--Lynne—

She couldn't think. She couldn't process anything.

Lynne paced in her house in Ba Sing Se. It was too close, too small. She couldn't breathe.

Before she knew what she was doing, she swept up her staff, snapped it open, and glided up away from the city.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The wind had a calming effect, slowing down her racing heartbeat, cooling her senses. She closed her eyes and welcomed the warmth of the sun.

Her glider ripped backward, but she held on fast. It vibrated in her hands, and she started losing altitude. She looked over and cursed at her carelessness.

Two large holes had been punched through the glider's wings. She cursed again as she sank lower, and she began searching the trees. Lower, lower, she was almost brushing the highest branches of the trees. Except for the rustling leaves, everything was silent.

Lynne weaved among the trees, then settled on a branch while letting her glider continue on. She searched the ground and the other branches for any sign of her attackers.

A rock hand clamped over her mouth, another wrapped around her waist, and they pulled her out of the tree to the ground. A dozen Dai Li stepped out from the undergrowth as she struggled to her feet. The rock hands were gone from her mouth and waist, but now they bound her hands behind her.

One of the Dai Li was right in front of her. "Lynne," he said.

She glared at him. With the smallest of gestures, she started to rotate one of her fingers.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Lynne of the Air Nomads, you are under arrest for high treason against the Earth King, and-"

"Who is my informant?" she asked.

"What?"

"iWho/i is my informant?" she repeated. "Who would dare accuse me of betraying the Earth King?"

The Dai Li frowned. "Avatar Kyzu has approved your arrest, and it is our duty to protect the King. You will be tried and –"

Lynne fell to the ground, pulling the circling air above that she had been bending down with her to form a small cyclone that wavered before targeting the head Dai Li.

She rolled away as the Dai Li formed barricades against the cyclone, which she directed to pick up dead branches and rocks. One of these large rocks hurtled through the air and landed on the head Dai Li's legs. He screamed, urging her to get away faster.

Suddenly, the rocks she was climbing rose out from under her, and she fell back with a yell into the midst of the new clearing her cyclone had made. She landed near the head Dai Li, who was struggling to move the boulder.

"Nothing personal," she said. "But I need you to deliver a message for me."

"What?" asked the Dai Li. "Are you insane?"

"I need you to find Avatar Kyzu. 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."

Before he could reply, she bended the air out of his lungs, and made herself watch as he gasped and waved his arms frantically. She would inot/i turn into a heartless killer. She iwould/i see the consequences of her actions through to the end. But it took all of her strength to keep from turning away.

When he was gone, she turned back to the battle just in time to dodge two rock hands being shot towards her. She took a deep breath, then bended the air out, knocking three Dai Li across the clearing as she pushed herself back.

The next few minutes were a blur in her mind as she became wholly focused on avoiding the Dai Li. She knew she took out at least two, but that still left more than she could handle. The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air and she felt her left arm snap in half. She fell against a tree, and the pain of her arm made her vision black out for a second. When it cleared, a Dai Li stood in front of her, a large rock at the ready to smash into her. Her mind froze.

Then the Dai Li erupted into flames, the rock falling onto him instead. She screamed and scrambled away, nearly screaming again when she tried to put weight on her broken arm.

The fire died away as quickly as it had come, and she could see past it to Kyzu, floating in a sphere of spinning air with glowing white eyes. With a quick wave of his hand, the entire clearing burst into flames that consumed everything within them. Lynne ducked behind a tree to escape the heat, but a distant part of her mind noted that the fire was nowhere near her.

As the shock wore off, she looked back around the tree. She had never seen an Avatar in the all powerful Avatar State before. It frightened her. But she couldn't help but stare. Kyzu was angrier than she had ever seen him.

But the fire died down, and he slowly sank to the ground. When he reached it, the globe of air disappeared, and the glow faded from his eyes, which closed and he sank to his knees.

Cautiously, Lynne crawled out from her hiding place and made her way to where Kyzu knelt in the ash. "Kyzu?" she asked, keeping her distance.

He looked up at her, and the relief was so plain on his face, it hurt to say, "If you want to kill me, get it over with. I…I can't fight you."

He got to his feet and took a step toward her. "Why would I kill you?"

"You sent the Dai Li," she said, nodding to what was left of the elite force. "You accused me of betraying the Earth King."

Kyzu waved his hand, and the rock hands finally let go of her own, falling uselessly to the ground.

"I would never do such a thing," he said, and she knew he meant it.

Which was why it hurt even more to say, "But you would go off and court this Katara girl behind my back."

He laughed, and her eyes welled with tears, but he just brushed them away. She hadn't realized how close he had gotten to her.

"It's not funny," she mumbled.

"Yes it is," he said, though he was deadly serious. "Because iyou/i are Katara."

--Kyzu—

"Well, that makes more sense than it doesn't," said Lynne.

Kyzu had just finished explaining his journey to the Spirit World, and they were sitting together against a tree. They needed to get back to Ba Sing Se and get to the bottom of the matter with the Dai Li, and fix Lynne's broken arm, but neither of them felt like disturbing the peace just yet.

"Would it be extremely cliché if I said something about fire needing air to live?" he asked.

She laughed. "Yes, and I forbid you to say anything of the sort." She leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Kyzu glanced up at their makeshift clearing of ash and rocks, then did a double take. It was all gone, all the damage, everything. Instead, there was a small spring and a pool surrounded by birch trees. Just at the water's edge was –

- Avatar Aang. Twelve year old Aang meditating with his back to the pool.

Kyzu twisted his head, and Aang disappeared. Cautiously, he moved it back, and Aang slid into place again. Then he noticed that he could see through Aang and the pool to the burned forest. It was an illusion.

Aang opened his eyes. He glanced side to side, and Kyzu could see the panic rising in him. "Katara?" he called. "KATARA!"

A huge wave swelled up from the pool and crashed onto Aang's head, and swept him across the clearing. Aang scrambled to his feet into a fighting stance, but a girl's laughter made him relax.

Kyzu looked back toward the pool. A girl, a spitting image of Lynne except for the airbending tattoos, was standing in the water, hands on hips. iAh,/i he realized. iThis must be Katara./i

"I'm surprised at you, Aang," she was saying as Aang walked back over. "Letting your guard slip like that. What if – what's wrong?"

Aang's face was such a storm of emotion Kyzu was impressed that he didn't explode. "I…I thought I'd lost you," he said. Kyzu felt a subtler version of that pull on his heart that Aang had done in the Spirit World.

Katara softened and climbed out of the pool to stand in front of him. "Don't worry," she told him. "If that ever happens, I'll find my way back to you. Promise."

Aang nodded somberly, but the split-second mischievous grin he gave Katara wasn't enough warning. A pillar of rock rose from the ground and pushed Katara back into the pool. Then he jumped in, and they started having a mock waterbending fight.

Kyzu smiled to himself and watched his and Lynne's past lives until the vision faded in the dying light.