--Lynne—

Lynne trailed her hand through the fountain as she tried to compose her thoughts. What were the odds that…oh forget it…

"The trouble with these parties," said a voice behind her. She slowly withdrew her hand from the fountain. "Is that they are several hours too long." Kyzu joined her at the fountain. "But for once I wish it was several hours longer."

She tugged at her sleeves.

"Stop that," he said, and tried to reach for her hands, but she twisted out of the way. "What's wrong with the tattoos?"

She shook her head. "You wouldn't understand."

"I hate it when people say that. Why don't you just try me?"

"You don't –" she started, then glared at the entrance to the hall. "None of the other cultures force their benders to mark themselves. I can't hide, from anyone. I'm always the example, because people see my arrows and instantly know I'm a bender."

He hesitated. "I thought you'd be proud of that."

"I iam/i! I just don't want to parade the fact everywhere I go! You – none of the Avatars have to be tattooed after mastering airbending, just those born into the Nomads. Why can't the rest of us have that option? Did you know that some towns are so scared from the War, even three hundred years later, that they will ikill/i any benders they can find? I can't enter those towns for fear of being attacked, because my tattoos mark me when other benders can hide and go free!"

"A town attacked you?"

"Yes!" And she couldn't help the tears that started running down her face. "So don't tell me that I shouldn't cover up my airbending tattoos. Don't tell me – that…" she stopped talking as she noticed that Kyzu was waterbending her tears into the fountain.

Lynne sniffed, then laughed. Maybe the odds were in her favor after all…

Several days later

Lynne ran down the last side street, and plowed into Kyzu, nearly sending them both into the fountain.

"You're late," he said as they balanced themselves.

"Sorry, I got held up at –" He kissed her.

"Does it look like I care?"

"Yes," she managed to say with a grin before he kissed her again.

"I love you, Katara."

Her blood froze. "What?" she asked, pushing him away.

"I don't know where that came from," he apologized.

"My name is iLynne/i," she reminded him, her voice dangerously low. The wind in the square began to pick up.

"Yeah, so why - "

"Who is Katara?" she asked, and he definitely couldn't ignore the wind anymore. He stabilized himself by rooting his feet to the ground with earthbending. "How many girls am I competing with?"

She couldn't see. She didn't know if it was because her hair was getting thrown into her face, or if the wind was making her eyes water, or if she was just crying.

"Lynne, I don't know who – " he shouted, but the wind was making it impossible for her to hear him. He could hear her perfectly though.

"Just stay away from me," she screamed. "I never want to see you again!" And then she was gone.

--Kyzu—

His preparations complete, Kyzu sat down in the middle of the room, hands folded. He needed answers and he needed them now. The four elements were represented with a box to his right, a bowl of water behind him, an obsidian rock on his left, and a burning candle in front of him. He focused on the flame as it wavered in the otherwise dark room and tried to think of nothing. He took a deep breath –

- and found himself before a strange house. He'd never seen the house before, but he knew where he was: the spirit world.

He walked up to the door of the drab wooden house, stepped inside, and stood face-to-face with himself. Startled, he jumped back, and so did his reflection. For that's what it was, he realized as he took in the rest. The walls were made up of mirrors, and the free-standing ones could swivel in place. He stepped into the middle of the room and was surrounded by Kyzus.

"Who is Katara?" he asked his reflections. They faded away, but a small child in orange and yellow appeared in one of the mirrors. He held a staff loosely in both hands as he meditated, and there was a blue arrow on his bald head.

"Avatar Aang?" Kyzu asked, though he knew that's who it was. He wondered why this past life of his chose to appear as his 12-year-old self instead of the all-powerful Avatar he would become.

Aang opened his eyes and glared at Kyzu. "You're not that iwaterbender/i," he said, making "waterbender" sound like a curse word. "Why isn't the Avatar before you helping you?"

"I don't know," he said, but suddenly two other Avatars appeared in mirrors to his right, a Water Tribe woman and an Earth Kingdom man.

"You're the best one to answer his question, Aang," they said in unison.

"Roku!" Aang shouted, leaping to his feet, and an old Fire Nation man appeared on Kyzu's left.

"They deferred to iyou/i, Aang. You have to help him."

Aang's eyes and tattoos glowed, and Kyzu felt…isomething/i being pulled from him, and it took him a second to realize that Aang was drawing on the powers of the other Avatars. Then the other Avatars' eyes began to glow, and Kyzu felt the flow of his power shift toward Roku. A freezing wind storm raged around the house, shaking the mirrors, and Kyzu closed his eyes tightly against the battle as he tried to find the strength to remain standing. Is this how past lives felt when he drew on them?

Then Aang wilted. Roku and the others had vanished, and Kyzu felt the warmth returning to the room and to his own body. He wondered if his past lives ever minded when he drew on their power to enter the Avatar State.

Aang looked up at him, eyes narrowed.

Suddenly, a pain erupted in his chest, so intense that he wanted to rip his heart out.

The pain was gone as quickly as it had come. "Multiply that by a thousand," Aang told him from the mirror, "and you won't even come iclose/i to what I felt when I lost Katara."

Kyzu understood. "She was your consort."

"I loved her," he said quietly. "And I couldn't save her. I was visiting Kyoshi Island when she got a message from Fire Lord Zuko about a rebellion. She went to help. By the time I got there, she was dead. I…I destroyed them." His gaze was hollow as he met Kyzu's eyes.

"But why did I call Lynne Katara?" Kyzu asked.

"The Avatar and the consort have been separated for 300 years," said Kyzu's own mentor, the Earth Kingdom man, who reappeared in his mirror. "Mine was a firebender. My village, which is very traditional, killed her before she could reach me."

"I was engaged," said the Water Tribe woman. "I could hardly explain to my father the wrongness of the situation when I didn't understand myself."

"Combined with my hundred years in an iceberg," said Aang, "that's 400 years of separatioin, with a small respite when I had Katara."

"Actually, I think I met my consort," the woman said. "We had a feast to celebrate…something, I don't remember what, and this young man was there. He was funny, charming, but slightly conceited, but that just added to his charm."

"That sounds like Sokka," said Aang at the same time as Kyzu and the Earthbender chimed in with the same response, but different names. Aang laughed at Kyzu's confusion. "Sokka's the only spirit I know that can't bend in iany/i culture. He likes to haunt the North Pole, and his personality doesn't change from life to life."

"You shouldn't talk about people behind their backs, Kyzu," said a voice behind Kyzu. He turned to find one of his friends from the Dai Li occupying the swivel mirror which was spinning so fast it was a blur.

Before he could say anything, Aang said, "Sokka, what are you doing here? This building is for the Avatar only."

"Sokka?" asked Kyzu. He squinted. Through the blur he could just make out other forms.

"I hate that mirror," his mentor said. "I never got used to it. It shows a spirit in the manifestation a particular Avatar is familiar with. I see my friend, Aang sees his, I'm assuming you see yours, and so on." Kyzu shook his head. The Spirit World would never cease to amaze him. He turned back to the mirrors, where his friend, or Sokka, was telling Aang what had happened.

"And then she said," Sokka was wrapping up. "Take a message to the Avatar for me. Tell him Lynne says – "

"Lynne?"

Sokka glared at him for interrupting. "Tell him Lynne says that she'll destroy any assassins he sends against her, and that he'd better look to the sky because she'll be striking back tenfold. And then she ikilled/i me! 'Nothing personal' my foot! She bended all of the air out of my lungs!" He continued to rant, but the Avatars were watching Kyzu.

"You tried to assassinate her?" asked Aang.

"Of course not!" Kyzu said. His mind seemed to be working on four levels at once, but he didn't have much time.

"And now I have to go be a baby again," Sokka complained. "And –"

"Stop that!" Kyzu snapped. "I need you to tell me where she is."

"You won't reach her in time," Aang said hollowly.

"Maybe not, but I have to try."