Bau and battles against the power of all of his selves from all different worlds. After defeating Xai Bau and emerging from the Spirit World into the South Pole, Aang finally reunites with Azula.

Last time in the North Pole: Yue arrives at the Aurora Gompa, the monastery near the Northern Spirit Portal where Mai and the others have been imprisoned by Arnook's forces. After learning about her father's plans with the Nightseer, Yue resolves to get the help of Suki and Ghashiun in freeing the others. As they make their prison break, they get separated as they fall into the forested valley below, fleeing from Arnook's warriors.

Book 3: Water

Chapter 19: Spirit Lights

"All right, team. Strategy time."

Aang and his friends sat in a circle around Sokka once he called for them all to gather together. No one looked particularly happy to leave the eaves of shade around Zuko's family home and come to open courtyard, but Sokka had set up a poorly drawn diagram in the center where he outlined his plan. It was a scorching day on Ember Island and it made Aang anxious about the arrival of Sozin's Comet. He wondered if that day would feel like this, too.

After everyone settled, Suki was the one to speak first. "Okay, to recap everyone: Sokka's idea to ask his master for help worked out for us," she said. "When we went to see Piandao, we told him everything about our situation, and how we were short on allies. And he told us that we're not alone. A secret army is mobilizing near Ba Sing Se and they are dedicated to helping us."

Sokka took a moment to look around at all of them, the general sending his troops into war. "Here's what else we learned. It was publicly announced that Azula is going to be crowned the next Fire Lord… while Ozai is giving himself some fancy new title no one knows yet. Apparently it's going to happen after the Comet comes."

Zuko looked grim. "The mark of his glory over the Earth Kingdom. He's going to burn it all to ashes. Some father-daughter bonding time, I guess." The last part came out sardonic.

"It'll be in our best interest to go see this secret army," said Sokka. "We'll have to find out what they know. Where the attack is going to begin. Maybe a way to counter those giant airships they unveiled during the Day of Black Sun."

Toph leaned back on her hands. "If those big ships are made of metal, I'll clip their wings before they can even fly."

Katara looked to Haru, who sat next to her. "How's your metalbending training coming along?"

Haru shuffled and scratched his head, looking uncomfortable. "Not… great."

"It needs work," Toph said, blunt as ever. "But he'll manage. He can help."

Sokka continued. "Katara and Zuko, you two will need to be the ones who take down Azula. Suki and I will handle Mai and Ty Lee, who are bound to be near. On the bright side, we'll all be close to each other if anything happens." Zuko, Katara, and Suki all exchanged glances and nodded.

"What about the Duke and I?" Teo asked. "What should we do to help?"

Sokka grinned. "You'll be artillery support! You've both got tons of experience with blasting jelly and explosive powder. We'll stock up Appa and you'll be flying above the battlefield, wherever that'll be. Once we meet with this secret army we'll get more details, but I want everyone to be prepared in case we end up getting separated - know who your enemy is, and what the plan will be. I think that'll play best to everyone's strengths."

Aang took a deep breath. "All that leaves is me. And Ozai."

Unseen by his friends, his copy appeared at his side. Blue, like a spirit. "By this point, you already tried to contact your past lives, didn't you?" he said aloud. "You sought their wisdom… and you couldn't reach them."

"Yeah," Aang answered, lowering his head. "I didn't know what to do. I still couldn't go into the Avatar State. I was on my own."


Aang and Azula sat with each other under a fractured night sky, huddled together in their parkas with a blanket draped over their shoulders while they wrapped their mittened hands around mugs of piping hot tea. Light winds whispered over the barren snowfields as they sat on an outcropping of rock, the Laogai camp below. But neither of them looked at the snow-covered, subterranean camp below them, at the emptiness stretching on forever. The world below, the invasion planning - all that could wait.

Instead, they looked at the spirit lights dancing in the sky, and they talked.

The beauty and majesty of the Spirit World was on full display tonight. Emerald flared in starlit paths as the auroras blazed, but apparently the influence of the Spirit World itself against the sky made it even more fantastic - a rosy gold intertwined with the green, or sometimes orange like the color of the sky during a sunset, even a brilliant indigo. It was like the spirits put on a fireworks show. Aang wanted to call it skyfire.

Aang told her about their journey after she had left. He knew Azula heard some of the details from Zuko and Sokka already, but he wanted to tell her everything himself. To let her know he bore her no animosity for leaving them on Peach Petal Island. He spoke about Sokka's mother and Sedna, his journey into the Spirit World, reuniting with Toph, battling Koh, meeting the Mother of Faces. He recounted what he learned of Vaatu and the Foggy Swamp, and the adventure in the Si Wong Desert, and finally making amends with Wan Shi Tong.

She mostly listened, content with letting him speak as they watched the sky and all its wonders, occasionally stealing a glance at each other's eyes. Azula seemed hesitant, almost shy, and when he finished his account and caught up to returning to the South Pole they fell into silence. It wasn't a heavy silence, or an uncomfortable one - all of their troubles seemed so far away with the spectacle above them.

"There's something I want to give you," Aang said, fishing inside of his parka. "I've been holding onto it for a while. I know you're not really one for jewelry, but…" He held up the plum blossom pendant. He was almost ashamed of how the pink salt crystal looked so dull in comparison to the sky above, and briefly wished he could perform some grand gesture like give her the lights instead. Especially once she looked away from it and directed her eyes back to the dancing spirits, her gaze expressionless. His heart dropped.

"I don't deserve that, Aang," she said after a moment. "I've been able to indulge myself tonight. Lie to myself and finally live in a fantasy I've wanted for so long… but this can never be."

He forgot all about the fractured sky above them. Now it was only snow and cold. "Why?"

"The fact that you have to go home is one thing, but…" Azula folded her hands under her legs and stared down at her knees, her empty mug forgotten in the snow. "I've done terrible things," she said. There was a weight to her voice that he had never heard before. "Some that were mistakes, some that were on purpose. I told myself that everything I did was to protect you and everyone else from danger. It was arrogance. I could barely protect myself."

The pendant on its leather cord pooled in Aang's lap and he frowned. "That was all Fire Lord Azula's doing… wasn't it?"

"Some," she admitted. "It would be easy to say it was all her. I plotted to kill Hakoda with my own hands. I told him about the invasion. Told him when it was coming."

Aang shook his head. "That doesn't matter anymore. He'll be looking for us in the seas. There's no way he'd know we're already here…"

"I killed two men." She said it without moving, without looking at him. "I think I killed Katara, Aang. You should hate me."

Aang's breath stopped.

"I lost control," Azula went on. Her hands came out from under her legs and she stared at them. "Those two men were monsters leading one of the clans. I justified what I had done by telling myself I did it to save myself and others. Even now, I don't regret that part. But Katara… She wanted to kill me, but I knew. I knew the Fire Lord hated her. Part of me did, too. Deep down." Her words became more hurried the more she poured them out. "I shot her in the back. I should have just let her go, let her and Hakoda fight amongst themselves, come what may. I've been such a fool."

Words finally came back to Aang. His first thought that it wasn't the Katara he knew, that it was a different Katara who died, burned at the back of his mind. "There are healers in the city," he said, his gaze falling from her face and its storm of emotions to her mittens. "Some of the best in the world. She might still be alive. It's slim, but I choose to believe. I think… I think part of me would know if she died."

She finally looked at him. "How?" she asked. "After all that, how can you think she's still alive? I've killed and I gave the Fire Lord control even though I thought I could stop her. But I'm just as much of a monster as she is!"

"You're not a monster. You're not her. You're so much better than that."

"Katara was the one who was a symbol of hope for you, wasn't she?" Azula scoffed and looked across the frozen landscape. She sniffled, her eyes glistening. "Now that hope's gone. She's not here."

Aang grabbed her hand. "I'm not just hoping," he said. "I'm choosing to believe. I believe in you. The way you're tearing yourself up over this, saying such horrible things about yourself over what you may have done… I know you've been fighting the Fire Lord all this time. Ever since you first told me about her back in Ba Sing Se. Maybe your lightning wasn't as powerful as usual. Maybe you aimed it somewhere she'd survive, fought her just enough so that she'd miss. Even when the Fire Lord took control, I believe you didn't stop fighting."

"You don't know that. How do you not hate me for what I've done? How badly I messed up?" The look she gave him was pleading, even desperate - as if she wanted him to hate her.

Aang averted his eyes. "I know better than anyone what it's like to make mistakes. I failed an entire world."

He wrapped his arms around her and she twisted to bury her head in his chest. If she truly let the tears fall now, he couldn't see them. "I've been slipping, Aang," she said quietly, so quietly he almost didn't hear. "I'm so tired. I don't know how to fight an enemy like her, without her here in front of me."

He squeezed her tighter. "I know," he said. He ached for her and his eyes burned when his own tears struggled to fall. "I just wish you didn't have to do it alone all this time. You're my partner. I've been fighting her for years… let me help you."

"I've been so afraid she'd make me do something to hurt you. Or Zuko. Even Sokka, or Appa…"

"I won't let that happen," he said. "This might not stop until I go home. I don't know how to fight her, but I'll just have to end this as soon as I can so you can be free of it."

She pulled out of his embrace, slowly sitting up straight again. "So you are choosing to go back to your world after all." She didn't phrase it as a question.

"It's selfish of me to tell you my feelings and then say that I have to go home," he admitted. Now it was his turn to stare at his hands. "Every day this world tempts me with more things to make me stay. But I can't leave my other friends behind in that world, leave them to fight on their own and die. You told me once that I can't save everyone. And maybe that it'll lead to not saving anyone. But I have to try."

"No," she said, wiping her eye. "It's stupid and idealistic and hopeful of you, but it isn't selfish. Those unending heroics are part of the reason I fell in love with you in the first place. I know you have to go home. I wouldn't expect anything else."

His lips quirked into the barest of smiles. "I'm sorry," he said. "Especially for finally admitting my feelings to you now. I don't want to cause you any hurt, but Toph told me to live in the moment and forget about everything else, so I've been trying…"

She put her mitt over his mouth. "Shush," she said, stretching her legs out straight. "I'm glad you told me. Despite everything, I really am. Maybe I'm the one who's selfish to admit this but I wish you would stay. At the same time, if you ever did anything to turn your back on your other world, I'd fight you every step of the way and make you turn around and go right home."

He let out a deep breath, amazed all over again at how strong Azula was. "And I just want to make sure you know… it's not because of Katara," he said. He tilted his head and added onto the declaration. "Either one of them. Some part of me still loves her. Maybe I always will. But I've changed so much. The person I am now wouldn't work with her. Not anymore. And I'm fine with that. The person I love now is you."

She leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder. She sighed. "Leave it to you to mention loving another girl in your heartfelt speech." When he tensed, she laughed; while somewhat restrained, it was still wonderful to hear. "I'm kidding. You don't have to tell me that. I appreciate you clarifying your feelings, but I know she's not the reason why you have to go back." She took the pendant from his hand and held it over her heart. "I will take this, though. Thank you."

"As long as you understand," he said, sighing with relief. "We don't have that much time together, but I intend to make the most of it now."

She joined him in staring back up at the sky. "I do understand," she said. "Live in the moment."


Ty Lee didn't know how many hours they spent in the valley around the spirit portal, hiding among the trees. Clouds of dark shapes fluttered just above the treeline, spirits that made her think of wolfbats and something smaller and darker that might have been Arnook's ravens. She was starting to hate ravens.

It had become a forest of perpetual night.

While they fled from Aurora Gompa, they made their way north. None of them knew what awaited them that way, but it was the only open side of the valley that didn't bring them closer to the monastery where Arnook's men waited. But that far north - past the spirit portal - was so far north that Suki reminded them it was technically south again. Only the stormy seas awaited them that way. But they had no other choice.

The only noise they dared make was Jet's bird calls. Anything else risked drawing spirits or Arnook's men to them. Both kinds of spirits terrified Ty Lee - dark or light, they didn't have any chi points she knew of that she could use to take them down. Human enemies she could deal with. Light spirits wandered these woods like tiny pinpricks of stars, hovering toward them and flashing bright until they formed a horrid thing with blank eyes and spindly legs, sometimes with wings or giant paws like a platypus-bear. Dark spirits at least looked like a corruption of life; light spirits were an affront to everything mortal or natural, sometimes so alien that she couldn't even describe them.

"How are we supposed to find them?" Ty Lee asked, chewing on her fingertips. She felt so tired after their stay in those cold, uncomfortable cellars. They ducked low among a tangle of tree roots as a shadow passed by overhead. A man's voice shouted in the distance, then screamed. Ty Lee had to cover her ears, it sounded so terrible. "I didn't see where Haru fell… I hope Ghashiun finds him." Ghashiun had climbed down the mountain slope instead of riding along the improvised zipline like the rest of them. If they were lucky, he would come across Haru's path.

"We have to trust that they'll find us," said Jet, whistling across the valley again. Ty Lee didn't think that was such a good idea, but they had no other options. She'd seen no other signs of life since they came to the valley, no normal birds to make a call like that. But it was a signal for Haru and Ghashiun to find them.

She hated the idea of leaving Haru behind. Ty Lee had tried to go back for him when he fell, but the arrows flew and spirits swarmed whenever they tried moving even vaguely in his direction. One spirit had already torn a gash in her thick parka. They could only hope that Ghashiun would find him, but she had to wonder if Ghashiun would even go out of his way to help more than he already had. All she could do was hope.

They pushed through the valley. Yue and Mai took the lead. More otherworldly sounds echoed behind them, as if in pursuit. Ty Lee's hood fell as she ran, and she felt something tug on her braid. She thought she'd caught it on a tree branch but when she turned around to look she saw a shining monster with a giant head and tiny hands grasping at her braid, its jagged mouth open wide. She screamed, unable to shake the fear that it was about to eat her.

The ground shook under her feet and a crunch of stone enclosed the grinning light spirit. Its smile didn't falter as it was squeezed between the earth, but it let go of her hair and she scrambled away just as Jet, Yue, Suki, and Mai came back for her.

Ghashiun had found them. Haru's arm was draped around his shoulder and he barely looked like he could stand on his own feet. "We need to keep moving," was all Ghashiun said. Haru's eyes were red and puffy, his breath as ragged as it was back at the monastery. "More spirits are coming."

"More?" Suki asked, gaping. "How'd so many get here?"

Ty Lee let out a breath of relief. "Haru, you're all right!"

Ghashiun glanced at him with something like appreciation. "He softened his fall with earthbending, but it took a lot out of him."

Behind Ghashiun, a light shone. White light in the shape of ethereal swords cut the air, orbiting around a circle of gold at their epicenter like a bobbing lantern. A roughly human figure held the lantern, but it was like someone who forgot what people looked like had designed it - the creature was pearl white and totally featureless, with limbs and a neck that looked like all muscles in them occasionally stopped working. It flailed after them in total silence, the beams of light around the lantern spinning.

Jet yelled and tried to slash at the creature with his swords but its own blades rang like the crash of dissonant wind chimes and swung at his blades with enough force that it knocked him to the side. Ghashiun tried impeding it with earthbending but its lack of joints enabled it to dodge. Suki and Mai attacked it together but it shrugged off Mai's knives and hurled Suki into the trunk of a tree with a single blow from its slim arm. It shuffled straight to Yue, all of its blades moving as one to impale her.

A much larger dark spirit appeared, a hunched creature with a monstrous face like a vengeful, furious theater mask. Its fingers were sharp as claws and it threw itself at the light spirit with an ear splitting shriek. They tumbled in the dirt and more dark, amorphous shapes descended on them from above. Yue stared at the growing mass of spirits, stunned, but Ty Lee gathered her wits and pulled Yue along by the hand. "Come on, we have to keep moving!" she shouted at them all.

As they fled, they formed a protective circle around Ghashiun and Haru. Other monsters with too much hair or too many eyes reached for them through the trees, almost like a caress, while more light spirits blinded them from afar. Bright shapes flapped at them but the shadows converged whenever they got too close, and it didn't take long for Ty Lee to realize that the dark spirits were protecting them for some reason. And all the light spirits seemed to want Yue most of all.

Their environment became barren and cold again all at once. The moment the trees ended, they had reached the other end of the valley. Just as Yue had predicted, only a dark ocean greeted them. Waves crashed against the rocky shore with all the fury of the dark spirits they'd left behind. With how black the sky and the sea both looked, Ty Lee felt like they had reached the end of the world. Even with a ship and a waterbender it wouldn't be fit for sailing.

They were trapped.

"What now?" Suki asked. The gold of her fans looked as if they were the only objects with color out here.

Ty Lee saw shapes far out on the water, too jagged and misshapen to be islands or mountains. Once her eyes accustomed to the dark, she realized they were icebergs. There was nothing out there for them. No life, no salvation.

More monsters howled behind them. In the distance, Ty Lee heard a war horn, too. Maybe the clash of light and dark spirits would hold off Arnook's men, but neither party would be stopped for long. Everyone looked back at the forest except for Ty Lee. She stared across the water. It felt like the ocean would swallow them up.

At first she thought she was imagining it, but the water receded. It didn't look any calmer, but directly in front of them the ocean started to part. Her jaw dropped as a path formed in the waves, water rising and even floating in midair. The path lingered, baring the slate gray rocks hidden underneath.

"What's going on?" Jet asked, hefting his hook swords. "Waterbenders?"

"No," said Yue in a breathless gasp. "I think this is a boon from the spirits. I can feel it."

Something felt strange to Ty Lee. It was something heavy, something important, and she knew with all certainty that they were meant to walk down that path. "I feel it, too," she said. "We have to go down there. It's... not like the dark spirits protecting us back there. It feels different. We're all meant to go this way."

"Those dark spirits were protecting me," Yue said. She looked shaken. "And only me, I think. I suppose it is because of the Nightseer."

"What if the ocean comes back together and drowns us?" Suki asked, hesitant.

"We don't have any other options," said Mai. "Unless you'd prefer to fight off all those spirits and make your way back to the monastery?"

Suki looked like she might have been considering it, but both Ty Lee and Yue led the way into the ocean.


True to Sedna's word, the next morning brought a clear and sunny sky. In order to facilitate the fact that their invasion was a sneak attack, however, the entirety of the force had to remain inside until they were ready to commence the attack. Despite the cavernous halls of Laogai prison - or Camp Crystal, as Bumi had taken to calling it, which eventually caught on - it felt crowded no matter where he wandered, so Aang went outside for air.

There was still preparation to be done, so they couldn't just pull out the hot air balloons and fly everyone to Aniak'to. The primary concerns were logistical ones - such as the fact that there weren't enough balloons to carry the entire invasion force, so much of it still had to go on the ground. And the balloons couldn't travel long distances in such brutally cold weather, so they would have to do some marching. Sokka helped work with officers of Ba Sing Se's army and Ozai's forces to help map out where they were and figure out the best route to the city.

Meanwhile, Zuko and Lu Ten had joined scouting missions, avoiding hunting bands and mapping out the sometimes invisible lines that divided clan territories. Bumi and Nagi worked with General Zhang - the only one of the Council of Five to come to the South Pole since Fong was in custody and Muku was temporarily out of commission - to plan their escape route if anything went awry. The current plan if that happened was to escape north across the Southern Water Tribe and rendezvous with Kuei and General Gan Jin's fleet off the coast that would be attacking at the same time as the invasion force in an attempt to divert some of Hakoda's forces. But no one liked that plan. Aang wasn't sure if he'd be able to bring everyone back through the Spirit World, especially if it required everyone going back inside Camp Crystal during the chaos of a retreat. This time, he wouldn't let it come to that.

Aang also had to remind everyone that dark spirits were creatures drawn to conflict. The remaining White Lotus members worked to mitigate that issue, the spiritualists among them like Wu finding ways to ward the army with charms and offerings and the like. Any tumultuous energies also interfered with Aang's ability to transport people through the Spirit World, so he and Sangmu planned to try and help where they could in that regard. Lastly, the invasion force wanted to avoid damage to the city itself and the people in it, but that was a problem they still struggled to fix.

Aang spent his morning in the extremely awkward company of Kanna and Pakku while they all used waterbending to make high snow drifts that looked as natural as possible. It was an attempt to hide any members of the invasion force who came above ground for any reason, which they tried to limit as much as possible. Aang had forgotten until he saw them together that after Pakku journeyed to the South Pole in his world, they had decided to marry. He believed it was the first time that either of the two White Lotus masters got to spend some time together without the rest of their peers and the greater invasion force, but they were mostly quiet except for occasional stolen glances at each other that made him feel like he was intruding on something. Aang was doubly annoyed when he wondered if everyone thought the same thing about him and Azula.

He had no idea if they had even remotely the same relationship in this world at one point, but something was definitely going on. "Do you two, um, need some time alone?" he eventually asked, once he witnessed the decidedly un-Pakku-like behavior of a blush.

Pakku closed his eyes as if holding back his irritation and then opened them again after a deep breath. There was the Pakku he knew. "What gives you that idea, Avatar?"

"Um, well…" Aang didn't know how he was going to answer but he was saved from it by the arrival of Azula, who appeared from one of the stone hatches below.

"I have other business to attend to. You can stay here, Avatar, and use this chance to show your progress in waterbending," Pakku said, with an overly formal chill. He bowed once to Kanna. "Lady Kanna." And he departed without another word, descending back into the depths.

Aang scratched his head and gave Kanna a sheepish shrug as Azula approached. He didn't think Kanna was such a touchy subject for him. "Sorry… I didn't mean for him to leave."

Kanna gave him a soft smile, unconcerned with his abrupt departure. "Oh, don't worry yourself. He was always a proud man. We were betrothed many years ago, you know, until my father was approached by the Wolf Clan with the promise of a more enticing marriage to a prince. I didn't have a choice in the matter, of course, but Pakku and I hadn't seen each other after that until the White Lotus gathered again. It is bound to be a little uncomfortable between us."

"You married each other in my world," Aang blurted out. "Pretty recently. But it was only until…" He let himself trail off, letting his unspoken words fill in the blanks. Until she was left a widow again.

"Did we, now?" she said, and she tapped her lips and walked off, deep in thought with steps lighter than before.

Azula exchanged a glance with him as Kanna walked off. "Do I want to know the details?" she asked.

Aang shook his head. "Pakku isn't the only one avoiding people here. Have you had the chance to talk to your dad yet?"

Azula sniffed. "No. But I'm in no hurry to see him either. I'd rather not give the chance for the other me to try and take over the moment she sees him." She winced, and Aang put his hand on her arm with concern. "It's nothing."

"Azula?"

She sighed and relented. "I just keep seeing images in my head of the earth burning with her blue fire and my father's red. All she wants to do right now is cause destruction with him."

Aang frowned, suspecting that Ozai avoided both her and Zuko in turn with all his might. "Do you want to go back down with me?" he asked. "I need to go check on Appa. I feel bad leaving him underground for so long."

Azula nodded and they followed Kanna's footprints back to the hatch leading down into the camp. Aang caught himself stealing glances with her as they walked through the halls and past soldiers and captains milling about, but then blushed when he thought of Pakku and Kanna. To distract himself, he wondered about how they could get all of these people outside at least occasionally if they were going to linger here a few days; it wasn't healthy for them all to stay hidden underground for so long. But that might have been the airbender in him.

Appa rumbled in greeting when they entered his chamber, the same one Aang had slept in that night. He looked restless, his hay bales uneaten, but he calmed when Aang entered and patted his nose. Sangmu was already here with the lemurs, sitting against the wall. She played with Momo and Sabi, flicking an air ball at them as they soared around the room. The air ball floated to the top of the chamber after Momo and it dissipated with a high-pitched chime that made Momo screech in protest, but he went back for more anyway.

Aang almost introduced her to Azula when Sabi flew to Azula's arm, much to the latter's surprise. But he remembered they had already spent some time together after fleeing from Aniak'to with Sokka and Zuko after the eclipse.

"She's… gotten a little more attached to me than I remember," Azula said, holding Sabi somewhat at arm's length.

"Sabi missed you," Aang said, as Momo climbed all over his head and shoulders. He gave Sangmu an encouraging smile. He felt a knot of guilt twist in his chest and remembered that he still hadn't told her about his other world. "And I missed you too, Sangmu!"

She smiled. "Thanks, Aang. I'm glad you got back from the Spirit World safe. It's a shame we have to wait down here, though…"

Aang heard footsteps right outside the door and it burst open to admit Sokka, Toph, and Zuko. "Oh, so you guys really are here," Sokka said. He had a pure white falcon perched on his arm - a Water Tribe messenger falcon with a scroll case tied to its foot.

"I told you they were," Toph said, huffing.

"Hey, Aang," said Zuko with a wave. "Didn't really get to say hi last night… since you ran off with my sister and all and then stayed up so late." Aang felt heat rise to his face and rubbed the back of his neck. That was mostly untrue. He did say hi to his friends, and even hugged them all, before sitting under the spirit lights to talk with Azula.

"Wow, you couldn't wait even a minute to make a comment about us," said Azula, crossing her arms. "Mind your own business, Zuzu."

"No, no, let the two lovebirds have their time together," said Sokka, waving his free hand. "They couldn't even have the decency to wait until they were alone before planting a big smooch on each other."

Zuko scowled, ignoring Sokka. "I don't have a problem with it. I just think there are more important things going on right now!"

Toph laughed. "I bet you're just jealous 'cause your girlfriend's all the way on the other side of the world!"

Zuko's shoulders slumped, as glum as a cabbage merchant being told his produce had pests. "Whose side are you on?"

"Sokka, where did you get that falcon?" Sangmu asked. "She's beautiful."

The falcon preened on his arm. "Isn't she?" Sokka asked, petting her with his finger. "I got it so we could send a message to Lirin and the Beaver-Bear Clan. We're going to need their help for the invasion and we'll need to coordinate."

Aang just kept quiet while he watched all of them bantering with each other. It was the first time they were all together, united, and though they were underground in a cold, dank dungeon he felt a sense of warmth he hadn't known in a long time. He still felt the ache of people who should have been there, but it didn't hurt so much anymore. This was his Team Avatar as much as the other one was.

"Aang? Is everything okay?" Zuko asked, and it took a moment for him to realize they were all staring at him. Even Appa's concerned grumble echoed through the chamber.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah," he said. "Just thinking that this is the first time Toph and Sangmu are really meeting, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it is," said Toph, grinning. "Welcome to the team."

Sangmu smiled back at her. "Thanks. It's great to meet you. I've heard so much about you."

"It feels good to have us all together again," Zuko said. "Almost like we can take on anything."

Azula stepped back from the circle. Aang thought he was the only one who noticed and he frowned. Her eyes fixed on Sokka and Aang's heart dropped when he realized what she was about to say. "Before you say any of that…" she said, rubbing her arm. "Sokka, there's something I need to tell you about Katara."


The water roared on both sides of their procession. Ty Lee walked at the fastest pace Haru's gait would allow, unsure of the intentions of whatever helpful spirit chose to aid them or where it guided them. All seven walked in silence and awe, their feet occasionally splashing in cold puddles. Behind them, the ocean enclosed on the path they had already tread, ushering them along with even more trepidation. She feared that at any moment it could come crashing down and drown them all, but another part of her, a flickering flame in her chest, told her they were safe. At least for now.

Only Yue walked ahead with no outward display of fear, her head held high as she led the way alongside Ty Lee. But Ty Lee could see it in her aura, a tinge of something black staining what was otherwise vibrant purple, threaded with silver. Yue's fear bubbled just under the surface, but she kept it in check in a way that Ty Lee could only hope she did, too.

Water levitated in orbs all around them, some great and others small. Some even had cod whirling about within them, drifting lazily back into the ocean after they passed. The parting seas eventually revealed long hidden secrets - ancient shipwrecks and ruins hidden in submerged icebergs, preserved pieces of history like some cold, twisted version of the gallery of relics back in the Golden City. She tried not to look closely at figures deep inside the ice, human shapes clad in furs with spears; long dead ravagers watching them pass, sentinels perhaps guarding something even more ancient. Far larger, darker shapes appeared in the ice on both sides of them as Ty Lee realized they descended even further, towering more than even Appa, with dark shapes protruding that made her think of tusks. But they were no animals that she recognized.

Jet was the only one who found the word on all their minds. "Wow…"

Eventually the slope began to ascend again. That didn't make much sense to Ty Lee - she wasn't much of a seafarer, but even she knew the water was supposed to get deeper the more you went out. Soon a stone structure barred their path, a twisting tower that widened toward the top with ice; Ty Lee guessed that meant it was an iceberg when the water levels behaved normally. The ocean didn't part wide enough for them to go around it, and Mai was the first to see a path that would allow them to ascend up the slippery rock, so they determined that the spirit who guided them here meant for them to climb.

It was just as slippery as it looked. Ghashiun and Haru were able to mostly secure themselves with their earthbending and Ty Lee had better balance than most people, but the others didn't let it slow them down as much. Nonetheless, Ty Lee worried about one of them falling. It wouldn't do for them to come so far only for this mystery spirit to guide them unintentionally into peril. Suki managed to climb even faster than she did.

The twisting, sodden path eventually brought them to a cave opening where stone changed to ice. Even this had been smoothed over years and years by water, but portions of it were flattened enough for them to walk normally. It was small and narrow, just high enough that even the tallest among them didn't need to hunch down at all, and a vibrant blue like the ice in Agna Qel'a. Only Haru's occasional cough echoed through the tunnel as they walked, and soon enough the winding path forced them to ascend again.

"Where is this taking us?" Suki asked, rubbing her arms. Ty Lee realized for the first time that despite the ice, it didn't feel that cold in here.

"I don't know," said Mai. "But I hope we'll eventually go high enough so that we won't drown when the ocean rushes back in." Her dry tone and calm delivery of their icy, watery deaths made Ty Lee frown and it shut down any further conversation.

At last, after one final and almost completely vertical climb, the tunnel widened into an egg-shaped chamber with an opening in the top that let in morning light. The very moment that Jet, in the rear, climbed out of the tunnel and into the chamber, they heard a distant rumble outside and the tunnel behind him filled with water.

Jet's eyes widened as one last air bubble burst. "Uh… I hope nobody left anything back there."

"Now what?" Ghashiun asked, lowering his face mask. "Are we trapped here?"

"There's another tunnel going into the back of this chamber," Suki pointed out. "Maybe we're meant to keep following it?"

"I think we should take this opportunity to stop and rest," said Yue, glancing toward Haru. He took a seat against the icy wall, breathing heavily from the exertion. "Suki, did you bring medicine in that pack of yours?"

"I did," said Suki, unslinging it from her back. "Don't really know which ones, though… I tried to grab a bit of everything from the store room. But I can help with the food part of it."

"Anyone know anything about healing or remedies?" Mai asked, looking around at them all.

Surprising every single one of them, Jet raised his hand. Under all of their perplexed looks, he glared. "What? For years I've had to look after a bunch of kids with scraped knees and fevers and stuff. When we had no adults around all that fell on me and Smellerbee. Suki, show me what you got."

"I can try to help," said Yue, kneeling down at Haru's side. "There were plenty of healers among the Water Sages. While I am no waterbender, I know a bit of the theory behind it. Ghashiun, this interested Nagi quite a bit… would you like to hear about it?"

Ghashiun shrugged and crouched next to them. "Sure."

While Suki looked through the pack, Ty Lee turned to Mai. "What about you, Mai? How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," she said, but even she didn't look as steady as usual. "Haru needs it more than me. He also hurt himself. I just wish we had wood to start a fire. But all we have is ice. What else is new?"

Ty Lee frowned, but when she looked past Mai she saw something carved into the ice. It was in a part of the chamber that she suspected never saw sunlight, no matter the time of day. When she approached for a closer look, she determined it to be a crude carving of two waves swirling into each other - perhaps the beginnings of a whirlpool. Or an early insignia of the Water Tribes. From where she stood now, she could see deeper into the other tunnel on the opposite side, the one that led deeper into the iceberg cave.

"I think I'm going to keep going," Ty Lee said, squinting ahead. Her legs burned with the need to rest, but her curiosity got the better of her. "Everyone else can stay here. I won't be gone long."

No one said anything as she departed, focused on other things. She tried not to think about the possibility of discovering more figures frozen for perhaps eons in this ice, and instead fixated on the parts of this iceberg she found pretty. At times, the ice became so thin it was like she viewed the world outside from behind a glass window. Mai's hopes were correct - now Ty Lee could see that they had made it above the water level, and their island looked like a pure white iceberg covered in snow. Parts of it had frozen into natural arches or tall columns and other abstract shapes. She wondered if this tunnel would eventually lead outside so she could look at them more closely.

She saw the mountains from the North Pole mainland in the distance, and the valley that protected the spirit portal. No ships came out across the choppy, white waters between here and land. At least not yet.

The tunnel eventually ended in a much smaller chamber than the one earlier, and to her dismay it had no exits. She let out a huff as she walked around it in a tight circle. "Ugh!" she exclaimed aloud. "All that for a dead end?"

Still restless, but now frustrated and with nothing better to do, she sat on an outcropping of ice next to a puddle of water. It took her a moment to realize it wasn't a puddle at all, but another tunnel that had been completely submerged in water. Like the one they entered in, it must have connected to the ocean because she saw two fish swimming around in it, one black and the other white. She leaned her chin against her palms as she watched them.

"You two were able to swim in here just fine through that tunnel, huh?" she asked. "It's no use for us. Maybe if we were waterbenders, I guess. I wonder if we'll be able to break through the thinnest parts of the ice leading outside, if we had to. Or maybe the weird weather will warm things up enough so that it'll eventually melt. If we don't starve to death, first…"

She thought of the things in the ice that she definitely still didn't want to think about and shivered despite the comparatively warmer air in here. Then she pictured herself, Mai, Jet, and all the others frozen in ice the same way, forever and ever.

"Nope, stop thinking of that," she told herself, rubbing her cheeks. "I'm not going to keep thinking of the worst outcomes. That's not what I'm here for! Iroh told me I should come along to the North Pole to help keep everyone 'on the right path,' whatever that means. But I don't know how. And what if that path leads to a dead end, like this one?"

Her shoulders slumped and her head hung low, but she glanced at the two fish that just kept swimming in circles, deaf to her complaints. "I'm just going to pretend that you're good listeners," she said. "I don't know what to do. We came here originally just to save one of Aang's friends, who I never even met, even though Mai wanted to actually secretly kill someone. But it turns out that we don't need to save that friend anymore, which is kind of a relief since I didn't wanna go to the Spirit World, but it's also kind of terrifying, because that means Mai can focus on doing what she wanted to do now. And now there's this whole thing with the Nightseer."

The name still gave her chills every time someone mentioned it. She was suddenly very thankful for the presence of the two fish - she didn't want to be alone while thinking about the Nightseer, either. The ice around the chamber was thin enough for some sunlight to come through, at least, so she didn't need any torches or anything to ward off shadows.

"Y'know, despite having the living embodiment of one of the two spirits of fire inside of me, there's a whole lot about spiritual stuff that I don't know," she admitted, pulling off her mittens and wringing her fingers. "This scary night spirit stuff? I'm in way over my head. I think we all are. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep everyone on the right path or anything. Did I already mess that up? Since Jet killed that pirate captain? But did that guy deserve it? And should I be trying to stop Mai?"

She groaned. The questions just kept coming. She supposed she was thankful that Mai and Jet weren't trying to kill Yue and Suki, at least, in their vendetta against the Water Tribes. She wished the spirit of destruction in fire would show itself some way, maybe - like firebending on all of their enemies as they did at the Golden City.

Ty Lee looked back at the two fish and almost jumped when she saw that they had become completely still, both of them facing her as if they were staring. "Did I say something funny?" she asked, puckering her lips like a fish without even really thinking about it. "Oh, wait, duh. You can't understand me." She thought about testing it, though, just in case. "Y'know, I thought about catching and eating you guys in case we ran out of food," she said. "You look like you'd be easy to catch."

The black fish's tail wiggled and the white fish let out a single loud bubble, but otherwise they didn't react. Not really conclusive evidence. "Okay, maybe you can't understand me. Don't worry, I wasn't gonna eat you after I just poured my heart out to you."

Her ears rang and then a sharp jolt went through her head, causing her to gasp and rub her temples. For a moment, the surface of the water looked like the moon, darkened by the black fish's scales and with another dark shape rippling across it from a circle on the white fish. It made her think of the Nightseer and her ravens over a new moon, like on the scroll they'd taken from the pirate captain. She thought she saw the gleam of Yue's blade, and it sliced through the air and made her flinch. "Ouch, what was that?" she said, blinking rapidly. "Did I just get a vision? Did the Nightseer do that?"

She looked around the room instinctively. Something about the Nightseer had awakened a primal fear in her, like she was never alone. Like something lurked in even the smallest slivers of darkness.

"I think I'm going to head back to my friends now," she told the two fish. They had gone back to swimming in circles with each other. "Thanks for the company, even though you're fish." She wondered, briefly, if she was starting to lose it.

When she made her way back to the larger chamber, Haru was fast asleep in a bundle of furs and parkas. Jet and Ghashiun looked up when she arrived.

"Find anything interesting that way?" Jet asked.

Ty Lee frowned. "Nothing. It's just a dead end with two koi fish swimming around. I'm worried that we might actually be trapped here."

"Koi fish?" Suki asked, a hand on her hip. "You mean elephant koi? They like cold waters, but I don't know if they can handle water this cold. I didn't think they lived outside Kyoshi Island."

"No, just regular koi," Ty Lee responded, shrugging. "Kinda small. Black and white."

Yue stood, letting go of the medicinal paste she was mashing together with Jet. "Black and white koi? Can you describe them? Did the black one have a white spot and the white one a black spot?"

Ty Lee tapped her chin, thinking. "Yeah, actually. They totally did. Wow, Yue! Great guess!"

"Ty Lee," Yue gasped. "I think you just found the moon and ocean spirits!"


The snow falcon nibbled at Sokka's hand the moment he stopped petting it. "What do you need to tell me about Katara?" he asked.

Azula crossed her arms in a way that almost looked like she hugged herself. Her gaze followed their feet. Aang felt a weight in his stomach - did she really plan to tell Sokka about what happened to Katara here and now? Would it be better in the long run? He knew it would be, it had to be, but despite the powerful feeling he had that she still lived, he wasn't sure how Sokka would take the news. He held his breath.

"I tried to bring her with us," Azula said. Aang wanted to say something, felt the urge to protect her from more pain. But he vowed to share it with her. "But she fought off my attempts. She wouldn't see reason. No matter what I said, she was too headstrong to come with us. I'm sorry."

Sokka rolled his eye. "Sounds like her," he said. He scratched the falcon under her chin. "It is what it is. You tried, and I could have stayed to help you, but there was a lot going on that night. You didn't have all the time in the world to convince her."

Aang frowned, but let out a breath. Her lie might not have been the best course of action, but he wasn't going to call her out on it. He saw Toph shuffle her feet and frown as well, but to his surprise even Sangmu did, too.

Azula gave Sokka a halfhearted smile. "It is what it is," she repeated.

"Besides," Sokka continued with a shrug. "You don't owe me anything. I'm the one who chased you guys around the Fire Nation and invaded Ba Sing Se. I'd say we're even, but, well…"

"Nah, you definitely owe us more, Sokka," said Toph, crossing her arms.

Sokka scowled. "Alright, alright, I get it - former big jerk over here. Still trying to fix that, you know! And one of the ways I can do that is by sending this letter, so I'll see you guys later."

After Sokka left, Zuko looked around at all of them and crossed his arms. "Toph?"

"It's weird. I heard it in her voice as clear as anything, but I didn't feel it in her heart rate," Toph said, pressing her palm against the stone floor. "What was that about?"

Azula scoffed and took a step back, the sudden movement causing Sabi to fly off of her. "Excuse me? What do you mean?"

"I know when you lie," Zuko said, eyes narrowed and feet spread in a way that Aang knew he wouldn't back down. "You've been doing it our entire lives. But that was one of the worst lies I've ever seen from you."

"I'm surprised Sokka couldn't tell," said Sangmu. "I barely know you and I knew something was wrong."

Azula put her hand on her hip and examined her nails. "Well, perhaps I am off my game somewhat."

"Not off enough for my earthbending to tell," Toph grumbled, as Momo danced on her head to add to her irritation. "That's a first, I guess…"

"We all decided last night that there were going to be no more secrets between us," Zuko said. He looked at Aang, including him in his glare. "That goes for all of us. There have been enough secrets that came so close to tearing us all apart from each other and some that even succeeded. We decided that we've had enough."

Aang bit his lip. "Well, you're not wrong, but… shouldn't we avoid putting each other on the spot like this?"

"Seriously," said Azula. "Why were Aang and I excluded from this team decision? And when did Zuzu get such a backbone?

"After you left us," Zuko said, without missing a beat. "Running off with Katara in the middle of enemy territory, with no way for us to know if you were safe. Anything could have happened to you."

Azula turned her back on all four of them. "I'm sorry, okay? I messed up. I made mistakes. And now I'm not confronting them like I should. This is going to sound annoyingly traditional of me and I never thought I'd say this but I damaged my honor."

Aang refrained from going to embrace her. "But you can still fix it. I know you will. And I won't let you do it alone."

Zuko's expression finally softened at her words. "I'm not attacking you. I just wanted you to know how scared I was of losing you."

She glanced back at them, if only from the corner of her eye. "I know, Zuko. I'll tell Sokka the truth."

Sangmu spoke up finally, straightening up from her position against the wall and hugging her blue mantle close to herself. It was long enough to cover her whole body. "That goes for you, too, Aang," she said in a small voice. "Everyone here knows something I don't. I've been able to tell for a while now. I'm scared for you, scared for what you're hiding from me."

Aang looked to Zuko for support. "She deserves to know," Zuko said. "Sangmu is stronger than you give her credit for."

He shook his head. "I never doubted that. It's just… hard to say."

"I've had to confront a lot of things since the iceberg in such a short time," said Sangmu. "The loss of our people. Minmin. So much fighting and running, nothing but endless cold. But I haven't been alone. I had you and Zuko, Appa and the lemurs, even Sokka. And I've been so thankful for that. Even with all that, though, I feel like I'm on the outside sometimes. I wasn't sure if you just didn't trust me for a while, but I had to keep reminding myself that distrust was so unlike you, Aang. So unlike the Aang I've always known."

Aang felt all of his strength leave him. "You're right. It was unlike the Aang you've always known." He glanced at Zuko, Toph, and finally Azula, and felt some of his strength returning when Azula gave him a hint of an encouraging smile. "I'm not the same Aang you met a hundred years ago. When I woke up from the volcano, I was a different Aang from a different world with different memories."

Sangmu took a moment to digest his words and then tilted her head. "Now, was that so hard?"

Aang blinked. "You're… not surprised?"

"Zuko and Sokka let slip that there were other worlds," she said, pulling at the edge of her mantle. "It just confirmed some theories written long ago by Avatar Yangchen. I've always liked her surviving writings. Mostly the poetry, but a lot of her academic texts as well." She blushed. "And with everything going on with the Spirit World, the worlds merging together, I knew something was wrong. I knew you had changed so much, in so many ways, and for a long time that terrified me. Because I realized that meant I could change just as much."

Aang put his hand on the side of Appa's head and stared into his fur. He felt a knot in his chest, a tight feeling of guilt and shame. "I'm sorry for keeping it from you. And I'm sorry for not being the same Aang you knew. He missed you tons, you know. He's inside me, and he was so happy to see you safe and alive."

Sangmu smiled. "But aren't you the same Aang? You have the same face, the same smile, the same love for Appa, and the same sense of wonder for everything in the world. You still care so much for all your friends." She stopped fiddling with her mantle and put a hand over her heart. "It took me a while to see all that underneath the exterior you show to the rest of the world. And it made me realize that whatever changes may come won't be so scary."

The knot in his chest unraveled. He felt a sting at the corners of his eyes and blinked away tears.

Sangmu continued. "Seeing everyone here at Camp Crystal, seeing you surrounded by all of these people who love and care about you, and are inspired by you… the Aang I knew always had that effect on people. I'm amazed at all of the friends you have and I can only hope one day I will, too. So I think… even if you do seem different on the surface, you're still the same Aang I've always known. Even though I don't know what happened to you there, the fact that you're from a different world doesn't matter. I'm from a different world, too. One from a hundred years ago."

Aang rubbed at his eyes and felt too choked up to say anything, so Toph spoke to Sangmu in his stead. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're an outsider."

Azula put a hand on Aang's shoulder but smiled at Sangmu. "And neither do I."

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know," Aang said, once he regained his composure. The other Aang inside of him felt like he wanted to dance. "Zuko's right. No more secrets."


Ty Lee led Yue, Mai, Jet, and Suki back to the smaller chamber where she saw the two koi fish, but when they looked into the water, both fish had vanished.

"I swear they were both here!" Ty Lee exclaimed, trying to look into the dark depths. "And now that I know they were spirits, I feel pretty confident in saying that they gave me a vision."

"We don't know for certain that they were spirits," said Mai, who looked vaguely annoyed. "They could have just been normal fish."

"But the vision!"

Jet hooked his thumbs into his pants and leaned over the water with Ty Lee. "Well, whatever the case, they swam away."

"I wonder if it was because I said I was going to eat them..."

"It's almost unbelievable that they would be here," said Yue, holding her fingers to her lips in thought. But when Ty Lee frowned at her, frustrated, she amended her statement. "I do believe you! But they were gone from the Spirit Oasis in Agna Qel'a for a hundred years. Until the beginning of the war, they had stayed in the same pond for almost all of our recorded history in perfect balance with each other. Why would they be in this iceberg cave, and why would they then swim away?"

"Maybe they just wanted to go back into the ocean? One is the ocean spirit, after all," Suki said with a shrug. "I guess the war put things out of balance. I was in the oasis for a little bit, Yue. And something felt really, really off about it. Based on what we know now, that was probably thanks to the Nightseer."

"Maybe now they want to do something about the war!" Ty Lee exclaimed. "I dunno, like the two fire spirits. They fought with us for a little bit at the Golden City. And now the Spirit World is crazier than ever with all these light and dark spirits. I bet we can become friends with them or something. We can work together to save both of our worlds."

Jet looked skeptical. "Friends? With two fish?"

Ty Lee poked her finger in the water with a frown. Of course they wouldn't believe her, but why should they? She moved her finger around in circles, disturbing its pristine surface. It felt pleasantly warm. It was a little small for her to swim through, but she had the sudden urge to peek under water; perhaps she would see them swimming just under the surface. She leaned closer and did just that. Ignoring the reactions of the others, she pressed her face to the water and opened her eyes.

She saw Agna Qel'a from above. Flocks of ravens soared across the city, barely perceptible against the dark sky. The new moon hung low, a perfect dark circle that devoured the stars and the scant light around it. Silence reigned over the city. A blue orb - another moon, Ty Lee realized - drifted by the darkened moon. Spectral images of the two koi fish swam in front of her face, blurring together in a swirl of black and white, and it came together to form Yue, who spoke.

"The Nightseer is a being born of contradiction," she said. "Created by the Destroyer in an attempt to preserve a part of himself as his opposite does. The only true darkness, an imbalance."

Yue washed away in the tide that swept over the city. After she vanished, another voice echoed in Ty Lee's mind, and she saw the black fish with the white spot fighting against the current. "She should not exist," it said.

Ty Lee tried to reach for the black fish, afraid that it would somehow drown, but she couldn't move any closer. She could only observe from far above. Arnook appeared, striding among the current up to his ankles without losing his balance, crouched low over the water with his staff held like he was spearfishing. She tried to shout out in alarm, to warn the ocean spirit, but the moment she opened her mouth his pale gaze shot up at her. He drew back his staff and hurled it like a javelin straight toward her, and in midair it transformed into a raven and then a dark shape that looked so horrifying, so inhuman, that she screamed and pulled away and felt her mouth fill with saltwater.

She sputtered and coughed, on the floor of the chamber in the iceberg cave again. Mai was the first one at her side, pounding on her back as water dripped all over her and the floor.

Suki had jumped back in alarm. "Why'd you do that?"

Ty Lee heaved in deep breaths and tried to speak through the terror still pounding away at her chest. But with every passing second, the final image seared into her mind started to fade, the memory fleeting. She remembered everything else, though, and told them once she caught her breath.

"I don't understand," said Yue, brow furrowed. "Why would my father want to kill the ocean spirit, especially if he wants everyone in the Water Tribes to become a waterbender?"

Ty Lee shook her head and rose on quivering limbs. It felt like she had been submerged for hours, but she couldn't have been under for longer than a few seconds. She looked at all of them, alarm and concern chief among their auras, and she gulped. "I think… I think we have only until the next new moon to stop Arnook before an eternal night comes."


Azula left Aang to talk with Sangmu, going back out into the dimly lit tunnels between chambers throughout the prison. Zuko and Toph stayed with them. She knew they were right, and that she had to tell Sokka the truth. For that, she didn't need Aang. His promise to face their troubles together didn't mean she needed him to hold her hand every step of the way. She couldn't put words to how thankful she was to have him, that despite everything he loved her, but this was a battle she could face alone.

The shadows flickered as she passed. Torches set into the walls blazed blue against her will, and Azula grasped at her forehead with something like a snarl. The blue dragon wouldn't even give her a few moments' peace.

She was joined in the hallway by a flickering image of a burning woman - her mother among blue flames. She reached for Azula, and Azula wanted to grab her hand despite the heat radiating off of her. The blue dragon shrank away from the flames, from their mother, a deep rumble in her gullet. The torches changed back to their normal color.

Azula had conjured the image of her burning mother herself. It was the only thing she could do to keep the Fire Lord distracted, convincing her that it was another delusion to keep her away from the garden in Ba Sing Se, that moment frozen in time where she confessed to Aang. As much as it hurt, it was her sanctuary until the Fire Lord found it and burned it all away. But now she had another precious memory, one even better - one she would never let the blue dragon touch. She clutched the plum blossom pendant to her chest.

The tunnel led to a dead end, changing to something natural instead of paved by earthbenders. Instead of torches, green crystals embedded in the cave walls cast a soft light. She didn't know that a piece of Ba Sing Se's catacombs had come along on their journey.

"Azula."

The voice came from behind her. It was one so achingly familiar, a reminder of home that felt so far away. She whirled around to face its source and backed further into the catacomb chamber. "I didn't mean for you to find me," she said to Iroh.

Zuko had joined him, a grin on his face. "Azula, it's Uncle. I know you didn't get to see him yet since the force arrived with Aang, but it's really him. He's here."

She made herself look at the two of them standing together. A distant memory stirred, one that wasn't hers, and the Fire Lord almost reveled at seeing Iroh again. She saw lightning strike him in the chest and blinked away the vision. "Aang told me. That's not really him. He's not our uncle."

Zuko's face fell. He looked hurt. "What do you mean?"

Azula looked away from them again. Aang and the others were people she couldn't avoid, but Iroh was one she shouldn't have been allowed to see. "He's the one from Aang's world."

"Aang told you that, did he?" Iroh asked. He didn't sound hurt by her words. If anything, he was gentle. "It isn't quite so. There's some of me still here, some of him. I still remember when you were a young girl. For your birthday, I had given you a hunting bow, but you tossed it aside because you thought weapons like that should only be for Zuko since you had your bending. You still ended up using it, if only a little. I remember the theater plays you forced your brother and Lu Ten to dress up for, those shows you'd put on for your mother and I. You were quite the little director."

"You should also remember how I killed you," she said. "Those were different times."

"And a different place," Iroh said. "But here, I've been blessed with a new beginning. And I'd like to have my whole family with me."

Azula sighed when she knew he wouldn't relent. "I could lose control," she said. "I could hurt you again, even kill you." She looked straight at Zuko. "Like I did to Katara. That's what I didn't tell Sokka. Aang thinks she's still alive, but…"

Zuko's lips parted, but he let out a deep breath and gathered himself. "I can't imagine what you've been going through. But even the other Zuko doesn't hate you for anything. He's happy for me, happy that I have my uncle and my sister."

Azula shook her head. "But he hates the other me. As he should."

"I don't even think he knows how he feels about her," Zuko said. "But that isn't what matters. She doesn't matter. You do."

"You've been navigating the storm for so long that you don't see the guiding stars beyond the clouds," said Iroh. "You have something the other Azula didn't have - something that even I failed to provide for her as I should have. People who love you, Azula. People who will support you. No matter what."

She still saw him falling to the ground under a burning sky, a horrific burn marring his chest. The blue dragon roared at his words so loud that she felt the pressure in her ears. But she didn't reach the spirit lights from the previous night. That part of her mind was still safe.

"I know, Uncle," she finally said. And she believed it. "But now I have to own up to what I've done. I have to tell Sokka."


Sokka's eye followed the falcon as she flew over the snowfields, the letter for Lirin attached to her leg. Her white feathers stood out against the rosy pink sky, but it couldn't be helped. He could only hope that no scouts or hunting bands would see her and trace her route back to Camp Crystal.

But it was a bright, clear sky, and with his great-great grandmother Sedna promising no blizzards until the invasion, he figured that meant the falcon's flight would be smooth. As long as she avoided wandering spirits, anyway. He supposed that was still an issue. But what wasn't, nowadays?

"Here you are, Sokka," said a voice behind him. He tensed when he heard her voice. "We've been long overdue for a talk."

He turned to look at his grandmother. Her expression was as gentle as falling snow and welcoming as always, but without her usual Water Tribe blues she looked almost fierce in her White Lotus robe and shawl. He still couldn't believe she was also a member of a worldwide secret society all along. "Hi, Gran." He got to see her the previous night when Aang first arrived with everyone, but their reunion had been brief - only long enough for them to confirm the other was safe before her duties pulled her away. "I think so, too."

"Why the long face, my dear grandson?" she asked, tilting her head and smiling. "From what I've heard, you've found yourself. And you did it all on your own."

He shook his head. "I didn't do it on my own," he said. "Aang and the others knocked some sense into me. But even before them, you did too. I was just too thick-headed for it to get through."

She laughed, and it released some of his tension from his shoulders. He smiled with her. "Perhaps. But even in Ba Sing Se, you were rational enough to do the right thing. You had all the time to think through what you were doing and you still decided to help them against Wan Shi Tong, and chose to travel to the South Pole with them. Even for that, I was proud of you. I still am, more than ever."

"Might've been smart and rational," he said, shrugging. "But I still didn't have your wisdom. That took a bit longer to come."

She wagged her finger at him. "You'll never have your grandmother's wisdom until you're closer to my age," she said, almost as a reprimand. He drew back, surprised, but then her expression and words softened again. "But you do have your own. You've become wiser and stronger than you have ever been. Your alliance with the Avatar and his friends is no longer an agreement out of convenience, but out of genuine friendship. Aang told me everything during our time at Lake Laogai together."

Sokka felt something sting at the back of his eye and his lip quivered. "Everything?"

Kanna folded her hands in front of her. "Well, almost everything. He told me you met Sedna herself and learned that she was your great-great grandmother. And it was a secret in her grotto you discovered that changed everything for you. But Aang told me that secret was yours to tell. He thought it was important for you to let me know yourself."

Sokka felt the tears fall down his cheek, thankful that Aang let him have this moment. "It's Mom," he said, choking out his words. "She's down there, under Sedna's protection. She's alive."

Kanna blinked, her mouth hanging open, and tears pooled in her eyes. "Oh, truly?"

Sokka took a step toward her, nodding, and that one step was all it took for her to close the distance and wrap her arms around his torso. Stunned, he sank into the embrace, enclosing his arms around her shoulders. "Yeah… after all this time, I finally got to see her. Talk to her. And you can, too. I hope Katara and Suki will be able to, one day."

"Oh, Kya," she said, sobbing into his parka. "I don't know how I could ever make up for how I've failed her. This is more than I could have ever hoped for."

"She has no hard feelings," Sokka said, sniffling. "Really, she doesn't blame you for anything."

"I'm so glad," she said. "You've really told me something wonderful. I'm overjoyed that you were able to reunite with her again. You deserve to be happy."

Sokka pulled away from the hug so he could look her in the eyes. "So do you, Gran. I couldn't have found my way to her without your guidance. I tried to tell Katara, but I'm not sure she understands yet. She refuses to see the truth."

Kanna blinked away her tears and cradled his face with her hand. "She will one day, I'm sure of it," she said. "Just like you have. You are the key to bringing our family back together, the one who will cleanse the sins of our past."

"I'll try my best," he said, wiping his eye with his glove. "There's still so much to be done." He looked over her shoulder at the figures walking toward them through the snow. Azula took the lead, followed by Zuko and Iroh. He furrowed his brow as they approached. "What's wrong?"

"Didn't mean to interrupt your moment," Azula said. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were already pink from the cold. "But I need to tell you the truth. Both of you, since you're here as well, Kanna."

Sensing the gravity of her words, Sokka frowned. "What is it?"

"There's no easy way to say this," she said. Iroh and Zuko stood behind her, but kept their distance. "Katara might not be alive."

Sokka stepped forward. "What? How do you know?"

Azula closed her eyes, took a breath, and then opened them and Sokka knew what she was going to say before she said it. "Because I hurt her. I lost control in the palace before we left."

Sokka clenched his fist as Kanna gasped behind him. He wanted to be angry - the other Sokka inside of him certainly was, and afraid for his own sister - he wanted to lash out and make her pay. But most of all, he was just sad. Sad that, if it were true, Katara missed her chance to see their mother. He spoke with a low voice. "When you say you lost control, you mean the 'other' you?"

"Does it matter? It was my hand that shot her in cold blood with lightning, her back turned away from me."

"What's to stop you from doing it again?" he asked. An image flashed into his mind of pinning her against rock by the neck, rage and fear like he'd never known filling him and spilling over. But she looked smug back then, unafraid even while she had been powerless. She had caused the other Sokka so much pain and despite his best efforts he felt it pouring into him.

Zuko's eyes widened, taken aback. "Sokka!"

Azula's expression was set into a grim mask as she ignored her brother. "My own further attempts to keep her under control."

"So nothing, then." He directed his gaze to the edge of a cliff some distance away to the southeast, looking past his grandmother who looked as if she had been stunned into silence, her eyes downcast. "Let's go to the bottom of that cliff," he said.

She narrowed her eyes in something like confusion. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to endanger the whole invasion force."


The bottom of the cliff ended in what was once the plunge pool of a waterfall that had long since dried up, an enclosed space with the cliffside rising up on all sides except for the lowland that led to the sea. Dodopuffins nested on the grooves in the stone going up the cliffside, but aside from them no one would be able to see Sokka and Azula. Zuko, Iroh, and Kanna had also followed, but Sokka paid them no mind. Down here, the briny smell of the sea stung his nose.

"What are we doing here?" Azula asked.

"Letting actions speak for the words I can't say," Sokka said. A snowdrift shifted at a gesture of his hand and slid across the ground toward Azula, but she leapt clear over it. If she was surprised at his action, she didn't show it.

Zuko tried to intervene, but Sokka shot him a look. "Sokka, what's gotten into you?"

Even his grandmother looked disappointed, but he couldn't tell if grief might have had something to do with it. "Sokka, fighting isn't the answer here. We need to talk this out."

Sokka clenched his fist. "I'm not looking for answers. I need to make her pay for what she's done. If anyone wants to join in, I'll fight you too."

Azula winced but settled into a stance. "A fight it is, then. I wondered if it would come to this between you and I."

One of the lemurs swooped down and Sokka knew it preceded the arrival of Aang and Sangmu. Sure enough, they appeared on their gliders just at the top of the cliff and dove down to join the rest of them. "Stop!" Aang shouted. "What's going on here?"

It was Azula who responded, her voice loud and sharp. "Do not intervene, Aang," she said. But then her voice softened. "Please. You too, Zuko."

Toph appeared behind them, dropping down from the top of the cliff using her bare hands to gouge the cliffside and slow her fall. The grinding of the rocks and her motion disturbed the dodopuffins. "After all that talk before you're both really just gonna duke it out?" she asked once she got to the bottom. "What's gotten into you two?"

"I agree with Kanna," Iroh said. "You should really talk out your struggles with your friends."

"Sokka was never my friend," Azula said.

"It's mutual," Sokka agreed, glaring. "We've argued, debated, shot barbs back and forth at each other. You always tried to lord your power and supposed superiority over me. But I've had enough. I'm strong enough to give it back and I'm tired of pretending otherwise." His other self never had the power to truly stand up to her as an equal, always leaving the fights to the other benders of the group. But now Sokka could fight her himself. "And now you probably killed my sister."

"Sokka, I think she's still alive," Aang said. "She has to be."

Azula let out a wordless shout with her first attack, a fistful of fire that roared toward him. Sokka pulled up a shield of water to absorb the attack and launched it back at her, but she stayed on the move and shot jets from her fingertips. She tried to get around to his blind side but he turned with her to keep her in his vision. He took her by surprise by launching himself forward with a wave under his feet, an aggressive counterattack, water coating his hands to slap toward her.

White fire sprouted in midair behind him; it was his turn to be surprised now because he didn't know firebenders could do that without the source of the attack coming from their limbs. His watery arms had to pivot to circling his whole body to defend himself. It pushed him enough to make him stumble but he formed ice under her feet to make her slip, preventing her from following up the attack.

She scowled as she found her feet again, but Sokka was faster. He hurled water in her direction that turned to ice in midair, spikes that orbited around her and converged one by one with each aggressive movement of his arms. She tried to keep up with blasting them all out of the air individually before they struck her, but eventually a tornado of white flames surrounded her and melted them all. As soon as the flames cleared, she didn't see the wave coming at her in time, knocking her against the rocky ground, drenched.

Azula forced herself up faster than Sokka anticipated. Her counterattack was relentless, a constant barrage of punches and kicks that he tried to match with water and ice, but white fireballs in a mimicry of his orbiting ice attack flared all around him, sizzling through his defenses with enough concussive force to bring him to his knees. She leapt up and prepared to come down with a chop to finish him, but he held up his hand and she halted in midair with a grunt.

"Sokka!" Aang shouted from the sidelines. "Bloodbending is going too far!"

Sokka rolled his eye and grunted with exertion, preparing to force her far enough away to give him space. "Calm down, I still can't bloodbend with the full moon so far away. Her parka is waterlogged."

Azula had enough mobility to raise her arms and fall right out of her suspended parka, and as soon as she landed on the ground she roared a breath of blue fire, a concentrated beam that drilled through the ice wall he managed to conjure as a defense. He managed to dive out of the way of the attack.

He crouched, panting, ready to spring if she had another attack like that up her sleeve. "Are you trying to kill me?"

She gave him the barest of smirks. "Only if you are. Haven't figured that out yet."

He smirked back but answered by raising the water on both sides of her, two walls that he clapped together with a single motion of his hands. She leapt above it with jets of blue fire from her feet and then kicked an arc of red flame at him in midair. He drew the meteorite sword and cut through it with a horizontal slash, but spun and swept up a cutting blade of water. She punched through it, igniting more white flames at both of his sides, but instead of defending he lunged toward her with a bullet of water.

Both of their attacks struck at the same time, sending both combatants sprawling. Sokka's sword clattered as he rolled to a stop on the ground. When he moved to rise, he saw Aang standing between them as Azula also struggled to her feet.

"Enough," Aang said. "I refuse to let you keep fighting each other. What are you even trying to accomplish?"

Sokka pulled himself up into a sitting position, catching his breath. "She said she hurt Katara with lightning because she lost control. But you all saw it - she didn't even try to use lightning once in her fight with me just now."

Azula pushed herself up, leaning on her knee. "Your point? Maybe I didn't consider you worth it."

He ignored the pointed barb as her attempt to downplay it. "Meaning you do have control. You can still fight the other you."

"So you're saying I shot it at her on purpose," she said with a scowl.

"No, I'm saying you lost the fight there, but even when push comes to shove you can still resist it," he said, shaking his head. "You lost that battle but not the war, as the saying goes. I refuse to believe you're the type of person who would try and kill someone in cold blood. Being around these people," he gestured to Aang, Zuko, Sangmu, and Toph, "they're bound to rub off on you. Like they did to me, as much as I hate to admit it."

Sangmu put her hands on her hips. "So are you saying you fought her in an attempt to see if she could maintain control? That's so… direct."

"Unlike what I know of Sokka," Toph said. She grinned. "But I like it."

"Not my usual tactic," Sokka admitted, leaning back on his hands. "But it's not Azula's, either. And I think it worked."

Azula scoffed. "If you say so." But she looked at him with a sense of what might have been appreciation; definitely a look he had never seen from her before.

Sangmu approached their battlefield with a tentative step now that the fighting was over. "So you're… not mad?"

"Of course I'm mad," he said, frowning. "Upset. Guilty. Confused, because maybe I shouldn't be feeling these things. My relationship with my sister is complicated, but she's still my sister. There's no more use worrying about what might have happened when instead we have to find out if she's still alive. Not just because Gran and I are her family, but also because she's a threat to everyone here. Maybe even more now, if she is able to recover."

"I agree," said Kanna, looking over them both in what he recognized as her scanning for injuries. "Regardless of how everyone feels about her, she cannot be ignored."

"What do you suggest?" Iroh asked. "Should we go into the city and see if we can learn any news of her fate?"

"Wait, you mean both of you?" Aang asked, looking between Iroh and Kanna. "No way, it's too dangerous."

"I agree with Aang," Sokka said with a grunt as he stood. "Gran, you can't go. Anyone would recognize the Moonlit Mother. Maybe I should…"

"You could be recognized too, my grandson," said Kanna. "And besides, you were already sighted there. They'd be on high alert for any sign of you."

"I can go with you, Uncle," said Azula, standing. "It's my fault anyone needs to go in the first place."

Iroh shook his head. "I'm not so sure that is a good idea, Azula. If she is truly recovering, then it would not do either of you any good if you were to reunite again right now. And before you two say anything, Aang and Zuko, I do not think either of you should go, either. I may look old, but I should be able to handle it alone."

"What about me?" Toph asked, jerking a thumb toward herself and grinning. "I think you really should bring some company. Besides, a little voice in my head is pretty thrilled at the idea. She said something about how a dangerous plan to sneak into an enemy stronghold with a fascinating stranger is 'one of life's greatest pleasures.' Something I'm not getting?"

Iroh laughed. "You know, that may not be such a bad idea. You and I may still be strangers, but that 'little voice' is an old friend."

Sangmu cleared her throat. "And, um… if neither of you have ever been there, perhaps I should come along as well. I can help. I know my way around by now and I know the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute. If she's being healed, I think she could be there."

Aang clutched his staff with both hands. "I still don't like it," he said, but even Sokka could tell from his eyes that he had already given up on trying to stop them. "It's dangerous there, especially with all the dark spirits that recently attacked. And Azula told us about the Wolverine-Skunk clan launching attacks on Hakoda's supporters. Not to mention the other clan leaders in general."

"And there's still Chit Sang and his Wolf's Skulls we need to worry about," Zuko pointed out. "They could be anywhere."

"I think they can do it," Sokka said, glancing at Iroh, Toph, and Sangmu. "Just… please be careful. Find out what happened to Katara and then get out."

Sokka looked at Azula and he still wasn't sure what he thought of her. He didn't know what the other Sokka truly thought of her, either. But now, he supposed, they were allies. They'd have to be in order to face whatever would come next. He knew what it was like to make mistakes and mess things up - he had plenty of experience with that. As easy as it would be to hate Azula and Katara both, he knew that a part of him never could.

Azula looked back at him. Then she looked at the others, taking her time as if trying to memorize the image of all of them in front of her. "Thank you," she said, so quietly that Sokka wasn't sure if anyone else heard.


Aang stared at his reflection in the bowl of water. For a long time, whenever he looked into his reflection, saw the expression in his eyes, he never liked what he saw. Always because he remembered what his eyes used to look like.

But now they seemed… fuller, somehow. Not quite how they looked before the Comet came more than three years ago now, but close, like recognizing an old friend. Eyes that had experienced great sorrows but also overwhelming joys. He saw his other self briefly, and seeing what they both looked like side by side, Aang could have thought they were brothers. Azula appeared in the reflection next to him, causing the younger monk to disappear.

"I won't lie," she said with a smile. "I thought it was going to look a little silly. But I like it. It suits you."

Aang rubbed his hand over his smooth head and smiled back.


Author's Notes: Ah, that Sokka and Azula fight was pretty nostalgic, in a way! Ty Lee and the others weren't originally going to appear in this chapter at all, but while I was writing this one I decided to move their plot up a chapter to give me more room for stuff to happen in the next chapter, since a lot is going down already!

Please head on over to r/Distorted_Reality if you want to discuss anything DR - and also, please review! Just two more chapters until we get to the finale!