If there was one kind thing about northern Dakong, it was that it was very, very dry. Of course, that was also about a thousand of the things which were very very cruel about it as well. The kindness came from the fact that sweating actually worked as a way to keep one cool in the crushing heat. The rest of it though fell to the fact that the grasses were inedible to anything with less than three stomachs and there wasn't so much as a puddle to replenish one's constantly draining stockpiles of drinking water. That was one of the chief defensive features of Si Wong; there was practically no way that an army could move en mass through its sands, or even approach very close. As much as an army marched on its stomach, it lived or died on the fullness of its bladder.

"So you people really live here, do ya?" the airbender's voice broke in on Nila's pondering. Despite her tendency to be annoying, it was a good thing because it distracted Nila from her feet. She was fairly sure if somebody cut her in half at the waist, her legs would continue all the way home before they realized they weren't attached to her. Once again, it brought her to realizing the one benefit to this much walking; her legs had never been stronger, firmer, or better defined. And now, she had the apparel to showcase that.

"This isn't our home," Sharif said with a note of confusion from Patriarch's back.

"We're not even out of Dakong yet," Nila noted. Malu frowned at her.

"Really?"

"There's still grass," she said with a dismissive wave.

"What's on your mind?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Food," Nila said. "We don't have very much, since so much of it got lost somewhere between the garbage heap and here."

Nila didn't notice Malu's nervous swallow, her glance away.

"It's lucky we've got these things. They hold water well, and can give it back if you're not squeamish."

"Ew," Malu said.

"Water's water, whether from the ground or in a bird's vomit," Sharif said, actually making a valid point for a change.

"Double ew!" Tzu Zi shouted.

"Welcome to the desert, try not to die," Nila said. "Water won't be a problem, bird vomit notwithstanding. Their sweat is almost pure water, perfectly potable. I understand it isn't even that distasteful."

"You drank Ostrich Horse sweat?" Malu asked, a bit aghast.

"Water is water. After Nassar's destruction, Mother kept herself alive for a week on the blood of the dead," she shrugged, continuing to walk through the steadily shortening grasses, under an oppressive blue sky. "The desert demands hard people, and it makes you hard enough to survive it, or else you don't. Mother learned those lessons. So have I," she gave a glance to Tzu Zi. "You've probably learned a version of them yourself."

"...yeah," Tzu Zi admitted, a bit bashfully. She was cute when she blushed. She then straightened in her saddle. "But I'm proud that I've never had to drink my own piddle from a snakeskin. That's just nasty!"

"You people are disgusting," Malu noted.

"Well, what survival lessons did you learn?" Nila asked.

"Starting fires with nothing but sticks, surviving storms of all varieties, how to calm a rampaging bison, what plants you can eat and which cause blindness – usually if they ooze, you shouldn't eat 'em – and how to avoid people who want to kill you and mail your corpse to the Fire Lord," Malu said, ticking them off her fingers. "That last one was self-taught."

"Wouldn't it go rotten?" Sharif asked.

"Not the point, brother," Nila cut him off.

"The ooze is from fermentation, right?" Sharif asked, after trying three times to get 'fermentation' said correctly.

"He's on one of his mind trips," Nila counciled the other girls.

"What kind of stuff are you making?" Sharif asked, but Malu just shook her head and turned away. "You're too young to be drinking."

"See?" she said.

"So we're all disgusting, then?" Malu asked.

"Apparently," Nila said. Then, she stopped. The grass had finally given up, and they walked on cracked, grainy dirt. Nila looked down at it with a dry chuckle for this dry riverbed. Just a few months ago, there had been a stream here, demarcating the transition from the edge of Si Wong to the body of Dakong. Now, like Khagan Khatun said, the desert was spreading, and swallowing up the rest of the continent. Not that it was her fault. All of the east that was far from the coast was dry as bleached bones. A gust of wind spun past her, wicking the meager sweat from her brow for a flash of momentary refreshment, before the heat began to press in again. "And now... we're home."

"Doesn't look that different," Tzu Zi said.

"Once we cross that horizon, the sand will begin. Two days after that, we'll probably reach Misty Palms," Nila said.

"Oooh! I know that place! That's the ice oasis, isn't it!" Malu said with glee. "I hear there's a big ice fountain there!"

Sharif and Nila both shared a glance, and in that instant, she actually felt like she was looking at the old Sharif again, with the way he rolled his eyes and shook his head, just as she did. The connection did not last, because he started staring to the northwest again, muttering something not quite audible, his face becoming inhuman as a doll. Nila sighed, stretched her neck until she emitted a crunch which made Tzu Zi wince, and then set north across the cracked, dry mud, into the hungry desert.

But they did not enter the desert unnoticed.

"Is that what I think it is?" the sandbender asked, elbowing the spyglass away from his companion. "By the Host, it is!"

"Let me see, you idiot!" the thief said. After a brief, none-to-manly struggle between the two of them, he had the thing and was pointing it over the vast distances, picking out the group heading in their general direction. "That's not Dakongese, you fool," he said. "I swear, I should find a better companion."

"You shouldn't say such hurtful things."

"Adin, I swear to the Host, I will peg you for the sun if you don't at least attempt to act like a man!"

"There's no need to be hurtful, Udu," Adin muttered. Udu shook his head for a moment, then looked back through the lens at the approaching group. When he did, he shifted, standing a bit straighter.

"What luck is this?" Udu asked, a grin on his face. "I recognize this boy!"

"What? How?"

"He's the bastard who smote my eyes a few months ago. I guess he isn't as dead as I had thought him," he tossed the spyglass to his counterpart. "Of course, there's plenty of time to remedy that, isn't there?"

Adin didn't look too happy with that, but looked through the scope himself, before likewise tensing. "...you have got to be kidding me."

And with that, Adin called up a sand devil which moved their glider away from the group. After all, they'd need time to plan and prepare, and these craft worked best when there was sand 'neath the hull.

Chapter 17

Hakoda of the Water Tribe

The silence was palpable in the howdah, which left the Avatar sweating and the two siblings confused. Sokka gave a glance from his half-minded vest-stitchery to his sister, who was giving that confused, wary glance to the bearer of their ride and the most powerful bender alive in the world. "Did you trade off with him?" she asked.

"No, I thought you did," Katara answered, before turning back to Aang. "Do you think he was up all night?"

"I'm not sure. Did we land?" Sokka asked.

"I can hear you, you know," Aang said wearily from the front of the beast. Sokka sighed, having forgotten for a moment that there were, in fact, some people who spoke his native tongue outside of its native sons.

"We're just worried, because you haven't driven this hard since Sokka was hurt," Katara said. "Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Everything's great. Heh heh heh..." Aang said with obvious forced enthusiasm.

"You're lost again, aren't you?" Sokka asked.

"Why does everybody assume that?" Aang asked, but in a very distracted way.

Katara looked at Sokka. He looked back. Finally, he groaned, put aside his partially mended vest and hopped down to the Avatar's side on the bison's nearly-nonexistent neck. "Alright, I know something's wrong, and Katara won't get off my case until I figure out what it is."

"Nothing's wrong," Aang said, but once again, there was a nervousness that even Sokka wasn't too oblivious to miss.

"And ninety nine times out of a hundred, I'd let it go at that. But she's got a bumbleskunk in her igloo and she's going to be a pain until you spill it."

"Hey!" the girl in question complained.

"I'm serious. Nothing's wrong," Aang said.

"Then why are you watching the ground like it's trying to kill you?" Sokka asked. He shook his head, looking down at the coastline they shot over at the remarkable speed. "Seriously, Aang. What's the problem? Did you eat her steamed sea prunes on her? 'Cause she won't actually kill you for that."

"There's no problem! Why won't you just leave me alone?" Aang snapped, which surprised the Tribesman a bit. He leaned back, gave a shrug toward Katara, and started to move back toward the howdah, but Katara squinted suddenly.

"What?" he asked.

"I thought I saw..."

Sokka turned and held the horn of the beast as he squinted into the distance, down at the shoreline. At first, he was confounded. There wasn't much to see, except for some kind of abbey in the distance, cradled by trees which still held green even with the choking drought. But after about a minute, his eyes went wide. Blue sails. And not just blue, but the native ice blue which was almost impossibly hard to replicate outside of the Tribes. "That's one of ours..." Sokka said. "Take us closer."

"Well, I..." Aang began, but Sokka cut him off.

"That's a Tribal ship!" Sokka shouted. "Come on! That could be our cousins from the north!"

Aang murmured something to himself, but brought the bison ever lower, even as Katara crowded Appa's head. The ground couldn't come soon enough...

Until Sokka began to notice that it wasn't as good news as Sokka had hoped. Namely, that the ice blue sail was fluttering loose in the wind, and that its edges were singed black. By the time Appa landed, it was clear to all the adolescents that this wasn't a ship, but rather a burnt wreck. The Tribesmen slid down Appa's face first, and moved to the hulk on the sand.

"It looks just like one of ours," Katara said, running a hand over burnt wood.

Sokka felt his blood start to cool. "No... it's not that it looks like one of ours. I think this is one of ours..."

"What?" Katara asked. "Are you sure?"

"Give me a second," Sokka said, heaving himself between ruined timbers to clamber into what used to be the belly of this craft, into the hold. He looked around, at the effects which remained behind. Burnt, moldy skins and half-consumed furniture, which had come loose of where it was supposed to be built into the floor. But it was the back of the thing which filled Sokka with the kind of creeping dread which he didn't think was possible.

"Did you find something?" Katara asked from the hole he clambered through.

"Katara... I think this is Dad's ship," Sokka said quietly.

"...what."

Sokka pulled one of the mostly destroyed and crumbled books from the shelf. Katara looked at it, and she understood. It was the engineering textbook that Dad had brought home almost ten years ago, one which Sokka had poured over relentlessly, but always ended up back in his shelves. Sokka could even see the little correction on one of the non-ruined pages, which he had made when he figured out working with snow was a far cry from working in lumber or stone. Katara went a bit grey at that.

"Guys?" Aang's voice was quite timid.

"Aang... This is Dad's boat," Sokka said, crawling back out, then leaning against the hulk, the crumbling textbook in his hands. "He wouldn't leave it like this."

"Sokka..."

"I... uh..." Aang began, very uncertain, and looking every bit as pale as Katara.

A glance down the coastline showed that this boat was far from alone. In fact, it was one of a dozen, which was at least a quarter of what Dad had set out with. And that was just the wrecks which washed ashore. "He's gone... isn't he?" Sokka asked, trying very hard to not well up.

And not really succeeding. Katara crashed into him, into a desperate embrace that both siblings really, really needed. Aang stood apart, even though he had to know he was welcome in it. But before Katara's half-sobs could blossom into outright weeping, a sharp intake of breath from the Avatar brought both sets of blue eyes back up and to the world.

Namely that they were no longer alone on the beach.

The interloper on this tragedy was lithe, perhaps even a big gaunt. But his uniform was the likes of which none of them had seen in any real number since they left Omashu. It was green and yellow, hard armor built to withstand kinetic shocks, which made it only marginally useful against fighters whose main weapon was focused heat. The Earth Kingdoms soldier came up short, looking at them all for a moment, and took that moment to catch his breath.

"Who are you?"

"Not Fire Nation," the man said. "Good."

"Do we look Fire Nation to you?" Katara asked, her tone a bit scathing. Well, more than a bit, but he could understand why.

"I'm just... wait..." he trailed off, and pointed at Aang. "Is that... the Avatar?"

"Yes?" Aang offered. The man rolled his eyes up and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank the gods," he said. "Private Huxiu, Ba Sing Se's 466th. I was told to deliver a message, but this place is crawling with Nationals and spies."

"What message?" Aang asked. He was about to answer, but he found himself stymied, and had to dig out a roll of oiled skin.

"It's from somebody called... Hogan? Logan?" he attempted. "...Bogan?"

"Ogan?"

"That's how you say that?" Huxiu asked. "He's delivering his location to his commander, and I was told to relay it to the abbey."

"His commander... Sokka, that's..."

"Dad!" he said, bounding with her and leaving a baffled soldier and Avatar staring at them.

"Is he alright?" Katara asked.

"I'm just a messenger," Huxiu said.

"The abbey's right up there, let's go," Aang said entirely too fast.

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, pulling away from his sister. "Why are we here?"

"Who cares? Dad's here," Katara said.

"No. We should have been in Henhiavut by now," Sokka said. "So why are we here? Aang, did you know about this?"

Aang just looked away, ashamed.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sokka shouted, his blood beginning to run hot.

"Bato made me promise not to," Aang said.

"And that was enough?" Sokka screamed. He gave the Avatar an unwise shove, but in his current state, he was beyond thinking about the consequences. Besides, it sent the kid onto his back in the sand. "You didn't think for a second that we might want to know about our father! That he was somewhere close! How could you be that thoughtless?"

"Katara, I didn't know how to say..."

"I don't care," she said, a scowl on her face. "You've never lost family. You can't understand how it feels!"

"But..."

"He's at the abbey?" Sokka asked the soldier, who watched the scene with a degree of trepidation. The man nodded nervously. "I know where it is. Follow me."

"Sokka, I didn't want to hurt an..."

"Don't follow me," Sokka said.

"Not now," Katara agreed. Huxiu gave a glance toward him, but the Tribesmen were too angry to look back, too angry to turn back. He'd kept their father from them, for even one minute. That was unforgivable.

"Guys... I'm sorry..."

Sokka didn't turn back as he led the man through the woods, toward where the abbey lay nestled in an ocean of snow capped pines. That left Aang, all alone, sitting on the sand. He pulled his legs close to his chest, and stared out over the aggressive waves. His own eyes, pressing hard against the frustrated, unhappy tears, didn't see much but grey and teal of surf.

"I was trying to do the right thing," Aang said. But there was nobody to listen to him. For the first time in a very, very long time, he felt truly, truly alone.

Tzu Zi glanced up at the sky, which was moving through its bruised blues toward a quiet, subdued violet. One by one, the stars began to wink on, as the last glimmers of the unforgiving sun finally slipped below the horizon, and the half-moon rose to take its place, leaving a faint, white-blue glow on the sands. The temperatures had dropped from broiling to freezing, and Tzu Zi had taken to keeping a flame in her hand before her just to keep some warmth nearby.

"Shouldn't we set up camp?" she asked.

"Not in Si Wong," Sharif said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Nila gave him a glance, and nodded.

"Now that the sun has set, we can set out in earnest," his sister agreed. "By the light of the moon and stars, we can travel great distances with great accuracy. Under the light of the sun, we would unerringly travel to the point of our deaths. Here, night is time for travel. Day is time to rest, eat, stay out of the sun, and try not to die."

"I'm starting to wonder how anybody can survive in this place," Malu said.

"It's not easy," Tzu Zi agreed. She'd grown up in a desert herself. There were trials associated with it that were found few places else, if obviously not the same problems that a continent-gobbling wasteland could emulate on her tiny island. "But they tend to gather around water."

"I don't see why you bother," Malu muttered.

"Truth told, neither do I," Nila agreed, continuing her even pace over the steadily growing sand dunes which lay in every direction, even back. Only an hour after crossing that dry stream, and Dakong had vanished as though it never was. "Mother must have her reasons for staying in this blighted place. I never did ask her what they were, and I doubt she'd answer me if I did."

"Why wouldn't she?" Malu asked.

"She is perpetually busy," Nila said. "Dragon of the East and all of that nonsense."

"How does an Easterner get a nickname like that?" Malu asked.

"It's a long story," Tzu Zi said. Malu shrugged and continued padding along. "You know, I've never been into a sand desert before. How do you keep your way in places where there's nothing to see?"

"Mnemonics and inalternate directions," Nila said. "Others would know better, but I know that those," she said, pointing to two stars close to the horizon which to Tzu Zi's eyes were not white like most others, but either bright blue and slightly green, "are called Big Stink and The Garbage in my language. Hardly flattering terms for stars, yes? The tiny gap between them indicates true north. It is similar to how Solaris marks true south in the southern hemisphere. That and a few... limericks... can navigate any Si Wongi between the landmarks of the desert."

"Any?"

"Well, any who care to learn them," Nila said. "I know the ones for how to reach Misty Palms and Sentinel Rock, Ibn-Atal and Ababa. The others aren't worth knowing."

"Yes they are," Sharif said with a scandalized tone. "What if we needed to buy goat grease and Bulture tallow?"

Nila stared at him for a long moment, before tweezing her brow. "Why would we need to buy those things?"

Sharif shrugged.

"Anyway. The path is long, and best covered in the night," Nila summarized. She glanced to Malu. "And you have a question?"

"What if we get lost?"

"Then we are fortunate to have an airbender who can fly us all to safety," Nila said deadpan. "Come on. We are wasting moonlight."

Malu rolled her eyes, and started after the Si Wongi girl. Sharif brought Patriarch ahead with him, and Tzu Zi did likewise with Aki. "Nila, are you alright?" she asked.

"I am fit enough," she answered.

"No, you look like you've got something on your mind."

"I have many things on my mind. Unlike my brother, I seldom don't," Nila answered. She sighed, then, and glanced to the sand. "I am thinking about Mother."

"Why are you so intimidated by her?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Because she's... Mother," Nila answered. But a small, awkward smile twitched onto her lips. "But with a bit of assistance, I have no doubt that I can convince her. After all, she thinks I'm shiftless and lazy. See her tell me that now! Ha!"

"That's odd," Sharif said.

"Not now," Nila snapped casually.

"Do you think she'll be mad?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Relieved, more likely," she said. She thought for a moment, and in a much quieter voice, continued. "I don't think she should have been a mother alone. I really believe she didn't know how, and likely still does not. Especially after what happened to Sharif. Maybe things will be better for her with one less child to occupy her time."

"You're not being down on yourself again, are you?"

Nila shook her head. While her hair was still far too short to wag with her, it was finally beyond a length most would classify as 'glorified stubble'. "Hardly. Sharif is a difficult burden. I'm not exactly easy to deal with. And Mother is about as good at dealing with people as I am. Personalities clash, and sparks fly. Not the best when the house is filled with explosives."

"Is that some sort of metaphor?" Malu interjected.

"No. If one tipped a torch in the wrong part of my house, it would detonate gloriously," Nila said with annoyance. Malu opened her hands and backed away.

"That's going the wrong way," Sharif noted.

Tzu Zi, though, was looking ahead, walking their path. "I wonder what everybody's like in there."

"Do you doubt my description?"

"It's just that it's... well... your description. It's never as good as seeing it yourself."

"Guys, what's..."

"Fine. You all want to interject on a private conversation, have at it!" Nila snapped, annoyance plain in her tone.

"That sand's blowing in against the wind," Sharif noted, pointing ahead to where the stars were beginning to blot out, as something rose up between they and the heavens.

Tzu Zi glanced that way, back to Nila, and then let the flame in her hand die, leaving them a little darker, and a little colder. "Sandbenders?" she guessed.

"That's not a glider," Nila said. "Their sand devils are better controlled. And there's not a war over there. At least, I believe it's not. Is it coming this way?"

"It's closer than it was," Sharif reported. "What an odd storm."

"It's not a storm, brother," Nila wagered. "I fear devilry is afoot."

"Devilry?" Malu asked with a chuckle.

"Just keep moving. With all good fortune, it will miss us utterly."

And so they walked, north into the heart of the desert, and the sky full of sand drew ever closer to them.

"Soon?" Udu asked, squatting at the prow of the sand skimmer. Adin, though, was denied the luxury of sloth. His arms weaved in a windmill fashion to keep not only the sand-devil at the heart of the craft alive and mobile, but also the dervish of sand which moved with them as they stalked their prey.

"Pretty soon, yeah," Adin said, before muttering to himself, "...that'll show that mouthy boy not to hijack my skimmer."

With a grind of hull against sand, they slipped down another dune, and the dust storm made them invisible as they did.

A few minutes later, an inhabitant of a far crueler desert stomped on the unsettled sand where once two men stalked. It breathed deep in a mole-ish nose, its prey not lost for an instant. The trail was a little thrown for the winds, but for all the murderous speed it set and the unfamiliarness of this continent, it could never be said that a Shirshu lost its target once the smell was in its nose. With a sound somewhere between a Lion Wolf's roar and a Shig's squeal, it tore across the sand, and brought its master with it.

It was painful to move, but less painful than it had been yesterday, and yet less painful than it had been the day before that. Every day brought a bit of improvement, which spoke to both his resilience and the nun's skill with medicine. Considering how much improvement it took to reach the point he held now, it was a great wonder that he even survived. But then again, Hakoda of the Water Tribe had suffered Platypus Bear and Shirshu, enraged Bison and Ostrich Horse stampede. He'd been slashed and stabbed and battered and bludgeoned more times than most would believe, and that was just his ill-considered adolescence! War had seen much more of the same!

Hakoda took a look around the room which had once been occupied by all of his wayward countrymen, his soldiers, his friends. Now, it was empty, but for the effects they'd left behind in their haste to flee. Pelts of bears, be they platypus, polar mole, falcon, or unadorned, made a great mat on the floor and kept the drafts from the walls. But even with all of the small touches from home, there was one thing that this whole scene desperately lacked. Other Tribesmen. While he'd never been in as much pain as when that Gurkha roasted him alive, the pain of being alone in this far and unfamiliar land was somehow even worse. Even when he was away trading to the north... which comparable to where he was now was far, far to the south... there were always others with him, people who spoke in the same tongue, knew his same old jokes, could tell the same stories.

Here, Hakoda was alone. It was starting to bother him. And when it bothered him, he tended to take it out on the nuns.

They were fast growing weary of his pranks.

A sigh from the man, before he roused himself and started to pace. "This place is going to drive me mad," he said to himself, which was itself not a hopeful sign. With a shake of the head, he swept aside the flap which hang fairly pointlessly in front of the door. About the least sensible thing to do, but it lent the room a sense that it was one of their old, familiar tents. The door opened with a whine, and he stepped out across a hallway which extended quite a ways in either direction. But he wasn't headed towards the nunnery nor their stills, instead across that hall and into the courtyard that lay at the center of their abbey. As soon as the door opened, the chilly, bracing wind swept past him. It stung mercilessly at his wounded neck, the one place his current batch of bandages didn't cover, but even with that pain it was a comfort. It reminded him of home.

"Abbess? Are you the abbess of this monestary?" a voice asked, which didn't quite pull Hakoda's attention. Instead, he turned, looking toward the side of the yard which pointed to the south. The questioner was an Easterner, short and pale, and gaunt besides. Hakoda looked to the south, and he tried to imagine what his family was doing. What his friends were doing. But at the moment, all he had was the wind and voices at his back.

"I am the abbess. What is your problem, sir? Are you injured?" the abbess asked.

"No, I'm fine. I'm just looking for somebody," the soldier said. There were many reasons he came to this abbey. It was remote, it was remarkably secure, all things considered. Its damp climate made it hostile to the Fire Nation. But above all other considerations that passed through Hakoda's mind when he picked this place was that it played host to the finest set of stills he'd seen outside of Si Wong. And when it came to interesting things to do with stills, there were probably no more devious pair than Hakoda and Bato. If he'd had a little bit more time here, he might have been able to run through some of his newest notions. But that was neither here nor there. And besides, coopting the stills these nuns used to produce their perfumes was somewhat unkind – they only gave as much access as they did because, for all they were a religious order revering some heathen god called 'Tapputi', they were every bit as opposed to the Fire Nation as he was.

"Who is it that you're looking for?" the nun asked.

"Come on, he's gotta be around here somewhere!" a voice kicked Hakoda in the back of the head, causing him to turn, ever-so-slowly. When he saw who else was standing beside the nuns and that soldier, his heart practically stopped.

"We're looking for somebody called Hakoda," the soldier said.

Hakoda took one step toward them. That was all it took for his daughter's blue eyes to spot him, and a grin to spread across her face like the sun coming out after a downpour. "Dad!" she shouted. An instant later, Sokka leaned aside of the other adults, and a similar grin appeared on the lad's face as well. And then, they were sprinting toward him. Hakoda scarcely had time to grit his teeth before his daughter landed a tackling hug on him, which set of a stir of fiery pain in his chest. That stir became an outright stabbing when his teenaged son slammed into him as well, driving him back another step. A hiss of pain escaped his throat as they squeezed entirely too tight.

"Dad! Are you alright? We heard you were hurt!" Sokka said, rambling quickly in his native tongue. He took a step back. "Did we just squeeze a burn?"

"You don't need to stop," Hakoda said, smiling as all of the tension and worry and annoyance melted away. Sokka hesitated for just a moment before hugging once again. Hakoda couldn't stop grinning like a fool. He didn't want to. As that embrace continued, with Katara and Sokka both tearing up with joy, that Easterner came up to him, staying well back of the reunion. "What is it?"

"Message from Ogan," the man said, handing over a scroll. Hakoda pocketed it, sight unseen. At the moment, there were more important things to worry about. That duty finished, the man seemed to wilt a little bit, and promptly asked for some place to bathe, eat, and sleep. He looked like he was in dire need of all three. After a few precious moments more, the three of them broke apart again.

"How did you get all the way up here?" Hakoda asked his children. "This is the other side of the world! Did you run away from home?"

"I'm going north to find a waterbending master," Katara said proudly.

Hakoda chuckled at that, patting her cheek. "You always did have to sail with an open rig no matter the rocks, didn't you?" but then, he glanced northerly. "But I don't think things are going to be that simple."

"Why not?"

"Things aren't going well," Hakoda said simply. He turned to his only son. "I see you took your duty seriously. Coming all this way to keep your sister safe. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you."

"Not as hard as you'd think, Dad," Sokka said. Hakoda took a moment to simply look upon his progeny with pride, before a cold wind cut down from the walls and sent a shiver through them. "Man, it's cold out here. Have you got a room somewhere?"

"Of course," Hakoda said, leading his children into the superstructure of the abbey. "After I was wounded in the woods, Bato and the others dragged me here, and the nuns have seen to my wounds. If it wasn't for their bravery, when the Fire Nation came looking for me, I'd probably be in one of their prisons by now. Or even dead!"

Hakoda opened that squealing door once again, and swept aside that pointless flap. Both of his children let out joyful laughter. "Tui La, it's just like being home again!" Katara said.

"You've even got the pelts!" Sokka exclaimed.

"There's nothing more comforting than dead animal skins," Hakoda said earnestly. "Especially when you're far from home. Come on, sit. I've got..."

"Steamed sea prunes?" Katara asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.

"Of course," Hakoda said, and the girl let out a clap and a giggle before running to the pot, opening its lid, and breathing deeply. Hakoda just took a moment to marvel at his children. Sokka was still shorter than he, but he was growing fast. So was Katara. "It's astounding. You've both grown so much in the last two years."

"Yeah," Sokka said. "Where is everybody? I thought you were their leader."

"At the moment, I'm off duty," Hakoda said. "After I sent Bato away with..."

"The Dragon of the East, yeah, we met her," Sokka said dismissively. Hakoda raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"A couple days ago. She's going to Ba Sing Se to help them stop the Fire Lord," Sokka continued. Katara looked entirely too happy eating a bowl of that oily yellow soup, with the great brown prunes floating within it. Hakoda just raised a brow at that, but let it pass. There were bigger coincidences in the world than this.

"You never did tell me how you got this far," Hakoda said after a quiet moment.

"We flew here," Sokka said. Hakoda laughed at that.

"Good one. But seriously?"

"He's not lying," Katara said around a mouthful of soup. "We found the Avatar outside our village, and he offered to bring us north."

"So you're on a quest to protect the Avatar? That's remarkable," Hakoda said. Both of his children shared a look, though. A look Hakoda was quite familiar with, being as he'd produced its like many, many times in his youth. It was a guilty glance.

"Dad... something happened back home," Katara said, putting her bowl aside.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We... kinda... got banished," Sokka said, staring at his feet.

"What?" Hakoda shouted. "Who would do something that disrespectful? What upstart would try to attack my family while my back was turned? Was it Uquais? That coward always wanted to be chief, even if he didn't have a tenth of the intellect or valor for it!"

"It was Gran Gran," Sokka said, which caused Hakoda to sputter for a moment, then palm his forehead.

"Wh... what... how... Why would my mother banish you?" Hakoda asked.

"Because the Avatar tried to save the life of the Fire Nation's princess," Katara said with a measure of venom.

"The artist?" Hakoda asked. "Why would Mother have a problem with that? From what I've heard, she could be a valuable ally to our cause, especially with how her father's said to have treated her."

"If she's an artist, her art is destruction," Sokka noted. Hakoda found that confusing. "It's a long story. But we scared a lot of the women, since she brought her brother with her. We didn't even question it," Sokka shook his head in annoyance.

"You had both Prince Zuko and Princess Azula in the village?" Hakoda asked. He let out a chuckle. "I seem to have missed all the excitement."

"Well... maybe with you around, you could overturn the exile," Katara said.

"Ordinarily, I'd have it done in a second," Hakoda admitted, but he let out a sigh. "But this is my mother we're talking about. It's a bit... tricky."

There was silence for a moment. When it ended, Sokka glanced up at him. "I was ready," he said.

"No, you weren't," Hakoda said. "You were too young. But you've grown into a man any father would be proud of," he turned to Katara. "And you every bit as much," he leaned back. "So, tell me something, son. What is with those ridiculous clothes?"

"Hey, I got ambushed while almost naked a few months ago," Sokka said self consciously. "I haven't exactly had a chance to replace them with something familiar since then."

Hakoda nodded, smiling. He'd had similar problems, back when he was Sokka's age. "So you traveled with the Avatar? What is he like?" Hakoda asked.

" Naïve," Sokka said.

"Innocent," Katara contended.

"Entirely too forgiving," Sokka said.

"He's sweet, but he's such a kid sometimes," Katara said.

"Sometimes he can be pretty scary, though," Sokka countered. Hakoda raised a brow. "If you'd seen that kid go all Glowing Badass, you'd understand."

"When do I meet him?" Hakoda asked. He paused for a moment. "Come to think of it, why isn't he with you? I thought he'd be the fastest way to get to Summavut."

"Yeah, there's a bit of a problem with that," Katara said.

"What is it?" Hakoda asked his daughter.

"We... kinda... told him to bugger off," Sokka said.

Hakoda stared at his children.

"He wouldn't tell us about you. He tried to control us!" Katara said, annoyance plain in her voice.

"Did he even know I was alive?" Hakoda asked.

"Well..."

"Or where I was exactly?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And when did he learn about me?" Hakoda pressed.

"About two days ago, and that's..."

"So you're saying is you're angry at the Avatar because he didn't tell you that I might be dead the moment he learned it, and that my corpse might be in the woods somewhere?" Hakoda asked. Both of his children wilted, as they obviously hadn't considered that maybe the Avatar hadn't known how to act with the knowledge foist upon him. Hakoda palmed his forehead slowly.

"We're idiots," Sokka said.

"Yup," Katara agreed.

"But I love you both anyway," Hakoda said. Both rolled their eyes, but got pulled into a hug anyway.

"What was that about the storm missing us?" Malu shouted over the wind. Nila would have shot the airbender who was comfortably inside a protective air-bubble a glare if it wouldn't have sent a handful of fast-flying sand directly into her eyes. Sharif and Tzu Zi also lacked Nila's problem, but because they each had their protective robes and veils. Nila alone was in rough shape.

"I said 'with all good fortune'," Nila said. "As you might have noticed by now, good fortune is seldom our companion."

"We should try to find some place to hide," Tzu Zi shouted.

"I don't like these winds," Sharif said, which Tzu Zi took to be agreement, but Nila knew that he probably hadn't even noticed her speaking. Nila shook her head.

"There's no point. No protection. Not even a big enough rock. We have to push through," Nila shouted.

"Hey, I'll be fine, but you look like you're losing a layer of skin or two," Malu noted, concern on her face.

"I've had worse."

"When?" Sharif asked. Nila once again regretted that she could not glare.

The weather was, as everybody noticed, getting worse as they pathed north. But the moon had only reached its apex and there was half a night left. Even if it was only a barely visible smudge overhead... Nila shook her head. Even though the prospect of pausing seemed quite a better idea, it was weighed against reaching her home in two days, as she'd planned. And that balance was found wanting, so she pressed on.

The sound of the wind buffeted and stung at her ears, as sand worked to strip her right down to the bones. But she would not relent, and her feet kept walking, which in turn shamed the others with her to continue as well. So close, and then she might well never have to see this place again. That would be a good day, she just knew it. But there was another sound, one she remembered from so long ago, in such similar circumstances. It moved through a shift in the winds, an eddy of peace at the heart of a greater storm. A grinding of solid against aggregate, and a harsh snap of tortured fabric.

"There's a glider out there somewhere!" Nila shouted, and immediately reached to where she would have kept her screamers if they hadn't been snatched from her almost a month ago. "Damn it all, there's no way to signal them!"

"Maybe I can see them from above?" Malu asked, snapping open her glider, only to have it instantly torn out of her hands by the insane and omnidirectional winds. She let out a yelp, then dove after it, managing to keep it from escaping if at the cost of her dignity.

"I think not," Nila said. She had to glance from the corner of her eye, and listen from the edge of her ear, but that sound wasn't just a fluke of winds and direction. "Perhaps there is fortune with is. It's coming this way!"

Tzu Zi let out a happy cry, but Sharif's expression was oddly stony. Malu muttered to herself, and they all continued forward until even they could hear what she did. Grinding. And then, like a cuff upside the head, the sandstorm stopped, spiraling out from some unseen central point, and leaving whorls in the grit as the only bones of its passage. The near blindness and hellish stinging gave way to cold and shivers.

"Oh, that's better," Sharif said, but his tone was more distant than usual.

"Does that happen often?" Tzu Zi asked.

"No," Nila said. And at her word, the grinding came to its crescendo, as the catamaran hull of a sand skimmer peeked from the top of an adjacent dune, before just barely overbalancing and sliding down toward the assembled teenagers. It scudded to a stop barely five yards before them. It was completely abandoned.

"Is... that a ghost ship?" Malu asked.

"There are no such things as ghosts," Nila said idly, as she took a moment to inspect the craft. It was in good working order, as far as she could tell. Which meant that it was either abandoned recently, or... well, there was no other option, much as Nila's mind tried to reach for one. She was about a split second away from claiming it for herself when she glanced back, and saw Tzu Zi watching her. Damn it all, it was so hard to be practical when those eyes were watching her. "They must have fallen off during the sandstorm," Nila said.

"You can't know there aren't ghosts," Malu said.

"I talk to them all the time," Sharif said.

"See?" she prompted.

"Spirits are not ghosts," Nila said. "If ghosts could meaningfully interact with the world, we would be buried under a million-million weight of them. Since we are not, there must not be ghosts."

"Yeah, well, just 'cause you haven't found something yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Malu countered.

"One does not need to prove anything's non-existence. Onus falls to proving that it does exist," Nila snapped, her annoyance rising. "That is how science works!"

"You and your science," Malu shook her head. "Maybe you should marry your science since you love it so much."

"Wait... Who's science? Have I met him/her before? Isn't that Amir's child?" Sharif asked.

"Oh, look, you've confused my brother. Good job," Nila said sarcastically. "Now are you going to help me look for whoever this belongs to or not?"

Malu rolled her eyes, but began to tramp up the steep side of the dune. Nila looked to Tzu Zi, and gave the slightest nod to Sharif, who was muttering to himself about 'wedding preparations', and the girl nodded, knowing exactly what Nila meant. It was... endearing... to have somebody who knew Nila well enough that words weren't necessary. And with that, Nila went up after the trudging airbender.

"No flying?"

"And lose my glider again? No thank you," Malu muttered. "I still think you're wrong about ghosts."

"I still think you're wrong about a great many things," Nila answered. "There are many things about you that confuse me."

"I'm a complicated person," Malu said.

"No, I think you're lying about yourself to us. Tzu Zi values you, though. And I am not above leaving some secrets undisturbed," Nila said. "I can only assume that your secrets will bring me no harm. If they do, or bring to any I care for harm, then we shall have to address them more thoroughly."

Malu stared at Nila for a long moment. Nila stared back with a warning look. "You know, sometimes you talk like you're forty or something."

"I am educated," Nila said. "Inarticulation is unforgivable."

"You don't swear much do you?"

"More often than you'd believe," Nila muttered in her own tongue, turning toward the lee of that dune, as they reached its peak. If she expected to find no sign of the craft's owners, then she was starkly disappointed. Because both of them were lying in uncomfortable looking positions near the gully between two waves of dunes. But they were not alone. Nila leaned back a bit in bafflement. "What the hell is that?"

That, as it turned out, was massive, muscular, covered in a hairy pelt, and didn't seem to have eyes that Nila could notice in the darkness of the moonlight. It nevertheless turned toward them, and there was a crack of a whip, as something almost invisible against that dark beast urged it forward. Malu's eyes went very wide.

"That's... trouble," Malu said. And Nila could naught but agree when it picked up incredible speed, and bounded up the hill separating the girls from that monster in two bounds and a tongue's length. Pity for all involved, the tongue was several yards long. Malu let out a squawk and hurled herself backwards, rolling to her feet and sliding down the sand. Nila had no such dignity, rolling to a stop at its foot. She looked up to her brother.

"My bow, you fool!" she shouted. Sharif turned to her, then looked down to the side of the saddle of the great ostrich horse he was mounted on, and pointed it out to her. And made no move whatsoever to send it her way. Nila had just enough time for a growl of annoyance, and to start getting to her feet, when that thing crested the hill, and Tzu Zi let out a shriek.

"That's not possible!" Tzu Zi said. Sharif, oblivious to the danger, looked to her as the monster began to descend at break neck speed toward him.

"What isn't possible?" he asked. And then, the tongue of that beast lashed forth again, and it seemed to strike him in the back of the head. His eyes shot wide, his muscles tensed... and then he toppled out of his saddle like his body turned to wood. Malu flicked a blast of air at the beast, sending up ripples of sand as it went, but it nimbly dodged aside. The beast then discovered that the side effect of dropping Sharif from Patriarch's back was that now Patriarch was both angry and unencumbered.

Even as Nila struggled to shift her heavy brother off of her sole actual weapon, Patriarch raced up that sand dune, his head low, his flightless wings flared. There was a crack of the whip, and the beast's tongue shot forth again. But Patriarch let it catch only matted feathers, before favoring the beast with a very stern kick to the shoulder. It let out another squealing roar, and something dark fell from the beast's back.

Malu was quick to try to assist the Ostrich Horse, but her airbending didn't appear to do much. Blades and waves of air lashed toward the beast, but they were either ameliorated by the monster's agility, or else inaccurate because they had to be aimed around Patriarch. Finally, though, the beast had had enough of Malu, and flicked its head her way. A snap of the tongue, flashing through the air, and Malu was struck in the center of her chest. She went stiff and dropped in a heartbeat. Nila resorted to wild profanity in her attempts to shift her brother. Damn her female form for being so weak in the upper body! Or, alternatively, damn her brother for being so solid and uncooperative.

"Malu!" Tzu Zi shouted, racing forward with her own steed, and fire went with her. She cast out a fist of flame, which the black figure dodged easily. Illuminated in that blast, Nila guessed her a woman, for she was light and her body held a more hourglass shape than a blocky one. That woman, whomever she was, lashed out with a strike of a whip, which seemed to tangle Tzu Zi 'round her neck and drag her out of the saddle.

"Settle down or I'll have Nyla tongue you," that woman shouted in Huojian of all languages. Nila paused for just a moment at that. 'Tongue' her? Tzu Zi, though, elected to struggle, and cast out flames with not just her hands but her feet. The woman was remarkably good at dodging them, considering she was in the process of holding Tzu Zi by a leash while she did so. The beast dodged aside from Patriarch's latest charge, and as the bird wheeled back, that tongue lashed out again. Patriarch stumbled, fighting to return to its feet, and leveled itself at that beast once again. A second lash of the tongue, and Patriarch folded completely.

Finally, Nila had her bow out from under Sharif and his awkward pose. She opened it, dragging for the arrow she left inside, and found it missing. Damn it all! Must everything vex her today? She glanced around, trying to find them, and noted with dismay that they were still on Patriarch's still form. With a growl which any of her ancestors would have called patently blasphemous, she started running across that sand, to the fallen beast. She reached it just in time to see that thing tongue-lash Tzu Zi, and to see her fall still. With a snarl, she dragged one of her arrows from the quiver, and had it nocked and drawn in a heartbeat.

A heartbeat too long, though. A snap of a whip reached her ears the instant she felt the bow leap from her hands, the arrow launched randomly and harmlessly into the distance as the woman tore the weapon from Nila's hands. Nila struggled to get back to her feet, to think of something she could do. "You're a persistent one, aren't you?" that woman asked. "Just sit down, and let this happen, girl."

"Not a chance, vagrant," she replied in that same tongue. The pale woman smirked at her.

"Bounty hunter, not vagrant," she answered. She set a fist on her hip, showcasing some sort of curling snake tattooed on each shoulder. "Look, is this going to happen the easy way or the hard way?"

Nila took in a breath, and thrust a tattooed finger toward her. "You will–" she began, and then felt something sting her butt. A numbness spread across her entire body, and she pitched forward to the sand, unable to move. The woman gave a laugh.

"The easy way," she said with a nod. She walked over to Sharif, and let out a low whistle. "And look what we have here? Come for one bounty leave with two. Hell, I could retire on him. Not that I would. A woman's gotta have work or the idleness would drive her crazy, am I right?" she asked toward Nila. Nila hated her loudly enough to make up for her inability to speak. Sharif had a bounty on him? Since when? Who could possibly care that much? Even Khagan Khatun wouldn't be so petty. But when Nila saw that the woman was binding Tzu Zi and throwing her across the saddle behind Nila's similarly kidnapped brother, her eyes went wide even with the sand.

No, this was not happening.

"Have fun, you two," she said with a mocking wave. "I'll raise a drink for you somewhere."

With that, that monster began to jaunt to the northwest, leaving Nila and Malu in the sand. Tzu Zi was gone, and Nila was powerless to do anything about it. That ignited something in Nila that she hadn't felt before. A sort of protectiveness which she hadn't a word in her vocabulary for. And it would not be denied.

It was ten minutes before she started having feeling return to her limbs.

And she spent those precious minutes planning.

Jun was beyond pleased with herself. So much so, that as she road her Shirshu toward the nearest edge of the Si Wong desert, she hummed a merry little tune, however out of character it might have been to anybody who thought they knew her. Not because she was a merry person, not by any means. Rather, because she'd probably be getting a boat's weight in gold out of selling the boy to the Fire Lord, on top of her extremely generous rate for capturing the girl. Jun continued smirking and humming, as Nyla calmly padded along unfamiliar sands.

"Who sent you?" a voice came from her back. Jun turned and regarded her twin passengers. Well, captives really. They were stoutly bound, mostly because there was no way the Shirshu's venom would keep them down all the way across Si Wong. It was the Baihu girl who was speaking. The other boy, he of monumental bounty, just looked around with a dissonant kind of calm.

"I don't betray the confidence of my clients, little girl," Jun said. "The only way you'd get that outta me is if you got me drunk or warmed my bed for me, and I don't think you're my type for either."

"You're from the Yakuza, aren't you?" the girl asked.

"And what gives you that idea?" Jun asked.

"I know those tattoos," she said. "Criminal types like you all have them."

"Well, what do my tattoos tell you?" Jun asked.

"You're with the West Coast Yakuza families," she let out a grunt. "Makes sense, what with the Shirshu and all."

"Half right," Jun said. "Was with the Westies. Not anymore."

"They don't let people walk away," the girl said.

"I didn't give them a choice," Jun said calmly. In truth, this was a far more civil conversation than she was used to on the back of this beast. Usually, the target spent the entire trip to prison screaming, or saying denigrating things about her parentage or her Azuli heritage. "I figured the money was better in the private sector. And boy was I right about that."

"You're not going to get away with this," the girl said angrily.

"I wouldn't try burning your bonds," Jun said casually. "I've soaked them in blasting jelly. You'd blow your own hands off," she said. Only once had that bluff been called. Luckily for her, the bounty didn't stipulate that he needed to be delivered with all five extremities.

"You're lying."

Jun just looked over her shoulder at the brown haired girl. Young Baihu blanched at that. "Just keep your head on straight and this trip'll be over before you know it."

"There's only thirteen people in the world who know I'm a firebender," Baihu said. Jun glanced back at her, and could see the pieces sliding together in the girl's mind. "Gwen. It has to be Gwen!"

Jun sighed. While she never revealed her clients' identities, if somebody figured it out on their own, well, there wasn't much she could do about that. "Congratulations. You win a prize."

"Can my prize be freedom?" Baihu asked.

"No."

"How about cake?" the boy lashed behind her asked. Both females turned to him with an almost identical baffled expression for him. "No cake then?"

"Just stay calm. No reason this has to get unpleasant," Jun said. The boy shifted slightly, displaying that he was recovering much faster than the Baihu girl was. "What did I just say?"

"They're going to come after us, and when they do, you'll be in big trouble!" the girl promised.

"I'm quaking in my boots," Jun said flatly.

"Oh, right!" the boy said brightly. "Sis'll be able to do something. Hold on, I'll go get her."

"I'd like to see that..." Jun said, turning to favor him with a condescending smile, but that smile dropped away when she turned back just in time to see the bonds she'd wound 'round the Si Wongi paycheck falling flat onto Nyla's back. Jun stared for a moment, with complete confusion, before bounding off of the saddle and sprinting to Nyla's tail. She glanced in every direction, and even tried digging into the sand, in case the boy was one of those damned 'sandbenders'. No avail. With a growl, followed by a scream, and terminated by a head of Huojian profanity, she stomped back to the side of her Shirshu. "You've got a good whiff of him, Nyla. Where'd he go?"

Nyla, faithful beast that she was, began to circle, sniffing intently at the air as she did, until she'd revolved around Jun completely. Then, with a whimper, Nyla dropped to her belly and pawed uncomfortably at her nose. Jun stared at Nyla for a long moment.

"What do you mean, he doesn't exist?" she asked. Nyla didn't answer, mostly because Jun didn't speak Shirshu. "Well, that's a real head-scratcher."

"Hah hah," the Baihu girl said sarcastically. Jun leveled a warning finger at her.

"Don't you start, little girl," Jun said. She grumbled to herself for a moment, before sighing, and heaving herself back into the saddle. "Well, a small paycheck is better than none, I guess."

Standing only five feet away, and yet as well as a universe apart, Sharif watched as the beast continued its plod to the North West. He turned back, to the spirits which assembled behind him. He quickly plucked one and pressed it to the scar which spanned his brow, generating his 'false brain'.

"We don't have a whole lot of time," Sharif said, to the assembled host of fire and heat and sand and void which lazily circled around him. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since this many stayed close, and he was almost certain that Malu was the reason for that, even if he couldn't remember why that was. "I need to move quickly. Will you help me?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives, be they crystalline chimes, fiery pops, or the hiss of sand moving past sand. A glance behind him, at the retreating bounty hunter, then up at the stars, and then he started to walk, back to his family, even as he desperately tried to concoct some way of being able to help her once he was back in the world. Sharif walked. The spirits walked with him.

Aang sat, perched on the ruined prow of a ruined boat. His knees were pulled tight to his chest, and his eyes were pressed shut. Being as he was thirteen and therefore should have by all rights left childish outbursts behind, he shouldn't have been weeping at the prospect of losing what had become a surrogate family. Men, after all, were tough. They had to endure.

Aang didn't feel like enduring. He felt like crying. And that's what he did. He did it until the desire went away, which took him well into the night, leaving him huddled and cold on the wreck of the Water Tribesman's ship, as Appa snored deeply nearby. The truth was, he depended on those two. It wasn't just that Sokka's quick thinking pulled his feet from the fire more times than he could count. It wasn't just that Katara was the sister that the laws of his people said he wasn't allowed to have – which in retrospect should have been a damned obvious clue that he wasn't just an ordinary kid! It was that together, they were something special. They were family, in every way that mattered. What they lacked in blood, they made up for in spirit.

And Aang's cowardice, his crumbling to his own fear, destroyed that. So he pulled himself tight against the cold wind of the north, and he stared out over lapping waters. He let out a sigh, and slowly pulled the glider which was wedged behind him around to his chest, flicking it open, spreading the red wings. With another flick, it slid closed again. As much as he wanted to fulfill his vow to Katara, if she didn't want him near her, he would have to betray that trust too. It tore at him, but he had duties... Avatar duties... which demanded his attention.

He bounded down from his perch, and lethargically gathered up what meager possessions were truly his alone. After all, he wasn't going to deprive Sokka and Katara of anything they deserved. He could see all of those little objects, each one with a story behind it. The towel Sokka got on his way to Makapu. The fishing-line necklace which Aang tried to give Katara a few minutes before that, resulting in an awkward conversation about what those necklaces meant. The chunk of rock candy which had been re-broken and re-eaten at least a dozen times since they got it from Omashu. It was the size of his head again. That thing just never stopped growing.

And he was leaving it all behind.

There was a shiff of something moving through sand, which triggered the reflexes which the last few months had ingrained into Aang's very bones. In a flash, his stance lowered, his staff out before him, ready and wary and expecting attack.

"Are you the Avatar?" a man's voice came from the woods.

"...yeah?" Aang answered, still wary, still waiting. The man walked forward, slowly, hitchingly, as though it hurt to move. When he stepped upon the golden sands, he flicked back his hood, and Aang saw bright blue eyes staring back at him. Aang's posture slipped a bit.

"It is a great honor to finally meet you," the man said. "I'm Hakoda. I'm Sokka and Katara's father."

"Oh," Aang said, finally relaxing. "Don't worry. I'll get out of your way before I cause any more trouble."

"You're not in trouble," he said, picking his steps carefully. "They're asleep. They don't know I'm out here."

"Why not?"

"Because whether I wanted to or not, I raised proud children," Hakoda said. "They might not appreciate my going behind their backs."

"About what?" Aang asked.

Hakoda just looked at him for a moment, though. "I can see what they all see in you. A lot of people are resting a lot of hope on you. And I think you're exactly the right person for the task."

"Thank... you?"

"Don't be so tentative," Hakoda said. He moved a bit closer, laying a hand on the wreck of his ship. "You're upset. I can tell that from a mile off. You don't have to be. There's no point in making your own life harder than it has to be."

"What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"I put my name forth to become Chief after Qejay died as a joke. I never expected they'd choose me," Hakoda said. "Fate works that way. Sometimes, you don't have a lot of options. Sometimes you've only got one. But the choices we make are all the more valuable for it. I am who I am because of the things I've done, the places I've seen, the choices I've made. You didn't choose to be Avatar, but you're not going to turn away. That means you're the right person for the job."

"Thanks, I guess," Aang said. He turned back to the forest. "Are they angry at me?"

"Maybe. At the moment," Hakoda said with a slight shrug. "But they'll understand what you did wasn't a betrayal. They're smart, my children. They'll come to their senses."

"What if they don't?" Aang said. Hakoda smiled a bit, distantly.

"They will. That's how they are," he said. Aang nodded, then looked up at the man.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

Hakoda turned to him. "Asked a question by the Avatar? How can I say no?"

"Well..."

"Of course, Avatar," Hakoda said. "What is it?"

"What was it like... having a family?" Aang asked.

Hakoda stared at him for a moment, then the sand before his feet, then finally leaning back and breathing deep. "It's not like anything," he said slowly. "It's all I know. I grew up with my mother and my father, and when Father vanished into the storm, I mourned him. I met a beautiful, wonderful woman, and she gave me three lovely children. Losing her, and my daughter, on the same day... that hurt more than I could have ever believed. Family is joy, and pain. Sometimes more of one than the other. But that's the way it runs. You can't know pain without joy, or joy without pain, and family is the surest source of both."

"I never knew my family," Aang said.

"That's too bad," Hakoda said. "I'm sure they'd be proud of you."

"Thanks," Aang said. The two of them stared off into the night. "If... If I ask them when they calm down, do you think they'll come with me? To the North Pole?"

"Why would you go to the North Pole?" Hakoda asked. "There's nothing up there once you pass the Deadman Plains," he shook his head. "You must mean Summavut."

"I thought they were synonymous," Aang said.

"Is Chimney Mountain synonymous with the South Pole?" Hakoda asked lightly. Aang was about to answer 'yes', when he remembered that some questions were rhetorical. "The North Water Tribe is a lot more developed than my people, but it's spread out over a hand full of cities. You've never been there, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Aang admitted.

"I have," Hakoda said. "It was... glorious. It was inspiring and insulting. I remember feeling quite bitter when I left that place. Why do they deserve so much better than we got? What made them so special?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry," Hakoda said faintly. "That's an old wound. I shouldn't burden you with it."

Aang nodded. Hakoda shifted, and Aang's eyes flicked back to him. "Would... you mind staying for a little bit? So I'm not alone..."

Hakoda smiled, then, the smile of a father to a son. "As long as you fight for this world, Avatar, you will never be alone."

"...no fair," Malu muttered from where she was still splayed on the ground. "How come you get to move?"

"Because I'm tougher than you are," Nila commented, but she still felt like her limbs were more or less attached by unspun yarn. Of the many fallen things in this valley, only she and that ancient bird were upright. She let out a groan, forcing herself to pace around the glider. It looked in perfect working order. The only reason that strange woman hadn't taken it was because she was obviously incapable of running it. Although, Nila had that same problem. Or at least she thought she did for about a quarter of a second before she mentally kicked herself and remembered that what a sandbender can do, an airbender could better. Nila stomped her way inelegantly to where the airbender had fallen paralyzed from that beast. Nila slumped a bit, trying to work some strength into her legs. "Would you mind telling me what the hell that thing was?"

"Shirshu," Malu said. "Those things are from Azul. One of the middling predators of the Far West."

"Middling?" Nila asked.

"There's meaner stuff out there," Malu said. "Much meaner."

"How?" Nila asked, but then she shook her head. "Never mind. Can you airbend?"

"With what? My sunny disposition?"

"I need something to power this glider. We need to start moving before we lose Tzu Zi completely."

"Tzu Zi and your brother, you mean?"

"That's what I said," Nila snapped. She then stopped down and clumsily hauled Malu into something like a standing position, if one where she was fixed in her splayed posture. It was unbelievably awkward to even move the airbender the scant two dozen yards to hull of the skimmer. She pointed at the complicated sails. "I need those filled with wind. We use sand devils to drive them."

Malu rolled her eyes. "Well, I haven't exactly mastered earthbending yet, so that could be a problem," she said.

"Need I think of everything? Airbending will do just fine," Nila said.

"How? I..." Malu began, and then her expression went flat for a moment, before a smug look took its place. "With my lungs, right?"

"I assumed you were capable."

"You're right. I am. Not very many were. It's high level stuff to airbend without moving. Extremely high level," Malu said proudly.

"Good for you. Now start blowing," Nila said.

"To what end? Where are they going?" Malu asked, her fingers twitching but her body otherwise immobilized.

"They must be heading directly west, if she intends to find some shelter before the sun rises," Nila said. "There's a settlement there, full of shady people who don't ask questions."

"And if she doesn't know about that den of iniquity?" Malu asked flatly.

That notion hadn't occurred to Nila. If she wasn't headed that way, then she might be moving in just about any direction. She slumped a bit, despair beginning to well up like tears. She shook her head. How could she possibly do this? She'd need a miracle.

"Course three hundred eighteen degrees northwest," Sharif's voice appeared an instant before he did. Nila started, then faced him more squarely.

"Gods, where'd you come from?" Malu said.

"I... Where am I?" Sharif said.

"What was that?" Nila said. "What did you just say?"

"Did I say something?"

"You gave me a course. Why?"

"I did?" Sharif asked. He let out a nervous chuckle. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."

"Do you know where that woman took her? Where she took Tzu Zi?"

"Hm? I... don't remember," Sharif said, sitting down in the hull of the skimmer with the most baffled look on his face.

"What's going on? Where did he come from?" Malu asked.

"Apparently my brother gave up his mind in exchange for the gift of teleportation," Nila said.

"It was a long walk. I'm just quick," Sharif disagreed. Nila rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"What is northwest of here?" Nila asked. "You were up there before? You must have seen something of use."

"Nothing, really," Malu said. "Well, it is the shortest path out of the desert, but..."

"They are heading into the Divide," Nila said. "Are you ready to bend?"

"Oooh, perfume," Sharif said happily. Nila rushed to his side, and gave him an abrupt shove, clearing the path for her. There was indeed perfume in here, and not the soft fragrances produced locally. These were harsher, foreign, and usually contraband. A smuggler's craft this was. And her mouth twitched into a smile as she quickly picked three of the vials and hastily mixed them together.

"What are you doing?" Malu asked. Nila answered by shoving the admixture under the airbender's nose. She gave a lurch of disgust so powerful it almost qualified as a seizure at the overpowering concoction forced into her lungs. "Blegh! What in the pits of hell was that?"

"Can you move your arms now?" Nila asked.

"Does it look like I can?" Malu shouted, throwing up an arm in refutation. Then, turning to that thrown-up hand and letting out a grunt. "Oh. I guess I can."

"Sharif, hand me the ones that smell like spice and another of the green ones," Nila said. "Malu, if you don't mind, our course is three eighteen degrees."

"Is that what he said?" Malu asked, slowly rising unsteadily to her wobbly legs. She glanced toward the hill the skimmer had slid down. "What about those two guys up there?"

"One of them is a sandbender. They will survive," Nila said flatly.

"I think we should get them," Malu said.

"No. We don't have time. Their weight will slow us down, and I'm not losing a friend today."

"Sure. Friend," Malu said. Nila just glared at her.

"Do you want to be the one who stands between me and a promise of her safety?" Nila said quietly, her tones becoming so icy that they could have frozen the entire desert under the harshest sun. Malu obviously had a smartass quip lined up in response, but there was something about Nila's tone, or maybe it was the unforgiving flare of her green eyes. Whatever it was, Malu backed down and shook her head. "I thought not."

"Is this it?" Sharif said, handing her her objects. Well, not quite, because the spice was about as spicy as soap. In fact, the one he'd handed her was soap.

"Does this smell spicy to you?" Nila snapped. Sharif stared at her like he didn't understand the question. She rolled her eyes again. If she kept up, her eyes might roll right out of her head. "Fine. I'll do it myself. And you should be blowing," Nila said, pointing at Malu.

"Who put you in charge?" Malu asked.

Nila glared at her.

"Never mind," Malu said, and began to do her airbending. The skimmer first lurched, but after a few puffs, there was sufficient momentum to smooth their transit. "So what are you gonna do when you get there?"

Nila smirked. "I've got a plan, and it doesn't even involve you getting maimed, so I know you'll be happy with it," she said, settling down near the craft's tiller. Then, it was just a matter of keeping the course steady, three hundred eighteen degrees north northwest. And as she did, spent the rest of her time doing what she did best, that which she derived her identity and very sense of identity. Nila did science. And science trembled at her passing.

"And she what?" Aang asked with laughter before the fire.

"I'm serious. She looked at me with the most serious look on her face and said 'That's not fair. Why don't I get to have a penis'?" Hakoda said with his own chuckling. Aang couldn't help but split his sides in guffaws at that.

"Why would she say that?" the young Avatar asked. "She was four!"

Hakoda smiled. "Think about where we lived for a moment, and you'll understand."

Aang did exactly that. Considering her age, it wouldn't be the most obvious one. But then, he took a lesson from Sokka and began to go a little lateral. They lived in the far south... and it was frequently lethally cold... and then, a memory came back to him. Of himself, in point of fact, crawling out of a tiny outhouse in Chimney Mountain village, and casting a thumb behind him. Everything freezes down there.

"Because she has to sit down to go to the bathroom!" Aang declared, and Hakoda nodded at that.

"Not that I blame her. It's one of the great perks of the male gender if you live where we did."

"I didn't think that 'penis-envy' was a real thing," Aang said.

"It isn't," Hakoda said, before shrugging. "Well, with a few very specific exceptions."

Aang nodded, staring down at that little fire. "Thank you, Chief Hakoda. I needed somebody here."

"Always ready to serve the Avatar," the man said with a tone which was hard to tell sarcasm from reverence. "The sun should be rising soon. We should go back to the Abbey."

Aang's grip tightened on his staff a bit. "What if they're still angry?" he asked.

Hakoda rose slowly, gingerly, and patted the Avatar on the shoulder as he moved past. "They won't be. I know my own children."

Aang smiled at that. If anybody here would, it would be him.

The fire wasn't to create any real warmth, because Jun didn't need any. Years growing up in the northern mountains acclimated her to cold in a way that very few Nationals could boast. It wasn't even to cook her food, which was all jerkies as tough as poor boot-leather, and potato chips. More than anything else, the fire was there for the little bit of light it gave the night, now that the moon had set and there was no meaningful progress to be made before the sun came up from the east. She could hear muffled sounds of a muffled firebender on the sand nearby, but didn't bother glancing her way. Baihu was just a purse of money. Nothing more. A scowl lit onto her features for a second, turning that thought over in her head as she more closely inspected some sort of glowing white leaf she found on the girl's person. It was always a terrible idea to try to figure out why politicians did anything that they required her services for. Doubly so when it involved those brash, hot-headed Embiar. But that thought notwithstanding, something about this little task didn't sit right with her.

Nyla gave a grumble, and Jun nodded, patting it on its star-mole nose. "I know," Jun said. "I can't see her, but I know."

The mumblings gave way to a 'plueh!' as the troublesome Baihu girl finally worked the gag out of her mouth. "Let me go!"

"Shut up," Jun said idly, resting her back against the steep wall of sand behind her. "I don't care about anything you have to say."

"Is it money? I can pay you!" she said.

"I'm already getting paid by your sister, and you draw your money from the same pool," Jun pointed out. The firebender wilted at that. "Now calm down, shut up, and be civil, and this will be less unpleasant for all three of us."

"Three?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jun said. "You, me, and that Si Wongi girl who thinks she's ambushing us."

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by a whistle of wind.

"Oh, the hell with it," that third voice declared from somewhere above and behind Jun, and with a scream which sounded a lot more wrathful than a girl ought produce, there came a dark figure in unusual clothing down the hill with some weapon in her hand. Jun twisted to her feet, sweeping that bludgeon aside and flipping the girl over the fire onto her back. The intruder stood, shaking the stars from her eyes, and reached for something.

"Nyla, make this easy for us," Jun said with boredom, and Nyla's mouth opened, its barbed, extremely long tongue lashing out. To the intruder's credit, she almost got away, but the tongue's barbs dug into her leg and she dropped like an abandoned sack of potatoes. Jun clapped the sand from her hands and walked over. "You've got moxie, kid, but moxie just isn't enough when you're in this business," she said. "Good girl, Nyla," she finished, patting the beast which hadn't even bothered standing to bring down the interloper.

"Nyla?" the Baihu girl asked. "You call that thing Nyla?"

"Of course, that's her name," Jun said. The girl turned to the supine Si Wongi.

"Ha! You're named after an Azuli monster!" she noted playfully.

The girl on the ground growled as Jun picked her up and plunked her down to her bound but unparalyzed partner. The Si Wongi glared at her for a long moment, before clearing her throat. "You, Bounty-hunter," she declared, as though Jun was infringing on the girl's time rather than the other way 'round. "When did you tame that beast?"

"Tame her?" Jun said. "I raised Nyla from a pup ten years ago."

With a triumphant look, her eyes swiveled over to the firebender. "See? I'm older. The monster is named after me."

"Nila, how are we supposed to get out of here?" the firebender asked, obviously not understanding that Jun could speak Tianxia.

"If I told you, I'd be telling her," that Nila responded, obviously understanding that Jun could speak Tianxia.

"Well, whatever your cunning plan is, it's not going to work," Jun said, moving over to dig the saturated ropes from the saddle bag on Nyla's flank. Behind her back, unseen by the bounty hunter, Nila gave Tzu Zi a wink, and then pressed a finger to the firebender's lips, a demand of silence. Tzu Zi's eyes widened with confusion. After all, hadn't Nila just gotten tongued? Nila explained that quite silently by pushing in on her pants and blouse, and showing how they were padded by about an inch of rags and loose clothing. Nimble fingers in leather gloves pulled the actual barb out of the fabric, a white needle which glistened ever so slightly in the firelight as the pump on the base pulsed, trying to force out more paralyzing poison. "Some of us prepare for these sorts of things. That's what happens when you don't prepare," Jun said, turning back around, to find the Baihu girl wide eyed, and Nila limp and angry looking.

"Nila..." the girl said with worry.

"What are you doing?" Nila asked.

"Well, I can't leave you out here to die," Jun said. "My parents would disown me. Well, they'd disown me if they knew about a quarter of the stuff I've done, but that's not the point," she said, starting to loop that cord around the girl. "So I'll drop you at the first puddle bigger than your head that I find. Least I could do."

She paused for a moment, staring past the sand dune before her.

"Well, the least I could do would be abandon you here, but I'm not a child murderer. I just go where the money is," Jun amended.

"What were you doing with my brother?" Nila demanded as Jun pulled the first loop tight.

"He's got a bounty of a hundred thousand Sparks on him," Jun said. "Sanctioned by the Fire Lord himself. I'd ask what he did to piss off the man in charge, but honestly, it doesn't get me money and I don't need to know."

Nila muttered something in a dialect which Jun recognized as Si Wongi, but not its content. Still the way she rolled her eyes as she did so told that it wasn't either serious nor important. "There's one thing that confuses me, though," Nila said.

"I'm not a tour guide," Jun noted.

"Yeah, but just humor me," she said. "How did that thing find her all the way here?"

"A Shirshu can smell a rat a continent away," Jun said, pulling the hands up to bind them more securely, but as she did, Nila's arms shot up, jabbing her in the breast. And there was the slightest prick when she did so. Nila then pulled her arms back and slipped the bonds off of her, as Jun stared in shock, as numbness began to spread through her body. "...How?"

"I'm not a tour guide," Nila said sarcastically, lifting the ropes above her head. Nyla, confused girl she was, pushed herself to her feet, looking to her mistress for some sort of direction. "Good to know about the Shirshu, though."

"Nyla!" Jun shouted. The beast, spurred by Jun's alarmed tone, let out a shriek and lashed out with its tongue at the two girls. One of them awkwardly threw herself aside on the sand, as she was still bound, but the other dexterously slipped under the strike, and raced toward the predator, digging through her shirt with such vigor that she dug out one of the other shirts she'd layered within to pad out the attack. She prepared to throw something at Nyla, but a swipe of claws sent her bounding back.

Jun slumped slightly, leaning against the sand dune she'd been sheltering next to, as feeling drained out of her limbs. The grinding sound she'd heard in that sandstorm came again, and her eyes caught that craft those two idiots had been using descending the same way the girl had. Ordinarily, she just would have left those two rubes in her dust, but considering they were after her target, that just wouldn't stand. When Jun saw that the yellow-robed sandbender was back, and that the Si Wongi she could buy a Noble Patent with was on the ship with her, she felt a growl in her throat.

Nyla was reacting with understandable confusion and wrath, and lashed out at Nila without remorse or pity, but that Si Wongi was managing to stay away from it, and most critically its paralyzing tongue. The girl on the skimmer shouted something triumphant, but Nyla cut that triumph short by turning and slamming its shoulder into one of the supports holding the two hulls together. It crumpled like a toothpick. Then, with a scrabbling bound, it leapt through the sails, tearing them to shreds as it did so, and snapping the rear support with its landing. The craft, once a remarkably ingenuous piece of engineering, was now two glorified canoes grinding to a halt on the grit. Nyla was standing over the sole male within eyeshot, and he looked up at Nyla without any of the pants-wetting fear one should reasonably have. And Jun's annoyance turned to outright rage when she saw the Si Wongi girl sprint forward, actually bounding over Nyla's neck, and heaving a bag full of something powdery directly into its face. It let out a great squeal, clawing at its nose, rolling onto its back and flailing for a moment before getting unsteadily back to its feet, its tongue lashing at utter random.

"Hostile aromatics," Nila said, leveling a cool glare at Jun as her brother slowly picked himself up.

The boy looked concerned. "That wasn't very nice."

"Neither was the bounty hunter."

"She wasn't so bad," he said distantly.

"I take those I care about very seriously," Nila said coldly, her eyes glaring malice. "So I'm going to say this once and only once. If you ever hurt those I love, I will find you. I will destroy everything you care about. Everything which brings you joy. Find another bounty, bounty-hunter."

"I always get my target," Jun said.

Nila stared at her for a very long, tense moment, then turned to Baihu, almost instantly untying her, a feat Jun didn't think possible. "So be it. Let's go, Tzu Zi."

"But... what about her?" the Baihu girl asked.

"The desert will teach her a better lesson than we ever could," Nila said.

"Whaoooo, what just happened?" other girl asked, picking herself up from the ruins of the skimmer.

"Come on, Malu. It's a long walk home," she said.

"...You trashed our ride!" Malu complained.

"Just walk, Malu," Nila said. Malu looked thoroughly annoyed, but heeded Nila's command. As Jun's ability to keep herself upright failed completely, she wondered if she might have to look into whoever this Nila person was, as well.

There were a lot of things churning in Nila as she walked the sands, leaving that unpleasant woman in their collective wake. Sharif had taken the fore, as he seemed almost puppy-dog pleased to be heading home, and Malu followed his direction. That left Nila and Tzu Zi at the back of the procession. And every time Nila looked at the firebender, one notion kept repeating in her head. Nila had almost lost her.

"Tzu Zi, I..."

"Nila, I..."

Both managed to interrupt each other, so both stammered to silence, continuing to walk, Nila blushing slightly. "Maybe you should go first," Nila said.

"Oh... I was scared. I didn't know if anybody was coming to help me," she began, but Nila shook her head.

"I was coming. You had to have known that."

"Well, I thought she'd got you. Shirshus knock you flat for at least an hour. You must have been after us in ten minutes," Tzu Zi said.

"I had a lot of motivation," Nila said.

"Really, why is that?" Tzu Zi asked, head tilted a little, eyes wide and eternal. Nila decided that there was no better time than right bloody now. She reached forward, taking the girl by the sides of her heads a she'd seen in those over-acted plays that Mother dragged her to in Ibn Atal, and tilted her back, lips mashing against the other girl's. There was fury and passion and motion and it was very, very... very...

...awkward.

She slowly pulled back, about as confused as she'd ever been in her life, and Tzu Zi looking no less so. "...what?" she asked.

"What?" Malu parroted, from where she was watching them.

"Look, a cloud!" Sharif noted happily, looking well past them all.

"What." Nila said.

"Did you just kiss her?" Malu asked.

"Why did you just kiss me?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I... thought... that..." Nila said awkwardly, backing away from Tzu Zi.

"I'm a girl," Tzu Zi said. "And so are you!"

"But you said that... sometimes things can happen... between..." Nila said awkwardly.

"Oooooh," Malu said. "She's a lesbian."

"A what?" Nila asked, then shook her head. Probably different word for something she already knew. "I..."

Tzu Zi shook her head, and turned to her. "She's not a lesbian."

"That looked like a lesbian thing to do," Malu noted.

"I'm confused," Nila said.

"Obviously," Tzu Zi said kindly. "Look, I care about you, but not like that. I like boys, not girls, alright?"

"Well... It seems I'm an idiot," Nila said, humiliation running through her veins in such quantities as to threaten the constitution of her blood.

"Oh, it's not that bad," Tzu Zi said. "You're just gonna have to find somebody right for you. And I'm pretty sure you're not a... what was that term?" Malu provided it, "lesbian, so just calm down. You're a good person, and somebody's gotta see that sooner or later."

Nila nodded, staring at her feet, blushing like the sun, although fatefully in a manner in which nobody not familiar with her race would recognize. "Can we just keep going. I don't think I feel like talking right now," Nila said.

"Okay, Nila," Tzu Zi said, with a brief hug to confound Nila just a little bit more before moving up to Sharif, who watched the scene with utter impassion. Nila shuffled through the sand until her path took her past Malu. Sharif pointed idly behind him.

"Patriarch's waiting for us. He's back that way... somewhere," Sharif said.

"Gotta say, I've never seen a show like that before," Malu noted. She then batted her eyelashes at the Si Wongi. "Think you might have a little sugar for me?"

"Die in a hole, airbender," Nila said as she walked past, and her path was paved in Malu's laughter.

Even as Sokka stirred from his snoring state, Katara was already awake. She'd been awake for a while, and long enough to notice that Dad had slipped out at some point in the night. For the first few minutes she thought he was going to the bathroom. After that, she started to worry. The worry built and built until a notion occurred to her. Whatever he was doing, he must have had good reason. It didn't assuage the worry, but at least it stopped its increase. But that was then. The worry since then had dumped over from whatever had happened to Dad into how she was going to face Aang. Namely because they'd done a hell of a job burning that bridge when they shouted at him on the beach.

Aang was many things, but tough was not one of them. After a moment, she rescinded that notion. He was remarkably tough, for all he'd kept his mind together given a century of icy imprisonment. She never asked if he dreamt in that long sleep. She didn't want to think about the answer. There was a great yawn from a vast pile of pelts, which burst open like a blossom, only instead of colorful petals and nectar, it revealed a groggy, bleary-eyed Tribesman. How he could sleep like that boggled her mind. It was a mystery how he didn't bake himself alive. A stretch which crunched with the sounds of joints and bones shifting about their place, and he returned to his usual slouch, before glancing her way.

"Huh. Where's Dad?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know. He must have gotten up during the night," Katara said.

"Oh. Well, he couldn't have gotten too far. Not like he'd abandon us twice, right?" Sokka said, obviously intending to make a jibe, but the subject matter was far too personal. There was a long silence, punctuated by somebody out in the halls coughing as they went by. "That wasn't the right thing to say, was it?"

Katara shook her head with a roll of the eyes, and moved to the door. But before she opened it, moving out into the abbey beyond, she turned. "I think Dad was right. We really didn't give Aang a chance to explain. We didn't even give him a chance to stammer!"

"Yeah," Sokka said, nodding slowly. "...and it's not like he did anything bad. It wasn't like telling us a day earlier would have made any difference, except we would have lost another night's sleep, and we all know how much of a beast you turn into when you don't get your rest."

"What did you just say about me?" Katara said, annoyance instantly her whole expression.

"Some people are night Owl-bears, you're not," Sokka said. He nodded to himself for a moment. "We should apologize to Aang. Especially for the shoving. Tui La, I can't believe I got away with pushing around the Avatar!"

"You could get away with a lot of stuff with him," Katara said, opening the door. "He's a lot more family than not at this point."

Sokka only nodded as he got up and joined her, heading out into the courtyard. At first, their thought was that there was a vast snowfall, and that it mounded up in the heart of the abbey over the night. While there had indeed been snowfall, and that it continued even now, the vast majority of that great mound was comprised of a serene bison munching on hay. Both siblings' eyes went wide as they recognized Appa.

"Sokka, Katara, I'm glad you're both awake," Dad's voice came to them from across the yard. "I've read over the report from Ogan. It seems the men are recuperating well in Chameleon Bay, and he has things well in hand," he said walking over to them. He then paused, looking at her in particular. "Are you alright, Katara? You don't look so well."

"I had... a bit of a rough night," she said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. By the gods, it felt good to have her father back, even if part of her still did want to hit him with a stick for abandoning them for two years. "But the news from the south means I can finally do something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm heading north, to Summavut," Dad said.

"What?" Sokka said.

"I had words with the Avatar. He needs a waterbending master, and that is where they would be found these days," Dad said.

"Yeah, we should really talk to him," Sokka said. "We were definitely out of line with the whole 'go away and never come back' stuff."

"I knew you'd come to your senses," Dad said.

"We've gotta find Aang," Katara said.

"Look up, sweetheart," Dad said. Katara frowned at him, then looked up, and saw that Aang was sitting on the eaves just behind them, listening to the whole conversation. He was smiling.

"Aang, what are you doing?"

"I was upset when you... you know..." Aang said. "I didn't want to keep going without you both, even though I knew I had to. We make a great team. We shouldn't break that up."

"Aang's right," Sokka said, and promptly headlocked and noogied the Avatar the moment he jumped down to ground level, an act which brought an uneasy look in Dad. Not surprising. It wasn't often that an abjectly mundane teenage boy got away with noogying a demigod. "Who knows what kind of trouble he'd get into with us lookin' after him?"

"Sokka stop it!"

"Oh, you love it," Sokka laughed, releasing him. Aang rubbed his head where it was be-noogied, but had a smile regardless.

"So... I guess we're all heading north," Aang said.

"If you're willing to travel with your old man," Dad said. Katara couldn't help but break into a grin at that, and she hugged him tight.

"Of course we can," she said. There was a clearing of throat behind them all, and all turned to see the Abbess behind them, flanked by her inferiors. She bowed lightly to the Avatar.

"It is a great honor to have you visit this Abbey, Avatar. Such a shame that you have to leave so quickly," the Abbess said.

"Maybe I can return when this is all finished?" Aang said.

"Dad, why are you going north?" Katara asked.

"I've heard some things up there I find... disturbing," he said. "I need to see for myself if they're true. Ogan's got things well in hand to the east... Something needs to be done."

"Well, you're welcome to join us," Aang said, even if he didn't seem to sure about what that last part meant. Neither did Katara.

"And we thank you for your duty to trade to our Abbey," the Abbess said. "Without you, our ointments and perfumes could never have traveled the roads to the rest of the countryside."

"All's forgiven?" Hakoda asked his children and the Avatar. All of then nodded. "That's good."

"Perfume, huh?" Sokka noted. "Maybe you should dump a bunch of that stuff on Appa... since it smells so bad. Am I right?"

The crisp slap of two people palming their foreheads was overwhelmed by Hakoda's laughter. It ended suddenly, as the man winced. "Oh, that was worth it. Come on. The north can't wait forever."

"So where are we headed?" Aang asked.

"Henhiavut first," Hakoda said. "From there... we'll see."

The ships in frigid waters were overwhelmingly numerous. Some of them shined white in the low sun. Others were dull and black. Of the latter, there were hundreds atop the waves. Of the former, there were none but wrecks. Twin sets of golden eyes surveyed the battle before them, which still carried on into the morning as it had the entire night.

"We have stood on no more dangerous footing than we do right now," Iroh said. "If we turn back, we can avert this inevitable disaster. Can I not persuade you to rethink this reckless deed?"

"The Avatar is coming," Azula said, almost lightly, as she stared to the north, past the battle which tried endlessly and futilely to swallow the fortress of Henhiavut whole. "And this time, there will be no escape for him. Nothing will stand in my way."

"You have said that before, Azula," Iroh noted. She glared at him, and he once again had to check himself from doing something drastic. Not because he held any desire to hurt his niece – the farthest thing from it, in fact – but because he was almost certain she was a twitch away from smiting him. "Please, reconsider."

"There is no reconsidering," she said. "There is no offer you can make me. He will be there. That means, so must I," she said, turning away from the balcony and heading back inside. "Find some way through that mess. I must prepare for the greatest battle of this lifetime."

Iroh watched as she left, and his eyes grew dim. The greatest, perhaps, but for whom? He turned back to the battle before him, and watched once again as the Fire Nation broke like waves against the unyielding rocks of Henhiavut.

Since I've finished writing the finale of 'Book 1', I'm going to take a bit of a sabbatical from writing. However, since I worked with a buffer, I'll still update on a regular schedule.

I liked how this chapter flowed better than the last one, which came part and parcel with how it was both briefer and didn't suffer from bloat. That said, there was a lot going on on Nila's side of the equation which, when I started writing, would not have happened. The only reason the last bit (you know the one I'm talking about) happened was because I found that Tzu Zi was getting Nila to question her own sexual orientation, wholly of their own device. There is certainly something to be said for characters taking on a life of their own. Of course, I also knew, the moment that this meeting was going to happen, that it would end like this. What can I say? I like subverting expectations and making my characters suffer.

Finding how to progress this was actually tricky. Unlike with CoW, I strove to make sure that every single character was, first and foremost, human. There's only one unredeemably evil person in this story, but everybody else has a chance at becoming something other than what they were. Consider that because of Mai's influence, Jet's got a much better hold on his sanity. It isn't that I'm retelling the story with slightly different pieces, it's that I'm setting up the board under a completely different arrangement for Book 2 and 3. Enjoy, and I'll probably have the next chapter, The Siege of the North, up in two weeks.

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