The land grows more and more desolate as Korra and Asami walk, and a thick fog falls over them. "This looks ominous," Asami comments. Her brow is furrowed in concern. Korra's stomach twists uncomfortably.

"Well, we are going to see a spirit called the Face-Stealer," she replies in an attempt at humor. Anything to lighten the air of gloom that has settled over them. The comment falls flat, and Asami's expression remains unchanged. "Looks like Koh won't be able to steal your face," she adds with a gentle nudge to the other girl's side.

Asami sighs. "I'm sorry Korra, but I'm not really in the mood for jokes right now. I feel like we're walking to our deaths."

Korra grimaces. The feeling is not exactly new for her. She has looked danger in the eye and taken the step forward, on her own, knowing that she could be killed an any moment, several times before, but Asami has not. The engineer has risked her life many times, but she has never exactly had time to think about it the way Korra did when she traded herself in to the Red Lotus or met Kuvira outside Zaofu. She reaches for Asami's hand and finds it damp with sweat. Asami glances over at her apologetically.

"Not we," Korra answers. "Just me."

Asami stops without warning, jerking Korra by the arm when she does not notice and continues walking. "What do you mean, just you?"

"There's no reason for both of us to go in there." Korra places her other hand on her shoulder and rolls it out. "It will be harder for Koh to steal someone's face if he has fewer faces to choose from."

Asami crosses her arms. "And you've just decided that person should be you?"

"Well, they are my past lives." Korra shrugs. "And I'm more familiar with spirits. It just makes sense for me to be the one to talk to him."

Asami sighs. "I know you have to go in." She takes Korra's hand in her own again. "I just don't want you to be alone in there."

Korra squeezes her hand. "I don't want you going in there at all. What if something happened and he stole your face, when we were supposed to be on vacation, and you didn't even have to be there in the first place? I would never forgive myself."

"I thought you said he'd never be able to steal my face," Asami teases as they start walking through the dirt and fog and twisted, dead trees again.

"You know I was just trying to get you to laugh at me," Korra answers with a grin.

Asami smirks at her, and the Avatar does not think she likes the expression on her face. "So you really don't trust me to control my emotions."

Korra frowns. "Hey, that's not fair. You tricked me."

"If I can trick you, maybe I can trick Koh," Asami replies. "That's why I should come with you."

"He's a tens of thousands of lifetimes-old spirit," Korra points out. "Do you really think we'd be able to trick him?"

Asami shrugs. "I'm pretty smart. You are too. We'd think of something."

They come to the edge of a wide, fog-filled ravine. Korra leans over the drop off carefully, but it is impossible to see the bottom or the other side. All she can see are swirling tufts of white air, like they are standing in the clouds.

"Look," Asami says, pointing across the canyon. "Is that it?" Korra follows her gaze over a line of rock pillars sticking out of the fog like fingers, to a knotted old tree. "It looks just like the Tree of Time."

"If the Tree of Time had an evil twin," Korra mutters. "That's got to be it. Let's go." Without waiting for the engineer to ask how exactly she plans on getting them across the ocean of fog, Korra wraps her arm around the other girl's waist and launches them onto the nearest stone finger on a gust of air.

They reach the island supporting the tree in seven leaps. Korra can see an opening among the roots. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "Koh's lair," Asami breathes beside her, and she nods. She feels a hand clamp around her arm, and when she looks up in surprise, Asami is staring at her fiercely. "I'm going with you," she insists. "You're not going in there alone." Korra knows there is no point in arguing. Asami's mind is made up, just like it was when Korra questioned whether it was a good idea to be speaking with her father again.

"Okay," she nods. Now that they are here, her stomach is in her throat. It reminds her of the way she felt when she went to see Zaheer in prison. Facing Koh did not seem like a big deal back at Wan Shi Tong's library, or even when they made camp, but things are different now. The severity of the danger she is about to face is creeping up on her. "But I'll kill you if you get your face stolen."

"Please do," Asami answers, and Korra is horrified that she is not sure if it is a joke. She glances back at the opening. It is too dark to see anything inside, save for small swatches where light peaks in through the roots of the tree. There is a clenching feeling in her abdomen, like she is about to walk into the gaping mouth of a beast. She turns back to Asami, reaches to curl her fingers behind her neck, and pulls their mouths together.

It is only their third kiss, and it is still new. As Asami slides her arms behind Korra's back, she wishes there was not an unnatural coldness sweeping over her, wishes they were not standing in the shadow of a tree so twisted it could not have grown that way naturally. She wishes they were not possibly walking to their deaths. Every part of her wants to tell herself that Aang did this when he was twelve, and it should be easy for her, but there is a nagging voice in the back of her brain telling her to cut her losses and go back to enjoying their vacation without all this unnecessary risk. She has gotten along for years without her other lives. She can make due. But Korra knows it is not that simple, because this isn't just about her. This is about her next life and the life after that. This is about future Avatars who will be in need of guidance and whom she will have cheated out of advice gathered over a thousand lifetimes.

They break apart and Asami smiles sadly. "I hope we get to do that again."

"We will," Korra tells her, though she does not feel as certain as she sounds. "Get ready to not feel anything. Try to channel my cousins." She takes the other girl's hand… her girlfriend's hand?… and, without a backward glance, descends into the cave.


"How could you lose Kuvira?" President Raiko storms on the other end of the radio. Prince Wu looks torn between terror and indignation, Opal crosses her arms angrily, and a Mako simply rolls his eyes.

"We were doing what your people told us to do!" Su argues, though it kills her to refer to her sister and Tenzin as Raiko'speople. "I told them it was a bad idea! I told them what happened in Gaoling! They didn't care!"

On the other end of the line, she can hear Raiko sigh. The bridge of the airship falls into an uncomfortable silence until finally, Mako says what they are all thinking. "Well we have to rescue her right? I mean, we can't just leave her with the rebels."

"Who says it'll be a rescue," Opal mutters.

"Yes," Raiko adds over the radio. "We can't ignore the possibility that Kuvira might be working with the people who freed her. I'm beginning to regret allowing you to go along with this plan."

"It wasn't my plan in the first place," Su growls. Tenzin. This is Tenzin's fault. Tenzin wanted to release Kuvira from prison. Tenzin wanted them to go to Omashu. Tenzin is far too trusting, and Su has never held more animosity toward the airbender in her life. Or toward anyone, for that matter, except maybe her sister when she was a teenager.

Another heavy sigh from Raiko. "I'll send forces down there to relieve you—"

"No!" Su interrupts. "How do you think that will look to the rioters? Like the United Republic is invading Omashu?"

"She's right, Sir," Mako interjects to Su's surprise. Perhaps he is worth more to them than she has been giving him credit for. "You can't be the world's police. You don't have a large enough military."

"Let us handle it." Su glances around at her daughter, the Prince, and his bodyguard. "We've got this."

"I'll take your word for it," Raiko replies warily. "For now. But I expect twice daily status reports, and I'll be in touch with the rest of the world leaders to evaluate our additional options." And Su realizes with a jolt of horror that he plans to take the United Republic to war with the rebellion if he can gather the allies, though she hopes desperately that Tenzin and Fire Lord Izumi will stand by their earlier positions. Waterbenders will be useless for a war in the deserts of the Earth Kingdom. Without support of the Fire Nation or the airbenders, Mako is right. Raiko will not have enough military power for an attack.

"Do we actually have this, Mom?" Opal asks as soon as the President is off the line.

Su supports herself on the control panel and presses her hand to her forehead. "I hope so." There is something nudging her side, and then her daughter's arms are around her, just like when she was a child and she used to hug Su around the leg after a day of playing with her brothers in the fields at the base of the domes.

"We need a plan," Mako says after a moment. Su turns, her arm still around Opal, to find him pacing across the bridge. The Prince's head is moving back and forth like he is watching a game of power disc. "We need to know where they're keeping her and we need to come up with a way to get into the city unseen. Everyone knows who Su is, and they saw the rest of us with Kuvira earlier."

"Oh, I know!" the Prince exclaims. "We should wear disguises." He makes his thumb and index fingers into circles around his eyes. "Like masks. And capes. And we can tell them I'm a music sensation, and you guys are my entourage." He claps his hands together enthusiastically. "It's barely even a lie!"

"No." Mako frowns at him. "And you're not coming anyway. You're staying right here on the airship, where they can't get to you."

"I think they've proven that's not true," Opal points out.

"I'll melt the bolts on the vents in your chambers in place," Mako explains. "You're going to lock yourself in, and you're not going to open the door until one of us tells you to. You're the last viable heir to the Earth Kingdom's throne."

"I guess you're right," Wu sighs. "I'm just too important to risk myself. What would my people do without me?"

"Reinstate Kuvira," Opal answers, and Su gives her a sharp poke in the shoulder.

"Well, we have three different kinds of benders," Mako points out, turning to the two women. "There has to be a way."

"There is," Su replies firmly. "We just have to find it."

Perhaps if she says it with enough confidence, it will be true.


Korra grasps Asami tightly with one hand and holds a small, flickering flame in the other. She can hear movement. Asami's pulse quickens against her palm, and Korra looks over her shoulder once more to make sure that her companion still has a face.

"Hello?"she calls, her eyes focusing on the small patches illuminated by light peaking through the roots of the tree overhead. "Is there someone named Koh here?"

There is a scuttling sound to her left, and then a white and red-painted face appears in front of her. Her eyes widen slightly, but she is careful to keep her expression neutral. "Welcome." His voice is deep, unnaturally so, and impossibly clear.

"Uhh, thank you," she answers. "I'm—"

"The Avatar," the spirit finishes. "Yes, I know you. Last time you were here, you didn't remember me either. How easily humans forget."

"I don't know anything about my past lives," Korra replies, relieved that she is able to cut to the chase so quickly. "I lost contact with them three years ago."

"Really," Koh says. The face that is looking at Korra smirks. "How intriguing. Allow me to tell you about them. Your previous life was likeable enough. You needed information about Tui and La. Surely you know of them. You came to me because I am one of the few spirits old enough to remember. Without my help, there would be no you."

The eyes flit down to Korra and Asami's joined hands, and Korra has an urge to frown and make herself look threatening, but she resists. He turns away from her and continues his story. "It must have been seven hundred years since the time I saw you before that. You tried to slay me!" He turns back on Korra and comes at her quickly, now displaying the face of an angry-looking Fire Nation man with a mustache. Korra blinks and recoils, but her face remains impassive. The hand locked in Asami's is beginning to throb, but Korra cannot tell which of them is squeezing too tightly.

"Why did I do that?" she asks.

Koh switches to the face of a young woman that Korra recognizes as Water Tribe. Her hair grows so long that Korra is certain it must have reached past her waist and flutters in a non-existent breeze. "I stole the face of the one you loved." His voice is smooth, scheming. His body coils around Asami like a snake's, coming between them. Korra wants to yell at him to leave her alone, but she does not trust herself. She cannot allow her emotions, bubbling furiously just below the surface, to betray her. The Water Tribe woman's face is so close to Asami that their noses are nearly touching. Asami looks completely calm, bored even, but Korra can feel her fear in her clenched hand. "Not since have I added a face this beautiful and… fragile to my collection. Is this the one you love, Avatar?"

"Umm, I…" Korra is absolutely positive that Asami does not care what she says right now, but that does not save her from tripping over her words. "I think I… umm…"

"Ah, new love," Koh deduces, his voice wicked. "When you have been here as long as I have, little is new anymore. Faces. Only faces."

"That must get boring," Korra answers, desperate to shift the subject off of Asami.

"Perhaps," he replies, unwrapping himself from around the engineer and looking at Korra once more, this time with the face of an elderly man. "But we're not here to talk about me, are we, Avatar? We're here to talk about you. Tell me, do you have another problem you need me to solve?"

"I do need your help," she answers, grateful that he has finally turned away from her companion. "I need to know how to reconnect to my past lives. I was separated from them by Unalaq… umm, Vaatu… the dark Avatar at harmonic convergence. I heard that he must have absorbed them, and since spiritual energy never really goes away, that they must be out there somewhere. I thought, since you've been around so long, you might have some idea where?"

"I do not," Koh answers, and Korra struggles to keep the disappointment off her face. Now that she knows those spirits are still existent, she feels so close to being reunited with them, but they are always just out of her grasp. "But I know where you can find the answer."

"Where?" she hears Asami asks quickly. Korra looks over in surprise.

"The spirit you are looking for is my polar opposite," he tells them as he turns away. "We stopped seeing eye to eye many thousands of lifetimes ago. I no longer speak her name. She undoes my work, and I undo hers. It is a cycle. One of us could not survive without the other."

"Then how am I supposed to find her?" Korra asks.

"You have already met her. It was not long ago, for me at least," Koh continues. "You may not remember, but there are other ways to access memories. Especially for you, Avatar."

"The Tree of Time," Korra murmurs. Koh rounds on her again, his face that of a curly-tailed blue nose. "Sorry," she clears her throat. "Umm, thanks for all your help. We have to be going. It's, you know, getting late. Well, it's really not, because time doesn't really exist here. Well, it sort of does—"

"Thank you," Asami cuts in. "You've been very helpful." She pulls Korra toward the exit, looking back over her shoulder every so often until the reach the opening of the cave.

"I look forward to your next face, Avatar," Korra hears from behind them as the warmth of sunlight washes over their skin. "It is always a point of curiosity which one you'll bring to me next."


Kuvira has yelled her throat nearly raw, passed out from exhaustion, and refused to eat two meals by the time she is removed from her cell. Her back and shoulders are tender from being chi blocked often enough to assure that she does not regain her ability to bend. What the woman at the prison did was uncomfortable. This electrocution is brutal.

Shou and a scrawny, eager-looking man that Kuvira does not recognize lead her out of her cell, up a long spiral staircase to an open air room overlooking the city. Beyond the walls, she can see the airship still tied in the distance.

Su hasn't left. They'll come for her.

"I thought you could use some sunlight and fresh air," Ling Dao calls to her. She is seated comfortably on a long, purple velvet cushion that Kuvira knows once belonged to King Bumi, who never cared much for the national colors. "It's a good thing you're not a firebender. We'd have to keep you locked in the dark until you came around." She shakes her head. "You understand, I just can't take chances with you." She surveys Kuvira for a moment in silence before gesturing to the cushion opposite her. "Sit. Eat."

Kuvira sinks down and glances down at the bench between them. It is stacked with plates of roast duck, hibiscus root salad, and egg custard tarts. "We even have cabbage cookies," Ling Dao informs her as Kuvira's gaze rests on a plate at the end, containing something that looks someone tried to bread and bake leaves. "An Omashu delicacy."

Kuvira looks up at her. The other woman studies her, but Kuvira studies her back, each impenetrable under the other's cool gaze. "What's this about?"

Ling Dao shrugs innocently. "I just wanted to speak with you again, try to understand your views, see if I can persuade you."

"You can't," Kuvira insists. "I no longer have a desire to rule, especially not the way you want me to."

Ling Dao shakes her head. "I see you've fallen into your old mentor's way of thinking," she replies. "You've been spending too much time with her in Republic City. Did she come here with you, Kuvira? Is she in that airship out there? Does she know we can all see it from here?" Ling Dao leans forward intently. "She's distorted your ability to think independently, Kuvira. Prison will do that to a person. It's rather sad."

"She didn't tell me anything," Kuvira growls. "Chief Beifong told me what she wanted me to do and I agreed. That's all there was to it."

"And playing along was an excellent move on your part," Ling Dao replies. "We were having trouble deciding how to break you out of prison. They made it much easier by bringing you to us." She picks a bunch of grapes out of one of the bowls on the bench and pops one into her mouth. "Eat, Kuvira," she instructs. "It's not poisoned, and you look undernourished." She leans back into the cushion.

"They made you believe you were at fault for what happened, when all you were doing was reacting to their hostile actions," she continues, apparently satisfied when Kuvira picks a tart off the plate directly in front of her. "You had to defend yourself. The United Republic was never going to stop trying to remove you from power to install that imbecile Prince. You had to take them out. Suyin Beifong isn't here, Kuvira. You can come back to yourself. There's a reason you left her in the first place. She was holding you back. She was too timid to step up when it mattered. You and I aren't like that. We don't sit idly by."

"I'm not like that," Kuvira answers carefully. "But I'm not like you. I know I'm not what the Earth Nation needs. They need leaders who won't be corrupted and who don't hide behind a wall or in a palace or… behind an army."

"Look out there, Kuvira," Ling Dao points outside. "Look at this city. Do you really think these people need another upheaval, while the Prince fumbles his way through setting up a new government that could take decades to function properly, if it ever does at all? Or do you think they need the person who brought not just stability, but prosperity to them only months after a war that devastated the entire nation for a century? Their Great Uniter."

"I'm not what anyone needs right now," Kuvira answers forcefully. "Maybe the people in Omashu love me, but you should talk to the people in the Yai province or Zaofu. They'll welcome independence. They were practically independent already, before I conquered them. Zaofu was a world leader in technology and culture. I took it out of greed disguised as nationalism."

Ling Dao shrugs. "Omashu was practically independent for hundreds of years," she points out. "That doesn't mean its people won't benefit from being part of a larger Earth Nation."

"They seemed fine with being on their own until your people stirred them up," Kuvira argues, but Ling Dao only raises an eyebrow.

"Kuvira, if they didn't want you back, do you really think we would have been able to insight a riot in a matter of minutes?" She leans across the table to lay a hand atop the other woman's. It feels too heavy, and Kuvira wants to pull away, but she is not stupid. Her cell is sprawling, like a hotel room, and she does not want to make her situation worse over something so trivial. "I know you want what's best for the Earth Nation," Ling Dao tells her. "And I know the Beifongs, President Raiko, and the Avatar have told you something to make you believe that that is not you, but where are they? You are the only one who is here, looking at these people. What do you think is best for them?"

Kuvira tightens her jaw. "To not be ruled by someone who lives on the other side of the continent and has never even been to the city," she pauses, and Ling Dao's lips twitch toward a smile. "Or by someone who invaded a province that was perfectly functional on its own, just because the people who live there bend the same element."

Ling Dao frowns and retracts her hand, shaking her head slowly. "I really thought we could bring you around, Kuvira. I thought you could be our Great Uniter again," she says. "But I guess Suyin Beifong has so tight a hold on your mind that you can't be pried away. It's a shame. You had so much potential." She drops the grapes back in the bowl and stands, so that she is towering above the other woman. "Kuvira, as much as it kills me to have to say this, you are a traitor to our cause, and you will be tried as such at sundown tonight. May the spirits of justice and serenity be with you."

Kuvira is pulled from the room by her arms before she has even had a chance to stand up. The cell she is returned to bears a much greater resemblance to the one she remembers from prison.


When Korra and Asami finally reach the part of the spirit world where things are actually living, they collapse on the underbrush, their backs against a tree. "That was…" Korra breathes, searching for the right word.

"Terrifying?" Asami supplies.

"I thought it would be easier," Korra admits. "I didn't think he was going to try to get a reaction out of us."

"Well, his entire existence is stealing faces," Asami replies. "That would be a lot harder to do if he wasn't so creepy."

"Yeah, I guess," Korra agrees. She picks Asami's hand off her leg and begins to play with her fingers. "Do you want to make camp here tonight? There's enough distance between us and him, and I don't think he followed us anyway."

"That's not going to stop me from having nightmares about it," Asami sighs. "But I am getting tired." As if to demonstrate her point, she stifles a yawn and drops her head to Korra's shoulder. "I'm really glad nobody lost their face," she adds. "I don't know how I would have explained that to your parents."

"Something tells me they wouldn't have taken it very well," Korra answers. "First I go missing for six months with no explanation. Then I take a vacation into the spirit world without telling them and come back with blank skin where my face used to be."

"We just can't leave you on your own for one second, can we?" Asami jokes, to Korra's relief. They were both silent, trapped in their own thoughts, the entire way back through the eerie, desolate landscape, and it is nice to know that things are starting to go back to normal. "So what do you think Koh meant by his polar opposite?"

"I don't know," Korra sighs, resting her head atop Asami's. "He told me I met her but I don't remember it. What do you think that means?"

"Maybe you met her, but you didn't know it was her?" Asami suggests. "Have you met a lot of female spirits?"

Korra shakes her head. "Only Raava. Well, and a two-headed frog whose wedding reception I was at. But he wanted me to go back to the Tree of Time to figure it out. Maybe I just have to sift through all my memories until I figure it out."

"Wait," Asami shifts her head to look up at her companion, "He said you met her recently for him, and he referred to all the incarnations of the Avatar as the same person. Maybe when he said you met her, he meant in a past life."

"I bet that's it!" Korra exclaims. "I bet I'm supposed to go back to the Tree of Time and access Aang's memories."

Asami furrows her brow. "Can you do that?"

"The Tree of Time stores all memories." Korra shrugs. "I don't see why not, and that is what Koh told me to do."

"Right," Asami replies. "Because he couldn't possibly have been lying."

"I don't think he was," Korra says. "I mean, I know he helped Aang save the moon spirit. That's a household story in the Water Tribes. And I first heard it from Katara and Sokka, so I doubt they embellished it the way most people do. Well, I don't think Sokka actually put an icicle through General Zhao himself, but the essentials are probably right."

"Okay," Asami nods. "We'll go back to the Tree of Time and we'll sort through Aang's memories until we find… what, a spirit who… gives away faces or something?"

"Yeah, something like that," Korra agrees. "And if we don't find it in Aang's memories, we'll try Roku's, and then Kyoshi's." She looks down at the girl beside her. "I should tell you something about my Avatar duties," she adds with a grin. "Half of it is just making things up as I go."

"Well, it's worked pretty well for you so far," Asami answers. She clasps Korra's hand firmly in her own. "Don't worry. We'll figure this out. We've come this far. There's no way I'm letting you leave here without your past lives."

"Thanks, Asami." She brushes her lips to the top of the engineer's head. "Listen, almost losing our faces today got me thinking…" Her fingers twitch in Asami's grasp. This is much harder to say than she thought it would be. "I just wanted you to know how much I care about you. I care about you a lot."

"I know," Asami lifts her head to press a kiss to Korra's cheek. "The feeling is mutual."

"Oh, good," Korra nervously rubs the back of her neck. "I mean, good that you know. Not that it's not good that the feel is mutual, but that's not what I, umm… meant." She can feel her face reddening, and she is grateful that Asami cannot see it.

The engineer squeezes her hand. "It's my turn to tell a story," she comments. "Any suggestions?"

"Oh, I know," Korra grins wickedly, glad to take the focus off her own feelings for the time being. "Your first crush."

Asami laughs. "That's easy. Okay, well, when I was fourteen, I went to this expensive private school in Republic City, and there was this teacher there, a math teacher. He was a little older, his hair was starting to turn grey, but he had this daughter, Meina. She was a couple years above me, but she was just gorgeous. She was an earthbender. I think she moved to Ba Sing Se to expand her mother's company after she left school. I wonder if she made it through the coup alright…" she trails off in thought. "What about you?" she asks. "Who was your first crush?"

Korra sighs. "Mako."

"Really?" Asami draws back to look at her. "That late? You were seventeen. Mako wasn't even my first boyfriend."

"I was raised in a compound," Korra answers defensively. "I didn't have a lot of exposure to people my own age until I came to Republic City. My best friend was a polar bear dog."

Asami shrugs. "Fair enough. I was just expecting to hear about some stud from the Southern Water Tribe or something. That's all."

"Sorry to disappoint you," the Avatar replies, though she is smiling.

Asami wraps her arm around Korra's shoulders and squeezes. "I guess that explains why you didn't see ahead of time the trouble that going on a date with someone and then immediately kissing his brother could cause, huh?"

"I do feel bad about that now," Korra admits, allowing herself to be drawn into the embrace, weighing against Asami's side.

"I'm sure Bolin's over it," the other girl assures her. "I'm just glad we all got through it still friends."

"Me too," Korra agrees. "Otherwise, I'd probably be making this trip with Tenzin and his kids. I mean, I love them, but one meticulously scheduled vacation was enough for me. This is much better than that."

Asami pokes her in the ribs. "I'm glad you'd rather take a vacation with me than your airbending teacher."

Korra considers defending herself, but after the day they have both had, she would rather just to listen Asami laugh.


A/N: Sorry about the gap week guys. As I mentioned on my Wednesday update of my other fic, last week was pretty rough. But this was the highly-anticipated Koh chapter, so hopefully that makes up for it. Please, please, please review if you have a minute. I'll see you all at the next update.

Also, in case anyone wasn't aware, today is the tenth anniversary of the world premier of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon. I remember sitting in my living room watching it with my brother. I was in seventh grade, and now I feel really old. Excuse me while I reminisce for the rest of the day.