How do I make this abundantly clear that there's some fairly high stakes involved? How about showcase just how screwed up have been in the background since the story started? Sorry for the delay. The later chapters are...well... getting large. Also, I didn't do this Zuko as I did without reason. Give it a chance to unfold. And finally, the veil Azula refers to and the one everybody else do are two different things. Just to keep people from drawing the wrong conclusions.
The forest around him soothed his mind with songs of birds and beasts, the wind gently pushing through the leaves and sending them fluttering. It was a forest which Sharif pondered probably stood from the beginning of time, and would likely live to see it's end. His own song joined that gentle orchestra, humming into the noise as he swayed, eyes closed, on the Ostrich Horse's back. Patriarch was silent, as he usually was when he traveled, and for a long moment, there was peace in the world. No war, no fear, no hate. Sharif's mouth began to frown, though. He took a deep breath, and smelled... nothing. That was odd. While the strike to his brain had destroyed his sense of smell and taste, he could still bring in something from his nose. It was a sense of spirit, sliding into the emptiness that his destroyed perception left. So to be able to breathe deep and smell nothing? That was an unusual thing.
"Do you know what that means, Patriarch?"
The bird gave a grunt, and continued walking. Sharif sighed. "I felt him again. He's close. Very close. What do you think about that?"
Patriarch tilted his head slightly, favoring the youth with one black eye, before continuing as though not disturbed. Sharif frowned. "What? Have I done something to offend you?"
The bird twisted its neck back again, but this time, its eyes bulged and it let out a horrible cry, its entire mass shifting to one side and hurling Sharif from its back.
OW OW OW!
Sharif took just a moment to shake the stars from his sight, to pull breath back into his lungs, and beheld Patriarch limping in a slow circle. "What's wrong, Patriarch?" Sharif said, getting to his feet heedless of the dust now on his black robes.
I stepped on something, and it's stuck in my foot!
"You don't need to shout, Patriarch, I can hear you just fine."
Patriarch paused in its circling, leveling a glare upon Sharif. I'm not shouting. The Longest Night approaches. My voice is clearer when the veil grows thin.
"Alright, calm down. Just stand still for a moment," Sharif said, stooping toward the feet.
Back off, human! Nobody touches my feet!
"If you don't let me get it out, you'll be hobbled. Please, Patriarch," Sharif pleaded. The bird stared at him for a long moment, before letting out a grumble and turning. Sharif put his back under the bird, so that it could lean against him as he picked up the foot. The weight shifted, and Sharif found himself straining to hold the weight up. But he had a clear sight of the foot, now. There was something wedged in there. It was a chip of metal, tarnished and dull. He reached for it, and when he jostled it even the slightest bit, Patriarch let out a yelp of pain and kicked, which sent Sharif skidding down the road on his back.
You should have warned me, Scarred Child. I was unprepared.
"I'm sorry, I forgot," Sharif said. He retook the position, heedless of the fact that he'd just gotten kicked by an Ostrich Horse, a condition most considered worthy of at least a moment's recovery. "I'm pulling it out now." He grabbed that shard and gave it a yank. It slid out of the wound, leaving a bit of blood in Sharif's hand. He shook his head at it, then thoughtlessly put it into his pocket next to the Jade Toe. "You're still bleeding. Can you walk?"
Every step hurts. I am old. I doubt it will heal.
"We need to take you to a farrier," Sharif declared. "He's probably seen worse. He'll have you back in running trim in no time."
And why would they tend to an old bird?
"Because people are good," Sharif declared. The bird let out a grunt at that, its equivalent of sarcastic laughter.
It is obvious you have not many kinds of humans, Scarred Child.
Sharif stared down at the foot, at the pool of blood surrounding it. He looked back up, then tipped the jug of water on Patriarch's back onto the dirt. Even the bird looked askance at that. Sharif dropped to his knees in the mud, and closed his eyes, opening his throat and intoning to the swiftly fleeing spirits of water that now tried to slip into the Outer Sphere.
Adaptable Water, nectar of gods, meandering road, whisper of the morning.
Gear of Regeneration.
Walker of the old and familiar path, flow through this meager form and fill it with majesty.
Renew!
As life rises up from the water, so shall life return to the waters.
As flesh withers, it returns to waters, and waters return to renew the flesh.
Rebuild what has been damaged. Restore what has been lost.
Even then, Sharif could still feel the tiny beings sliding toward the veil, but they hesitated. Some of them turned back, heeding his prayer and slipping into the fissure of flesh on the sole of Patriarch's foot. The spirits sewed themselves into the injury, knitting flesh through the blood which flowed into the soil. He had an option of siding with blood spirits but... frankly, they scared him a little.
It is not safe here. We depart.
Sharif frowned. "Why isn't it safe?" he asked the water spirits, but their answer was lost as they vanished beyond the veil, and drifted away. Now that his attention fell wholly on the Outer Sphere, he could finally understand why he couldn't smell anything. There was nothing out there to smell. He looked through the veil of one world to the next, and there was nothing there. His eyes told him that there were trees, that there were animals, but past that barrier... nothing.
"We should get out of this forest," Sharif said, patting Patriarch on the flank. Patriarch didn't say a word, deferring to the resident shaman. "I think there's a village nearby. Senlin, or something."
Then we had better leave before nightfall. The veil is weak when the moon rises near the Longest Night.
"Do you think you can make it to Senlin?" Sharif asked, as the bird began to limp his way along, if with better ability than he had a moment before.
We shall see, Scarred Child.
Chapter 9
Longest Night, Part 1: The Beast
Nila was on the ground, her fingers running along the dirt. "What is it, Nila?" Tzu Zi asked her.
"Somebody came this way very recently. I know these footprints. I've seen them before," Nila answered.
Malu raised a brow. "Really? You recognize one particular set of Ostrich Horse tracks?" she asked.
"Snapped talon on left foot has a distinct shape. Right foot deeper at the heel, indicating a hip injury. The last time I saw these footprints was the last concrete sign I had of my brother's presence. That bird is here," Nila clapped her hands, sending the dust off of them. "And so is Sharif."
"You say that with a lot of certainty... What if you're wrong?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila turned back to her.
"These are tracks so obvious that a blind Si Wongi could follow them. I'm not wrong," Nila said. She looked south, and she knew in her guts that he was there. As sure as the sun set in the west, as sure as the stars were masses of incandescent gas, as sure as Mother was the meanest wolfbat on Sentinel Rock. "Since these are relatively fresh, we must not be far behind. A day at most. We need to pick up the pace."
"We can't keep doing this to poor Aki," Tzu Zi fussed, though. Nila raised her brow. "She's tired from carrying all of us."
"We could leave the airbender," Nila offered.
"Oh, that's great. Soon as I slow you down you pitch me into the gutter?" Malu asked, annoyance plain in her tone.
"Well, I'm still puzzled why you bothered to come with us at all," Nila said.
"You were heading south. I need to get to Hanyi if I want passage north. I figured, 'why not?'."
"'Why not?' is seldom a worthwhile motivator," Nila said.
"Can we please stop fighting?" Tzu Zi urged.
"We weren't fighting," Nila said. "If I was fighting, one of us would be bleeding right now."
"You're a real pain sometimes, you know that?" Malu asked. She threw up her hands. "Fine. You want me to leave, just say so."
"Go away," Nila pointed.
"Nila!" Tzu Zi chastised. She turned to Malu. "Please, don't rush into this. It's great having more people around, and you don't need to..."
"It's alright, Tzu Zi," Malu said. "I know when I'm not welcome."
"But you're welcome! You really are," Tzu Zi said.
Nila harrumphed, and pulled the dark orange shirt tighter at the waist. With her proper, warmer robes now probably burnt along with most of the cargo of that sailing ship, she had to make do with a brassier made of a shirt sleeve and an ad hoc shirt rigged from a tattered cloak. As it was, the buttons that Tzu Zi had inexpertly put on didn't quite match up, so it usually hung open, leaving her navel scandalously exposed. At least the pirate-captain's pants, once properly cinched, worked without issue. It was actually far more comfortable to ride, now; her robes had a tendency to ride up when she had to sit astride the back of Aki.
"You know, maybe when pouty finds her brother, you and me can have some adventures together," Malu said, giving the girl a hug. Nila wasn't sure why she felt a sting of anger at that. "Good luck," she said to Tzu Zi. She pointed at Nila. "Find your brother. Now, I think I heard of a shaman who lives not too far from here, and I think I should probably have a word with him."
"Have fun," Tzu Zi said, with a warm smile. Malu grinned as she took a direct line off of the path and vanished into the thick woods. Much further in, and it would become almost impenetrable. Tzu Zi then turned to Nila. "What was that about?"
"I don't like her," Nila said.
"That's obvious. Why?"
"I don't need a reason. I simply don't," Nila said, turning down the road, as it wound through the forest. Lying to herself now, was she? "She's an airbender. That's bad news. They're irresponsible and daft, and they've got a bounty on their heads that would make the most temperate man water at the mouth. We are far safer with her far away from us."
"Well, that's... like... you're opinion," Tzu Zi said. "Maybe you wouldn't be so judgmental if you actually tried to get to know her a bit better. You might learn some things that surprise you."
"Such as?" Nila asked. She shook her head. "I'm just relieved that you managed to put aside your nationalism long enough to rescue me. Seeing an airbender must set your blood afire."
"My what?"
"You're a firebender, aren't you?" Nila asked, glancing over her shoulder. Tzu Zi stammered, but Nila shook her head. "Well, we're all born something."
"...You're not holding it against me?" Tzu Zi asked, incredulous.
"Why would I? Twelve of the greatest twenty minds of the last five hundred years came from the Fire Nation. Designer of the steam engine, the electric battery, revolutions in materials science, the list goes on. As much damage as they've done in the war, they've done far more good for the scientific community than they've done harm."
"That's... an unusual way to look at things," Tzu Zi said.
"I believe that anybody that can turn a place like Azul into a sustainable compound, let alone its thriving metropolis, deserves a degree of respect," she said.
"I'm not Azuli, you know," Tzu Zi said.
"You're not?" Nila asked. "Huh. Didn't realize."
Nila kept walking, and the stomp of Aki's feet behind her kept her company. The trees were reaching over her head, blocking out the sun, and yet there was a degree of light which Nila found confusing. It ought to be dark as night under the canopy, but it was bright as the dawn. She shook her head. It must have been a trick of the leaves above her, slipping around in the wind to let enough light through. That was the ticket.
A shadow passed overhead, and Nila didn't give it more than a passing glance. Probably just another bison wandering the skies... if a bit low for their usual habits. For all they were wild beasts, they learned swiftly enough that flying low was a good way to get fire thrown at them. She wondered how Sharif had even managed to stay ahead of her as long as he had. Sure, that he'd gotten a ride aboard an Ostrich Horse explained how she hadn't gained, but he set out from Sentinel Rock afoot, and she should have beaten him to the Oasis. It was a question which twigged at her mind constantly, demanding answers from her that she could not provide.
That way lay down a different road than science.
"You're being oddly silent back there," Nila said, turning over her shoulder. Her smirk dropped away when she saw that Aki was indeed still following her, but of Tzu Zi, there was no sign. "Tzu Zi? Where'd you go?"
Nila stopped Aki, and began to look around the edges of the path. Not only was there no sign of Tzu Zi, there was no sign anybody had passed this way, other than she and her brother, in weeks. And the din of animals began to grow oddly, threateningly loud. Aki let out some plaintive cries, which Nila tried ignoring. When that attempt failed, she clucked her tongue loudly. "Not now, stupid bird! I'm trying to find your master!"
Aki shifted on its feet, and Nila turned back to the woods. "This isn't funny, Tzu Zi. Is this because of Malu? Alright, fine. I'm sorry I was... rude... with Malu. But she is a danger to us, you have to see that."
Silence, but for the wind and the birds.
So she knew, did she? "Fine. Fine!" her eyes dropped to her feet. "I didn't like the way she... commanded your attention. I'm... not especially well versed in having friends. I got jealous, alright? She just has it so damned easy, and I can't seem to say anything right. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Silence.
Nila shook her head slowly. "Please, don't do this to me. I don't want to be alone again."
Aki finally pulled free of Nila, half-spinning her as it pelted down the trail in what was obviously a panicked gallop. "Oh, come on!" she shouted.
Then, she realized that the silence had become absolute. She turned, and had to hold her hand up for the glare. Her mind instantly picked out two reasons why that shouldn't be. First, the sun should have been at her back, and second, there was a forest in the way. But the glare was almost blinding. She glanced away, and felt her blood run cold as the shadows, those that she saw, didn't move away from that light. They flowed. In every direction, like worms on the soil, writhing their way toward her. She let out a clipped shriek of panic as they moved past her. She felt a chill when they came close; she didn't want to know what would have happened if they touched her. She looked forward again, and the glare had dimmed, as the shadows had covered it.
The shadows slid along the light, until edges seemed to form, and then, reflections. It was like mirrors, rotating through themselves as they hung in the air, reflecting everything there was behind and around Nila. Except, not Nila herself. She stared, in open confusion and awe as a high-pitched whine began to build up in that tesseracting mass. Then, the tone dropped much lower, a base rumble that began to set the very ground to shaking, as the panes snapped into a vibrating configuration which seemed to hold blocks of solid shadow in their midst.
"Oh..." she said. "This isn't even fair."
Then, there was a scream, all of the sound in the world forced through a single throat, and for Nila, the whole world vanished into nothingness.
Zuko cracked an eye at a pounding at his door. The electric crackle and the distinctive odor of ozone quickly began to dissipate as he considered if, this time, somebody was knocking on the wrong door. Not likely, he considered. He let out a sigh, since it was obvious his meditations were going to be curtailed again. He shook his head, and as he exhaled, the flames of the meditative candles receded to their native height. It was probably Uncle telling him that dinner was served, or maybe Jee with the latest news – more than likely none at all – of the Avatar's whereabouts. He rose, rolling his shoulders and opened the door, his brows drawing down in confusion when he saw his little sister pacing to and fro before the portal.
"Azula? Is something wrong?"
"I know where he is," Azula cut through all preamble.
"What? Who?" Zuko asked. Then he glanced aside, and sighed. "The Avatar, right?"
"Of course the Avatar, dum-dum!" Azula said, barreling past him into his room. "The whole reason we're out on this lunatic crusade! The reason I... why do I smell lilies?"
"Uncle got new meditative candles for us. Obviously you haven't been using yours," Zuko said evenly. "Now how did you discover the Avatar's position?"
Azula glanced to him, then away. "I just know, alright. Who cares how?"
"I do," Zuko said. "He was going to Gaoling, wasn't he?"
"No... no he wasn't," Azula answered, her frenzy starting to leak away.
"So why did you go there?"
"I'm... not sure. I don't remember. But it seemed so important. Like I could finally do something of worth. Like I could finally make things better, easier. And instead, I end up assaulting a blind girl and burning her house down, and handing the town over to Zhao," she slumped to the floor before his bed, shaking her head slowly. "Agni's blood, I hate my mind. I hate that I can't seem to think straight. And I hate that I don't know what I'm doing anymore!"
Zuko could see tears welling at the corners of his eyes, and let out another sigh, squatting down next to her. "Its alright, Azula. We'll catch the Avatar. If you hadn't run off to Gaoling, I wouldn't have even known to look in the swamp."
"Swamp?" she asked, trying powerfully to crush a sob in her voice. Almost succeeding.
"I think, with a bit of time, I might be able to get the Tribal girl to our way of thinking," Zuko said measuredly. But that was probably the wrong thing to say, because there was a flash of wrath in her eyes.
"You should have killed her!" Azula snapped.
"What? Why?"
"Because she... she..." Azula turned away, a lost look overtaking her. "I don't know... What is wrong with me?"
He looped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her a bit closer. She didn't even try to fight him, which let him know that Azula was in a very bad way right now. Even at the best, she always made a show of being prickly. "It's going to be alright, Azula. I promise."
"I know where Aang... the Avatar is," she repeated, almost like she was trying to convince him. "I do. I don't know how or why but I know it so clearly, like it's trying to strangle me."
He sighed. "You knew he was going to be on Kyoshi Island" he said. "Maybe Zhao wasn't such an idiot as we assumed."
"Oracles don't exist," Azula said with a certain amount of force.
"Be that as it may," Zuko said. "Where do you 'know' he is?"
"Not now. But he's going to be in the Fire Nation on the day of the Winter Solstice," she said. "On Crescent Island."
"Well, that's suicide," Zuko said. "The Avatar isn't that big of an idiot. Besides, there's nothing on Crescent Island."
"What about Avatar Roku's Temple?" she asked.
"Well, yes, but..." Zuko admitted, but his eyes bulged for a moment. "Azula, you're a genius."
"Of course I am."
"I need to talk with Uncle. If you're right, and my suspicions are correct, we might actually get ahead of the Avatar for once!" Zuko said, hope finally starting to worm into his mind. "He won't be able to escape us this time, because he'll be all alone against two of the best firebenders in the Fire Nation."
"Let's hope not," Azula said with a dire chuckle. Then she paused. "You mean the two of us, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Zuko said. "Dum-dum."
"Call me that again and I set your hair on fire," Azula warned.
"Whatever you say, dum-dum," Zuko teased.
And then he had to start running, because a promise from Azula was not a thing she made lightly.
"What do you make of this?" he asked, waving a white gloved hand to the portrait before him. Qin glanced to the work, then back to his master before clearing his throat. "Please, be frank. I value honesty."
"I see," Qin said, obviously still nervous. But as long as Qin fulfilled his duty and kept that earthbender in the hills in line, then he had nothing to worry about. "Well, the landscape showcased is obviously Great Whales. No other place has those particular chalk-cliffs. If I were to guess where that was, I would wager on the far side of the bay from the city of Torius. The house isn't especially elaborate, indicating that it is the dwelling of a common peasant."
"And?" his superior asked.
Qin swallowed, and leaned a bit closer to the work. "Well, there is a child in the distance. Indications that this is a living place, not abandoned. And... Oh, I see. It's almost out of the frame, but I can see the Fire Nation standard in the corner! This is a Fire Nation citizen, living proudly and freely, with all dignity and respect on the conquered islands to the south. A clear indication that we have a manifest destiny to spread our greatness across the world."
"Well put, War Minister Qin," came the response. The others milling about gave 'oooh's of appreciation. Ozai smirked at the hubbub, lacing his gloved fingers before him as he turned. "You are probably aware that this is the work of my now lost and mourned daughter, Azula. Her mind and her body may be gone, but she left something behind for the Fire Nation to be inspired by. This is one of several pieces of art which I have thoughtfully donated to the Fire Academy, in thanks for what they did in trying to sustain her. Alas, it was for nothing, but without such enterprising minds, without such will and drive, we would be nothing," Ozai opened his arms, and the teenagers all took a step back, out of awe or fear, Ozai didn't particularly care. "Please, observe and contemplate the vision for the future that our lost Princess gave to the Fire Nation. Even in her dark days, she threw a light into the future, for our people to follow to a better day."
Ozai turned, looking at the portrait again. It was all nonsense, but it was nonsense which appealed to the common folk. Considering how difficult things were going, since the mastery of the seas acquired under his father had fallen into shambles in the last decade – as the oceans became absolutely unpatrollable – he could use any edge or rhetoric he could concoct. He flexed his right fist, feeling the creak of the hard hide crinkling. Not all of it was his glove.
"I should be returning to the North," Qin said. "I've been too long away as it is. Zha Yu is a dangerous man to leave unobserved."
"Do not fail me in this," Ozai said simply, and sent Qin scurrying away like the overemployed rat that he was. He looked at that painting. It was aesthetically pleasing enough, which was why he never felt a need to destroy it. It was not always the case. That little quisling of a girl had been a revolutionary after her illness took hold, and it came through in her art. He could still remember that work she called 'Black Sun', of a rampaging horde of Tribesmen and Easterners ransacking the hallowed streets of the Crater City. He burned it before his daughter, forbidding her to depict such blasphemy, and she spoke not one word to her defense. And then, immediately set about reproducing it, so he burned that, too.
"Forgive my intrusion, Fire Lord, but I..." a voice came from Ozai's side.
"And who said you were invited to this showcase?" Ozai asked calmly, glancing aside to the source of that voice. He rose a brow when he took in Zhao's face. It had changed somewhat since last Ozai saw it. Now, there was an angry burn, almost like a flame branded onto Zhao's left eye and cheek.
"This was important enough to warrant certain breaches of etiquette," Zhao insisted.
"You are Admiral at my patience and pleasure, Zhao. Remember that."
"I am Admiral because I conquered Great Whales with fifty thousand men and half the Southern Fleet," Zhao said. Ozai just turned to him, his hands clasped behind his back. His glare could have melted granite.
"I'm sorry, did I become one of your minions at some point?" Ozai asked harshly. "Remember your place, Zhao, lest I remind you of it and give you another scar as a permanent lesson."
Zhao blanched at that, and looked away. Good. Ozai found he had to take a very direct hand in affairs to keep them pointed the way he wanted them, nowadays. In fact, it was very much since the children were cast out that things became more... rebellious around the Fire Nation. It was almost as though the Coordinator over in that Agni-forsaken hellhole on the other side of the continent could smell Ozai's blood in the water, and was beginning to circle. This was not the reign he wanted. But he would be damned if he was going to give it up out of disappointment.
"I bear news which is of extreme importance," Zhao said, dropping to a knee. Ozai bade him stay there for a long moment, glaring at the top of his head, before he grunted.
"Rise, and walk with me," Ozai ordered. Zhao fell in with Ozai as he began to walk through the vaunted and hallowed halls of the Fire Academy. With commencements underway, and classes completed for the rest of this month at least, the halls were relatively empty. "What is this 'desperately needed information' you bring to me," Ozai glanced at Zhao, and in particular the two-toned burn on his face. "This wouldn't have anything to do with that insipid plan with the Moon, would it?" Ozai asked, his dark humor clear in his tone.
"No, my lord," Zhao said. "My sources have informed me of the Avatar's itinerary. I know where he is going, and when, and who will be with him."
"And you felt I needed to know this?" Ozai said. "Am I so starved for reports on this vanity project of yours that you have to come and deliver them yourself?"
"It is not a vanity project," Zhao stressed. "The Avatar is a danger to the Fire Nation."
"As I hear it, the Avatar is a teenager, and an incomplete one at that," Ozai noted. "It takes years for an Avatar to realize his potential. This war will be over in a matter of months, then we can crush him like a bug."
Zhao scowled for a moment. "I don't believe that is prudent. Need I remind you of Yangchen? She rose from nobody to Destroyer of the South in a matter of months. I fear this child may possess her same dangerous momentum."
"Watch your tone around me, Zhao. I am not a fool," Ozai said.
"My lord, please heed me. The Avatar is going to be on Crescent Island on the day of the Summer Solstice. He will have only a pair of negligible Tribesmen for bodyguards. We can take this opportunity to nip the danger which the Avatar represents in the bud!" Zhao smirked, then, and Ozai's lips pulled down into a scowl. So Zhao thought he knew something clever, did he?
"You are holding something back from me Zhao. You are fully aware how little I appreciate that."
"I also have word from my sources that your exiled children will be behind him. But give me the order, and I will take the troops and not only crush the Avatar once and for all, but also bring down the seeds for rebellion I do not doubt lie in the heart of the 'Crown Prince'," Zhao said. Ozai contemplated it for a moment. Then he backhanded Zhao hard enough to make him stagger two steps.
"You are advocating that I allow you to levy harm against bearers of royal blood?" Ozai demanded.
"I am asking you to be cunning, to be as ruthless as you showed yourself to be when you brought the House of Loyo Lah burning to the ground," Zhao offered. "If you don't believe me capable of it, then allow me to prove myself."
Ozai glared at his admiral but shook his head. "That will not be necessary, Zhao. You and your 'informants' have always seemed oddly convenient to me. They always seem to know exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. If I was a more paranoid man, I would think that the only way such information would fall into your hands would be either if you were in league with the Avatar, or if he was playing you for a fool."
"I have never betrayed the trust you have put in me," Zhao stated. "And I always bring results."
"That you do, that you do," Ozai admitted. "Very well. How much of your armada has come to Grand Ember?"
"Only the three fastest cutters, proof against mechanical failure on the seas," Zhao said. Ozai had to admit, it was a good policy.
"Empty one of them. I will crew it with my personal staff."
"Would you like some of my soldiers to serve as an honor guard?" Zhao asked. Ozai smirked, lowering one gloved hand and crooking a finger slightly. After a scant moment, Ozai could see somebody tall and slender standing behind Zhao, the point of a slender knife pressed against the side of his neck.
"That will not be necessary. The Children will be all the bodyguards I require," Ozai said, waving his hand. The lanky teenager backed away, sheathing the blade and letting Zhao relax from his moment of tension.
"The what?" Zhao asked, tapping a finger to the spot of blood the knife had left. He turned, but the Child was already gone.
"You have not met the Children before, have you?" Ozai asked. "They are my greatest success to the Great Dream of Fire Lord Sozin. Proof that the greatness of the Fire Nation can spread across all boundaries, nations, and creeds."
"As you say, my lord," Zhao said. "I will prepare for immediate departure."
"Satisfactory," Ozai said. Zhao then turned and departed, walking with pride in his step. Zhao was a useful tool, but Ozai knew there was an ambition in him that would likely see him killed by his own overreaching. Thus, there was little point in investing in him. Not unless that scar on his face came with a lesson all its own. Appearing almost out of nothing, a group of teenagers, the oldest nearing twenty, gathered around their master. The were all identical in very few respects. Their complexions and hair marked them as inhabitants of almost any place on this planet. But they all wore the same armor, red and gold like the dragons of old. They all wore the same smoked lenses before their eyes. And they were all Fire Nation. Well, they were now, anyway.
"Yoji," he said, pointing out one girl in particular, this one with skin as white as sun-bleached bone. "Select two of your most capable. We leave for Crescent Island at once."
"Omo and Kori will serve you well, Fire Lord," Yoji said, before slipping away. In a very real way, Yoji was his greatest triumph and his greatest pride. Answer to a question nobody dared to ask. Ozai had a smile on his face as the rest of the Children slipped away, back into the shadows as their duties demanded. The smile was not just for the potential death of an Avatar, but because Zhao had unwittingly delivered salvation into Ozai's hands. An end to this interminable stalemate against Montoya. Ozai glanced down to his right hand, feeling the quiet sting of it as he flexed it in his glove. Zuko had shown Ozai something, on the day he was banished, that Ozai couldn't shake. Perhaps, there was strength in the boy after all? Perhaps he hadn't been as corrupted by the woman as Ozai had feared?
Whatever the case may be, Ozai would know for certain if the boy showed himself on Crescent Island.
The white should have been a dead giveaway.
Usually, when Appa appeared in a town, there was a lot of hubbub, since domesticated bison were utterly unheard of in this day and age. Usually, they were skittish at best, and murderously paranoid at worst, so many, especially the younger, relished in an opportunity to harmlessly play with the fuzzy white monster. But Senlin obviously had problems of its own to deal with. And the wailing was worse than they'd heard in a long time.
It was a testament to the mood of the town that Sokka had managed to keep his big mouth shut. Katara, though, kept pace with Aang as they left the bison behind them. "What's going on?" Aang asked as soon as he was close enough to anybody. An old man, bald but framed with a mighty beard, turned away from the inconsolable woman and the field of white-garbed townsmen.
"We are mourning a loss, young one," he began, but when he finally took in the person he was talking to, he had a double take. He turned to Katara, the question clear in his eyes. "Can it be? Is it possible?"
"Is what possible?" Katara asked.
"Those marks... I haven't seen those since I was a child," he said. He took a few steps toward Aang. The youth gave Katara a nervous glance, so she gave is hand a squeeze, a silent reminder that he was not alone, and would not be abandoned. "Are you... the Avatar?"
"Yeah," Aang said. "I am. So be... uplifted I guess. 'Cause hope has returned!"
"Smooth, Aang," Sokka piped up.
"There is little call for hope in these dark days," the old man said, waving a hand toward the grieving. "Several days ago, several of our children vanished into the woods. When we sent out our best to find them, they, too, did not return. We are beginning to lose hope that they can ever be found."
"Well, that's not a problem for me!" Aang said brightly. "I can just search from the air!"
"And what about that ginormous forest in the way?" Sokka asked.
"Oh... right," Aang wilted. Another man, somewhat younger but wearing the whites of the bereaved, approached. He looked the group up and down, but his eyes lingered longest on Aang.
"Are those what I think they are?" he asked.
"They are," the old man confirmed. "The Avatar has returned, at long last."
"I get it, I'm a bit late," Aang said guiltily, rubbing the back of his head. But the man bowed deeply at the waist, a relieved sigh on his breath.
"So the rumors were true. I had begun to give up hope," the man said. "It is the greatest honor of a lifetime to meet you, young Avatar. I am Chief Tso, the leader of Senlin."
"I'm Aang," the response came in its usual, sprightly manner. "I might not be the best equipped to help, but is there anything I can do? I don't like seeing people in pain, and if the old man is right, then kids are probably in a lot of trouble."
"It is not just the children," Tso said. He motioned for them to follow him, away from the main streets, and toward one of the gates opposite where they'd come in. The greet wooden artifice was reduced to splinters, which idly shifted back and forth in the breeze. "Something destroyed our gates in the night. We feared it was a Fire Nation attack, but nothing ever materialized. And worse, our sentries reported hearing screams in the night."
"People trying to get help?" Katara asked.
"No. Not anything of this world," Tso said. "Some say that is a monster from the Spirit World. None have been able to contact Jubei, the Shaman of the Unknown Spirit in the woods. We fear whatever fate befell our children, and those that followed after them, that the same befell him. We are very much alone, Avatar, and the situation will only grow more dire."
"What do you mean?" Sokka asked. "This seems pretty dire to me."
"The solstice is approaching," the old man, who remained quite close to the Chief, piped up somberly. "As it grows closer and closer, the barrier between the mortal world and the Spirit World fades away, until the two realms are for all intents and purposes the same place. We have learned to fear this day. Ill tides always befall the solstice."
"So you're saying that if Aang doesn't figure out the whole spirit-nonsense thing, then when the solstice comes, the town will get eaten by a spirit thing?" Sokka asked, obviously believing roughly none of it. He even nudged Katara with a smirk. She just scowled at him.
"We do not know," the old man said. "In the many years since the ill fortunes came, never has something like this occurred," he said, waving toward the gates.
"There is great fear that a monster preys upon us, and is simply waiting for the solstice for its powers to be most fully leveraged into the world," Tso said. "Our town is in crisis, and only you can solve this problem."
Aang pulled back at that. "Why me? What's so special about me?"
"You are the Avatar," the old man said, as though that were enough. When it was met with three blank stares, he continued tentatively. "The great bridge between the mortal and Spirit worlds?"
"Oh, yeah, right. That," Aang said, nervously. "I'm sure I'll be all kinds of helpful."
"Hey, great bridge guy," Sokka said, hooking an arm around Aang's neck. "You mind talkin' over here for a second?"
"What is it, Sokka?" Aang asked when the three had moved away from the old man and the Chief.
"Do you really know what you're doing here?" Sokka asked.
"Not even a little bit," Aang admitted. "I mean, I didn't know I was the Avatar two months ago! It's not like anybody can teach me this stuff!"
"Aang, it'll be alright," Katara said. "It's just a matter of finding a shaman who can show you how to do... shaman things."
"Yeah, and then we can teach him fortune telling and metal bending," Sokka said with a laugh.
"Really?" Aang said hopefully. Sokka palmed his face.
"It's lucky I'm here, Aang, 'cause the real world would eat you alive," he said with amusement.
"Aang, if you don't think you can," Katara began, but Aang was shaking his head.
"No. I have to try. Even if I can't do it, somebody has to try to help. I'm the Avatar. I'm supposed to help people," he said.
"Not if it gets you killed," Katara said.
"Please, it's probably just... slavers or bandits or something. Maybe the kids are running away and the adults got sidelined with something," Sokka said. "For all we know, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this stuff. No reason to worry about 'spirits' and 'shamans' if it's just a bunch of normal stuff with normal solutions."
"And if it isn't?" Katara asked.
"I severely doubt that."
"Yeah," Aang agreed. "If it's just normal stuff, then we can solve the problem. If it's really a spirit... well, maybe the solution will just come to me!"
"I believe you can do it, Aang," Katara said solidly. She then nudged her brother, who had an odd look on his face.
"Yeeeaaah," Sokka said. "Or we could get eaten by a spirit monster."
"When was the last time you saw... heard it?" Aang asked.
"Not long ago," Tso said, pointing through the gates that lead into the uninterrupted forest. "There was a great scream which came from the north. After that, an Ostrich Horse ran into town. We put it in with the farriers, but we fear the worst for whoever owned it."
"That's bad... but I think I can work with it," Aang said solidly, hefting his glider staff. "Then I guess I go north."
"Aang, be careful," Katara said, giving him a brief hug.
"I will," Aang offered. Sokka just looked into the distance, watching the north as though daring it to be anything but natural phenomena. Aang strode toward the gates, back straight and posture proud, and she felt as though she were watching one of the legendary Avatars of old, embarking on some arduous quest. But then, he started to list slightly, tipping to the left until he started to spiral. He seemed to half-correct himself, but then his feet crumpled out from under him, and he collapsed onto the dirt of the path, just before the gates. Her eyes went wide, and she started running toward him.
"AANG!" she screamed, but she only got four steps before she felt herself getting tackled to the ground. She stared agog at who'd done it. "Sokka? What are you doing? Aang is hurt or something!"
"Katara, look at the ground!" he shouted at her. She looked at the path ahead of them again. It didn't seem that weird. Just the shadows of the buildings over the thoroughfare.
"What?" she demanded.
"Look closer," Sokka said. And he pointed at the spot where Aang started listing. It was at the edge of a shadow.
And then she understood. She looked straight up, at the noon sun, then down at the shadows which lay long, as though at the end of the day.
"What is going on with the shadows, Sokka?" Katara asked.
"I don't know," Sokka said, pulling rope from his pack. "But I don't think we can risk touching them either. Chief Tso! Tell the others in the village to be very careful around strange shadows. I've got a feeling that whatever 'monster' you feared was coming to Senlin is already here."
Katara just felt helpless and cold as she watched her brother lasso the Avatar and drag him out of the shadow. And when he did, Aang remained motionless, his eyes half-open and staring at nothing. "What do we do now?" she asked. But nobody had any answers for her.
"Uncle!" Zuko shouted ahead of himself as he moved through the woods. The men said that he'd come inland somewhat after they moored in a bay to bang the dents out of the hull. All told, Uncle's ship had suffered an embarrassingly large amount of harm in the last few months, to an extent that it was now being held together by rope, hasty rivets, and the collective faith of its crew. "We have to speak to you! Where are you, Uncle?"
"I swear that man lives to make us miserable," Azula muttered.
"I'm over here," Iroh's endlessly calm voice called from somewhere ahead. Zuko turned to his sister.
"Now let me do the talking. I know you and Uncle sometimes rub each other the wrong way," Zuko said.
"It's not my fault I'm abrasive," Azula stated, crossing her arms.
"Yeah, it kinda is," Zuko contended, but didn't bother pressing the point. "Uncle, we think we know where the Avatar is..." he trailed off when he reached the clearing, and the pools of water that lazily worked their way down from a steaming spring.
"Can you believe it? A natural hot springs in the East Continent!" Iroh seemed quite pleased with himself, as he lounged back against the wall of one of the lower pools. "This is a luxury I couldn't let pass me by."
"Really? We're going to give up the Avatar so Uncle Dum-Dum can soak?" Azula asked.
"Azula, please," Zuko sighed. She shut her mouth, but didn't contract the frown on her lips. "Uncle, I'm sure that's very nice, but..."
"You should join me. I know you like your pools hotter, and the upper ones," he cast a thumb behind him, "have a wonderful temperature. I didn't even have to heat it myself. Soak away your troubles, let go and enjoy yourselves for once."
"My troubles cannot be 'soaked away'!" Azula shouted. "Uncle, the Avatar is..."
"You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the pharmaceutical advantages of a warm soak, Azula," Iroh said evenly, lolling his head back. "You should take your elder's advice and relax. If you don't, you could get... bad skin, or grey hairs. And I know plenty about both!"
Iroh launched into a belly laugh which sent the water rippling.
"Uncle," Zuko broke in. "The Avatar is going to Crescent Island."
"Now why would the Avatar do something so reckless?" he asked, still blissed out.
"What would happen if the Avatar can make it there before the end of the Winter Solstice?" Zuko asked, leaning against the rim of that pool. "What happens if he reaches the place purported to house the spirit of Avatar Roku's... spirit... on the day when the realms overlap?"
"Then... He might be able to contact his precursor directly," Iroh said, his head coming back up. "How did you come to this information?"
"It doesn't matter," Zuko said. Iroh turned to Azula, though.
"What?"
"You told him this, didn't you?" he asked, but not harshly.
"What does it matter?" Azula demanded. "You had a vision of marching triumphant on Ba Sing Se, and you may still have your chance. Are you going to stand in the way of my destiny?"
"Not only was that not my vision, it isn't your destiny I'm worried about," Iroh said. "Why do you place such faith in your premonitions? You were never a girl to believe in such superstitions."
Azula started something, but snapped her mouth shut with a growl. "It isn't superstition. It isn't magic, and it isn't charlatanism. I just know it. I know it like I know fire. Like I know the beat of my own heart," her voice was very low, like she didn't like to admit it. "This is a fact for me. I can't ignore it. I know that he's going to be there. And this is a chance to end my exile, to return home. To regain Father's love."
Iroh sighed. "If it means so much to you, then I will come," Iroh said. He looked back to Zuko. "But surely five more minutes couldn't hurt?"
"Uncle, please," Zuko said, placing hands on Azula's shoulders. It was a good thing that she wasn't a good enough actor to look that battered, exhausted, and honest when she wasn't, because it had a definite effect on those around her. "We should go now. We can finally lay a trap for the Avatar, instead of constantly coming to him when he's ready for us."
Iroh released another, sadder sigh. "Very well," he said, and the he stood from the pool. Azula released a strangled yelp and Zuko quickly turned away, holding a hand to block his pudgy uncle's nudity. "Could you be a good nephew and retrieve my clothes?"
"For Agni's sake, give him some pants!" Azula shouted. And Zuko felt a strong desire to follow her command.
Nila grunted as the blinding pain started to leave her ears and her eyes. Her face also had a degree of discomfort, because it felt like she was laying on a jagged rock. She pushed up from that unpleasant surface, then her hand went to her face as the world still seemed blurry and indistinct. She grumbled to herself as the headache started to fade, sitting with her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees. What the hell happened? What was that thing? She shook her head, and tried opening her eyes again, hopeful that she would be better able to see this time than she had been before.
"Oh, this isn't even fair," she muttered when she opened her eyes and beheld the grey and desaturated, the dead and devastated landscape of her most prolific and persistent nightmares. She got to her feet, looking around this lifeless abyss, at the stunted, practically petrified trees which broke up through the rocky crust of this place. She looked up, and rubbed her head at the unfairness of it. Either she'd been knocked unconscious and was now dreaming, or she was dead, and now in hell.
There was a suffused light which had no source, but managed to illuminate. But there was no color here. That was what stuck Nila hardest, then and now. The only color in this place was the darkness of her skin. And, evidently, the orangeness of her shirt, and the greenness of her pants. "Huh," she pondered. "I've never had that happen before."
She shook her head and glanced around her. She had come to rest on the highest spot of the 'Observatory', a columnar structure which was open to an emptiness which ought have been the sky. She didn't bother wondering about it now. She'd spent many a night over the years cursing rationality and demanding it make sense, but those nights were years behind her now. At this point, she had learned to simply accept what she couldn't change. And when she did that, she started doing what she did best; learning the rules. Nila bent down and grabbed some pebbles of the scree which littered the Observatory. She'd never appeared at the top of it before. The only time she ever reached it, she'd had to start at the bottom. So that was where the exit was.
She walked, idly chucking pebbles ahead of her as she did so. There was a lethargy about this whole place which clawed at her back then. Now, though, it seemed like the entire place was... afraid of her? No, that wasn't it. She couldn't quantify or measure it, but she knew in her guts that there was something different now, as compared to the times she'd been here before. It was one of the rules she ruthlessly abode; when your gut talks in this place, listen. She couldn't count the number of times she ignored her instinct, and ended up waking with a sensation of her skin being afire, or wasps tunneling through her brain. It was unpleasant enough to serve as a very persuasive teacher. She descended one of those twisting, metal staircases, which by any law of physics wouldn't have been able to support their own weight, let alone hers, but she didn't question it. There was no point. This place wasn't real, after all.
She stopped near the foot of the stairs, her skin going clammy. Yes, she had seen that. She chucked a second pebble ahead of her, and noted how when it flew, it took an immediate down turn and smashed hard into the floor. "Great," she said sarcastically. "They moved again."
She hopped off the side of the stairwell and landed in the ankle deep water of the lowermost level, feeling for the crevasse which led to the High River. She always felt uncomfortable going by the Low River. And she couldn't say why, but as she insisted to herself, it didn't matter. This place wasn't real. As much as she loathed having to come here, loathed the sensation of being constantly picked apart by unseen fingers, she couldn't help herself but wonder. What else was here? It was that curiosity, birthed in this horrible place, which set her down the path of the natural sciences. There was an profound juxtaposition that her oppressive realism was born of such a surreal place. So she wandered, seeing if there was something she hadn't seen before. Maybe something that she could use. After all, for all this place wasn't real, it didn't prevent her from remembering it as vividly as anything which happened when she was awake.
To call the High River a river was something of a misnomer. The water was still, like a long, silent puddle. A wide puddle, no mistake there, but a puddle nonetheless. If there was one place she knew she was safe, though, it was standing in the water. The dangerous things never appeared near the water, although she hadn't the first clue why. As she walked, she used the time to think. Yes, she'd managed to offend the only two peers that she'd managed to befriend – even if one of them was strictly a marginal case – and now she had to do something about it. Since Tzu Zi hadn't heard the amends that Nila offered, her luck considered, she would have time to do it properly this time. And by properly, she intended not weak and sniveling like a naughty child. There had to be a way to build bridges without sacrificing her pride. It was just up to finding it.
She pondered then what could have put her out. Yes, she'd seen something strictly outside the mortal ken, but that could have simply been the brain's reaction to a strong blow with a rock. For all she knew, she had a concussion and was hallucinating that thing. That wasn't exactly pleasing to the mind, though. There were few things that she feared more than damaging her mind. It was why Mother never even bothered to hide her whiskey – even though Mother herself ought not have had it, considering how Si Wongi treat the drink – because it was plainly known that Nila was not in the business of wrecking her brain intentionally.
She would never say it aloud, but she desperately didn't want to end up like Sharif.
She walked the High River, and thought to herself. The silence was a welcome companion. She so seldom got to have quiet, nowadays. At least, that was a redeeming characteristic of this place. The loneliness was starting to bug her, though. She'd never get lonely before. It was almost like Tzu Zi had opened a vulnerability in Nila that she didn't even know existed before. And to be honest with herself, she wasn't sure she was better off before. She stepped toward the shore, and had to take a slightly different path when one of her pebbles changed color upon landing.
Silence, darkness, and loneliness. The three constants of this place. There was a reason she hated it.
She sighed, slumping against a rock. "Why am I even doing this?" Nila asked the void. "If I get Sharif, then I go home and everything goes back to exactly the way it was. No friends, no family that I care about. So why am I even doing this?"
And the only answer she could come up with, was because Mother entrusted her with the task. Nila just shook her head, running a hand along the very short, black hair that was beginning to appear on her scalp. "It always comes back to her, doesn't it," Nila said. "I'm just never good enough for her."
As she shook her head, something hit her ear. It wasn't the Blowout, that was too... natural. This was something artificial, something broken and staccato. It was the cadence of human speech. But that couldn't be. This empty place never had anybody but her. Instantly, her eyes narrowed, her back straightened, and her curiosity took hold. She had to know. What had changed? And so, she followed her ears.
The fissure in the rocks was the way into the Smugglers' Den. Years of coming to this place quite against her will had given her ample opportunity to name and classify much of what she'd encountered here. Much, but not all. Every now and then, when she had one of these nightmares, something would surprise her. The water 'flowing' past her into the High River seemed to originate from a bay, lit by a pale, translucent shadow of the moon. Flotsam littered the white sands, and the only waves were generated by her approach. Beyond the bay was a cave, wet but concealed. But not safe from a Blowout.
"I must have been hearing things," Nila said, panning her gaze across the Den.
"HYAH!"
Nila flinched down, as somebody leapt from behind a stalagmite, fists thrust forward. Nila raised an eyebrow. "Huh. That's new."
Tzu Zi looked down at her fists, then back up at Nila, before tucking them behind her back, as though trying to conceal something she had or was doing. "That wasn't what it looked like!" Tzu Zi claimed.
"I've never had you in one of my dreams before," Nila said evenly. Then she stopped, and nodded, "well, one of these dreams, anyway."
"Nila, where am I?"
"One of my nightmares. I'm wondering what role you play in the narrative," Nila said, turning back toward the bay.
"Nila, I'm scared. I don't like this place," Tzu Zi said, instantly latching onto Nila's arm and glancing around with furtive eyes. The way that Tzu Zi's fingernails dug into Nila's arms was... different.
"Not a problem. Sooner or later I'll wake up and this will all vanish," Nila said.
"Would you stop thinking this is all about you for one second!" Tzu Zi shouted, tears welling in her eyes. "I don't know where I am, I don't know how I got here, and you're acting all crazy, and I'm really really scared!"
The pain radiating from where Tzu Zi had begun to nervously twist at Nila's forearm was uncanny. And it was quite unlike anything Nila had felt before. "Tzu Zi. Do something I would not expect you to do," Nila said.
Tzu Zi took a step back, pondered, then kicked Nila in the shin.
"Ow!"
"I guess that's for being mean to Malu," Tzu Zi said. "And why did you want that?"
Nila rubbed her shin for a moment, but a cold sweat had begun to prickle forth from her skin. "I'm not asleep," Nila said. She looked around, back to Tzu Zi, then slapped herself very hard in the face. Yes, it felt exactly like being slapped very hard in the face, not the slow, dull, and burning pain that this place usually gave her if she did something ill-conceived or stupid. The other flinched at that. "Definitely not asleep. Which leads to one of two possibilities. Either we're both sharing the same multisensory delusion, or this... isn't a dream, and this place is real."
"Nila," Tzu Zi's voice was very small. "Where are we?"
Nila looked around, swallowing past a lump in her throat. Suddenly, even the relative safe-haven of the Smugglers' Den was as dangerous as the Back Country of Azul. "I don't know," Nila said. "And I don't know how we get out."
Aang shook his head, trying to shake the stars from his eyes. He didn't usually stumble like that. Airbender training was extremely good at whacking the clumsiness out of people; if it wasn't, then there'd be a lot of dead monks at the bottom of small craters in remote areas. But all of the sudden it was like Aang couldn't keep his feet under him. That was embarrassing on one hand, and slightly unsettling on another. He could balance on one toe on an airscooter, on one fingertip on a windowsill. To trip over his own feet was patently impossible.
He rubbed his eyes, and reached for his glider. Those eyes shot open when he couldn't find it. He turned, his hands scrabbling at the dirt of the path. But it wasn't there. But there was something else. Something he didn't expect. Something green. As he scraped the surface of the soil, something viscous and dim pulsed there. He recoiled a moment, thinking he'd dug up some sort of disgusting worm, but when he stepped back, he realized that those green things were everywhere in the ground. "What happened? Did I hit my head or something, Sokka?" Aang asked.
"Is the Avatar alive?" a worried voice came from behind him.
"Of course I am," Aang said, turning to those who'd gathered behind him. "See, I'm even on my fee..."
He trailed off because he could see that his companions were clustered around his immobile body. "Oh," Aang said, slumping slightly. "What's going on? Am I dead or something?"
He took a half-step toward them, when he felt every molecule of his being scream out danger, and demand he stop. He'd almost stepped onto a shadow. He scrutinized the edge of that shadow. It didn't look right. It rippled and wavered, like a mirage above a desert. The shadow also wasn't portraying anything nearby. "What is this?" Aang said, reaching toward it.
The answer came in the form of a scream.
The roar bathed Aang in blue light and knocked him back a step. Aang instantly spun and cast out his hands, to throw the yet-unseen thing away with a ball of air. But no air came to his command. He looked down at his hands, then cast them out again. Nothing. "No way," he said, as the one thing that he'd managed to learn in his schooling drifted to the surface. There was only one place in all of existence where bending was impossible. "I'm in the spirit world!"
"I think it's angry!" Sokka said, heaving Aang over his shoulder. "We need to find shelter."
"How? Where will we be sheltered?" Chief Tso asked.
"Anywhere that's not in the middle of a street!" Sokka answered, running back toward the middle of the town. Katara and the other two joined him with almost no hesitation.
"What are you?" Aang shouted into the air. "What do you want?"
The shadows raised up from the ground, seeming to grow edges as they did so, like a mirror which only reflected inky blackness. Panes of that mirror started to rotate, splitting and a glaring light appearing to surround and separate them. A sound began, first high pitched and raising higher, but then suddenly dropping very low. Aang's instinct was to dodge, and he wasn't one to ignore his instinct. It saved him from a bolt of... something, something blue and brutal that slammed into the ground where he had been, sending those green things flying into the air, where they dissolved into verdant motes. He couldn't help but feel like he was watching something die.
"Stop this! I'm the Avatar, I can help you, just tell me what you need!" Aang screamed, trying to take a proud stance. Which was a bit ridiculous considering his body was somewhere that way.
The light pulsed brighter, the darks grew darker, and the mirrors twisted, their edge slashing through a roof nearby, cutting the corner of the building to slag. He could hear the family within screaming in fear, as the building came crumbling down on them. "No! Please, stop destroying things! We can help each other!" Aang pleaded with the unknowable thing. The panes began to spin faster, so quickly that they shattered, their jagged, brutal edges tearing at the dirt, tearing at the buildings that lined the street. The tone rose, then dropped, and this time, Aang was ready for it.
NO MORE!
The scream from Aang's mouth seemed to overwhelm the blast of blue light which the monster sent forth, and and it deflected off of a shell of unknown energy. "Whatever you are, you have to stop hurting these people! They've done nothing wrong. Just tell me who you are and what you want, and I can help you!"
The thing seemed to turn, its panes reforming, slowing slightly. Aang got a sensation of hope in his heart. Maybe this could be settled peacefully. A hope which was dashed when it continued to turn, so that it had done a half-revolution. Despite there being no real change in how it looked, Aang felt that it was now facing away from him. Staring down the building at the heart of the town. The building where Katara and Sokka were taking cover.
"No," Aang said.
He started running, feeling the drag of the air against his skin. The clouded mirrors began to spin again, slashing through dirt and wood alike with equal contemptuous ease, sending up a spray of dust and a hale of debris as it closed in on the town center. Despite the burning of his legs, struggling against wind resistance for the first time in recent memory, he was overtaking it. But the blades...
"No," Aang repeated, throwing himself through the blades at a roll. He let out a clipped scream as he felt that non-glass scour along the surface of his back, but it was a very shallow thing. He would survive. And now, he was in front of this creature. He sprinted up from his roll, and only stopped, and turned, when he was at the foot of the doors. His eyes went wide as the doors were thrown open, and Sokka took the threshold.
"Sokka! No!" Katara screamed.
"Somebody's gotta stop this thing!" Sokka said, but although his voice was strong, his face clearly said that he expected to die in the next few seconds. He pulled the boomerang from his bag, but what good it would do against this incorporeal monstrosity? Aang estimated its chances of success somewhere between zero and a negative number. And Sokka didn't even know that he wasn't alone. So he was going to die afraid and for nothing. The whine began to drop, and the panes of glass aligned in the air. Aang raised his head, and raised his voice, and when he spoke, he spoke with the chorus.
NO
THIS FRAIL BODY MAY FALTER
THIS MEAGER MIND MAY FLOUNDER IN IGNORANCE
BUT IN ATTACKING THOSE I CARE FOR, YOU HAVE ATTACKED AN ARMY.
UNKNOWN BEAST, STRANGE AND UNFAMILIAR,
YOU SHALL TAKE NOT ONE MORE STEP.
THIS PLACE IS DENIED YOU.
THE AVATAR SAYS YOU 'NAY'.
The scream rebounded from the building, and tore off the weather vein of a house nearby as it sailed into the air. Aang looked to his left and right, and beheld that he now stood with a legion, all of different age and ethnicity. But at the same time, they were indistinct, like they were half-made, then abandoned. But the pattern was obvious. Fire, air, water, earth. They were the Avatars. All of them.
"How did you do that, Sokka?" Katara asked, noting only that the whirling blades of death were slowly pushed back, not the force which demanded thus.
"Instinct?" Sokka guessed, but he didn't step away from the threshold. How a normal teenager could be so suicidally brave, Aang couldn't comprehend.
"Did I do this?" Aang asked.
"Yes," a voice said to him. He turned, and beheld that one of the shapes seemed to gain definition, rather than the amorphous but human forms that now formed a dense ring around the core of the city. He was dark, like Vajrapata, but the airbender arrow on his brow was a more familiar blue, his robes orange and yellow. "Roku is looking for you. He needs to speak to you."
"Is he here?"
"Couldn't come," the Avatar said. "Not enough words."
"Who are you?" Aang asked.
"Avatar Geet," the monk bowed slightly. "Can't talk. Running out of words."
"Wait, how do I beat this thing? What is it?"
"Don't know. Talk to Roku."
"Why? Why can't you just tell me what he was going to?"
"Don't know what Roku knows," Geet said, his words becoming more and more leaden, his form becoming insubstantial the longer he went on. He glanced into the distance, and nodded. "Fang is coming. Fang says more. Talk to Roku."
"Thank you, Avatar Geet," Aang bowed to his past self, who nodded once, then became as indistinct as any of the rest of them. He wondered who Fang was. And then he amended to wondering what Fang was. And then he further amended that he hoped that this barrier stayed up after he talked to Fang, because that thing was still out there, spinning and waiting.
He got the answer when he saw something massive slam down onto the ground. It was a sight he'd only beheld once, despite his many visits to the Fire Nation in his youth. The body was long, covered in bright scales. Its eyes shone with a clear and cunning intellect. Great whiskers drooped from its maw, which glistened with sharp teeth. A dragon? Man, this town had all the bad luck, it looked like. But then, Aang noticed that he could see things through that dragon. The glass and shadow turned, as though looking at the dragon. There was the whine, and the drop, but the dragon held its ground. When the scream sounded once again, the dragon responded with a roar of its own, but this roar sounded with spectral fire. The fire overwhelmed the blue light, and with a sound of breaking glass, the being of light and shadows scattered. But Aang knew that it wasn't done for. Just rebuffed, for the moment. Aang took a step beyond the line of the Avatars, which he noted was starting to drift away like baked dust exposed to a draft. No more protection there, but hopefully, they wouldn't need it. Aang looked up at the great beast, which in return craned its long neck down to him.
"You did it, Sokka!" Chief Tso said.
"I'm not so sure," the Tribesman said, taking a step back from the door.
"Are you Fang?" Aang asked, ignoring the interplay behind him.
The creature reached forward with its whisker, and a vision blasted through Aang's mind. A creature, born from an egg made of solid flame, into the hand of a young man with black hair. The same beast, now grown from the length of a forearm to the length of Appa, with a black bearded man trying awkwardly to ride it. The same beast, the same man. A sudden vision of it sticking its head through a window, and drawing a yelp of alarm from the same man, though now grey-bearded, while he was in the bath. Then finally, one which even Aang could figure out. An old man, long beard gone white, bestride the beast as the wind took his hair. That man was Avatar Roku.
"You must have been his spirit guide," Aang said, before bowing to the creature. "Thank you for what you've done. I don't know how I was supposed to deal with that creature. But why is everybody so desperate to talk to me?"
The whisker returned to Aang's brow, and this time, he was given a vision of fire, burning across the sky, and a sense of both overwhelming dread, and that something good was coming to an ignominious and undeserved end. Then, there was a sense, almost tentative, a fear in the beast. A fear of the end of all things. A fear that the future would no longer exist.
"But I don't know how to talk to Roku!" Aang shouted. "Everybody keeps telling me to, but he's dead, and I was never told how to contact him! I didn't even know I was an Avatar until... I don't know what to do! I never know what to do!"
The beast lay down, and beckoned toward the sun. Another tap upon the brow, and this time, Aang could see the sun zip through the sky, then rise and set again, this time halting right as it was on the horizon. He could then see land, black stone with black sand beaches, a temple rising from the volcanic rock.
"That island's in the Fire Nation," Aang said. "Why would I need to go there?"
The dragon practically rolled its eyes. Another tap, and this time, it showed a statue, a beam of light striking a stone set in its chest. Aang finally understood. He needed to be in a chamber, at the heart of Avatar Roku's temple by the hour of sunset on the Winter Solstice. That was how he could talk to Roku. The beast left one last sensation, one of desperation. It said, if you can do nothing else, you must do this. "I'll do it. I'll find a way... somehow," Aang said. Then he turned back to the building. His eyes shot wide. "Wait? How do I get back into my body?"
The dragon gave a sigh which was obviously annoyed, and then flicked its tail at Aang. Before he could even react, he felt himself being catapulted through the walls and slammed headfirst into himself.
The odd colors in the sky and the dirt all vanished, as he felt his eyes open, his heart beating in his chest. It was a very strange sensation to miss ones own circulatory system, but now Aang was grateful for all of his various bits. He sat up, sweat on his brow. "Guys, we have a problem," Aang said, before Katara even got her first word of joy at his sudden rise from torpor.
"Aang, you're alright!" Sokka managed to beat her out as well, giving Aang a hug and then pulling him to his feet.
"It's not gone," Aang said. "We were able to drive it back, but it'll return."
"How did you do it? You were unconscious the whole time," Katara pointed out.
"I had some help. A lot of it, actually," Aang said. He pondered how he was going to explain what he saw, when the door to one of the back rooms opened, and a youth with a stark scar on his forehead poked out.
"What is all the noise out here?" the youth asked, his Tianxia slurring, inexact, and broken by long pauses and mumblings in another language.
"We almost got eaten by some spirit monster," Sokka said.
"Oh, alright," he said, turning away like that was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, he paused, and turned back, staring at Aang with a distant expression. Well, this young man's expressions all seemed to be distant. "You're the Avatar, aren't you?"
"Yes," Aang said, preparing for the onslaught, or the requests. But this one just nodded, as though he'd thought as much.
"I see," he said. "And you didn't ask it its name?"
"What?" Aang asked.
"Hmm, they're all right. You really are clueless," he said. "That's unfortunate."
"And why are you being so smug?" Katara demanded. "Aang is the only reason that thing didn't kill everybody here!"
"But it'll come back," the scarred lad said. "I'll deal with it. After the nap. They still have some time left."
"We don't have time to put this off," Aang said. "We have to leave as soon as possible."
"What? Oh. Right. The dragon," he shook his head. "Well, no reason to dawdle."
"Who are you, anyway?" Sokka asked.
"I am Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar," he answered. He then turned to Aang. "And I think I'm about ready to go home."
"But what about," Aang began.
"Oh, right, the monster," Sharif said. He let out a guilty laugh. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."
"So we're depending on a goofy kid and a guy with a five second memory," Sokka summed up concisely. "Yep, we're all gonna die."
"Where are we going, anyway?" Tzu Zi asked, walking at Nila's side. Nila gave her a glance, and then shepherded her back into her wake. Walking abreast was never a situation that Nila gained experience with, but common sense said that it was a foolish one. With Tzu Zi put back behind her, she continued walking along the gravel along the edge of the High River. The center was now too deep to wade, now that they approached the Upper Cataract. That meant that she resumed her pebble-tossing.
"The Havens are a safe place to appear," Nila said. "The problem with them is that while they never manifest Traps, there are other dangers which can overtake them."
"Traps? Havens? What is this place?"
Nila shook her head at how absurd she was fully aware the next words from her mouth would be. "It is an old and familiar companion. It is a nightmare that I have had most of my life. I learned the rules, and now it is far less painful."
"Yeah but... how do you know this place? This place is crazy! And nuts! And bonkers! And it doesn't make any frickin' sense!"
"I have come here once a week, on average, every week since I was six," Nila said. "I have much experience with this place. I have learned many harsh lessons. Luckily, their effects proved impermanent once I awoke."
"You're starting to sound a bit spooky, Nila," Tzu Zi said. Nila glanced back at her friend, and then realized with a degree of existential horror that she was beginning to talk like Mother. As Nila shuddered at that sudden realization, she neglected to notice that Tzu Zi had moved past her, and was facing back at her as she retreated up a path. "Besides, there's nothing here. Nothing threatening anywa–"
Luck, as it would have it, chose to interrupt her mid-word. It was something that luck often attempted at every opportunity. Nila's eyes shot wide, and she cast out a hand, trying to stop Tzu Zi from taking a single extra step. But she was a bit too slow. There was a bang, like a bladder filled with air until it ruptured, and Tzu Zi was hurled forward at Nila with a startling degree of velocity. Tzu Zi collided with Nila, hurling the latter hard onto the gravel, and sprawling the former out atop her. Nila could feel the harsh gravel digging into her back, a groaning pain spreading from where two sets of rib-cages collided. She could feel pin-pricks – of blood quite possibly – welling at the back of her head where it struck the ground. And she could also feel a face full of Tzu Zi's breasts.
Not that the last part was particularly unpleasant.
"Wuuuaaahu... What was that?" Tzu Zi asked.
"Rhr bhbs rr nn mn fsc," Nila attempted to point out, mostly because she was otherwise paralyzed by the situation. This was something she didn't have any experience with. Most notably the part where she didn't particularly hate it. The implications were... enlightening.
"What? Oh, sorry," Tzu Zi said, removing her envy-inducing bust from Nila's face and standing, if unsteadily and kneading at her back. "What was that?"
"oh... don't go..."
"What did you say, Nila?"
"Nothing. I didn't say anything," Nila shook her head. She didn't have time to deal with this right now. "You are an incredibly lucky girl, Tzu Zi."
"Lucky? If you weren't standing there, I'd probably be a smear along the gravel!"
"You're lucky, because you triggered a 'Mosquito Mange' and didn't get thrown straight down," Nila said, getting to her feet.
"Two things. One, what's so bad about that, and second... Mosquito Mange?"
"It's a pun in my language," Nila said with a dismissive shrug, as she began chucking pebbles at the thing. After a few, she had a fairly good idea where it was, and its outer edge. "Because Si Wongi seems utterly incapable of scientific parlance, I chose the ones which sound most like 'gravitational insanity.' Bringing them to Tianxia turns that pun into 'mosquito mange', which I admit, does seem a bit non-sequitur. As for why its a bad thing, I have personal experience with getting thrown down by Mosquito Mange. The problem is, if you don't get out of its radius, it keeps throwing you down. And if there's ground in the way, then it keeps trying, until you're reduced to a paste. And still, not nearly as bad as a Blowout."
"How do you possibly have personal experience with that?" she asked. "The paste, thing, I mean."
"It's happened to me... once or twice. Maybe five times."
Tzu Zi just stared at her.
"When I dream, I wake up in horrible pain, but the pain fades, and it never results in real injury. I remember I frequently sent Mother into a foul mood when I couldn't stop screaming because it felt like my entire lower body had been dissolved in acid. That was because I stumbled into a Fruit Punch."
"Another pun?"
"Of course. We don't have proper names for Acids."
"Si Wongi sounds very backward."
"They are," Nila confirmed angrily. "You have been to Azul, yes?"
"Well, once when I was little," Tzu Zi said unsteadily, as Nila grabbed her hand and pulled her behind her carefully, edging around the patch of Mosquito Mange.
"You will find many of the same rules your guardian gave you there will serve you here," Nila said. "If you don't know what it is, don't touch it, it will probably kill you. If I stop, you stop, or you will stumble into something that will probably kill you. If I tell you do do something, you should do it immediately..."
"Or something will probably kill me?" Tzu Zi asked.
"You're catching on," Nila said, releasing Tzu Zi's hand. Of course, they'd been clear of the Trap for a while by the time she did. She just liked the feeling.
"Why would you come to a place this dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked.
"Not by my choice, Tzu Zi, I can promise you that," she said, flattening her back to a wall and giving very wide berth to a silver spiderweb that hung to one dead branch of one dead tree five yards away. Tzu Zi gave her a questioning look. "The spider web makes your heart explode. And that one carries over when you wake up."
"How do you...?"
"I woke up and my heart wasn't beating," Nila said. "Did you know that heavy blows to the chest can restart a heart? I didn't. I wonder how Mother did. Or perhaps she just got lucky."
"I already hate this place."
"Give it nine years. You'd come to accept it as I have," Nila said.
"...where are we going again?"
"One of the other places, some place more fortified than a Haven."
Nila hadn't noticed that Tzu Zi had started walking beside her again. So when the thud sounded through the sky, and Nila's hand shot out to the side, she unexpectedly found she had a palm full of Fire Nation boob. There seemed to be something of a trend to this excursion. "No. No, not now," Nila said, as her blood ran cold, quite the opposite reaction to the embarrassment she was well aware her inadvertent grope of her best friend ought to have inspired. "Gods no, the only one nearby is the Bridge Orchard!"
"Nila, you're holding my boobie," Tzu Zi said.
"Why did it have to be now?" Nila shouted.
"OW! Nila, you're squeezing!" Nila released her panicked grip only then, turning to Tzu Zi. Her expression of embarrassment and anger sloughed quickly. Probably because Nila's was one of unbridled terror. "Oh no, what happened?"
The groaning began to sound in the air, and the sky began to color a sickly, diseased yellow along its 'southern' edge. "We have to run. The only safe place that we can reach is in the Bridge Orchard."
"Why? What's going on?"
Nila made sure that all of the dread due the term was injected into her single spoken word. "Blowout."
Malu rapped on the door to the building, which was dark even under the canopy. "Maybe he's taking a nap," Malu pondered, and pounded the door a bit harder. The building was an odd one, somehow built with seven sides all of equal proportion, coming to a dome at the top. The whole thing was made out of wood, which was aged and dry. It was quaint and rural. Kind of like the shack she'd had to live in for the last two years. It was odd how attached to that hut she'd gotten. Then again, it contained everything that she had left from before the Day of Fire. How little that was.
"He-e-e-lloooooo~o!" Malu said, letting her airbending amplify it. Still, no response. Which didn't make much sense considering that there was smoke coming from the pipe that sat in the center of the roof. "Well, he might be deaf or something. Old people can get like that," A smile came to her face. "Xin Fei? I'm coming in!"
She tugged at the door, and noted that it opened not with a squeak of a well-oiled hinge, but rather the shriek of rusted metal and the groan of warped wood. That didn't make too much sense. She'd come here only three years ago, to visit the shaman who lived here. Mostly, she visited because a forest fire destroyed the old building and he needed some cheering up. It would be nice to see that old face again. Man, wouldn't he be surprised to know that airbenders survived the Day of Fire? "Hey, guess what? Remember how the fi... fire..."
She trailed off, because the inside of the building was not how she remembered it at all. There was a ring of forms, seven appropriately enough, surrounding one which rose up, but the forms were now indistinct. "Well, that's weird," she muttered. Doubly weird was that everything seemed to reek of age and abandonment. There was enough guck on the walls to make it look like this place had only just become dwelled in again. That was patently impossible, though. She looked at the pillar in the center of the structure, above which the smoke from a small fire wafted. That wasn't supposed to be smooth. In fact, she knew with absolute certainty that she'd seen it looking distinctly like something else, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what that block of stone used to portray. "Xin Fei? What happened to the big thing?"
She began to hear rambling at the other end of the large first room. It had been a simple mistake of construction that ended up putting the entrance door on the wrong side of... whatever that central thing used to be, so that one had to circle it to view it from the front. So when she poked her head around that pillar, a smile on her face, she found that smile quickly dropping off, when the man she saw kneeling before the fire was not her old friend. In fact, he was forty years younger than Xin Fei, and had a weathered, haggared look to him that spoke to years of unpleasant conditions and hard living. "Who are you?" Malu asked.
"I guard the temple," the man said at a mutter, his green eyes not leaving the fire.
"Well, what happened to Xin Fei? Is he on vacation or something?"
"I do not know a Xin Fei," the man said, his head bobbing as sunken eyes yet defied to look at her. "I came here because I was called by... I can't remember its name. I think it's lost its name."
"Well, I think somebody vandalized the statue," she admitted. "It used to look different."
"It fell apart by inches, child," he said. "What do you want?"
"Why are you so worried?" Malu asked, leaning against the pillar.
"The Solstice approaches, and it reacts with an uncharacteristic rage. It was... content... before. Now it is angry. I don't know why," He answered.
"Why won't you look at me?"
"I'm trying to find the answer," he snapped. "What do you want? Tell me or leave me to my task!"
"I need somebody to teach me to become a shaman," Malu said. "It's a matter of grave importance."
"And the fate of Senlin isn't?" he asked, glancing to her. When he did, there was something of a catch to his gaze, before he shook his head and turned back to the fire. "I can't teach you anything. You'll need somebody who's... better. And most wouldn't teach you anyway. Teaching means you have to enter the Spirit World. That's dangerous."
"It's only dangerous if you aren't prepared," Malu parroted the line Brother Pathik told her.
"Heh. Maybe a century ago. Now, the place is a death-trap inside another, deadlier death-trap."
Malu didn't like the way he was talking. She'd been into the Spirit World fairly recently. At least, if those extremely vivid dreams were the Spirit World, as the Elders told her. It was weird, yes, but that dangerous? Hardly.
"Well, maybe I can help you with this thing you're looking for?" she offered. "Would you teach me then?"
"Little lady, nobody short of the Avatar could help me," he said. She flashed a grin at him.
"Well, it's your lucky day!" she declared. He glanced up to her.
"And why would that..."
"I'm the Avatar!" she said with a chuckle. But the expression on his face had gone from weary concentration to deepening horror.
"What? Is something behind me?" she asked, turning quickly.
"What is that?" he asked.
"I don't see anything," Malu said. She heard a whisper of metal against leather, and when she glanced back, the shaman was rushing her with a dagger. She cast out a hand and a bolt of air slammed him away. "What was that for?" she shouted.
"You won't have me, demon! Not today!" he screamed.
"Demon? but I'm the Av–" she tried to say, but he interrupted her as his voice seemed to resonate through the ground.
"Effervescent Life, boundless horizon, order from out chaos, perpetual flame, reach down and heed your desperate messenger!" he prayed. "Sap the strength from the flesh of the beast! Wither his legs so that he may not chase. Gnarl his claws so that he may not sunder. Cloud his eyes that he may not hunt. Hollow his lungs that he may not breathe!"
Even as he spoke, Malu could feel a lethargy begin to settle onto her, her legs starting to cramp, her fingers twisting like those of an ancient spinster woman. Even as her vision began to blur, she swept out a hand, and a wave of air smashed him to the ground again.
"What are you doing? I want to help you!" Malu cried. But she regretted it, because the air in her lungs was running short. She started having to force it down with her airbending just so she could have enough to not pass out from hypoxia.
"I've heard stories about you, monster!" he shouted, crawling for his knife. With a flick of her airbending, she punted it away. "How you approach them so innocent, so lost, and then EAT THEM!"
"Eat who? People? That's impossible! I'm a vegetarian!" Malu countered in a wheeze.
"You won't fool me," he spat. "Indomitable earth, eternal beacon, unquestioned truth, unwavering aegis, heed your desperate servant! Wherever the beast steps, shall there be no footing! Whenever the beast strikes, there shall be no force! Whenever the beast defies, it will be weakly! Whenever the beast denies, it will be silent!
Malu took a step back, and her feet went right out from under her. She took a moment to get the air forced back into her weakened lungs. Nobody told her that shamans could be this... unbalanced. Or dangerous, coincidentally. She tried to scramble her way up, but found that there was no friction to the ground under her. Her grey eyes went wide as she beheld the shaman take a flying leap and land atop the dagger, before scrabbling it out from under him and taking a step toward her.
"Please, I don't mean any harm," Malu wheezed. "I just want to stop Sozin from taking over the world!"
"A likely story, monster," the shaman sneered as he came closer. "You haven't even bothered to keep up with history, have you? Not surprising. Beasts don't tend to be very... smart!"
"I'm not a beast! I'm the Avatar!"
"Lies and lies and lies," he said, almost with a calm in his voice, as he raised that dagger high. She heaved with both of her bone-tired arms and legs, and cast out a blast of air which, given ideal conditions, could possibly have launched the shaman into low orbit. But as it was, all it managed to do was blast him into the roof, and send her sliding along the ground to the door. With her gnarled fingers, she clawed her way past the threshold. As she did, though, the air began to return to her lungs, a welcome respite from the uncomfortable sensation of suffocation that pervaded her a moment ago.
"No, I'm not letting you take me in the night, Beast!" he shouted from the room. "Capricious air, blood of the sail, lord of the morning, eternal song, reach down to your humble supplicant! And the air shall stand dead as the grave, and provide no succor to the Beast; and the winds shall buffet the bearer of false tidings and ill intentions into submission; and the paths once open shall be found closed to the that which has naught but hunger! She will be starved for..."
"Alright, you don't like me! I get it, I'll leave!" Malu shouted as she finally got back to her feet, and then ran. She made it three steps before she rebounded off of a springy mass of nothing but air. Her eyes bugged out at that. She pressed a hand into that mush, awed how she knew it wasn't airbending, but it could still hold her. She regretted not learning the trick of World Eyes, but knew spirits of air were barring her way. "I'm sorry about this, little guys, but that dude is CRAZY!"
She then cast her hands open, and the air which had tried to hold her in, now parted under her bending. She then started to run. Xin Fei was gone. She didn't know where. And she didn't know what could possibly happen to inspire that reaction form the crazy dude living there. But there were things she couldn't account for, things which kept her mind in a dark place even when the threat was behind her.
Naught but hunger? The grinding of her guts called to her even now. How did he know? What else did he know?
Malu came to a stop, wiping a palm's worth of sweat away from her brow. "What's going on with me?" she asked. But the universe had no answers for her this day.
"Nila? Nila! What's a blowout?" Tzu Zi asked as Nila dragged her through the crack in the High Road into the bottom of the gulch. It was a deep and sheer drop into this lower water, but the waters were still even as the ominous groaning grew louder and clearer.
"I don't know. It's one of the only things I haven't experienced about this place," Nila said rapidly.
"I didn't catch all of that," Tzu Zi said.
"I have experienced death in this place somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred and ten times. But I always knew to hide from the Blowout. That is something so dangerous that I cannot even quantify it."
"What does it do?" she asked.
"I just said, I don't know! All I know is that it's incredibly dangerous!"
"Well, why don't we go back?" she said. "We could hide in that cave..."
"The Havens aren't safe from Blowouts. Only the Mines, the Orchards, and the Pits are. Even then, not all of them."
"I don't understand! You're talking too fast and some of your words are all goobly!"
Instead of answering her, which in Nila's admitted state of panic would have come out all the faster and as a mixture of Si Wongi, Huojian and Tianxia, Nila shoved her up the spiraling mess of metal which corkscrewed haphazardly into the bottom of the gorge. It also meant that it also went up to the top. She knew that there had to be some reason why this place had a bridge, and metal debris in it. But whatever history this place had was lost to time.
"Tzu Zi, we have about two minutes before the Blowout hits," she said. "Run!"
"Where are we going?" Nila shouted back. Luckily, though, she was doing as Nila demanded and throwing rocks ahead of her as she ascended. The downside was that they seemed to go out of their way to bounce down and harry Nila as she rose behind her.
"There's a hole in the ground that you can hide out a Blowout in here," Nila said, but even as she mentioned it, she was running the measurements in her head. She didn't like what those measurements said.
"Nila I'm scared!"
"Good! You should be!" Nila shouted up, even as her legs burned from the pace, spinning their way up to the top where the grey, lifeless ground opened up to the foot of the dull stone bridge which crossed the gully. Tzu Zi was practically dancing in place for fear as Nila came up and grabbed her hand, dragging her toward and across that bridge. But there was something odd, this time, something that distracted Nila as she ran, let Tzu Zi's hand slip from hers. Was that light ahead?
"What is..."
The third word in her question was interrupted as she felt gravity reverse itself, and she went flying up in the air with a sound like two great, planed sticks smacking into each other. She landed hard on her chest, and shook the stars from her eyes. "Springboard!" she shouted back. But there was another crack, and Nila rolled to one side as Tzu Zi landed ungracefully but still on her feet.
"Springboard?" Tzu Zi asked, helping Nila up.
"It is shaped like itself," Nila said. She turned to that source of light, and confusion ruled her. The hole was in the roots of a tree on this side of the bridge. But that tree had changed. That was something that never happened. Things were always exactly the same. But for some reason she couldn't ponder, the tree she hid under was now awash with silvery light. She shook her head, and grabbed Tzu Zi by the shoulders. "Now in those roots is a hole. Go inside."
"What about you?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila just glanced away. "No. No!"
"You didn't deserve this, so you shouldn't have to die for it!" Nila said. "Get in the hole!"
"Why aren't you getting into the hole?"
"BECAUSE IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US!" Nila screamed.
Nila began to drag Tzu Zi toward that hole, but Tzu Zi broke free. As she did the sky began to shift from the sickly yellow, to the angry red of an eye filled with pepper powder. "No! You need to find your brother!"
Nila growled, and grabbed Tzu Zi's arm. "You have family that loves you, right?" Tzu Zi nodded. "Then you've got a lot more to go back for than I do."
"That can't be true, Nila. There's got to be a way we can..."
"We're running out of time. Go in there, Tzu Zi. Get away from here, somehow."
"I don't know how!"
"You know all the lessons I needed to keep from dying," Nila said. "You'll find a way."
"Nila, please, don't do this."
Nila ordinarily wouldn't. It was strange to think that only a month or so ago, she would have bolted into that hole without a single consideration for others at all. But now, she was trying to force another into safety, and face down certain death. Part of her thought it was because that was the kind of person Nila wanted Tzu Zi to remember her as. Part of her thought that this was still some sick dream, and that at least this way, in her own mind at least, she could be a better person than anybody thought she was. Or maybe, deepest of all, she simply would rather die a friend then live alone.
"I have to," Nila said. There was a great crash, and the whirlwind hum of the approaching shockwave put urgency to words. "Please, Tzu Zi. Don't die here," she stopped, staring at her feet. "When you get out of here... find Sharif. Bring him home. Tell my mother... Something. Make something up."
"Nila..." Tzu Zi said, tears in her eye.
"Please, don't die today," Nila said, a sob in her own throat. She felt herself pulled into a hug again, one she didn't even feel a desire to pull free from, and then Tzu Zi was on her hands and knees, trying to worm into that hollow. It was an odd peace which settled onto Nila as the color and fury began to spill down into the canyon. She leaned against the wood of the tree, and waited.
The flash and noise and power thundered toward her, and she met it with eyes open. Even if she could never describe what she was about to see, she wanted to see it. That deadly shockwave tore closer, throwing the chips of dead earth into the air as it passed, the only wind and erosion this place ever got. It bore down on that tree, on that hiding place, and Nila watched with a smile on her face, and peace in her heart.
And then it parted at the edge of the pool of light that was cast down by the brilliant tree. Confusion broke the peace, as her mind then tried to figure out why. The tree was different, that was obvious enough, but how had it become different enough to survive a Blowout? The storm of color and lightning and devastation raged around her, pressing in on the silvery pool under the tree, but the soft light refused to give an inch of ground to the wrongness. In fact, with every passing moment, the silvery light actually seemed to get stronger, brighter, more clear. She watched, and she wondered, and she felt...
Something she couldn't describe.
Joy, maybe?
The shockwave moved past, its back edge pressing past the gully and throughout the rest of this place. She watched it leave, one hand on the warmth of the bark. Even as she stood there, she could have sworn she felt a tiny heartbeat inside that tree. She then heard sobbing, and scuffling. Tzu Zi poked her head up from the hole, tears pouring freely down her face. Her eyes were pressed closed, though, as though she couldn't bear to look.
"Tzu Zi! It's not done!"
"Nila?" she said, a grin breaking through the tears as she tackled Nila with a hug. Nila quickly pushed the both of them back inside the pool of light, and ended with herself half supine with Tzu Zi yammering very quickly and unintelligibly in Huojian into Tzu Zi's shirt. What she did pick out, though, was 'you're alright' and various sentiments of the like.
"There's another wave coming," Nila said. "They always come in pairs."
And as she watched, the red deepened, into the festering purple-green of a putrifying wound. There was another bang in the sky. She often wondered what would have created such a loud, metallic sound, but she had never been able to find it. Thank the gods for small miracles. Tzu Zi just clung tight as the second wave began to spill forward across the distance, and slam hard against that pool of light under the tree. But as before, the light was stalwart, and would not relent its place. In time, it too passed. And all that was left was the darkening sky, the encroaching silence, the glowing tree, and two frightened girls clinging together for mutual comfort.
"Is... is it over?" Tzu Zi asked.
"Yes. It's over," Nila said. She looked up, and then pulled a glowing leaf from a low lying branch. "Until I figure a way out of here, nothing can hurt us."
"You shouldn't scare me like that," Tzu Zi said, but her tone was much more relieved than angry, even Nila could tell that much.
"I'll make a note not to," she said. She then showed that glowing leaf to Tzu Zi. She delicately plucked it from Nila's hand, cupping it in her palm.
"It's so beautiful," Tzu Zi said, staring at the leaf. But Nila found herself staring at something else. Tzu Zi.
"Yeah... it is," she said, idly rubbing Tzu Zi's back in what she assumed was a calming manner.
And now, Nila had something else that she needed to think about.
"I'm confused, you want to do what again?" Aang asked, scratching his bald pate.
"I..." Sharif shook his head, like he was trying to call forward an idea and failing. "We, rather... we have to stop that thing before it hurts somebody."
"It's already abducted, and from the looks of things, killed, a bunch of kids and the people who went after them," Sokka pointed out.
"Killed?" Sharif asked. Aang nodded. But Sharif looked all the more puzzled. "They're fine. They're standing right over there."
Aang followed Sharif's pointing finger, but it was aimed at a vacant spot in the vast hall. Sokka raised a brow. "There's nothing there. Aang, I know you've got it in you. You'll find a way to deal with that spirit monster."
"They're right there!" Sharif repeated.
"Nobody's standing there," Katara said gently. At that point, the dark boy with the prominent facial scar slapped his forehead.
"Right! Of course you can't see them. They're in the Outer Sphere."
"The what?"
"Have you learned the World Eyes yet?" Sharif asked the Avatar. Aang took a step back, and thought about it. No, nobody ever taught him anything like that. Or if they had, he wasn't paying attention when they did it. Damn it, it was days like this that he wished he'd had Malu's work ethic back when the Air Nomads were still a people and not a memory! If he had, he'd have a lot better airbending, and all of the other stuff she knew as well. But it was neither here nor there at this point.
"Nobody taught me anything about spirits. I didn't even know I was a shaman until I figured out I was the Avatar. I just thought I had vivid dreams and a conscience which was skilled in ventriloquism," Aang said. Sharif sighed, then reached over and flattened a palm on the arrow that adorned Aang's brow. Even as Sokka let out a yelp at its inappropriateness, Aang felt that the sound became... hollowed. Like it was reflecting in a tinny sort of room. Then, the sounds smoothed out, and Aang looked around again.
"Katara, what just happened?" Sokka said, glancing around in alarm. Sharif looked like he was about to say something, then looked around himself and groaned.
"Damn it, too far," he said. He winced as he turned to Aang, and seemed to be stretching something across his forehead. As he did, the scar above his eye started to glow slightly. "Okay, that's better. Now I can think again."
"What?"
"Brain damage," Sharif said, pointing at his head. "In the Outer Sphere I can... bridge... the damage somewhat. But I'm not built to stay here long, and I'm a lot weaker here. Just give me a second. I'll get you back into the Inner Sphere."
The palm returned to Aang's head, and this time shifted slightly, and Sokka let out a sigh of relief. "Where did you go?" Sokka asked. Aang noted that he still had his club out. "And where's the weird kid?"
"He's right in front of you," Aang said.
"Technically, I'm not," Sharif said with a shrug. "I'm still in the Outer Sphere."
"But I can see you!" Aang said.
"Because you're using the World Eyes," Sharif answered with a nod.
"Who are you talking to?" Katara asked.
"You promised you'd get his attention!" a man's voice cut in, and Aang turned. There was a gruff, unshaven man who was lingering nearby, as two others were keeping a gaggle of children collected and calm. Each and every one of them wasn't there an instant ago.
"I did, calm down," Sharif said.
"I can see you all," Aang said with a note of wonder.
"Oh, great. The Avatar went crazy," Sokka noted deadpan.
"Sokka, I think I know what happened," Aang said. He turned to Sharif. "When that thing attacked, it must have pulled them into this... Outer Sphere and left them stranded there. Why would it do that?"
"Because it doesn't remember what it is," Sharif said. He turned to the window, leaning against the sill. "The Spirit World is a dangerous place. Deadly to everything that lives there, even its own inhabitants. This spirit tried to live here, in the Outer Sphere, but at some point, it lost its name, its very identity."
"Somebody must remember it," Aang said.
"That's the point. When a spirit loses its name, it's gone completely. Nobody can remember it, because it's as if it never had one. It loses everything that it was, its shape, its purpose, its nature. And in its confusion and fear, it lashes out. It's not malicious. It's just scared and confused."
"What if somebody were to find its name?" Aang asked.
"Are you following any of this?" Sokka asked.
"Not really," Katara admitted.
Sharif made to dismiss the notion, but caught himself. "That's a good idea, actually. Not all spirits are angry buggers. If it remembers who it is, it might stop all on its own."
"That's great."
"...or it could remember that it's a spirit of murder and exterminate the entire village," Sharif continued.
"Thats... not so great," Aang amended. "How will we know?"
"That's the tricky part. We don't. Do you know how to work spirits?"
"Not really?"
"That's odd, because I heard you do it before. The prayers are the thing. It's half instinctual at the least, so you're in the same boat as most shamans. Just call out to what you need, ask for its help. If you ask them properly, they will," Sharif said.
"Well, there'll be plenty of time for you to teach me when I get back," Aang said.
"We're going somewhere?" Sokka asked.
"No," Sharif said sternly. He pointed at the children. "They won't survive another day."
"What? Why?"
"They might look like they're at 100 percent but in reality, they're much closer to around 5. Three days in the Outer Sphere, then you die of dehydration the instant you step out. They've been in here for two and a half. They're held here by that thing's will," Sharif stressed.
"How do you know so much about the Spirit World and stuff?" Aang asked, alarm clearly creeping into his voice.
"I've been doing this all my life. The brain injury just made me worse at it," Sharif said. He sighed for a moment. "You're not going to be doing this alone. I can still help you... but when I step back into the Inner Sphere, chances are I might remember a tiny fraction of what you and I just spoke about. Everything we discuss or plan will fall entirely on you."
"Why?" Aang asked.
Sharif pointed at his scar. "This won't follow me back into the World. I'm thinking with a fake brain, and everything on it stops existing when it does. I can help, but it'll be your show. You're the hero today, Avatar."
"That's not a vote of confidence," Aang said.
Sharif just smiled, though. "I must say, I'm glad it's somebody like you that's Avatar. We need somebody still innocent enough to try to fix the world, rather than somebody ruthless enough to burn it down and rebuild on its bones. There's been enough death."
"I'll do whatever I can," Aang promised. And then, he noted that Katara started back a bit.
"How did he do that?" Katara asked.
"I... Are you the Avatar?" Sharif asked, the glow vanishing from his scar, and his eyes becoming distant and unfocused.
"Of course, we just talked and... oh. Oh I get it," Aang said. "Wow. That's really sad."
"No, I feel alright," Sharif noted, but he turned slowly to the grieving, and pointed idly toward the children huddled in the Outer Sphere. "I don't know why they're so upset. They're standing right there."
"Sharif, I need your help," Aang said, recalling what Sharif had just told him. The youth turned to him. "We need to confront the spirit outside, and get it to reveal its name."
"A name? Yes, that's important. Everything has a name. Mine's Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar. What's yours?"
"You already told us your name. Did you forget already or something?" Sokka asked.
"I'm Aang, remember?" but the answer was an obvious no. "Look, how do you find out answers to things, using spirit magic?"
"It's not magic. You just need to ask the right people," Sharif said casually. "Usually void works best."
Aang stared, then picked at his ear for a moment. "...What's void?"
"It's... void," Sharif said, obviously lacking the cognition to explain further. "Well, what's the plan?"
"I don't have much of one. Do you know how to fight spirits?"
"I've done it before," he said. "The details are a bit fuzzy, but I know I've done it."
"Then I need you to help me," Aang said, pointing toward the front doors, which still stood ajar. This just felt weird. One moment, Sharif is telling Aang what to do, and the next, Sharif needs Aang to tell him what to do. It was like one of those strange comedies he saw down in Great Whales when he was a tyke. He didn't get it then, but it was weird and off-beat and made him laugh, even with the cultural divide working against him. He was about to ask where the thing was, but the question became moot as the World Eyes made it far easier to see than he had without them. Hovering near the gates to Senlin was an eldrich abomination of smoke and glass, darkness pulled into two great and adjacent pools surrounded by a mask of brilliant light. "Wow. That thing looks really ang–"
Aang was cut off when he felt his face connect with a door.
Aang took a step back, rubbing his nose. "Aang, what happened? You just walked right into that!" Katara said.
"I thought it was open," Aang said.
"How could you make a mistake like that?" Sokka asked, reaching toward the obviously open space before Aang and pulling at it, as though opening a door. This time, Aang moved forward a bit more cautiously, and still managed to clip his shoulder on something that, for all his eyes told him, wasn't there. Apparently there were a lot of little things about Shamans that needed explaining at some point. But now wasn't it. The spiraling mess turned toward Aang, as he held out both arms, and shouted.
"O, Void Spirits! Tell me the name of this... thing!" Aang demanded.
There was a long moment of silence.
"Anything?" Sokka asked from the other side of the threshold, his tone speaking volumes of his doubt.
"You're not asking them right. You have to invoke them," Sharif said. He turned to the thing which was beginning to spin faster. "Oh, well, that's unusual. What do you think it's doing?"
"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Aang repeated as he rushed a bit closer. A high whine began to sound from the thing, generated where light scraped along darkness. Then, the tone dropped as the darkness began to swell, an ephemeral energy growing inside those shadow pools, begging for release.
Then came a scream, and a wash of blue light, which lifted Aang and threw him hard into the side of the building. So hard, in fact, that it bent the wood of the walls inward a bit. Aang's head spun as he felt Sharif pull him to his feet. "Wow, that thing's not very nice, is it?" Sharif said. He walked toward the creature.
"You should be nicer to the Avatar. He just wants to help you," Sharif said. The spinning of the panes slowed slightly, almost as though it was scrutinizing the scarred shaman. But then, the whine and the drone repeated, and a scream began to build up, crackling along the faces of those mirrors of light and darkness. Sharif's eyes went wide, and he opened his left hand.
Indomitable Earth, immovable object, unbreakable shield, scale of the dragon;
Gear of Endurance.
Chain the
Sharif got that far before the scream announced in full, sending the shaman flying across the street and slamming him into the stairs. The youth let out a groan of pain, and tapped a hand to the back of his head. It came back bloody. "That really hurt," Sharif complained.
"I think I know how to do this now," Aang said. It was a matter of coaxing the spirits into action, asking, not demanding. Finding the right words. So he opened his mind, and his heart, and he spoke, his right hand opening.
UNBROKEN VIRTUE, IMPENETRABLE BARRIER, UNWAVERING PROMISE, IMPLICIT VOW;
GEAR OF THE MOTHER.
HEED THE CALL OF A TIRED AND FRIGHTENED ORPHAN OF A NEVER ENDING WAR!
WHAT CARNAGE COMES, BECOME THE BARRIER WHICH SHELTERS THE INNOCENT!
WHAT MADNESS COMES, CLEANSE THE MINDS AND SHOW THE TRUTH!
WHEN ONE FALLS, ANOTHER TAKES HIS PLACE;
MORE RESILIENT THAN IRON AND STRONGER THAN ARMIES.
DRAW OUT THE BATTLE LINES; NOT ONE STEP FURTHER TRAVELED!
As Aang spoke, a shimmer seemed to float in the air, settling like goose-down on the buildings in Senlin. It was not feathers, that fluff. Even as Aang felt the knot of something pressed in the palm of his right hand, he knew he was looking at spirits of virtue and duty rising up, and protecting those who had no guilt in this conflict. That was the power of spirits. Now, when the beast's rotation brought its whirling edges to a building, it was not the building which crumbled and fell, but rather, the glass which shattered and fell into purple motes which wafted away. The beast let out another scream, and Aang bounded away, but only after using his airbending to send Sharif rolling out of the path of that blast.
Most tellingly, the assault only rattled the window frames slightly on the great building standing at the heart of town. Virtue held strong, it seemed. But that just seemed to enrage the beast more, and it screamed with increasing frequency, focusing solely on Aang to the point where if the Avatar stopped moving for more than two seconds, he was going to get blasted.
So it was a distinct relief when Aang could see Sharif approaching from 'behind' that whirling monstrosity, his left hand clutching above him. And when Sharif spoke, it was like he had in the Outer Sphere.
Indomitable Earth, immovable object, unbreakable shield, unslippable chain;
Gear of Confinement.
Heavy as lead and absolute as death. To it which raised a wrathful claw;
BIND!
As Aang watched, bondage began to reach up into the naked sky, lashing the spinning mass with chains made of verdant spirits, a growing and suffocating cage of green. The spinning slowed, and this time, what had begun as a scream died out before even reaching its crescendo.
As it strikes against those who seek its good fortune;
CONTAIN!
As it struggles to lash out against the innocent;
DENY!
The thing began to struggle in its bondage, and azure light began to lance through the chains of green that held it. Aang knew that he only had one chance to do this right, and that window for opportunity was closing fast. He bounded up to the building nearest it, close enough that he could reach forward his left hand and lay it upon the momentarily stilled pane of brilliant white that lay between pools of darkness. There was something in there, he could sense it. Something afraid, but not malicious. He had to trust his instincts. That was what mattered, right now. So he spoke.
SILENT VOID, UNSPOKEN QUESTION, WHISPER IN THE DARK, ESSENCE OF PROPHETS;
GEAR OF DISCOVERY.
THE WORD WHICH ONCE STOOD PROUD HAS FALLEN, AND TRUTH LIES IN DUST.
THE STORY WHICH ONCE GUIDED MAN TO GREATNESS HAS FALLEN INTO MYTH.
THE NAME WHICH ONCE BESPOKE EXISTENCE HAS VANISHED INTO AETHER.
REVEAL!
As Aang's voice rang out in a chorus, the thing began to snap the chains which held it. The pane under his hand began to twist, but he kept the pressure to it. He was running out of time. He had to do this faster!
KEEPER OF LOST AND FORGOTTEN LORE, STRIKE BACK AGAINST THE DARKNESS!
KNOWER OF ABANDONED LEGEND, SET FORTH A NEW AND BETTER PATH!
INSPIRER OF ORACLES, LOOK INTO THE CREATURE WHICH LOST ITSELF AND SHOW:
THE NAME, THE FACE, THE NATURE.
SHOW ME YOUR NAME, FRIGHTENED BEAST!
TELL ME YOUR NAME!
Miles away, nursing a bruise which spread across his back, Jubei looked up as the pillar, so long formless and amorphous that he had practically given up hope on revealing its true face, suddenly began to change. The lumpy mass gained definition, an ursine form standing back, mounted high under the wooden roof. And a name, so long forgotten that minds could not contain it, began to slip back into memories thought buried.
"Heibai?" Jubei said, as the face returned to that statue. There was a tiny growl, not angry, just... afraid, and lonely. Asking. And Jubei felt no need to deny it. "It's alright, Heibai. You are welcome here."
The chains broke, but even as they did, the figure under Aang's hand ceased to be a swirling collection of razor glass and brilliant light and impenetrable darkness. In its place, there was a panda. A very, very large panda, but a panda nonetheless. Aang's hands fell open, as that beast tilted its head passively at him. It stared at him with those button eyes, almost hidden inside the patches of black against the white face, and there was a recognition in that look. Even though it was a creature, it knew that Aang was the Avatar. And because of Aang, it knew peace. As Aang's hands finally opened, and the prayer's he held in them slipped, the sheen lifted from the buildings, but too did the panda before him break apart into indigo motes, which blew toward the gates.
"Is that it?" Aang asked. "Was that... Heibai?"
"Yes. He remembers himself now. Good for him," Sharif said placidly. He tapped his head again, then looked at his hand with a start. "Augh! When did I get cut?"
"During the fight with Heibai," Aang said.
"What fight? Oh. Right," Sharif gave a sheepish expression. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."
"So you've told me," Aang said. "Come on. You are a hero today."
"Maybe, but I feel there's something missing," Sharif said, his expression still distant, but slightly more focused. He tilted his head to one side, then turned toward the road leading into town.
"What is it?" Aang asked.
"...or a pumkiiiiiiin!" a girl's voice trailed off into a scream for the second it took her to appear out of mid air and land flat on her face. She had scarcely rolled over from the pratfall, when another girl with very short hair appeared likewise from the thin air and landed atop her, her face embedded in the first's bosom. The second girl looked up, then sat back, still straddling the first, and let out a laugh, before shouting something in a dialect of Si Wongi Aang wasn't aware of, while shaking her fist defiantly at the sky.
"Well, our day's looking up," Sokka said, joining Aang and looping an arm around his shoulder. "We beat a spirit monster by turning it into a panda, and then pretty girls start falling out of the sky!"
"Sokka! The children are back!" Katara came running, excitement plain in her voice. It twisted somewhat when she beheld the scene before her. "What are they doing?"
"Oh," Sharif said with mild surprise. "Hello there, sister. I was going to tell you and Mother about..."
"Sharif, you ASSHOLE!" the short haired girl shouted. "Do you know how much crap I had to go through to find you? I almost died of dehydration! I almost got capsized in a storm! Pirates stole my tools! And my robes! I'm wearing PIRATE PANTS!" Then she paused, turning toward Sokka. "Wait, pretty girls?"
"Who is she?" Aang asked.
"That's my sister," Sharif said without any real concern.
"Nila, you're still sitting on my belly," the perky girl under the Si Wongi girl pointed out. Nila let out a squawk and stood, but Sharif tilted his head.
"You call her Nila too?" he asked.
"Call... Isn't Nila your name?" the girl asked.
"It's... a nickname that stuck," Nila said with begrudging tones. She held up two fingers. "Two things. First, you're coming back to Mother, right now. Second," she took a step toward Sokka. "You knew I was a girl."
"It was pretty obvious," Sokka said.
"Hm. Dark, tall, blue eyes. Tribesman. Pity, I hoped that it'd be somebody more intellectually stimulating."
"Excuse me?" Sokka asked.
"Tribesmen are uneducated. That's just the way it is," Nila dismissed.
"Really? Then answer me a technical question. You've got forty barrels of acid that you're delivering in secret. What are they used for?"
"Industrial?" Nila asked.
"Military," Sokka countered.
"Intriguing," she tapped her lip with a finger. "Forty barrels, I'm assuming twenty quarts per barrel, glass barrels to prevent reaction. Did they have lead?"
"I am not aware."
"Hm," She got a cunning look in her brilliant green eyes. "Quickly. Chemical formula for vitriol."
Sokka smirked. "Eastern or Western Standard?"
"Western of course," Nila said peevishly. "Everything's base ten."
"H2SO4," Sokka rattled off.
"Heaviest known element on Earth."
"Big 'E' or little 'e'?" Sokka asked, smugly. She smirked at that. "Refined pitchblende."
"Good answer, most would say lead, or at best, bismuth."
"We've been making bronze with bismuth for hundreds of years," Sokka said.
"What's going on?" Aang asked, but Sharif shushed him.
"You make bronze with bismuth? Why?"
"It's great at withstanding corrosion. Ideal if you spend time at sea," Sokka said simply.
"Guys, we have to..."
Both Nila and Sharif both shushed Aang harshly, before she turned to Sokka again. "Laws of Motion."
Sokka ticked them off his fingers. "Velocity is constant without outside interference, force equals mass times acceleration, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
Nila turned to her companion and pointed idly at Sokka. "Tzu Zi, I demand we bring him with us. Can we keep him?"
"By all means," Katara said.
"Katara!"
"What?" She asked. "We've just seen the mating dance of the budding over-intellectual. Isn't it cute?"
Aang laughed at bit at that. But when he did, he remembered the important task before him. "Guys, we've done some good here, but I have to go," Aang said, whistling for Appa.
"You have to go?" Sokka asked, now turned away from the siblings and their perky, buxom and half-dressed... guide? "What about us?"
"I can't take you with us. It's too dangerous," Aang said.
"How is that?" Katara inquired.
"I have to go to the Fire Nation," Aang said. "And I have to be there before tomorrow at sundown."
"Why would that be dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked. "It's not like you're an airbender or something..."
All eyes turned to her. She looked at them, then turned her eyes to the ground and sighed. "He's an airbender, isn't he?"
"Did the arrows not give it away?"
"Well, the last one I met didn't have arrows!" she said.
"You met another airbender?" Aang said. Then he shook his head. "No! No, I can't get distracted by this. I need to reach Crescent Island."
"Why, Aang?" Katara asked.
"Because that's the only place I can talk to Roku," he said.
"The previous Avatar?" Sokka asked. "Why do you need to talk to him?"
"Remember that something bad I mentioned earlier?" Aang asked. Sokka shrugged. "They said Roku can explain more. I'm scared, but I have to go, and I don't want anybody else getting hurt. I have to go alone."
"The four-soul mind!" Sharif interrupted. All turned to him.
"Don't mind him, he does that sometimes," Nila dismissed.
"Of course! The lightning shows the way," Sharif seemed giddy for some reason. "Nila, I'll be back."
"Back? Oh no. You're not going anywhere," Nila said. And Sharif proved her patently wrong by vanishing into thin air. Even Aang, who's World Eyes hadn't quite faded, couldn't see what became of him. Nila took a step back, stammering. "What? WHAT? No! NO THAT ISN'T EVEN FAIR!" she roared.
But Aang's attention turned to the west. To the trials which awaited him. He was going to the Fire Nation. He was going into the jaws of the beast, and this time, the beast wasn't a panda. He didn't like his odds. Come to think of it, he didn't like much of anything about this solstice. But he was the Avatar, and he had duty. His eyes closed, as the sun began to set, and night fell awaiting the arrival of the shortest day, and the longest night.
Alright, I've been reading far too much Russian literature and playing too many Russian video-games, I admit. Between Roadside Picnic, and Rebuild of Evangelion, it was pretty much an inevitability that the Heibai fight was going to look like that. Another thing that you'll probably notice is that I do thoroughly enjoy the careful and thoughtful creation of absolute cluster####s. The slamming of personalities into one another is part of what literature is. Sure, poetry doesn't need that, but since poetry has always been as clear as mud to me, you won't get much out of this guy. There's a reason why I've said that Azula is a poet, but never actually shown anything she created; mostly because even as a fictional construct of multiple imaginations (one version of which is my own), she is undoubtedly a better poet than I.
You wanted to know what was up with Sharif? There's your answer. The stark change in voice comes about because I have to write him to very different ways depending on whether he's 'got his brain in'. Why, you ask, does he not just keep his brain in all the time in the Spirit World? Because of how brains work; specifically, that memory is a whole brain process. Since much of Sharif's forebrain is outright missing, it was a miracle he even relearned how to speak. Chalk that up to neural plasticity and youth. But since he's got something of his faculties back, anything that he does learn with that crippled brain, will probably stay in that crippled brain. But if he thinks with a fake brain, he can access everything that was on the crippled brain, and manipulate it much more effectively, but any memories which form while he has the fake brain don't actually leave any physical trace on his crippled brain. So when the fake brain fades, so too do any memories it might have stored. Simply put, Sharif has the choice of 'Think well in the OS and SW, but remember nothing', or 'Think terribly in the OS and SW, and maybe remember something'. Not fun, I can only assume.
Also, by bearing in mind that Nila and Tzu Zi got chucked into the Spirit World (And more importantly, what the Spirit world has become in a century), you can get a handle on why being a shaman is so bloody dangerous. It's something which will be touched on repeatedly in the future, both in the narrative and from the corner of your metaphorical eye. I don't doubt that you've already started forming opinions about The Children. If you want to guess, you've probably got enough information that you might be able to give a good one, if you so please.
Also, leave a review.