The sight of the ruins did nothing to improve Sen's mood. They were likely more than a decade old at this point, but destruction and ruin was always upsetting, no matter how old.

"I never understood why the Seventh Kingdom attacked all the way out here," Hao said. "It seems like such a waste."

The Seventh Kingdom war hadn't taken long to get to the Fire Nation, and it had come with a fury. Goto had done his best to secure and defend all of his territory, but many of the outlying island settlements simply didn't have the infrastructure for a strong military presence. They had been easy prey when the Seventh Kingdom military came.

"It was about naval movements," Sen said. "With all the smaller villages gone, the Seventh Kingdom navy could move undetected in most of the Fire Nation's waters. It ultimately didn't matter, since they telegraphed their attack on the Yala Strait and lost almost their entire navy anyway."

"All that destruction, for nothing," Hao sighed. Sen stared at the ruined buildings for a while.

"There's always something good that comes from the bad," he said. "It's hard to see sometimes, especially for those of us who have to live through it, but it's always there."

Sen put a hand on one of the broken stone walls. He wondered if this had been someone's home once, or their workplace. It was impossible to tell, now. The only one who could have told the story of those ruined stones was likely no longer part of this world.

"We should focus," Sen said, removing his hand from the stone. "These people are gone. Miyani's not."

Hao nodded and set to work. They had found much clearer traces of Miyani's passage recently, indicating that they were catching up to her. Sen scanned the city while Hao took to the beach. There was an old stone dock on the shore, the only intact remnant of civilization on this island. Hao examined the expanse of stone, and out of the corner of his eye, spotted something out of place.

"Sen, come and look at this," Hao said. He pointed to the corner of the dock, and Sen came sprinting his way. Sure enough, towards the end of the dock, there was a collection of burnt timber and ash. This entire city had been burned similarly at one point in the past, but the fact that the ash hadn't been blown away by the wind yet said this small fire was more recent.

Sen ran to the end of the docks and held a hand over the blackened wood for a moment. He took a deep breath, focused, and the ashes burst forth with a small shower of new sparks.

"Still warm," Sen said excitedly. "Just barely."

He rose with a smile on his face and turned west.

"She's been here, in the past day," he said. He looked across the sea, towards the next island in the chain. "Come on! Back to the ship."

Sen ran off, and Hao followed.

"That was Alrok," Hanjo said. He put away his portable radio. "Apparently they've found some pretty good signs of Miyani going through the area."

"Looks like my 'swept away with the current' idea is a wash," Ariak said. They had followed Ariak's lead to a highly populated fishing village, and had spent the past few days interrogating fishermen and ocean travelers with the help of a friendly local.

"It was a good idea," Akeri, their guide, said. She had been helping them search for traces of Miyani since their arrival. "We did find those bits of her plane, after all."

A few of the lighter pieces of Miyani's plane had been swept along in the currents and ended up in a fisherman's net, but it seemed Miyani hadn't followed the same course. It had been enough evidence to convince Ariak to redouble their efforts, though. They'd been scouring the city and the coastlines since finding those fragments.

"We should probably get to the boat and get back to the ship," Hanjo said. "We should be there when Sen finds her."

"Are you sure you want to leave already?" Akeri said. Out of sight, Ariak rolled his eyes. "It's late, and you've been searching so hard. Why not spend one more night?"

"Thank you for everything, Akeri, but we should get going," Ariak said. "The Avatar needs us."

The disappointed Akeri took a step back, and crossed her arms. Rebuffed for the thousandth time, it seemed she finally took a hint. Hanjo said a more polite goodbye to their guide. She'd been very helpful -albeit with ulterior motives. Hanjo waited until they were on the boat and out of earshot to bring up the subject.

"She really didn't take a hint, did she?"

"She did not," Ariak said.

"You handled it pretty well, though," Hanjo said. It was only half a compliment. "You must be used to this, huh?"

"There are only two single people on Sen's team, and Whistler is not exactly approachable," Ariak grumbled. "I receive unwanted advances very frequently."

Ariak had possessed no particular inclination towards romance even before becoming a celebrity. Now that there was a whole new group of people only interested in him for his status and connections, he liked the idea even less. While he acknowledged that relationships seemed to make his friends happy, he had never felt any attraction to anyone, and did not pursue any attempts to find a partner.

"Well, if it's any consolation, there's three single people as of two weeks ago," Hanjo said. "I got dumped."

"What?" Ariak asked. "Lanh dumped you?"

Shortly after the Coalition's disbandment, Hanjo and Lanh had begun dating in earnest. It seemed to have been going rather well, at least to Ariak's limited awareness of (and interest in) their relationship.

"Yeah, it wasn't too bad, all things considered," Hanjo said. "Kind of my fault. I let it slip that I used to be in love with Sen. I think it got under his skin."

Hanjo knew all too well that it was easy to feel inadequate when compared to the Avatar. Lanh's feelings were perfectly understandable, despite Hanjo's assurances that any romantic feelings were in the past. Ariak had a different takeaway from the conversation.

"You had feelings for Sen?"

"A whole barrel of them," Hanjo said with a wistful smile. "But I've moved on. Mostly. I mean, he's the Avatar, everyone's a little in love with him."

"That's true. It's harder to believe that you stopped being in love with him, actually," Ariak said. The Avatar was a remarkable human being by any measure. If Ariak ever developed feelings for anyone, he assumed it would be someone like Sen.

"Yeah, well, he didn't kiss me when we got reunited after that whole Rahm thing, and if ever there was a time to smooch, that'd be it," Hanjo said. "And uh, after that, I kind of got a better understanding of him. I realized we didn't have as much chemistry as I thought we did."

"The war was a dark time for Sen," Ariak said. "I don't blame you for changing your opinion of him, but I think he has changed for the better because of it."

"It's not that," Hanjo said. "Though watching him go sort of crazy was, admittedly, a turn off. It was watching him with Miyani, actually. I kind of saw that they had a spark we didn't."

"A 'spark'?" Ariak asked. Hanjo sighed. He was having a conversation about love with someone who was completely clueless about it.

"A connection. An understanding."

Hanjo paused and thought about it for a moment.

"There's a divide between me and Sen. There has been for a long time. I always saw power, my bending, as a gift. An opportunity to be something better, and do more. But Sen -and Miyani- for them, their power was a curse. It made them into something people hated, it controlled what their destiny could be."

Ariak nodded.

"But they both changed."

"They did. But that foundation -their relationship with their power and their potential is fundamentally different than mine. It gives them a perspective that I don't have."

Hanjo knew he would never fully understand the world from Sen's point of view. That was true for everyone, to an extent -no two people had exactly the same views on everything. Miyani and Sen simply had a more significant overlap than most people.

Ariak nodded to himself and kept an eye on the waves around him. The more people around him talked about relationships, the less he understood them. He shrugged and accepted the ridiculous nature of love as something he'd never really understand.

Sen stabilized the boat as it roiled in the waves beneath them. The seas were unsteady today, as there were strong winds blowing. The forces of nature bowed to the force of the Avatar, however, and it was literally smooth sailing for him and Hao as Sen's waterbending smoother the churning waves. They were headed to what would hopefully be their final destination. Sen could see another set of ruins in the distance -another victim of Seventh Kingdom attacks. Briefly, he looked over his shoulder. The twin spires of stone that framed the sun were now far in the east. The sun would be rising soon.

Hao caught the glance as Sen looked over his shoulder, and recognized the edge of intensity that cost Sen his clarity. Hao pondered a conversation topic for a moment and decided on a simple distraction.

"That Hanjo fellow was your first companion, right?" Hao asked. "Or was it Ada? I get it mixed up."

Hao was lying, but he wanted to give Sen a reason to talk, and split his focus.

"It was Hanjo, yeah," Sen said.

"He seems like a strange character," Hao said. "It's odd to think that his influence is what started you on your journey."

For a moment, the intensity in Sen's eyes broke, and he smiled.

"He seems odd at first glance, but he's one of the bravest people you'll ever meet," Sen said. "He was the first person to support me when I had nothing...and he was the first person to stand up to me when I was doing everything wrong."

Sen crossed his arms and thought back to the best and worst of his friendship with Hanjo.

"Truth be told, I used to think the world would've been better off if he'd been the Avatar instead of me," Sen admitted. "I spent our first couple weeks together wondering if it was possible to trade."

He laughed at the idea now, but Sen had seriously considered it at one point.

"I don't think anyone, Hanjo included, would've had it any other way, Sen," Hao assured him.

"I know that now," Sen said. "But there are a few things I think he would've handled better. And if it were possible to trade, I think I'd let him have it for a week or two. Partially to get a vacation, and partially just to see what would happen."

"It would certainly be interesting," Hao admitted. "And if you ever figure out how to make that trade, I'd like a turn as well."

"I'll put you on the list," Sen said with a laugh.

Sen stood back and leaned against the railing. He looked up at the sky and sighed happily.

"Thanks for the distractions," Sen said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hao said, unconvincingly. Sen shook his head.

"I figured it out a couple conversations ago," Sen said. "Zas asked you to keep me occupied so I didn't get that 'intense' look, right?"

Hao considered his options for a moment before remembering that his son was a truth-seer in two different ways.

"Yes, that's exactly what happened," Hao admitted.

Sen nodded. There had been a suspiciously high number of occurrences of Sen staring particularly hard at something, and Hao piping up with a random conversation topic. Sen had, in fact, been faking the intense stare that had started the Hanjo conversation, just to see what Hao would do.

"Well, like I said, thanks," Sen said. "It was a big help keeping my head clear, and I learned a lot."

The awkwardness Sen had felt upon first meeting Hao had all but faded. Through the course of their search for Miyani, they'd been given a chance to talk, and a chance to bond, in a way that they might not have otherwise. Had they stayed at home to chat with his friends, they might still be making awkward small talk and trying to force interaction through bending or cooking lessons.

"I'm just trying to do my best. I have a lot of time to make up for," Hao said quietly. Sen left the prow of the ship for a moment and sat down by his father's side. He crossed his legs and looked at his father for a moment. He looked old, and tired. Sen wondered what he might've looked like two decades ago, growing up.

"You know, speaking of Hanjo, there's something I've been thinking about," Sen said. "About the time we spent apart. The time I spent learning firebending getting to know Miyani."

Sen leaned forward and thought of the past.

"I thought he was dead," Sen said. "That I would never get to see him again. But there were times I thought about him, what he might do, what he would want, and it helped push me forward. I could learn from his example, make him a part of my life, even when he wasn't there with me."

A wave crashed against the wall of the ship, filling the brief pause with the sound of roaring water.

"I think it's the same for us," Sen said. "I barely remembered anything about you -all I knew is that I wanted to be a construction worker when I grew up. But that still shaped how I approached the world, the way I learned and grew. Even though you couldn't be there for me, you were still part of my life."

Sen reached over to put a hand on his father's shoulder.

"You don't have to make up for anything, dad."

Any attempt at further father son bonding was thwarted by the sudden lurch of the ship as it hit a sandbar. Sen had taken his eyes off the water for a grand total of seven seconds, and paid the price for it. Hao nearly fell out of his seat, and Sen barely caught himself before he tumbled to the floor. They regained their balance in short order and Sen returned to the prow of the speedboat. With a gentle push of waterbending, he carried the boat over the sandbar, and closed the distance to the shore of the island.

"Once more onto the beach, then," Hao said. He was trying to hold back tears. Sen had called him 'dad', and he was still coping with that. Sen was slightly more focused.

"Well, off the beach," Sen said. "Seismic sense works better on stone."

He demonstrated his point by taking one step off the beach onto the rocky stone of the island. His heel slammed into the ground, and his eyes immediately went wide. He slammed his heel down again, and Sen's head snapped in the direction of the western shore, towards the ruins of the village.

There was an almost comedic pause before Sen took off sprinting at top speed, kicking up a cloud of sand behind him as he made an airbending-enhanced dash towards the ruins, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Miyani!"