Three Families

by James Golen

Three Families seek the Avatar. Three Families find the Avatar. Three Families use the Avatar. The story of how three sets of siblings are changed by the Avatar, amidst an endless war. AU, Want of A Nail.

19. The Clash, Part 1

Will probably get writing again in a couple weeks. Needed a break. Will start putting up 'Book 2' as soon as I've got a decent buffer.

---

The hunger in Azula's eyes set Iroh quietly on edge. The despondency in Zuko's didn't help. Nephew and niece alike were fixating on a form, wafting with seeming slowness, but only for its great distance, over the Spikerim and toward the great citadel which lay at the back edge of Summavut. "He's here." she said. "What are we waiting for?"

"You might not have noticed, Azula," Iroh said patiently, "but there is a well tended wall of ice between ourselves and the Avatar. Getting through it will be an act of patience and cunning."

"We can just burn through it," Azula said, igniting fire above her palm. Zuko moved even before Iroh, clapping a hand over hers and snuffing the flame. She shot an indignant look at both of them.

"No, that is brash and reckless," Iroh said. He pointed to the great, thick, and cruelly textured ice which made up the Spikerim. "They monitor this wall frequently, and repair it without fail. The task will not be breaching the wall, it will be doing so that they cannot tell it has been breached."

She scowled for a moment, but nodded. "I can see the logic in that," she said. She then started scanning the uneven pinnacle of the structure. "They have no guard-towers. How can they even tell if the wall is damaged?"

"They're waterbenders," Zuko pointed out. "They can just feel where the water isn't."

"Then that's how we get in, dum-dum," Azula said. "We burn a whole through at the water line."

"But you'd have to swim," Iroh reminded her. She gave a shudder at the thought, but there was resolve on her face.

"I would swim across the Heart Sea to get the Avatar in my grasp," she said. She then looked up at her sibling and her uncle. "Well? Are you both just going to stand there, or are we going to sneak into Summavut?"

"As you say, Azula, but be patient. He will still be there tomorrow."

"I'm well aware, Uncle," Azula said, before pointing with a smirk to a spot a short steam away. "That looks like a secluded spot to work. Let's get going."

Iroh and Zuko shared a glance as she powered up the steamer and steered it, showing an enthusiasm which Iroh would have been quite happy with, had he not his extreme doubts about Azula. And now, he had a feeling like Zuko was having doubts of his own. There was only a glance shared, no words, but Iroh had that feeling.

He didn't like when he got feelings like that.

---

"...Huh," Malu said, staring across the distance, at the drab brown walls which rose up out of the desert. Nila didn't hold much opinion, and didn't say much. Especially after her recent humiliation. Malu, though, seemed outright impressed.

"Impressed?" Sharif asked the obvious, not looking at the airbender.

"A lot more than I was at Misty Palms," Malu said. "That place did not live up to expectations."

"It kinda fell short of mine as well," Tzu Zi agreed. She pointed at the mass in the distance. "What is it?"

"That is Sentinel Rock," Nila finally broke her long silence. "That is Mother's home, the military capital of the Si Wongi people, and the great stronghold separating Dakong from Ibn-Atal," she raised a tattooed finger toward Malu, who was starting a question, "And before you ask, no, it is not feasible to 'simply go around'. Even with sandbenders, there is no water for more than a week in the east, and the west are lands which historically have been called haunted by an old and unfriendly spirit. Before, I thought it mere hokum, but since nobody has ever attacked Ibn-Atal from the south and successfully bypassed Sentinel Rock, there might be some truth to those old fireside tales."

"That's where Wan Shi Tong lives," Sharif said with solemnity, looking out to the west.

"Who?" Malu asked.

"Some sort of legend. Knowledge spirit, ghostly library, some stories about owls. It's all foolishness," Nila said. "This is the gateway to the rest of the nation, if you can call it that; the home of Si Wong's ancient Sipahi warriors. Mamluks from all over the desert come to train here, and the best of them are inducted into the Sipahi. Mother found the whole process needlessly exclusive and tedious. I prefer the way the Yeniceri do things."

"The who?"

"The Sultan's troops up north," Nila said. "They use science to win wars. Who couldn't respect that?"

"So that's your home?" Malu asked.

"It was for my many years," Nila acceded. Malu gave a shrug.

"Not bad."

"I think it's impressive," Tzu Zi said. Nila started walking forward though. The slightly wounded sound she made behind Nila's back stung. At the moment, though, Nila wasn't entirely sure how to talk to the girl. She had, quite recently in fact, attempted lewd and lascivious things with her. There was understandable awkwardness.

Of course, it wasn't until Nila came back to Sentinel Rock that she actually looked at it. In her childhood, it was just constantly there. Now, returning after long absence, she could actually see where her people's culture had gone into the crafting of it. Sandstone abounded, since it was the easiest building material, could be compacted into form by a sandbender easily enough, and didn't require the water that mud-brick did. The outer wall, though, a great mass of subtle angles that plunged down into the sands, was sheathed in a layer of faintly-blue metal that was painted in the warmth and shine of the morning light. The color of it was likely only visible from the south, because the prevailing winds hadn't plastered sand into it from that direction. It was said that this fortress was only built because of that metal, which would keep the hostile earthbenders at bay. Nila was no military strategist, but she knew a good design when she saw one. There were no places that one couldn't be shot from those ramparts, no place not immune to any but the most skilled earthbenders, and no advance through any but unpleasant sands.

"Sharif, keep that bird close and under control," Nila commanded. "You know how those people can be."

"I don't! How can they be?" Tzu Zi asked, hugging Aki's neck.

"...We eat Ostrich Horse," Nila said simply. There were two shocked expressions leveled at her, and one of blissful ignorance focused on working out a mat amidst the stallion's down. "Meat is meat."

"And water is water," Sharif piped up, before getting back to grooming his mount.

Silence returned for the span that it took to reach the base of the broad but rough-surfaced ramp to the gates. The ramp was naked sandstone, and while it was wide, it could be blasted away by Si Wongi benders quickly. The main reason it was constructed as it was was so that the huge, black, Mammoth Beetles could deliver directly into town. Nila motioned for the others to wait, and she walked ahead of them, up that ramp. The guards at the 'gate' were actually standing in front of a block of stone, and were in all likelihood sandbenders themselves.

"Who goes there?" they asked.

"I am returned and seek water and provision," Nila answered.

"Who goes there?" they asked again.

"I just told you," Nila said. From behind her, she could hear the tapping of talons on stone, and saw Sharif was approaching on Patriarch's back, despite her orders to the contrary. She turned, and was about to give him a proper tongue lashing, when he spoke out.

"Children far from home, who have pushed aside the wants of Setekh and seek shade and shelter," Sharif said.

"Ah, one of ours," the bender on the right said. He gave a twist of his arms, and the sandstone twisted away as a cloud of stinging grit, albeit mercifully into an open spot inside the gates. "You should teach this one some manners, though."

Nila's brows rose at that. "Excuse me?" she asked, anger rising in her.

"You can come in now!" Sharif shouted behind him, and the others made their way up. As they did, the first sandbender nudged the second.

"Hey... doesn't that look like one of those airbenders?" he asked.

"Impossible," came the answer. "The Avatar is long gone."

Nila just shook her head and beckoned, and the whole group of them moved into the streets of the fortress which fancied itself a town. The buildings were much like the walls, although not clad in precious metal, and more often than not stood flat topped and broad windowed. The people milled about, doing whatever it was that people did to spend their days. Women chatted amongst themselves about how their children were schooling, or fighting, for there was little else to do, as they beat their laundry with woven sticks. That was a task which Nila was quite happy she wouldn't be returning to.

While Tzu Zi's reaction was more-or-less concealed by the robes which covered her from the eyes down, Malu's was one of open appreciation. "Man, this place is a lot nicer than you talked about," she took in a deep breath. "And it smells so nice!"

"They make their own perfumes and unguents," Nila dismissed.

"And I smell food," Malu noted.

"You just ate! You ate on the way here!" Tzu Zi snapped. Malu gave a sheepish shrug.

"Sharif, is that you on top of that wicked beast?" one of the women asked. Sharif waved amiably. "Get down from there before it hurts you! You know how those things are!"

"It's alright. Patriarch likes me."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Poor boy. He never really had a chance did he?"

"The Host takes as it wills. He is a bastard after all," another agreed.

"What are they saying?" Tzu Zi asked.

"They're insulting us," Nila paraphrased. "Come. Our home is about as far from this gate as one could be."

"Could I just... stop off at that restaurant for a second," Malu said, walking backwards with her eyes fixated behind her.

"You know, if we didn't need to feed you, we could have lasted a year on the food we've bought in the last month alone," Nila pointed out humorlessly. "How can you be that hungry?"

"I just am, alright?" Malu said defensively.

Nila rolled her eyes, and then bumped into somebody in black robes. "Watch where you're going, you oaf!" Nila snapped.

Which made it all the more surprising when the Si Wongi so insulted broke into a broad grin, and pulled Nila into a hug which caused her to release a quite undignified 'ack' sound. Nila was not released until she punched the Si Wongi in the short ribs, causing him to let go and take a step back, rubbing his chest. "Ah, there's the Nila I remember," he said in bright and cheery Tianxia. He turned to face her brother. "And Sharif! It's been too long!"

"Ashan!" Sharif said happily. "Patriarch, this is my friend, Ashan!"

"Patriarch?" Ashan asked. Sharif looked confused for a moment, then pointed at the stallion he was riding. Ashan looked confounded, scratching at his cloud of curly dark hair. "Oh, so that isn't dinner?"

"You're not eating Patriarch!" Sharif said. The bird turned back to the Shaman, a dire look in its avian eye. "No, it's just a misunderstanding, I promise."

"Still talking to animals, I see," Ashan said. He then turned to the others. "And who'd these fine ladies be?"

"Nila, who..." Tzu Zi began.

"Oh, so you haven't mentioned me? How scandalous!" Ashan said with a laugh. He bowed to her. "I am Ashan, pleased to meet you."

"Ashan... what?" Malu asked. He looked confused for a moment. Malu pointed at Nila. "Her name's... well... needlessly huge. So what's the rest of yours?"

"We don't just go around introducing ourselves with our whole name," Ashan said.

"She does," Tzu Zi and Malu both said, pointing at Nila.

"Well, she's Nila," Ashan said. "Very well. I am Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa. And you would be?"

"I'm Malu, and yeah, it's just Malu," she said, likewise bowing.

"Tzu Zi Baihu," the firebender gave a weaker bow.

"Ashan and Sharif used to be inseparable," Nila said. "What are you doing out here?"

"Do the knives not give it away?" Ashan said, motioning to the impressive array of cutting implements on his hip. "I'm a butcher now! Well, training to be one."

"A butcher?" Sharif asked. "But... you're a sandbender."

"Sandbender isn't exactly a profession," Ashan noted.

"Around here it pretty much is," Nila countered.

Ashan rolled his eyes. "Grandfather finally decided I needed a trade to support myself. I'm just delivering the Darvesh's breakfast up in the tower. But I speak of myself. You've been off on some great adventure! You must have seen some wondrous things!"

"It depends on your definition of wondrous," Nila sand wearily. "I'm not staying long. I just need to speak with Mother, and then I will be leaving again."

Ashan's grin withered at that. "You couldn't have known, could you?" He beckoned after him. "There have been some changes since you left. Follow. They are better shown than said."

"Changes?" Nila asked. "Did Sha-Mo get stupid and anger Mother again?"

Ashan laughed. "You could say that, I suppose," he shrugged, and the others followed, even if the two riders had to dismount to pass the narrowing streets as they passed barracks and warehousing. It wasn't until they were roughly three quarters of the way there that Nila started to gather that something was wrong. Specifically, with the skyline of a certain portion of the city. She'd walked these roads dozens, nay, hundreds of times in her life. But the sight before her didn't match up to the many, many memories. Something was missing.

And when she rounded that final corner, she knew what it was.

Mother's house, the house they'd grown up in, was a charred ruin. Of the estate, only the shack at its corner remained intact. All the rest was subject to the unkind predations of erosion, and from the looks of the structure remaining, explosive detonation. Nila's mouth worked for a long moment, utterly unsure of what ought be coming out.

"Your mother is gone," Ashan said.

"Oh... Nila, I'm so sorry," Tzu Zi said, squeezing Nila's hand.

"Yeah, that's rough, buddy," Malu said.

Ashan nodded. "She left a week or two after you did," Ashan confirmed. Nila's mouth-working halted, and she tweezed her brow. She didn't notice how Malu was looking at that building as though she could half-remember it.

"What."

"Oh, it was a hell of a display. She tore a strip up Sha-Mo and down the other side, then blew up her own house to prove a point," Ashan said brightly. "I've gotta hand it to your mother. She knows how to make an exit. Took some outsider with her and headed west."

"This is oddly empty," Sharif muttered to himself.

"She's alive? That's great, isn't it?" Tzu Zi asked. But Nila was shaking her head like a mauled ox.

"Oh... this isn't even fair," Nila said weakly.

---

Chapter 19

The Clash, Part 1

---

There was a crash of ice, punctuated by the panicked grunts of a teenaged boy struggling futilely against the impenetrable block of frozen water that he now found himself in. With a sinuous motion, Katara pulled back, leaving the lad so frozen, and a smug look adorning Katara's face.

"Enough," Pakku said. The week and a half between their arrival at Summavut and today showed a marked improvement in the old waterbending master. While he still moved perhaps a bit slowly, he no longer looked like a man with one foot upon the funeral pyre. "Excellent work, pupil Sangok. A few more years, and you might be able to win a fight against a sea sponge."

Katara let out a laugh at that. Pakku flicked his hand, and the tower of ice instantly melted, dropping the defeated Sangok to the floor.

"Does anybody else wish to retest themselves against our young prodigy?" Pakku asked, to which no less than three dozen hands raised. Pakku did not look amused. "That was a rhetorical question. I can't have my waterbenders killing each other when the Fire Nation is still beating at our walls," he then turned to Katara. "You have advanced faster than any student I have ever taught. You are a living symbol that dedication, zeal, and passion can make even the impossible inevitable... unlike someone I can think of."

Which brought the attention of all present to the Avatar, who was scooting in loops inside a shell of ice he'd created for himself. Honestly, if he'd had this level of waterbending mastery a year ago, he'd probably never have bothered with any other element. The fun stuff you could do with water never ended! Or at least, it wouldn't have, until Aang finally noticed that all eyes were on him, and they were not amused. He released his scooter, flipping down to his feet, only to have Momo release his grasp of Aang's shirt and stagger away, utterly discombobulated.

"Pupil Aang?" Pakku asked patiently. Aang grunted an acknowledgment. "Perhaps you should take Katara's place in the sparring circle. After all, if you've got enough time to play with geometry, you must have already mastered the intricacies of waterbending."

"Well, I wouldn't say I mastered it, but check this out!" Aang said with enthusiasm. He spun about, pulling the ice which had been the loop around himself and building it up, until he stood in the chest cavity of some sort of icy golem, which took two crackling steps toward the other waterbenders. "Awesome, huh?"

Pakku and Katara shared a look of annoyance, and it was the girl who flicked her hands down, and sent the entire construct splashing into water. "That will be all for today," Pakku said, with a dismissing wave. "Be ready for whatever comes. This reprieve may be all too brief."

The many students gave their bows and 'yes Master Pakku's before moving down into the city, to the blue ice and ugly grey stone, to the gates, and far beyond them, the great mass of the Spikerim barely visible on the horizon. Aang failed to notice the glances those students were giving Katara, but mostly because another woman had captured his attention. Aang gave a curt farewell before bounding up the tiers of balconies which made up the royal palace of Summavut, until he landed on the one he'd sought.

"You've been avoiding me," Aang said to the woman. Irukandji raised a dark brow at him.

"On the contrary, I've been doing things no other could," she answered. "Let me guess, this is the part where you demand to know what I am, and then try to kick me out of this form?"

"Well, I wasn't going to demand," Aang said, a little off put.

"Very well. You asked why I have two names, it's because I... or rather we, are two people. Well, one's a person, the other's me," Irukandji waved her hand. "It's complicated. I am a spirit. She is my host."

"Host?" Aang asked.

"You must know of hosts," she said. His glassy stare proved otherwise. She kneaded her brow. "Oh, me, this is going to take a while."

"If you're a spirit, why are you inside his body?"

"Because it's safer by a long shot," Irukandji said. "You've been to the Spirit World. You must have."

"Well, I remember what it felt like when I was fighting Heibai," Aang said.

"That's the Outer Sphere. The Spirit world was... You met Roku, yes?" Irukandji waited for Aang's 'yes, but' before smiling to herself. "Good. That was the Spirit world. Not inviting. In fact, universally deadly to your kind and mine, but for vastly different reasons. Those that are... complex... enough, they find ways to incorporate themselves into the Spheres. Some do it by Totems, as Heibai did. Risky business, though. Others, like me, use hosts."

"Why a host? Is she still... alive?"

"Asleep, more or less," Irukandji said. "I used to let her out more often, but let's face it, we're kind of in a crisis at the moment. And Huuni had about the intellect of a sea-prune, so she wouldn't be much help."

Aang stared at her. She sighed again.

"Alright, I'll start from the beginning, since this is sooo~o baffling to you," she said. "About ninety years ago, the heart fell right out of the Spirit World, and since I didn't want to die, I struck up a deal with a Tribal woman. She wasn't the best shaman, or the strongest. Honestly, I could have done a lot better. She was a vapid, narcissistic bitch, to be wholly truthful, and she was terrified of what would happen when she got old. Humans do get fairly wrinkly, after all," she chuckled to herself. "Anyway, she gave me a place to rest my laurels and keep away from things that want to eat me, and in exchange, I can keep her young and beautiful, ideally until the end of time."

"How long is that?" Aang asked.

"Well, if it lasts a year we'll be lucky," Irukandji said fatalistically.

"I meant how long have you been like this?"

"Weren't you listening? About eighty years," she snapped. "And while exorcising me might be possible, it requires the host want me gone, and I'm fairly sure her vanity outweighs her desire for independence," Aang's brow drew down. "Yeah, I know. Exploiting the stupid girl. But if you met her back then, you'd probably be fine with it."

"You're not supposed to enslave people."

"I'm not enslaving her. I'm giving her what she wants. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be here forever," she shrugged. Then, she leaned a bit closer, and Aang had to keep his eyes locked on hers if only to avoid staring down cleavage. Well, ideally... "So you know a little about me. Now, I'd like to know a little about you. How did Azula find you before Thug-Girl did?"

"Who?" Irukandji glanced toward Katara, who was finally departing the field, after her long talk with Pakku. "Her? She's not a thug. She might be a bit... sanctimonious sometimes, but she's a good person."

"You don't say," Irukandji muttered. "And to my question?"

"How should I know? I was inside an ice-cube at the time!" Aang said.

"Hm. She shouldn't have been there," Irukandji said.

"You keep saying things like that. She shouldn't have been there. I'm supposed to be attracted to Katara. Hakoda's not supposed to be in the North Pole. What do you know that we don't?" Aang asked.

"I could fill a book," Irukandji said. And then, she raised a finger. "In fact, I did, which is part of our current problem. But it's going to resolve itself soon enough. I just need to get my hands on those involved."

Aang stared at her. "You're insane."

"No, I'm inhuman. There's a difference," Irukandji countered.

"So... could you teach me about shaman stuff?" Aang asked.

"Nothing your friends'd want you to learn," Irukandji said. He raised a brow. "I'm the spirit responsible for the fight-or-flight reflex in the brain. Essentially, I'm the creator of the emotion of fear. Does that sound like a subject you'd like to hear about?"

"Not really," Aang admitted.

"But it's good that you're looking for teachers. May I recommend the Dragon of the West? He's got some skills. And great tea, I tell you," Irukandji smirked at the thought. Aang was a bit confused.

"Azula's uncle? Didn't he try to invade Ba Sing Se a few years ago?"

"Eh, what's a few thousand humans here or there?" she said with a shrug. She glanced at the sun, and clicked her tongue. "Well, look at the time. It's been lovely talkin' to you, but I've got work to do if we're going to survive to see this time next year. Ciao!"

"Wait, but I'm not..." Aang said, but after a dainty wave, Irukandji vanished from view in a flicker. Aang frowned for all he was worth, staring where she used to be. "Well, that's hardly fair."

---

"Katara, could you spare a moment," Pakku asked. Katara glanced back, and moved back to the waterbending master. "May I?"

She looked a bit leery, but he slipped his fingers under the carved stone of her heirloom necklace, turning it to catch the low winter sun. "What is it, Master Pakku?"

"I made this necklace," he said quietly, letting the necklace drop. "I thought I recognized it. It stands as a lesson against my own arrogance."

"But... how could you have made it? It's been in my family for generations," Katara said.

"Two generations, perhaps," Pakku said. He turned and stared to the south, and uttered a sigh. "A long time ago, a marriage had been arranged. She was a willful girl. Strident, independent, and so bold. But I loved her..."

"An arranged marriage? Who was she?"

He took a deep breath, his eyes drifting to the ground. "Kana."

"Gran Gran?" Katara asked, incredulous. Pakku turned to her. "I know my grandmother was from the North Tribe, but... Oh. She must not have been able to take the rules and the 'traditions', and..."

Pakku nodded. "If the circumstances were any but what they are, she'd still be right to. The only reason we let women fight is because if there isn't a spear in every hand or a child in every belly, then our people would vanish completely. Women are quite willing, and quite able, to fight for their families, their home, and their culture. If nothing else, I can only hope that Kana would respect what we've become."

Katara was quiet for a moment. "Do you really think that we can win against the Fire Nation?"

"Until the Avatar came, no. I held no illusions that we could," Pakku admitted. "Now... Now I'm not sure what to believe."

With that, he marched onward, into the citadel which stood at the back end of the city. Katara sighed, and then picked herself up, unfurled her packed brunch, and began to eat it as she moved down from the fortress and into the areas which served as the infirmary for the ill, the old, and the direly wounded. Between Pakku teaching her how to fight, and Yugoda teaching her how to heal, Katara was living off perhaps three hours of sleep a night, and no time for anything else but bathroom breaks besides. And to be completely honest, she was perfectly fine with that schedule. For the first time in her life, she had teachers, people who knew what they were doing, and were infinitely willing to share that knowledge with her. She intended to drink of it until she burst.

"I hope we don't have as many as last time," Katara said to herself. While everybody was a proficient healer amongst the North's waterbenders, only those true masters plied their trade in the infirmary, because the cases there were such that only the masters could hope to make a difference. It was the same sort of teaching that Pakku did; live fire. Yugoda had mentioned that their training mannequin hadn't seen use in years, since there was a constant influx of legitimately wounded people to train with, and almost no beginners left to bungle things. Even as she walked and masticated, she pondered what kind of culture this place had left. Everything they had seemed to be rotating around the fight. Even the Fire Nation couldn't be this bad, since there were supposedly near half a billion of them, and that meant only one in two hundred actually were actually any part of the military. Ninety five percent against half of one percent, and the ninety-fivers were losing.

It just wasn't fair.

Katara halted half way along one of the shortcuts she'd ferreted out to get from Pakku to Yugoda faster, a dark path between buildings that looked oppositely onto different canals. She was not alone in the alleyway. At first, she spotted one of them, tall and wearing the ice blues of one of Pakku's students. He couldn't have been much older than her. And he looked angry.

"Well, if it isn't our little show-off," he said.

"Should go back to where you come from, pup," another joined him. "We don't need your kind here."

"We're all part of the fight against the Fire Nation," Katara said diplomatically. "That's the real enemy."

"See, I don't think so," the first countered, stalking a step forward, and looming over her. She cursed inwardly that her body decided to start growing hips before growing height. "You think you're better than us, don't ya'?"

"No, I just want to learn from the master," Katara said, taking a step back. Be nice, be friendly. There's gotta be a way to defuse this.

"Yeah, and how many of us had to fight tooth and nail to get Pakku's attention? Gai there fought for a year on the Spikerim before Pakku would even bother to learn his name!" he said, thrusting a finger toward a third of them, this one with a burn that ran down along his jaw.

"He offered to teach me," Katara said, still backing away.

"I think this girl needs to learn a bit of humility," Gai said, punching his own palm. Katara forced an uneasy smile onto her face.

"Come on, we're all on the same side here," she said. Be nice. Be friendly. It was a mantra that kept going through her head since Crescent Island. She'd almost seen her brother die without once telling him she loved him. Be nice, Katara. Be kind. "Surely we can..."

"Don't call me Shr-Li!" that first one snapped. "Maybe we'll send you to Yugoda as a patient. That might give humble her a bit?"

"Please, there's no need to," Katara said, but her smile was slipping. Not fear. Be kind. Be nice. Be getting progressively more annoyed. And that annoyance snapped into outright rage when he swung a meaty fist at her face. She slid away from him, the ice under her feet bearing her back just far enough to turn a jaw-breaker into a breeze against her skin, then with motions born of implacable training, she twisted, tearing the ice from the building next to her, instantly turning it into a flood, and slamming it into that ringleader's chest. He slid away almost a dozen yards, practically to the mouth of the next street.

Gai and the other looked from Shr-Li, as Katara'd decided to call him, and then back to her. Then, with a shout, they advanced, bending their own. Gai set loose a barrage of icy discs, razor sharp and swift as lightning. The other hurled a wave much as Katara had toward her, seeking to reverse her opening move. Skilled moves, but she had something they didn't. Will.

Twisting her feet locked them in place to keep the wave from bowling her over, and put her right at its core. She twisted it free of it's originator's command, and then swept it ahead of her again, freezing it solid and causing those discs to shatter against it. Then, with a stomp free of her footing and a shove of her arms, the water returned to liquid, slamming forward and aside, sweeping both Gai and his counterpart into the walls of the buildings surrounding the alley, where she refroze them in place, now a part of the walls they'd cannibalized to attack her.

That left Shr-Li. He'd taken the moment that took to get to his feet and race toward her. As he swung again, sharp, jagged ice slashed with his fists and feet, and great balls of it welled up from the ground to trap her. But even as much as she'd learned from Pakku, she'd learned also from Aang. And the best way to defend oneself from an attack was to not be there when it landed. She dodged around his cruel, envious blades and moved closer until they were within a range to breathe each other's breath, which caused him to recoil just a little. Then, with a practiced step, almost like a dance move, she slipped past him, before tipping forward and sweeping her leg up behind her, dragging the ice he'd been standing on up with her foot. He overbalanced and fell into the hole it created, so she could easily melt then refreeze the water, embedding him into the icy walk about a pace from either of his cohorts. She stopped, whisking some snow from her shoulder, and stood over them.

"We're all in this together, whether you like it or not," she said. Screw nice. "We all want this siege to end, and we're going to place nice until that happens. I don't care that I've stepped on some toes by coming here. I'm the last waterbender in my entire Tribe. I'm not going to tip-toe around politics when I can fight for my people. If you can't handle that, then maybe you're not ready to fight in this war."

"Stuck up bitch, we'll get you for this," Shr-Li swore. Katara's jaw clenched, and as it did, the ice of not only the buildings that the two croneys were embedded in, but in fact all ice within a one hundred foot radius began to spread hairline cracks under her wrath and unconscious bending.

"No. You won't," Katara said. "You try this again, and I'll leave you in a public place next time. Without pants," she promised, upon remembering that up here, they had that odd discomfort to nudity that her people lacked. She took a step back, not noticing the damage her naked anger had wrought. Just as she was about to leave the alley, she turned back one last time. "And if you try to go after my family or the Avatar, then I'll rip off your ears and feed them to your polarbear dogs. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am," one of them said.

"Shut up, Nagodah!" Gai snapped.

She stomped away, not even bothering to calm down. She meant what she said about their ears. That felt good. Yeah, nice was good, but honest was better. Even as she walked that road toward Yugoda's hut, she reconsidered her mantra. Not be nice. Nice was being a doormat. Be good. Good stands up for itself. Good helps those that need it.

Good doesn't need to be nice.

---

Zhao's fingers ran down the words on the page, almost instantly translating from the cypher into its meaning. In its way, the Book of Movements was much more clear in its code, and easier by far to transliterate. He could see why the savages were so desperate in their bid to reclaim it. It was practically an almanac for the next seventy years. Zhao's brow drew down as he read one specific passage, then flicked forward somewhat.

"Hmm," Zhao said. "So the Dragon of the West is a traitor as well as a failure? Why am I not surprised."

"My Lord," Kwon's unenthusiastic voice piped up, dragging Zhao out of his blizzard of codes and cyphers, and bringing his baleful eye back into the real world.

"I said no distractions," Zhao snarled.

"The fleet is ready. They will move on your command," the lackey said. Zhao's glare turned into a smirk.

"Well, let's not waste any time, shall we? This place is utterly Agni-forsaken and the men would doubtless love to be away, so we might as well do this quickly and efficiently. Steam toward the Spikerim with all prudent speed," Zhao ordered. Kwon gave a nod, then vanished back out the door. Zhao took a moment to preen like the peacock he didn't think himself as. Then, he sat back down, noting with a tsk that the book had flipped pages where he'd left it. He was about to flick it back when something caught his eye.

"Impossible," Zhao said, running a digit down the lines of writing. "It couldn't possibly be that simple."

But there was no other way to test that theory than to attempt it. Zhao pushed open the door to the flagship's balcony, scanning the text in great detail once more, noting every single symbol, testing them against his mental assays. There could be no other meaning. He set the book aside, and took a stance. He cleared his thoughts, and felt the chi down in his stomach. He swept one arm down and around, three fingers leading, and felt how it tugged at that chi. Another sweep, and this time there was... almost a tearing sensation. A third sweep, and this time, there came an electric snapping which followed his fingers through their movement. Such a glorious, almost unstoppable power. With a last sweep, he felt it building up. Straining at him. Demanding release. More than demanding. Zhao twisted one arm away, and flinched as there was a loud crack in the air, and a bolt of lightning flew from his fingertips. For a long moment, Zhao simply blinked away the afterimage burnt into his eyes.

"That's it," Zhao said. "That's all it takes."

Considering how dire Zhao smirking was considered, how terrifying was it then, when Zhao grinned?

---

"So... Prison," Malu said. "How's it treating you?"

"Die in a hole, airbender," Nila said, slumped against the wall.

"Yeah, Malu, don't be so mean," Tzu Zi chastised. She leaned against the bars, her earnest eyes locked on Nila. "Look, we're doing whatever we can to get you out of here. There's gotta be somebody that can help you."

Ashan, who was already at the prison but on very different reasons, shook his head, his usually ever-present grin not in attendance. "Hard to believe, but her family didn't make very many friends. In fact, it was like miss Badesh went out of her way to alienate the Sheik at every possible opportunity."

"I can believe that," Malu said.

Ashan scowled at her. "If you keep up, I'm going to ask you to leave," he said.

"I'm just ribbing her," Malu said.

"You are being obnoxious and rude," Ashan said. Malu threw up her hands and backed off. He shook his head. "Are you alright, Nila?"

"I don't know what to do," Nila said, her words ringing hollow even inside her own ears. "I've... done everything. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"So rest we all," Ashan said.

Tzu Zi paused a moment. "I didn't exactly hear from what I'd call a useful source. With the 'arrest' and whatnot... how did that happen? I mean, I never though I'd see you in here."

Nila looked up, at Ashan, Tzu Zi, and Malu. She then buried her head in her arms, shutting out everything except the subtle creak-creak of Latifa's chair, in a corner outside the bars. "I did everything I could..."

"So she's still not talking to anybody, I see?" Nila said, giving a look over Latifa, where she rocked endlessly on that chair, her eyes glassy and staring into her own lap. Ashan shook his head, brushing back the woman's white hair. It shouldn't have been white, considering Latifa was about the same age as Mother. But Ashan's mother had suffered, probably continuing into this day. Nila didn't like to think about that. There were many things that Si Wong did poorly, and prosecute nobles was amongst the worst of them.

"I still hold hope," Ashan said. "Grandfather still holds hope."

"I can't hear her right now," Sharif said, head tilted as he watched her. "She must be asleep."

"She has been asleep for fifteen years, fool," Nila said quickly. Ashan gave a scandalized 'hey', but she ignored it. "I shouldn't have wasted the time I did. Even if Mother isn't here to deal with it, somebody must be told of what's coming," she rose to her feet, striking the dust from her knees.

"What do you mean?" Ashan asked, taking a step away from his torpid mother.

"As we were pressing through the Grit Ocean, we saw signs of a great force driving north after us. Coupled with our knowledge that Dakong is launching another crusade, it behooves to tell somebody so that we can repulse them," She said. Ashan stared at her.

"The bad guys are coming so you ought tell somebody?" Ashan paraphrased.

"That's what I said," she snapped. "Now tell me, where is the Sheik? I know he hasn't taken over Mother's house, since it remains a ruin, but his standard doesn't fly from the barracks, either."

"I can show you," Ashan said.

"You're awfully friendly to her," Malu said.

"Of course, she's an old friend," Ashan said. Then, he shrugged. "Well, sister to an old friend, but it means much the same thing. Come, come, we've got words to spread!"

Nila rolled her eyes at Ashan's enthusiasm, but followed where he led. After all, she'd been away for months. No one could say how much could happen in so long. Malu leaned in. "Who's this Sheik guy, anyway?"

"It's complicated," Nila said. "Thinking of him as a chieftain is the simplest analogy. He commands the dispensation of the Sipahi. Before, he did so under Mother's 'advisement', but if she's left, then he's pretty much the top of the chain of command."

"So what's the proper way of greeting him?"Malu asked as they exited the building. Nila was about to speak, but saw that Tzu Zi had been surrounded by yammering older women, who were plying her with perfumes and sweets, and probably about five minutes away from marrying her off to one of their sons, as the girl herself looked pleased but utterly bewildered in their midst. Very likely, the poor girl didn't understand a word which was being said around her.

"She is foreign and speaks another tongue. She is no valid partner for your get," Nila said to those women, dragging Tzu Zi away, as they gave groans of disappointment, and tuts of disapproval. She turned her attention back to Malu. "Mother's favorite method, or at least her most common, was 'hey you flaming idiot, stop doing that and'."

"And what?"

"And whatever she had on her mind. As far as I can tell, she did not much approve of most of the things which Sha-Mo did... ever," Nila shrugged. "However, he is a military man, and will probably take the information as it is given."

"You'd probably know more about militaries than I would," Malu admitted. "We weren't exactly known for our fighting force. Heh. Must have been why I had to hide in a closet during the Day of Fire."

Nila didn't notice the suspicious glance Ashan gave the airbender at that, and continued walking. Tzu Zi looked positively delighted as she walked beside Nila, obvious now because she'd eschewed much of her cowl and hood. "I smell so pretty!" she said. "Who were those nice women?"

"They were trying to marry you off," Nila said.

"Oh..." Tzu Zi said, making an 'oh no' face and glancing away. Malu laughed at that, a welcome if unexpected change. Usually, Nila was the target of Malu's barbs and laughter. "So... what're we doing?"

"Warning Sha-Mo that Khagan Khatun is coming, and then getting the hell out of the way before they decide to fight each other," Nila said. She gave a glance toward Malu. "What, did you assume that I would be sticking around for the 'epic battle'? I'd like to think I have more sense of self preservation than that."

"Isn't that a bit... I don't know... wimpy?" Malu asked.

"I am no soldier. In fact, that is one of the few redeeming qualities of me to my mother's eyes. There are a hundred places I serve better than on a battle line," she stopped justifying herself as she reached one of the plate-and-chain armored Sipahi.

"Figures you'd come back, child," the man said before Nila could get her first word out. "How about you do us all a favor and emulate your mother? We'd all have less trouble that way."

"I have information that the Sheik is going to need to hear," Nila said.

"I'd bet you do," he said, and then did absolutely nothing. Nila began to scowl.

"Are you going to take me before him?"

"He has no ear for bastards and troublemakers," the Sipahi said. "You find yourself both."

"That is unkind, Mahmet Beih," Ashan said. "This could be important."

"I don't need your help," Nila snapped. "There is information the Sheik must hear. After that, I'll gladly leave. I need to find my mother, after all."

"And why would I care about that?"

"Please, Mahmet Beih," Ashan said with a level of diplomacy which Nila was fairly sure herself incapable of. "What is a matter of minutes? What is a few minutes to the Sheik, on a day such as this? Surely he can hear them between his other tasks."

Mahmet gave a glance to Nila, which shifted into a nod toward Ashan. "So you see that some bastards at least can learn proper manners. Somebody ought teach you better, girl. Fine. If it will get you out of my beard, then you may have your two minutes. If I come to regret this, I shall pass that regret onto you, however."

Nila rolled her eyes. "Well, there's one less problem," she muttered.

"What did he say?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I'm going to see the Sheik. Ashan, make sure nobody gets arrested or married while I'm in there with him?" Nila said. Malu scowled.

"Arrested? Why would we get arrested?" she asked.

"Too many reasons to count," Nila said sotto.

"Are you sure you don't want a friendly face in there?" Ashan asked.

"And since when are you friendly?" Nila asked. "As I recall, it was your fault that Senebi brained me with that brick!"

Ashan sighed. "Things got... out of control," he admitted. His grin returned, a bit uneasy. "It would have been funny if there hadn't been bloodshed!"

Nila shook her head with disbelief, and turned toward the building of the magistrate. While larger than Mother's home, particularly in its current state, it was only the biggest single building on Sentinel Rock by a hair. Whatever Sha-Mo was doing here, she couldn't guess, but here he was. She moved through the layers of Sipahi guards, with Mehmet at her back as though transporting a prisoner. Of course, she hadn't thought that at the time. She was just eager to see this farce over with.

The door banged open, and the Sheik turned away from his legal counterpart, looking upon Nila with the sort of disdain that she was quite used to. "What is the meaning of this intrusion, bastard?" the Sheik asked.

"She claims to have information for you," Mehmet interrupted Nila from speaking, which earned him a glare from the girl in question.

"And why would I want to hear it?" Sha-Mo asked. Mehmet shrugged, and was about to torpedo her case, so she interrupted him for a change.

"The Dakongese are moving north into the desert. Most likely they are going to press toward Ibn-Atal," Nila said succinctly.

"Really."

"Indeed. They are united under one Khagan. The former Khatun Noyan."

Sha-Mo shook his head. "This is impossible. Borte is dead," he claimed.

She sighed. "Reports of Behi Borte's death were greatly exaggerated, it seems. She's united the entire Dakongese people behind her banner, and they have refugees from Great Whales supporting their push north."

Sha-Mo started to smile at that. It was a condescending smile. "And how did you invent this little fantasy? Have you become as simple as your brother in your absence?"

Nila took an angry step toward the Sheik, heedless of the sounds of drawn steel around her. "I offer no fantasy. Borte has gathered a mighty horde and will attack soon. I was her prisoner only weeks ago. I saw the signs of her approach only days ago."

"The Dakongese are not approaching. Our scouts would have reported back were they," Sha-Mo said with intolerable smugness.

"Then perhaps they've overtaken your scouts!" Nila said. "Can you please not be a sand-brained idiot for one moment and at least fight for your own survival?"

Even as the words came from her mouth, she had the notion that they might have been a bad idea. Strange, how even a year ago, that thought would never have occurred to her. Sha-Mo stood.

"I have been very patient to even have you in my presence. My patience has run out. Beih, remove this filth from my sight," the Sheik ordered. Nila felt herself being grabbed from behind.

"Damn your eyes! You're going to get everybody here killed!" Nila shouted.

"Come along, child," Mehmet said wearily, hauling her bodily away.

"The Horde is coming, two hundred thousand strong!" Nila continued yelling. "They're coming here! Why won't you listen to common sense!"

With a heave, she was thrown to the ground outside the magistrate. Mehmet stared down at her for a moment, before turning on his heel, heading back into the building, and barring the doors from within. It was the airbender, in fact, that helped her to her feet.

"I take it that didn't go very well," Malu said.

"They won't see reason," Nila said distantly. "What do I do now?"

"You said you were going to leave, right?" Malu asked, but Nila leaned against a building, cradling her head, her fingers pushing through short hair.

"What do I do?" she asked herself again. But as before, she had no answers.

"Well, standing around here isn't going to do anything," Tzu Zi said with some firmness. They're out there, and the fighting will start soon. We've gotta get you out!"

"Yeah," Malu said. "He who fights and runs away can run away another day."

"Was that sarcasm, miss?" Ashan asked.

"Sort...of?" she said.

"Does anybody know how to pick a lock?" Ashan then asked. There was a long silence, broken by Sharif coughing in the background.

"Fine, I'll do it myself, just get me some slivers of metal. Those utensils will do," Nila said. Malu handed the eating implements, odd of construction though they were, to Nila, who set about attacking the lock from the other side of it. "This might take a while."

"I'm still confused. Why's she in prison?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It's a long story, my friend," Ashan said with a sigh.

---

"I still can't get over how big these things are," Sokka said, staring at eye level at a Polarbear Dog who was five feet tall at the haunch. Yue was riding on its back, of course, looking every inch of her the imperious princess. The soldiers on the Spikerim heartened at the very sight of her, though, so he couldn't say anything against her choice of pomp.

"Don't you have Polarbear Dogs in the south?" Yue asked.

"Yeah, but they're about this big," Sokka said, holding his hand out level with his hip. "Great for hunting. Not so great for riding. Well, after you're six, anyway. How do you get yours so massive?"

"They've been bred for war for generations," she said. "Naga here is our finest bitch. When she passes on, the greatest of the next generation will be Naga."

"So you just name them all Naga, then?" Sokka asked.

"Just the best," she said. A smile graced her lips. "A century ago, we prepared our finest bitch for the arrival of the Avatar... after he didn't appear, we... well, here I am," she said. "I've had Naga at my side since the war began."

Sokka could see the Fire Nation'd be hard pressed to try attacking something that big. In a scrap between a Komodo Rhino and a Polarbear Dog, he'd put money on the latter. After all, what they lacked in impenetrable hide they made up for in their bite and strong front legs. "Why do you do this?" Sokka asked. "Put your neck on the line all the time?"

"Because I love my people," she said quietly. "I'd do anything for them."

"Yeah, but your father must be worried out of his mind every time you come out here," Sokka stressed. She shook her head.

"Father agrees my place is here," she said.

That didn't sound right at all. "What? I'm pretty sure if Dad had any choice, he'd ship us the hell away from Summavut in a second. Why would your father want you to be here?"

"He knows what we need to win this war. I know my father has my best interests at heart," she said. Sokka shook his head.

"I'm starting to wonder. Have you talked to Dad recently? There's some scary stuff going on up here," Sokka pointed out, preparing to rattle off the litany, but she shook her head briskly.

"I have to trust my father," she said.

"Why?" Sokka asked.

"...because he's my father," she said. "Don't you trust your father?"

"Of course, but that's because Dad's never done anything to make me or my sister doubt him," Sokka said. There was a moment of silence as they walked along the smooth pass which had likely been cut especially for Yue's passage along the Spikerim. "Listen... about that kiss in Henhiavut..."

"That was a mistake," Yue said.

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not go that far," Sokka said. "I was just a bit confused by it, that's all."

"No, I mean I shouldn't have done that," Yue said. She turned to him, and he felt himself melting into his boots. "I care about you... you're kind and funny and brave... but it won't work. It can't work."

"Wh... why not?" Sokka asked. "Because you're a princess and I'm just some South Water Tribe peasant?"

She shook her head, and from the pain on her face, he could tell she was trying very hard not to cry. "It's because... it's too late," she said. With a tut, the beast came to a halt, and she slid down its back to Sokka's side. She laid one hand on his, as though trying to gain strength from it. With the other, she carefully flattened the white furs that cradled her neck, and showed that there was an intricately cut necklace there. Sokka just looked from it, to her, with no understanding on his face. "It's an engagement necklace. I'm getting married."

"What?" Sokka asked, feeling his heart sink. "But... why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you made me happy," she said so quietly, almost ashamed. "It's been a long time since anybody was like you up here. It's been almost a year since I heard somebody laugh, and you never stop."

"Well... do you love the guy?" Sokka asked, quite painfully. "Wait, who is the guy?"

"You've met him," Yue said, starting to walk, and breaking that intimate connection between them. Naga followed after, ears constantly flicking toward the down slope of the Spikerim. "He was the young man who helped conn the ship."

"Hahn?" Sokka asked. "That condescending snake?"

"Sokka, please don't talk about him like that," Yue said.

"Why not? I think I've got the right," Sokka said, as he felt his hopes dashing against sharp and pointy rocks.

"It was arranged," Yue said. "The people need this union."

"You're not marrying your people," Sokka stressed.

"But I will do anything for them," she answered. "I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have led you on."

That, Sokka pondered as he felt himself wallowing at the bottom of some pit of miasma and despair, was an understatement. He wallowed thus for a time he couldn't have named, only snapping out of it when his perspective, which was the snow directly before his boots, changed somehow. Now that he had a problem for his brain to work over which wasn't romantic, it flew into hyperdrive. He gave a glance to Yue, and noted that she looked a bit paler than usual. That he could turn away from her at that point told that his brain was in 'science mode'. He picked up a scoop of it, looking over the oddly gray snow. He sniffed at it, then tapped it to his tongue.

"Tui La," she whispered.

"Soot," Sokka said, confused, after spitting the rancid mixture away. He pulled off a glove and tested the winds. Blowing in from the south. "South... that's Henhiavut. That must mean..." Sokka looked up, and saw that the clouds over head weren't the usual thunderheads that attempted to bury the Spikerim under yet more ice. They were black as coal and probably containing quite a bit of it, letting down a snow as black as Sozin's reputation.

"We've seen this before," Yue said. "Pelting down on the streets of Summavut."

"Snow mixed with ash from steam engines," Sokka concluded. "The Fire Nation is coming north again, and from the look of that," he pointed to the grey wall of sickly snow, the oily skim upon the ocean, "there's a lot of them."

"We need to contact Father," Yue said.

"We need to contact Dad, and Aang," Sokka countered. "How fast can that thing get you to the edge of the Rim? Or wherever Aang is..."

"Less than an hour," she answered. Her eyes grew wide. "Sokka, what about..."

"These guys don't have Dad and they won't have you. Somebody's gotta think for 'em," Sokka said. They stood, staring into each others' eyes. Then, they were in each others' arms, a desperate embrace, pulling each other close.

"Why did you have to be so brave?" she asked.

"Someone had to," Sokka said. "Go. I'll be here, waiting."

One last glance between them, and then she was pulling herself up her Polarbear Dog, and sprinting along the distance which separated them from the edge of the Spikerim, and from there, the city itself. Sokka started running toward the nearest spot where the waterbenders were gathering.

"The Fire Nation's going to be here soon," Sokka said as they noticed him.

"Obviously," the grizzled waterbender said.

"Well, when they get here, they're going to find a nasty surprise waiting for them," Sokka said, and began to explain himself in detail. At first, they were so skeptical, he could feel it dancing along his skin. But in time, a grim sort of approval took its place. None were kin but those who shed blood for their homeland, and this outsider, to their eyes, was preparing to do exactly that. Sokka just hoped the blood about to be spilt wasn't his.

---

Zhao looked upon the Spikerim, that great wall of ice which surrounded the harbor of Summavut, kept their ships outside of barraging range. It stood like a mountain. And despite that, he was not impressed. His grin had shrunk back down to a superior smirk, but he still felt... electric. "This will be a day for the history books, Kwon," Zhao said.

"Sir?" Kwon asked.

"Kaji, you've commanded this force for a year. How is it you've so successively failed at breaching this pittance of a defensive position?"

Kaji, who was standing quietly near the door, sighed. "We couldn't get through them."

"That's because you're an idiot," Zhao stated. "We outnumber the savages hundreds to one. Your failure to leverage that will not be forgotten," he pointed to the east and west. "As we speak, the ships of this fleet are flaring out, ready to concentrate their efforts onto three spots. The barbarians may be able to stem the destruction from one breach, but I guarantee you, they will not withstand three," with that, he leaned forward on the rail. "Centuries from now, the history books will remember me as the man who single-handedly brought an end to waterbending culture the whole world over. Such a remarkable age we live in."

"History is seldom so kind to its subjects," Kaji said quietly. Zhao's smirk turned to a scowl.

"Your failures will be on your own head, because of your own ineptitude. History remembers what the victors remember. This will be my day of victory," Zhao shouted. With that out of his system, he raised a hand. "And so ends an age. Begin firing, all batteries."

And Zhao's smirk returned, as hundreds upon hundreds of streaks of death, be they explosive trebuchet blocks or heavy mortar shells, streaked through the sky, and shattered that ice under their onslaught. Just a matter of time, now.

---

Watching the Tribesmen mobilize for war was a terrifying thing, especially to an avowed pacifist. The way they dropped whatever they were doing, and raced out to the battle jarred him on a very visceral level. These people had nothing left that was more important. Sometimes, it was a matter of handing a child aside, taking up the spear, and running. And that felt so very, very wrong. Of the Tribesmen handy, there were only two that did not take to preparing for a run toward the Spikerim. One of them was Sokka and Katara's father. The other was Yue's.

"The air before battle," Arnook said, smiling in that unsettling way, his eyes afire and unblinking.

"There is nothing worse," Hakoda said. Arnook scowled at him like he was speaking madness.

"This battle will see our victory, outsider," Arnook claimed. That scowl became a condescending smirk. "Or aren't you going to fight at all? I expected better of my counterpart."

Hakoda was mum, but Aang was deeply unsettled. There was an aura of insane invulnerability around the High Chief of the North, that the battle would be universally too terrified to touch him, a creeping sensation up Aang's spine which made him want to stand well back from the man. Arnook shook his head, then started to stomp away. Aang turned to Hakoda.

"Why didn't you stand up for yourself?" Aang asked.

"Because part of being High Chief is knowing when to curb your pride," Hakoda said. "My wounds may have healed, but I doubt I'm the fighter I was even a month ago. And there are other duties I have to perform here."

Aang nodded at that. "I wasn't there when the Fire Nation attacked my people. Maybe this time I can make a difference," he said.

"Arnook his playing his people against each other to rule in their blind wrath," Hakoda said. "This madness has to stop."

Aang nodded, then snapped open his glider, taking to the sky. The ground screamed along under him as he pulled the bison whistle from his kavi and gave a great blow. Appa rose up to meet him, and together, they screamed across the open water at tremendous speed, to the battleground of the Spikerim. He didn't like what he saw there.

At first, naïvely, he assumed that there would be a few dozen ships. When he actually saw the force arrayed against him, he stopped counting after fifty, and that having only tallied a small portion of one of the three massive attack squadrons. But despite that early shake, he knew what he had to do. He banked hard on Appa's reins, bearing the beast toward one of the ships which had pulled ahead of its ilk, breaking for a whole which was constantly being blown wider by its confederates, even as the waterbenders on the Rim sought to bring it closed. Aang leapt off of Appa's back and streaked toward the deck, slamming into a ball of airbending which felt like he was a normal kid jumping off the top of a tree. It hurt, but the side effect was that the ball hurled aside the soldiers who'd been waiting for him. He glanced around the deck, and noted that they were converging on him with a remarkable speed. Usually, they took a moment to recompose themselves at least.

Then, he noticed the colors on the standards. Not red and black. Red and purple. "Oh... monkey-feathers," Aang said. The first of them to reach Aang was a swordsman, brandishing some sort of saber. Aang had to parry and retreat to keep that blade from gashing him apart. The defense was absolute, and Aang could see that he'd get no help from Appa, as they were keeping the bison at bay with their firebending. But they didn't spend all of it on Appa. There was the slightest crack in the swordsman Gurkha's attack, and as Aang began to press that attack, he saw that it was no simple mistake. It was a feint, and another Gurkha was filling the air with fire to intercept. It took all of Aang's reflexes to twist the stave into a defensive twirl, and blast that fire apart, then strike through them and blow the firebender against the rail. The failed feint didn't give way to real vulnerability, but Aang didn't require it. With a heave of waterbending, he pulled up a tendril from the ice on the deck and froze the man's feet to the ground. Now, with at least an inch of breathing room, he could assay the deck better. A glance was all he had, because other Gurkhas were coming.

Aang created a scooter, but not to fly with. He built it bigger, until it was more than the size of his torso, then slammed it down onto the deck, before rupturing its heart with a bead of airbending as he balanced atop it on one finger. The winds spiraled out, sweeping the decks and sending a few of the elite of the Fire Nation's soldiery into the cold sea. It was physically painful to watch that happen, but he didn't have time for pain, not not. This ship wasn't as large as some of the others on the line, but was armed with some sort of weapon that Aang had never seen before. It wasn't a trebuchet, as he'd noted on other Fire Nation ships, but some sort of thick-sided bowl. Sokka described them as 'mortars' or 'cannon'. Even as those Gurkhas which hadn't been blown off were regaining themselves, Aang was already moving.

The mortar was on a sort of platform, which allowed it to be brought out of harms way on angry seas. Its armament was stacked in a rack next to it. Aang grabbed one of the shells and tried to hurl it into the cannon, but almost dropped it onto the plating. The thing was bloody heavy! It took most of his upper body strength to get the thing into the bell of the cannon, and when he did, he made sure to put it the wrong way 'round. His attempts at sabotage were almost brought to an end when a flinch took him out of the path of a spear, and he turned to see that those Gurkhas had closed on him, and were preparing to make an end of him. But Aang's fear was tempered by one thing. By focusing on the Avatar, they were forgetting about the bison.

Appa landed with a great whump on the deck, turned, and slammed its tail down, a great airbending wave which only Aang could root himself against. The dozen and more soldiers who were a second away from murdering the Avatar flew past him, slamming as far up as the first balcony of the boat's tower. Aang, freed from such distractions, slammed waterbending into that gap between the platform and the works under it. He felt something tearing, sheering away. The entire platform dipped to one side. Aang took the ember which had been maintained next to the cannon, and touched it to the bamboo fuse, which let out a hiss and sparks. Aang twisted once more that waterbending, and the entire platform dropped down into the innards of the ship. There were some alarmed screams, and the sounds of fleeing into the stern, which stung all the harder at Aang as he climbed onto Appa. They'd be fine, he told himself. It was just the ship Aang was wrecking.

Maybe he was even right.

As he rose away from the ship, there was a great bang, and a hole appeared on the side of the hull, blasted from within by its own cannon. The ship began to list, as Aang caught his breath on Appa's brow. One down. Four hundred to go. Wiping that sweat away, Aang could do nothing but groan, as he pulled on Appa's reins, and directed them to the next ship. He could only hope that this one would be a bit easier to deal with than that Gurkha death-ship.

Boy was he wrong.

---

"The forces of the Fire Nation break their teeth against the Spikerim once more," Arnook said as he paced before his assembled horde. "It is with great pride that I've gathered my family and my Tribe before me, knowing that even if these faces are never seen again, even if they rejoin our fathers and mothers in the stars, they will have died with their hands slick with the blood of our enemies! As five years ago, we are in a battle for our very existence, and there can be no finer fighters than those I see before me!"

Hakoda couldn't disagree with that harder. In his two years abroad, he'd seen soldiers of all stripe and description. From the Dakongese mercenaries at the Divide, to the dispirited corps from Ru Nan. They were exuberant and despondent, excellently trained and ill, focused and chaotic; Hakoda had seen every stripe of soldier, but compared to what he saw now, even the worst of them was a Gurkha, a Yeniceri, and a mythical Storm King rolled into one.

There was a madness which crept through the room, infecting and infesting itself into every face that Hakoda saw staring up at Arnook, as their madness suckled desperately at its source. The worst part was, Hakoda could understand and appreciate what these people had gone through. Years of desperate fighting gives rise to desperate fighters. Hakoda had taken a similar force and made a band of brothers of it. Arnook, though, let that fear blossom into a desperate madness. Hakoda had only in his entire life seen one man who was definitively blood-drunk before his return to Henhiavut. Here, he stopped counting at two hundred.

"Now, as we return to the battle for our existence, Irukandji, I demand you; Call upon the great Spirits!" Irukandji, standing behind Arnook, surreptitiously rolled her eyes. "Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us! Give us the strength to destroy our enemies!"

"GIVE US STRENGTH!" a chorus answered him. There were a few notable absences from that, though, and the High Shaman was only one of them. The other was a middle aged woman who kept her eyes on the floor before her knees. Arnook's wife, Tanuuit. Pakku, too, didn't look like he was very willing in this whole charade.

"To the Spikerim! Let's drive those hot-blooded bastards all the way back to black sands!" Arnook shouted, and with a cry, the men began to file out, leaving Arnook, his wife, his daughter, the waterbender, and Hakoda himself. Arnook turned his frozen gaze to Yue. "Well? Aren't you going to lead them?"

Hakoda bit his tongue to prevent harsh and ill considered words. Yue looked exhausted, and her beast was every bit as tired as she was. She looked at Arnook, with a sort of unvoiced pleading in her eyes. Whatever it was she was asking for, though, Arnook didn't have it to offer. He turned away, and her eyes fell to the floor, a sad tinge on her features.

"I'll leave immediately," she said.

"Good," Arnook said. "The men value you. You are important to their efforts."

Arnook then walked away, opposite his daughter and the men he was 'leading'. As soon as the door slammed behind him, Hakoda released the angry growl he'd been storing for quite a while now. "He has no right to treat you like that," Hakoda said.

"Arnook is her father," Tanuuit said quietly.

"That does not mean he owns her," Hakoda countered. "If I tried to order Katara around like that, she'd peg me out for a blizzard, and be right to do it."

"You can't talk about him that way," Tanuuit said, but her heart was obviously more full of self-preservatory fear than it was scandal and outrage.

"Everything that's happened here is because nobody talked to him that way. Did you, Pakku?" Hakoda asked, thrusting out a finger.

"At first... but eventually," Pakku shook his head.

"He beat you down until you were too tired to care anymore," Hakoda finished for him. He turned to Irukandji. "And I wager you–"

"Hell, I'm just here because I don't want my home getting eaten," Irukandji said with raised hands. Hakoda paused for a moment, trying to figure out if it was some sort of North Water Tribe idiom, but shook his head and continued.

"And Tanuuit, you can't approve of how he's treating your daughter," Hakoda finished.

"It's... not my place to say," she whispered.

"Not your place? You're her mother!" Hakoda stressed. "Has he got you all so terrified of the Fire Nation that you can't see he's turning you into something worse?"

"And what would you have us do? Give up?" Pakku asked.

"Never. I'd ask you to think hard about what you're fighting for. Cities? They can be rebuilt. Ideas? They can be reconsidered. What's so important that you won't find some place safer to settle and rebuild? Why can't you let Summavut go?"

"Because if they win here, the Water Tribe is dead," Irukandji said.

"What?"

She palmed her face for a moment. "I suppose nobody's ever told you about the Spirit Oasis, have they?"

---

The sun's setting, low in the west, bathed the entire world in red. Not that the sun needed much help, because the sheer amount of fire that flew through the sky ensured that crimson be the strongest hue to the mortal eye. Sokka was exhausted. When he started working with Gunraih, he'd promised to leave the fighting to those who'd had the most experience with it, and offered to direct as needed and requested. The soldiers, desperate for somebody to give them cohesion, followed Sokka without question. Sokka found that very, very unsettling. And besides that, he'd had to break his own promise twice so far, fleeing from an overwhelmed portion of the Spikerim before it collapsed completely under Fire Nation attack.

"We can't take another one," Gunraih said quietly. Unlike some of the others Sokka had the misfortune of dealing with, Gunraih's eyes didn't hold that lunatic vigor. He might have only been ten or so years older than Sokka, but the man's face was a portrait of chronic stress, his hair already turning grey. "Our waterbenders are spent and there's still hours until sunset."

"What do we do, man?" Lana, a middle aged waterbender who was obviously a far better healer than fighter, asked. She looked about as at home on the battlefield as Sokka would in the Spirit World. "We're running out of fighters and benders both!"

Sokka sat against the icy wall, cradling his head in his hands. Ironic that he had once demanded leadership. Now that he had it, he just wanted it to end. His mind felt like it was packed with fluff, his limbs burned with fatigue, and his club was shattered about a mile back. He pulled himself up, looking at the insane fleet which gathered there, pressing in on them. There was just no way to win this.

"She's coming!" the cry came up, and a hurray joined it. Sokka turned, and saw Naga sprinting along the Spikerim, Yue clinging to his back. Sokka let out a grumble and moved toward her, cutting her distance a little, at least.

"Sokka, you," Yue began, surprise in her voice.

"Yue, we have to get off of the Spikerim," Sokka interrupted. Her look became shock, and even a bit of disapproval.

"But if we lose the Spikerim, they'll have clear access to our harbor," she said. Sokka growled, and threw his hand aside, to the far side of the Rim, just visible at the horizon.

"They've already got clear access to the harbor," Sokka shouted. "The only thing we're doing here now is throwing more bodies into a meat grinder."

"But... but we can still win this," Yue said, not entirely sure of it herself.

Sokka shook his head. "I'm sorry, but there's no winning, not here. If we move back into the city, we'll survive. We won't even slow them down if we stay here. They've broken the Spikerim. It's time for us to leave," he said gently. Yue's eyes teared up, even as she struggled valiantly to hold a strong face. She swallowed hard, glancing down, then pulled on the reins which connected to the bridle 'round Naga's neck. She turned, facing Summavut.

"We withdraw to the city," she declared. She looked back at Sokka just once, like she wanted to be angry at him for telling her the truth, but she couldn't even do that. As that look lingered, the warriors of the North Water Tribe began to slip past them, carrying out their wounded, but leaving the dead. So many dead. Finally, a great crash shook their eyes away from each other, and down the length of the Spikerim. Roughly a mile back, whereabouts Sokka lost his club, a great spike of metal erupted from the flesh of the wall, before with a rumble and a crash, the ice gave way to steel and momentum. Physics had a way of winning against bending, most times. "Sokka, I..."

"Just go," Sokka shouted. "I'll catch up with you."

And as the sun touched the horizon, he really hoped he would.

---

"My Lord, the sun is setting," Kwon said.

"If I wanted you to state the painfully obvious, I would have asked it of you," Zhao said, watching as the ships began to bust down the last remnants of the Spikerim and melt its slag into surf. Then, as a final insult to the barbarians who thought to keep them out, the whole of the fleet parked itself atop the ruins.

"Kaji's reports indicate that the waterbenders are far stronger at night, drawing strength from the moon," Kwon clarified. "Far be it for me to advise the lord, but it might be prudent to wait until we leave their arena of strength, and return to ours."

"I have something in mind that will eliminate that temporary advantage of theirs," Zhao said, but he gave a shrug and a sigh. "But until then, daybreak it is."

Kwon nodded, then looked out over the oceans. He was about to watch the end of an era, as the soldiers under Sozin had a century before. And truthfully, he didn't feel pride about it. All he felt was a deep sense of trepidation, a worry that settled into his skin as the rattle of chains filled the air, as hundreds of ships dropped anchor, and waited for the sun.

---

Sokka amended his condition. He thought he was tired before. Now he was tired. The only reason he could even stand was because Katara and the other skilled healers had moved triage right to the edge of the former Spikerim, and his sister found him amongst the wheezing wounded. She couldn't give him more than a few words and a considerate squeeze of the hand, though, before she had to break off and work on others in far worse condition than he. While Sokka wouldn't say it, for the obvious reason that if he did she might injure him, he was proud, watching her healing the wounded.

A bass grumble sounded from the sky, and Sokka craned his neck up from his seat on a broken barrel. Appa slipped down and landed in a clear spot which used to be a building before a mortar shell reduced it to a slide of ice-chunks. Aang oozed off of Appa's brow like boneless goop, pooling in the scree near the other Tribesmen. Katara and Sokka both moved to their long time companion and surrogate family member, she to heal and he to interview. Aang shuddered as Katara's healing hands did a sweep of him.

"What happened out there?" Sokka asked. He could see, off in the distance, that Yue, too, was amidst the triage camp. And she was heading this way.

Aang cradled his bald pate in his hands. "I must have taken out two dozen Fire Navy ships today... but it wasn't enough!" he said, eyes wide but unfocused. "There's just too many..."

Sokka gave Aang's shoulder a squeeze, but Lana, who was more in her element here, gave a low wail. "But you have to," she stressed, trying to lay hands upon Aang. Katara was the one to keep the older woman back a step. "You're the Avatar!"

Aang tucked his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his hands. "I'm just one kid," Aang said quietly.

"Lana, give him some room," Sokka said. "He's exhausted. We all are."

"That's not what I want to hear from my fighters," a voice tore across the encampment. Sokka's blood began to boil as, even while Yue tried to reach them, to talk to them, Arnook caught her arm ungently and heaved her back toward the heart of town. She glanced back once more, then did as her father bade, words left unspoken. "I have never seen such rank cowardice in my life. I told you to hold the Spikerim, not to run at the first sign of difficulty!"

"High Chief, if we hadn't run, we would have all been crushed under the Spikerim when it fell," Lana said.

"I should have you flayed for your treason at the wall, woman," Arnook snapped, and she flinched away. Oddly, that was what it took to get Aang on his feet, outrage on his usually pleasant and impish face.

"Leave her alone!" Aang shouted at the grown man. "Everybody here's dead tired. Yeah, they didn't hold the wall, but I couldn't stop those ships either, and I'm the Avatar! There was no winning that fight."

"Your failure does not excuse theirs," Arnook said. Aang stared at him, Arnook stared back. And for once, it was Arnook who looked away first. "But this is immaterial. You. Soldiers. I have a special mission for you, to be carried out under the dark of night."

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"Not you. You are worthless to me," Arnook said, dismissing him.

"Hey, you lard-headed..." Katara said, stomping toward Arnook. Arnook answered by pulling his whale-tooth knife and intercepting her with it, holding her away with its jagged point to the front of her neck.

"You are not required either," he said. "Take the Avatar and find something useful to do with him."

Sokka didn't think Katara in the least bit cowardly for backing off. From the look on Arnook's face, he would have cut her throat in a heartbeat. Aang looked about as shocked as Sokka felt. "W...what..." Aang stammered.

"As for the rest of you," Arnook said, turning his attention away from Katara and Aang, but that knife still in his grasp. "Your cowardice can only be repaid in the blood of our enemies. You will infiltrate the Fire Navy and eliminate their commanding officers, most especially their commander, whomever that may be."

"Admiral Zhao," Sokka said flatly. Arnook turned to him.

"Excuse me?" Arnook said.

"Middle aged, burn on his left eye, big sideburns, bigger psychotic streak," Sokka rattled off.

"So you know the face of the enemy. Good. Hahn," Arnook shouted at the teenager who was dumping a bundle onto the ground. Hahn looked up with trepidation. "You will be joining this mission to eliminate Admiral Zhao and seed pandemonium from within the fleet."

"What? But I didn't run from the Spikerim!" Hahn complained.

"So you would back down from this fight? Has cowardice so claimed my people that you don't feel the thirst for vengeance?" Arnook asked. "I must have been mad when I gave permission to marry my daughter to you."

"Fine," Hahn said, browbeaten. "I'll go, if only to show these slackers what a real Tribesman fights like."

"Do not disappoint me," Arnook said. He walked away, glaring at the Avatar before he left. Still, it was a testament to his presence that none dared speak until he was out of sight.

"I can't believe him!" Katara said. "What gives him the right to talk to any of us like that?"

"We left our posts," Lana said morosely.

"Your posts don't exist anymore!" Sokka stressed. "If you hadn't left them, all you could have done was died!"

"It doesn't matter," she said.

"I don't know why you're all whining. We've got Fire Navy uniforms and everything," Hahn said, dumping out the armor from his bundle. Sokka felt just a glimmer of hope, before he let out a groan. "Oh, what's wrong now? Will its colors clash with your belt?"

"Those aren't Fire Navy," Sokka said, kicking one of the breastplates over. It was obvious to any who had seen the various armies up close, but probably not to those who had to just kill anything wearing red. There was red and black, but the plates were piped with the kingly purple of the Far West. "Those are Azuli Navy. The Dragon of the East told me about them. Not as dangerous as Gurkhas, but they have the same dress code," Sokka punctuated his point by picking up one of the skull-masked helmets. "Most notably, they don't use these. They wear a wide-brimmed hat or a head wrap. Anybody wearing that armor and this helmet would be picked out in a heartbeat."

"He's sending you on a suicide mission?" Aang asked.

"He intended to," Sokka said. He turned to Lana. "You're a waterbender, right?" she nodded. "Get anybody who's willing to listen and get them to their boats. Arnook has gone crazy bonkers and he's going to get us all killed. We need to flee Summavut before somebody kills us."

"But if Summavut falls, the North Water Tribe dies with it," one of the fighters said.

"You can't be serious about this, Soka," Hahn said.

"Deadly serious, and it's Sokka," came the answer. He turned to that dissenting voice. "If everybody in the North Water Tribe dies, then what's the point of Summavut? This city isn't the North Water Tribe, any more than Chimney Mountain is the South. You are. As long as you live, the Water Tribe lives."

"This is foolish," Hahn complained. "Even if they do try to leave, as soon as Arnook sees them fleeing, then he'll have some of his zealots run them down before they can get away."

Sokka paused a moment. "So 'all of us' go on the mission," Sokka said deviously. Katara got a concerned look on her face. "Hahn and me actually get onto the ships. Everybody else, represented by propped up armor, goes with us. As far as Old-And-Crazy is concerned, we're all sailing to our glorious deaths. Get your family. If you find Dad... Hakoda of the South Water Tribe, he's probably got something similar planned on his own. He'll help you."

"We're betraying our Tribe," Lana said quietly.

"You're saving it, the only way you have left," Aang said. He shook his head. "There's gotta be something else I can do to help. If only there was some way to help fight this battle on a more even playing field."

Katara stared up at the rising moon. "Gran Gran once told me that the moon was the first waterbender, and that our people learned to control the waves by mimicking its control of the tides. I guess that's why my waterbending always felt so much stronger at night."

Hahn gave a confused nod, even as he started propping armor into the boat which would be making the suicide run. "Yeah. They say our strength comes from the spirits of the Moon and Ocean," he said. Sokka made a dismissing gesture, but hearing that made Aang brighten considerably.

"The spirits! Of COURSE!" Aang shouted, eyes wide. "They'll know what to do!"

"Is this kid serious?" Hahn asked.

"Not very often," Sokka admitted. He turned to Aang. "So what're you looking for?"

"Maybe they have some knowledge I can use against the Fire Nation," Aang said quickly. Then, he got a very excited look on his face. "Or maybe they'll unleash a super amazing deadly Spirit Bomb on them!"

There was a moment of silence, as everybody not preparing to march to their deaths or else flee Summavut stared at him. Somewhere in that silence, somebody's cough broke that spell.

"Or just the knowledge. That'd be good, I guess," Aang reined himself in.

"Yeah, well, if you wanna get yourself eaten by something crazy, you'd best talk to Irukandji or Yue. They know more about that crap than anybody else," Hahn said. "So are you getting into the boat or not, traitor?"

"Fine, fine," Sokka said. "Katara, keep Aang safe. Aang, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Keep the city nice and and warm for us when we get back."

"But what about that whole 'suicide mission' thing?" Katara asked flatly.

"I've got an idea that just might work," Sokka said, a grin returning to his face.

---

"She hasn't moved in hours," Ashan noted, as he tossed his apron onto a peg which he placed outside the door. The smell of blood did unpleasant things to their resident vegetarian. Well, she claimed to be a vegetarian, but Ashan had never seen a eater of plants ogle a sizzling salamander steak the way Malu did. True to his word, Nila was exactly where Ashan left her that morning, sitting at the foot of her bed, staring ahead as his mother eternally did, but her mouth moving as though she were trying to figure something out inside her head, and couldn't come up with an answer.

"Oh, that's nothing," Malu countered. "'Cept for the bathroom, she hasn't moved in days!"

"I'm starting to worry," Tzu Zi said quietly. Sharif, on the other hand, was placidly tapping a new handle onto one of Ashan's knives, far more slow and careful than any craftsman, but no less sure for it. "I mean... it's not normal to shut out the world, is it?"

"No it is not," Ashan said. He moved to her side. "Nila? Are you hungry?"

Nila didn't answer him.

"Are you uncomfortable?" he chanced.

Nila didn't answer him.

"Would you like a swarthy young Si Wongi to goose you?" Ashan asked with a grin.

Nila didn't answer him... unless you count her turning her head to level a death glare at him an answer. Since he did, he accounted the gamble an outstanding success. "What do you want, Ashan?"

"You're starting to frighten your friends," Ashan said. "Although, I must say it's more surprising that you even made friends. You aren't exactly known for your honeyed words."

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do, now," she said quietly, staring at that wall again, but with a more angry tone to her voice and expression than she had before. "All my life has been a difficult but clear set of necessary actions. Now I have no course. I find myself lost."

"Have you tried talking to your friends?" Ashan prompted. She glared at him, then sighed, and stood.

"What do we do now?" she asked, even as Malu looked like she was about to say something. The directness and simplicity of it took them all aback. "I swore to my mother that I would find Sharif and bring him back to her. But in the interim, she's vanished. I am without course. So what do we do now?"

There was a moment of silence. "Well, we could go to Ba Sing Se like Tzu Zi wanted," Malu said.

"But what about Sharif?" Tzu Zi asked.

Nila rolled her eyes, but her tone was as implacable as granite. "He will come with us. There as nowhere else, we would be able to find somebody who could locate Mother. Even back in the days of the Monolith, they said 'all roads lead to Ba Sing Se'."

"That's... oddly optimistic coming out of you," Ashan noted.

"I blame it on Tzu Zi," Nila said sarcastically. "Damn you for making me positive."

Tzu Zi leaned over to Ashan. "She considers that positive?" she asked.

"You should have seen her before," Ashan answered her question. She shrugged.

"We should gather what we need and leave soon," Nila said, her funk left behind and focus returning to her in buckets. "If the Sheik will not hear me, then he can deal with the Horde as he sees fit, but we should leave before he gets here. Otherwise, we might be counted amongst its victims."

"Well said," Ashan said. "Good luck, and godspeed."

"Wait, what about Ashan?" Tzu Zi asked.

"What about him?" Nila asked. "You're not about to abandon your family, are you?"

"So you do know something about how a family is supposed to operate, then?" Ashan asked playfully. She rolled her eyes.

"Each day is a new lesson. No, he has his mother, more or less, and his grandparents. They will not leave, and nor shall he," she nodded. Then, she turned to him. "You've shown me unusual kindness the past few days."

Ashan scoffed. "Please, hardly unusual. You are friends."

She seemed confused by that. "Friends? I almost strangled you to death!"

"All in good fun," Ashan said. "After all, I did get you bricked in the head. But can you at least stay for one last meal? I can give you something better than hard-tack and salt meats as a send-off. And you can come back some day and tell me of Ibn-Atal and all points north."

"Fine. If it will stop you from walking on shattered glass around me, I will have your one last meal. But I've got to get a few things before I do," she stretched, to a chorus of crunching joints that made every girl in the room wince. "I'll be back in a few hours. Try not to burn the house down."

"Hey," Tzu Zi said with disbelief and scandal.

"I was talking to Ashan," she noted, before taking the door and leaving it open in her wake.

"Did she just..." Malu began.

"Make a joke?" Ashan completed. "It seemed like she did."

Malu looked a bit baffled by that.

"It'd take hours to explain everything," Ashan admitted. Maybe lied. "Mostly because there was a lot going on."

"Yeah, well, we're sorta a captive audience right now," Malu pointed out.

"I still don't understand how she ended up in that cell," Tzu Zi said. "Who do we even talk to about that?"

"Preferably nobody," Nila said from her awkward position wrapped 'round the cell's lock.

"But this isn't right!" Tzu Zi stated.

"And complaining about it loudly can't but help my ability to concentrate on picking this lock," Nila said sarcastically. "If you don't mind, I need some quiet."

"She's being oddly pleasant," Malu said.

"Time of the month," Ashan said. Malu gaped at him. "What? She's living at my house and I do the laundry. You think I wouldn't notice that?"

"Ew," Tzu Zi said. Malu looked even more confused.

"Don't people get irritable and angry then? I know I do," Malu said, rubbing her arms.

"Then you must have been this entire visit," Ashan said unkindly. "Nila here lives to confound expectations."

"Can we please stop talking about my menarche and give me some quiet?" Nila asked, her tones dropping into the same sort of cold anger that usually got directed Ashan's way, and more often than not, entirely deservedly.

The first indicator that something had gone wrong was that Nila missed dinner. Given Ashan's nature, he let the snub pass with a joke about her getting distracted by something shiny, sharp, on on fire. As he did, he glanced toward his old friend for a glimmer of that old Sharif, the boy before the scar. Sharif ate mechanically – no great surprise there, considering the wound robbed Sharif of his sense of smell and taste – and didn't register the joke at all. Ashan was preparing to clear the table when the girl from the west grew increasingly agitated.

"Is something wrong?" Ashan asked.

"I think I might have strained things with Nila and me," Tzu Zi said. Ashan sat beside her, prompting her on. "See, I treated Nila better than most people did, and she got a bit... attached. More attached than I thought she was. So she..."

"You treated her as a friend and she..." Ashan prompted, unable to see where she was going.

"Made a move on me," she answered. He asked her to repeat that in a second Tianxia dialect just to be sure that it meant what he thought it did.

"But... you're both girls," Ashan said.

"I know! I'm not interested in girls! Kah Ri, definitely. Ty Lee probably, but me? No, no no no no," she shook her head and her hands before her.

"How would that even...?"

"Don't strain yourself, village boy," Malu said. Ashan then rolled his eyes.

"Well, Izez does as Izes wills," he said, "even if it is bloody unnatural," he added at a mutter. He cleared his throat and pressed on, though. "Look, a lot of people have been cruel to that girl over the years. Her mother might have taught good lessons, but tended to do so in the worst ways possible. It's understandable... I guess... that she'd feel... warmly... about..."

"You're still trying to think about it, aren't you?" Malu teased.

"There aren't even the proper workings!" Ashan stated the obvious.

"Girls find a way," Malu said with a shrug. "So folk kicked Nila around, and as soon as somebody came along who didn't, she latched on like a duck. Isn't that sweet? Nila's a duck!"

Sharif looked over. "Shme's not a dmuck, shme's a pershom," he said around his food. He mouthed it a bit more. "Oddly shticky."

"Well, I've got a mental image which'll render her death glares moot," Malu noted. She gave a glance to the door. "But I'm with ya. There's something about this that stinks of wrong. The only way it'd be worse was if Sozin came knocking at the front gates."

"That would be weird," Tzu Zi noted, but Ashan's brow twitched again. As trusting a person as he was, he knew when something didn't fit. That was the way it had been even in their childhoods. Ashan saw how things fit, Sharif put them together, and then Nila set them on fire. And something in this very room desperately didn't fit.

"I'm going to go check," Ashan said. "Malu, since you ate five times as much as the rest of us, you can clean up."

"But..." she complained. He raised a brow at her, and she wilted. "Fine."

Ashan didn't bother pulling his cloak and veil over his head as he ducked outside, and immediately regretted it, because the wind from the north was cold, and bore with it stinging sand. It must have been a mighty storm at Ibn-Atal to send the waves of the Grit Ocean into such a tumult. But it didn't matter. He'd not be out here so long as to lose more than one layer of skin, anyway. Or so he planned.

Pity, Ashan's plans from pretty much that point forward in his life wouldn't go as he'd believed.

He pondered how he was going to find Nila on Sentinel Rock. Unlike other cities, like Ibn-Atal or Ababa, it wasn't spread out as the people needed, but rather, dug down. It was telling how much Grandfather was respected in his role as Darvesh that he got a home in the sun. Quite a few dwelt below, in darkness, only coming up to work and in the service of their living. Soldiers' families, mostly, those that had such. More and more, nowadays, the Sipahi bloodlines, once kept strong through broad families and multiple wives, fell into dust as children stopped springing from the loins of warriors. He pondered, and the discovered that all he had to do was follow the yelling.

He started to run when the yelling evolved from unpleasant to vitriolic, and by the time Ashan arrived, it had bloomed from vitriolic to murderous. He reached the meeting just in time to have a great shout come up from a crowd which, as the name presumed, crowded Ashan back and out of seeing what was ahead, but he could hear.

"Just apologize, and that'll be that," Gashuin said, ever the smug one. The Sheik's only son had that tendency.

"I would rather prostitute myself to an Ostrich Horse," Nila's answer was shocking and angry. "It was your fault, and you know it."

"You messed up my shirt!"

"You stole my money!"

"Only a bastard like you would filthy your hands with gold," Gashuin countered.

"Only a superstitious idiot like you would realistically believe that gold was cursed!" Nila shouted back. Ashan could only see this going one way, so he began to work his way through the crowd, trying to reach Nila before something unforgivable happened.

"Hey, Gashuin, teach that lippy bitch a lesson!" one of Gashuin's cronies shouted.

"I'm glad I'm leaving," Nila said. "The Dakongese can tire themselves trying to club your brains out, and only discovering as the last of them dies of exhaustion that you have none!"

Ashan reached the head of the crowd just as something unforgivable happened. Gashuin backhanded Nila in the face, hard enough to knock her from her feet. He began to kick at her, driving his boot into her stomach as he shouted profanities at her, only to stop with a high shriek and bounce away clutching his kicking foot. That foot now leaked scarlet. Nila forced herself slowly to her feet, obviously favoring her ginger abdomen. The crowd went silent as Gashuin toppled onto the dust, sobbing quietly at his stabbed extremity.

"Oh... no," Ashan said. Nila smirked.

"I'll just be going," Nila said at Gashuin's rolling form.

"GET HER!" the crowd demanded as one. Ashan quickly found himself pressed to the bottom of that mass, and lightly trampled, but by the time he could rise, the gang was moving off, likely finding a proper beam to lynch her from. Ashan got back upright as quickly as he could, but as he did, there was a single thing which held his attention more than the mortal fate of his friend's sister. Lucky for him that the Sheik had intervened before mob-justice could be served; Ashan's attention was past the walls, into the night.

There were lights moving in from the south. Many, many lights.

A clunk and a triumphant laugh signaled Nila's defeat of the lock, and the door swung open. She tossed the eating utensil aside and stepped out of the cell. "There. Mother's tricks came to some use after all, it seems."

"We should go," Malu said, obviously antsy to get away, and Ashan knew why.

"I assume you've prepared, so let us make haste," she said, still moving a bit slowly for her bruises. She made it two steps before she stopped, and turned back. She looked at Ashan for about two seconds, then sighed. "I'm overlooking something. Why didn't the guard stop me at any point when I was ruining that perfectly good lock?"

"Well," Ashan said, thinking of the best way to say it. "I've got good news and bad news."

Nila groaned.

"The good news is that I'm certain that nobody will be paying attention to your escape from that cell," Ashan said. Nila palmed her face. "And for the bad... well, some things are better shown than said."

Nila beat Ashan to the door, then tried to open it. It didn't move.

"You're locked in?"

Sharif perked up. "Oh, right," he said. "They barred the door. Sorry, my mind? It wanders some times. Patriarch?"

There came a scraping noise, and then Nila pushed the door out, only to be face to face with an old, mangy Ostrich Horse. Ashan had never seen worse meat on the talon, but the way it stared at Nila made her swallow nervously, before it took a couple of steps back. Ashan gaped at it. "Did you train that fowl to do that?"

"Patriarch learned how to do that years ago," Sharif said. He walked up and patted the side of the bird's neck, and it's head swiveled toward the closest outer wall. "It's alright, we'll be leaving soon."

"What exactly can only be shown, and not said?" Nila demanded, pushing past sibling and conveyance alike. She bounded up and started pulling herself up the nearest building with the sort of alacrity which only having a mother like the Dragon of the Desert could instill. Ashan had to run around and use the stairs. When he arrived on the flat roof with her, to see the hundred thousand and more soldiers below, he couldn't help but sigh.

"Khagan Khatun is here," Nila said grimly.

"Open your gates, desert rats," the woman in question shouted in the darkness of late night. "If you do, I will spare your women and children."

"We would rather slit their throats then deliver them to your mercies," the Sheik answered at a roar.

"Then we have differing definitions of mercy. Where is the Dragon? What worm do I speak with?" Khatun demanded.

That seemed to get the Sheik in a fighting mood, for he stood apart from his guard, proud on the walls. "I am Sheik Sham'Moalim-al-Adil bin Hamid din Nassar, and you will speak to me and no other!"

"Your words are the barking of goat-pigs," Khatun answered. "Produce the Dragon this minute."

"The Dragon is not here, and were she, she would not speak to a beast such as you," Sha-Mo shouted to her.

Khatun stared up at him, then sighed, only evident in the way she shrugged. "Pity," she shouted. "Were she here, she might have had a clever plan to keep me out of your little sand castle. Since she isn't, this victory will be over before we've even had time for sport."

"Brave words, outlander!" the Sheik said.

"More than words," she answered, then raised a hand. The snap of her fingers was lost to the distance and the din, but from her horde came into the pool of light cast by their torches a group of people dressed quite differently from the others, not in skins and leathers, but linen and wool. Ashan didn't know quite what to make of it... but Nila obviously did.

"The waterbenders, the Adamites," she said. "Of course, that's why she took them in," she said.

"What do you mean?" Ashan asked.

Answering Ashan's question, they did some sort of bending, bringing forth an eye-popping amount of water, and dashing it against the plated walls. Sha-Mo let out a laugh, and began to belt out an insult, but the horde split again, and this time, it was Dakongese moving forward to join their waterbending brothers from the western islands. These moved differently, brute force and power. Earthbenders. There came a great shudder, and the entire wall shifted down a little bit.

Nila turned to Ashan. "Earthbenders might be helpless in dealing with sand... but mud is a substance they know very, very well," she answered, as with another heave, the wall began to slump and deform a little bit more. It wasn't a matter of starving out the keep, Ashan realized... it was a matter of if the walls would even last until sunrise. And at the rate they were sliding, he doubted they'd last another hour.

---

It was lucky that Uncle overpacked.

The nook that the three of them occupied in the lowest reaches of the Deadman Plains was tiny, cold, cramped, and smelled like the worst of bad cooking and unhygienic teenagers put together. Zuko was fairly sure that his back would assume a permanent crick from the way he was hunched over all the time. And to call it cold was understating things drastically. This place was so murderously frigid that Zuko had no idea how anybody lived this far north. Iroh eventually explained that here, it was so cold that not even Tribesmen made a habit of breaking into these latitudes. But the great injustice of it all was that of the three of them, only one of them was wracked with shivers, and that was Azula.

"Do you need another blanket?" Iroh asked. "You look a bit blue."

"I'm fine, Uncle," Azula said, staring through that spyglass as she had every waking hour since they'd nestled into this hidey hole. The ice in her eyelashes put her bravado to lie.

"I could try warming you up," Zuko said.

"I don't require coddling," Azula snapped.

"Azula, you do realize this is how you got pneumonia three months ago? That started this whole disastrous adventure to begin with?" Zuko attempted bringing logic into things.

"That was completely different from now," she said.

"I fail to see the practical difference," Iroh said, tugging at his beard.

"He will be here soon, and when he does, he'll have nowhere to run," Azula said. Iroh and Zuko shared a glance, though, as she had said the exact thing several times in the last few months, and been proven patently wrong each time. "As long as I can feel my hands and feet, I don't need creature comforts."

"You can always use creature comforts," Iroh said with a note of shock. "They're what make life worth living."

"The Avatar is what makes life worth living," Azula said. "With the Avatar, I regain my honor. I will return to my homeland – my Fire Nation – and be welcomed back as a champion. Father will be proud of me, proud that I was strong enough to surmount his tests. Proud enough that I can sit on the Burning Throne by right and virtue."

"Azula, what if..."

"Nephew," Iroh shook his head, and Zuko paused.

The waiting might not kill Zuko, but it may well drive him mad. Zuko then turned his attention to Iroh, mostly because Iroh's attention of late was mostly on him. Ever since Azula's illness blossomed into prophecy, Iroh had been carefully prodding at it, trying to figure out its nature. He was subtle about it, sure enough, but Zuko knew what Iroh was doing. Of late, though, very recently in fact, he'd stopped, and ever since then, he'd been watching Zuko. As if Zuko had something to tell him. Well, Zuko admitted inwardly, he did, but it wasn't something which could be repeated in front of the person whom it concerned the most.

"...ah..." Azula said. Zuko leaned back so that he wouldn't get sneezed on, but what he assumed was the prelude to snot at high velocity became a cry of glee, quickly stamped. She bolted to her feet, the glass still to her eye, looking across the vast distances. "There he is. He's here! And I know where he's going. Come on, Zuzu, let's write some history!"

"He can follow in a moment," Iroh said, "Go ahead. We'll be just behind you."

Azula glanced between the two of them, obviously suspicious, but her eagerness to be moving trumped even her own paranoia. With a grim smirk, she pulled herself out of the nook and began to run down the mountain, even as the snow gathered on her pale gray clothes. Ironic that she was so strong with fire when she wanted to be, and yet didn't even know something so basic as turning it inward to keep herself warm. Zuko turned from his sister to his uncle. "What is it, Uncle?"

"What are you going to do?" Iroh asked. Zuko leaned back, and got a rock in the back of his skull for his trouble. Rubbing at the spot so banged, he gave Iroh a confused look. "When you have the Avatar, what then?"

"Well... I..." Zuko began.

"If you wish to hunt an octopus, you must have a tightly woven net, lest your prey find a hole and escape. So what are you going to do if you catch him?" Iroh demanded.

"I..." Zuko considered lying, but Uncle's eyes were very, very shrewd right now. He had a feeling that nothing was going to get past him. "I'd let him go."

"And why? Why would you do that, knowing what he means to your sister?" Iroh asked.

"Because I had a conversation with my father on Crescent Island. She has no home to go home to, alright? This... these caves, and that ship and these stormy waters are pretty much all she's got left!" Zuko snapped. "Father's disowned her. If she brings back the Avatar, he'll find some way to shift all the 'glory' to me, and cast her out into the rain. I'm trying to protect my sister. Even if it is from herself."

Iroh nodded sagely, rubbing at his beard. He let out a weary sigh. "Sometimes, I forget how quickly this journey has forced you to grow up. You shouldn't have to face such choices, Prince Zuko. It is a hard world which forces you to be hard to survive it. But you shouldn't bear it alone."

"I should have told you, Uncle... but I didn't know what to say," Zuko admitted.

"And there is one more thing," Iroh said measuredly. "Something very important about Azula that I've discovered that I think you need to know."

"Wait-what? What do you mean?" Zuko asked, leaning forward.

"It is complicated, and I fear we have no time for useful explanations... but I'm convinced that whoever Azula is," Iroh said, trailing off.

"What is it?" Zuko shouted.

"...I don't believe she's your little sister."

---

"Dad, it's terrible," Katara said at the first sight of her father. She crashed into a waiting embrace and didn't even notice that Yue had to get out of the way to make it possible. "Arnook's lost his mind and he sent Sokka on a suicide mission!"

"WHAT?" Hakoda shouted with real rage. His eyes flashed as he turned toward the palace nearby, and Yue's hand flew to her mouth in alarm. It was no secret amongst the Avatar's group that Yue and Sokka had gotten close. "That son of a bitch. He has no right to put my son in harm's way!"

"He couldn't do that," Yue said.

"He did," Aang said quietly and cheerlessly. He growled, kicking at the ice underfoot. "If only there was some way to reach the spirits, I might be able to stop this craziness!"

"The spirits?" Yue asked. "I know something that will help!"

Dad reached over and patted a hand on her shoulder. "Then do what you need to do, young lady," he turned his gaze back to the palace. "And I'll do what I need to."

"What are you saying?" Yue asked.

"Good luck, Princess," Hakoda said. "May the spirits watch over you and guide you kindly if the battle claims you. And all of you. And me as well," he said. As he rose, he cricked his neck, and under his voice, only audible because Katara was right beside him, continued; "and may Tenger Etseg guide my knife."

"Where are we going?" Aang asked, which dragged Yue back to reality.

"What is he...?" she shook her head, sending braided white hair flicking. "No. My duty is here. Come with me, quickly," she said, leading the three of them past the palace and to a stone wall built into a courtyard at its far side. There was a door, scarcely tall enough for her to walk through without stooping, so it was obviously intentionally undersized for a people as towering as Water Tribesmen.

"Is this the door to the Spirit world?" Aang asked, and let out a disappointed groan when she opened it, revealing only a chiseled cave. He headed through faster than anybody, though, and Katara was just behind him. Thus, she could hear his disappointment turn to glee, and understand why. At the end of a short if twisty tunnel, there was an opening. Water flowed around a little island in the center of that cleft, surging down from a waterfall at its back, and proceeded to drain out yet another hole which Katara hadn't noticed earlier. Despite being covered over completely, and having no torches, the place was filled with a mild, suffusive light. And as she approached the island – which was covered in lush grass, she noted – the cave became lovely and warm. So warm in fact that she had to doff her parka.

"Grass! I never thought I'd actually come to miss grass," Aang said, rolling in it. Momo likewise rolled, before scampering up the arch which finished the tableau. The center of the island played host to one further feature. A pond in an island surrounded by a river, and that pond played host only to a pair of fish which swam lazily about. "It's so warm," Aang said.

"Of course," Yue said, her gaze distant and wistful. "This is the heart of the Water Tribe, the closest place between here and the Spirit world. When I was born, they thought I was dead, because I wouldn't cry. The healers couldn't do anything, and my parents were so distraught. Finally, Irukandji directed Father to place me into the waters here. I don't know how, but the Moon Spirit... blessed me, somehow. My hair became white, and I began to cry. They knew I'd live," a tear came to her eye as she looked away. "I always wondered what the Moon Spirit asked in return. I'm afraid... I'm beginning to see the price."

"So how do you get into the Spirit world?" Katara asked. Aang answered her by sitting down on the grass, pressing his fists together and closing his eyes. Silence reigned for a minute or two. Yue's sadness gave way to confusion, which mounted until the girl was slowly circling the Avatar, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Why is he sitting like that?" she asked.

"He's meditating," Katara said. "Maybe it's so he can find a way into the Spirit world."

"Oh," Yue said, pausing. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"How 'bout some quiet?" Aang asked, annoyance clear in his voice. "Come on, guys, I can hear everything you're saying!"

"Sorry," Yue said. Katara sat next to him, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly as Aang returned to his meditating pose. But this time, his eyes were on the fish in the pond, rather than pressed closed.

"It'll be alright," Katara said. "You'll find a way into th..."

She was cut off when his eyes, his tattoos, all began to glow with brilliant light. Both girls recoiled a bit from him purely out of instinct. Be it from the waterbending spark or the intuitive understanding of nature that comes with the shaman's gift, both of them knew in their souls that the power running through Aang right now could possibly crack the earth in half, and that it was best to stand well back of it.

"That's... amazing," Yue said, staring at him. "Is he really doing it? I mean... Irukandji never looks like this when she goes into the Spirit world."

"Aang's the Avatar," she answered. "He's special."

"I should get some of my guards," Yue said.

"We should let them be," Katara countered. "As long as we don't move Aang's body, he should be fine. It's his way back from the spirit world after all. And besides, I'm perfectly capable of protecting him."

"Well, haven't we just become little miss confidence?" a voice slipped in from the darkness, cruel and mocking Huojian, which sent an icy shard up Katara's spine. Not just because she was sure there was more being said than she understood of the language, but because of who had said it. Katara turned to the 'shore' of the river, and retreated a step in alarm as scarlet flame burst into being, adding to the diffuse light and painting the woman's face with scarlet. Painted lips pulled into a smirk, but it was somewhat unstable, because her hair was still dripping wet and its style long lost to adversity.

"Azula?" Katara asked. "How is that even possible?"

"I swore I'd have the Avatar, little girl," she said, changing to the eastern polyglot that both could converse in. "Strange, I thought he'd be better protected. Oh, well, that just makes my task all the more easy."

"Yue, remember those guards we mentioned?" Katara asked.

"Yeah..."

"Now's a good time to call them," Katara said, and as the second-last word came out of her mouth, Azula was already bounding across the waters, fire searing toward her and the Avatar both. Yue broke off in a sprint down that corridor, but Katara had more important things to deal with at the moment, such as twisting up the waters from the pool to break the onslaught. From the experience that she had with Azula outside of Bomei, she more than half-expected her flames to burst through that water like it was a snowball hurled into a blast furnace.

But it didn't, because the water she bent was glowing.

It was lucky she wasn't her brother, because Sokka would probably have stopped the fight immediately, trying to figure out why the water wasn't just water. Katara, on the other hand, took good fortune where she could get it. A twist of her wrists and a pivot of her body and she was shielding she and Aang both, before pressing forward with all of the energy Azula had put into the attack. The firebender bounded back, almost overbalancing into the stream, but holding her footing. Katara smirked, flashing out with that faintly luminescent water, but Azula's eyes flashed with rage and she powered forward, twisting her feet like she was bracing against wind, and drove a flame so hot that it boiled that water even as it struck her. At the end, Azula was soaking wet, but still standing, and Katara had to take a moment to regain herself.

"I hate you," Azula said, circling the girl. "I have it in me to be the greatest firebender of my generation. I was a dozen classes ahead of the children my age before I was pulled from them. I'm probably smarter than my brother and uncle combined. I don't know why I hate you so much, but there has to be a good reason."

"Maybe you're just crazy," Katara snarked. That caused Azula's cheek to twitch, and she flashed forward with a blaze of unworldly blue that threatened to swallow Katara whole and leave not even ashes. With a squawk of alarm, she pulled the water from the pool, but even with the empowered water at her beck, she was still driven back under the firebender's monumental fury. "What's wrong? Can't win in a fair fight?"

"There's no such thing as a fair fight," Azula said, her blue fires dimming back to more familiar scarlet. "Only a fight where one side hasn't started cheating yet."

Distracting Azula from all-consuming wrath seemed to be the ticket, since with the reduction of pressure, Katara could pull that water close to her, letting the last of Azula's barrage break the barrier completely. Azula's smirk widened to an almost maddened grin, but it fell slightly hollow when she noticed that Katara was grinning. Katara made a beckoning motion, and bid her element do as she needed. Azula had just enough time to glance back before the wave from the river Katara conjured wrapped her up completely. A shove, and she and the wave both slammed back across the stream, freezing upon impact with the wall, encasing Azula almost completely in the ice, only her hands and head free of it. Katara smiled.

"I'm in control, firebender. I win, not because I cheat, but because I'm in control."

"So the little bitch found herself a teacher? Well, that isn't going to stop me," Azula said. She began to strain, and Katara shook her head dismissively... at first. But then there came a cracking sound, as the ice under Azula's arms began to buckle, snap. Katara furiously tried to recool the water from whatever firebending she was doing, but to her shock, found the water was the same temperature she left it. Azula was breaking out on nothing but brute physical force. "I've... waited... my... whole life for this... waterbender," and with that last word, her left arm exploded from the ice. Katara gathered some of the water behind her into a bolus she spun into a whip, hoping to knock Azula insensate, but Azula turned her attention toward Aang, and with a two fingered strike, blasted a bolt of fire at the torpid Avatar. Katara had to shift her attack into defense, taking no more energy but precious time. Katara intercepted that fire blast, but as she did, Azula melted her other arm free. Katara then spun to flick that lashed toward Azula's face. But Azula slammed both of her fists down into the ice which buried her lower body, and a sphere of golden flames leapt up around her, swallowing Katara's attack.

The conflagration dimmed, the smoke cleared, and now Azula was standing, steam rising from her stained grey clothes, her hands pointing two-fingered lances toward Katara as her chest heaved. "I've fought too damned hard for this, peasant. I. Will. Not. Fail."

"And how many times have you said that before?" Katara mocked. "I figure every time you tried to catch Aang. How has that turned out so far?"

Yup, she was clearly her brother's sister. Tempting fate ran in the family. Azula drew in a breath to shout some epithet or slur at her, but instead, her eyes windened slightly, and she moved from an offensive posture into a slightly more defensive one. Katara had about a fraction of a second to wonder what was going on, before her brain was blasted by a wash of pain, and her entire body locked up, dropping her into unconsciousness and onto the grasses which still swayed peacefully despite the lack of breeze in the Spirit Oasis.

Azula glanced up at the circumstantial benefactor. She was a grown woman, as dark skinned as her now fallen opponent, and sharing the same eyes. The look on her face, though, was one of annoyance and impatience. "About me-damned time you showed up, Princess," the girl said in a tongue which Azula knew... but didn't know how she knew. And the tone she used for 'princess' held far more mockery than Azula would have allowed out of anybody. "Are you just going to stand there or are... Oh, it's cause of the new fits, right? I know. Been a long time since I had honkers like this," the woman said, giving her bosom an experimental squeeze.

"What do you want?" Azula demanded, dropping down into readiness for the attack.

"Eternal life, my face on money, the little things like that," she said, a grin on her face which seemed to show too many teeth. But that grin turned to curious inspection. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"Stay back, barbarian!" Azula shouted. "If you stop me from taking the Avatar, I swear I will kill you!"

The woman sighed, palming her face. "I just had to screw that up, didn't I? Well, par for the course this time, I guess," she cleared her throat and continued in fluent and unaccented Huojian, which startled Azula almost as much as her own ability to understand this madwoman before. "Since you can't swim up that waterfall, and there'll be no getting out by the front door with the Avatar, I guess you're going to have to take the other path," the woman said, pointing to where the water dropped under the stone wall. "Of course, you still don't like swimming anymore, do you?"

"What are you talking about? You want me to take the Avatar?" Azula asked.

"Ideally no, but it's obvious you're not leaving without him, and I need more time than you'll get if you don't start moving soon," the woman said.

"Stay back, lunatic. I don't need your help."

The woman let out a peal of laughter at that. "Girl, you have no idea how much you need my help. Now get moving or deal with a far better waterbender than this one is, at the moment," she said, giving the unconscious waterbender a nudge with her foot.

"Don't dare presume you can order me," Azula said. The woman's face became angry, and with a snap of lightning, she was standing directly before Azula, her soft hand clamped with astounding pressure around Azula's throat, lifting her from the ground so that her toes dangled at roughly this Tribeswoman's thigh-level.

"Now you listen to me, you ungrateful maggot," that woman said to the violently fighting firebender. "I am Irukandji. I am what raised you from your perdition and I am wholly capable of sending you straight back there," she paused as Azula used both of her hands to bath the woman in fire. There was a smell, first of cooking meat, but then of rank ozone. When the smoke cleared, the woman looked almost utterly unharmed, but her outfit was more or less ruined. And she was not amused. "Bitch, I liked these clothes," she said, and gave Azula a backhand which sent stars into her eyes. "You want the Avatar, then gather him now. But don't think for a second that you can avoid me, overpower me, escape me, trick me, or harm me. You don't remember, and that's a major problem. You and I are going to have a nice long conversation. Whether you want to or not."

---

The thunder of footfalls and the din of battle in the darkness forced Zuko to duck aside once again. Descending into Summavut was trickier than he'd thought, but then again, by the time he'd reached the point where he was supposed to follow his sister, he could see a horde of those blue-clad people returning toward where she had moved ahead of him. He should have been there with her. She needed his help. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.

Mostly because Uncle's... explanation... was so unsettling, unpleasant, and insane.

He shook his head, dispelling the thoughts. Azula had to have fled into the city. She didn't have the same skill of fire as he or Uncle did, so she wouldn't be able to withstand the cold as well as they would. That meant she'd have to move through the conflict, but not before warming up first. That meant... She was heading for some place hot. "A blacksmith," he said to himself, his eyes scanning over the city until he picked out those places where the chimneys were thick stone, built up over ugly rock. More than he'd like. Less than he'd feared.

As much as he respected Uncle, he'd had to be wrong about this. Zuko waited a moment longer, as the sounds of the enemy faded away, then took to the darkness once more. He would find his sister. He had to keep her safe.

---

"How are we going to get out of the town?" Ashan asked.

"We'll have to find a way," Nila said. The wall was dropping lower by the minute, but their preparations were somewhat for naught, since the tumult of people rushing toward was soon going to be a hole in the wall was making it difficult to move about. After, Ashan wasn't wholly sure they weren't going to just kill her and blame it on the 'chaos of battle'. The Sheik might be above such lies, but he doubted the man's son was. Gashuin was the worst sort of spoiled child. "In fact, I have an idea, but I won't say it's a good one."

"Well? We're kinda low on options, here!" Tzu Zi said, terror obvious on her face.

"Ashan," she said. "You can bore a hole through the walls."

"That won't work," Ashan pointed out. "I can bend sand, but I can't bend metal. Those plates drop right into the earth!"

"Damn," she muttered. "Then we're going to have to use the same path they're coming in to get out."

"That's crazy," Malu said. "And what about these people? Are you just going to leave your people to die?"

"And there is something I can do to save them?" Nila asked, after a silence as they all hustled across the streets. Enemies abounded when Nila was around it seemed. "Face it, what happens today is going to happen. I cannot stop it. Nobody here can stop it."

"I might," Malu said. "I have to."

"You can get yourself killed," Nila countered, calling them to a halt in an alley as a great metal bang sounded in the air, and the screams of people began to sound. Some in war, others in pain. "They're through the walls. It's too late, anyway."

"It's never too late," Malu said. "I was too afraid to save my parents from the firebenders on the Day of Fire, but I can stop this war at least!"

"Enough," Ashan said. "The rest of you might not be able to see this cancer in your midst, but damn it all, I can!"

"What are you talking about?" Tzu Zi asked, her dark eyes flitting everywhere.

"I don't see any tumors," Sharif said idly, glancing at those around him.

Ashan ignored the young man who had once been so in sync with him that they could finish each other's sentences, and thrust a finger at Malu. "You've hidden something from them for a long time, and I demand you tell us what it is."

"Well," Malu said, a bit shocked. "Why should I..."

"I'm curious as well," Nila said, rounding on the airbender. "Something about you never added up, but I was hesitant to say anything. Unused to having friends, after all. But if you have something you need to tell us, you'd best do so now."

"Guys, this isn't the..." Malu said.

"Oh, this isn't good," Sharif said, staring at Malu.

Malu let out a growl and threw up her hands. "Fine! You wanna know the truth? I'm not just an airbender, alright? I'm the Avatar! I've been hiding for years, but now, I'm going to bring the fight back to the Fire Nation... no offense Tzu Zi."

There was a pool of relative silence, as Ashan's eyebrows rose, but the other three shook their heads. Sharif was the one who spoke first.

"You're not the Avatar," he said.

"Of course I am," she said, first annoyed, then repeated with alarm.

"You are not the Avatar," Nila said. "We've met the Avatar. You are not him."

"Somebody's pretending to be me?" Malu asked.

"He's already talked to his past lives," Sharif said. "You're not the Avatar. You can't be. Not with that thing."

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Waterbend," Nila said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I haven't exactly learned how to do that yet. I was waiting until I was the greatest airbender before moving on to the other elements, but then the Day of Fire came and..."

"There it is again," Ashan broke in. "Silence from the rest of you. Especially you, Sharif. Tell me something simple, Malu, something you cannot be wrong about. Tell me what year it is," she blubbed a bit at that. "It's not so hard a question, yes? What year is it, by the Post Monolith calendar?"

"Well," she said, confused. "It's P.M. 3157," she declared gathering her surety. The others gaped at her.

"Malu... It's 3256," Tzu Zi said. "How can you be ninety nine years wrong?"

"I'm not wrong," Malu said. "I mean... You must be making some sort of mistake!"

The fight was growing closer, as the unbearable mass of the Dakongese pushed the defenders from their battle line, as the walls no longer stood against them, but permitted them entry. But for all that, the teenagers gathered here might as well have been in their own little world, which began at the abandoned turnip trolly and ended at the brown double doors of the Beetle stable where the Westerner's steed was still hitched. "We're not making any mistake," Ashan said. "You're a century out of date. What are you?"

"I'm the Avatar!" she pleaded.

"No, you're not," Nila said, her green eyes geared in inspection. "I didn't pay proper attention to the one who knew. He told me, and I didn't listen. Sharif; what is Malu?"

"Hungry," Sharif said, taking a step back.

"Look, guys, I swear, I'm the Avatar," Malu said. "I mean, if I wasn't, would I be able to do this?"

Malu closed her eyes, and leaned back, spreading her arms out to her sides. As she did, her mouth dropped open, and an inhuman sound began to emit from it, and that mouth grew ever wider. Sharif grabbed his sister and Ashan, pulling them back and herding Ashan with them. "No! She's opening the Door!"

"What is going on?" Nila demanded.

Then, Malu's head dropped down toward them, her grey eyes glassy, empty, hollow. Her back arched downward with the popping of vertibrae shifting out of any human alignment, and the back of her kavi began to swell, glowing with some sort of red energy. There was one final crack, as the bones of Malu's jaw gave way, opening as far as the aperture could allow, and those eyes were locked on Sharif as she... or rather, it... let out a horrible scream that so smacked of inhumanity that Ashan almost wet himself a little. That mouth didn't open into tongue and uvula and throat. It opened into a pit of absolute and unending blackness, and tiny screams of terror wafted up from it.

Malu began to rise, by airbending or by sheer wrongness Ashan couldn't say, and the red energy erupted from her skin, as a sort of thunderous noise began to sound from her once human throat. As she did, that red energy shot up into the night sky, lodging against its fabric like an unholy star. But then, it started to swell, growing wider and wider until it consumed the heavens with its scarlet alienness, and black bands began to pulse out through it. To Ashan's battered mind, he could assign it no other name then the Eye of Terror, the sign that the Devils had erupted whole into the Earth at the end times. A tingling ran through Ashan's body, as the world around him stopped making any sense at all.

Ashan was numb with terror.

Sharif, though, reached aside and plucked something as if from the very air, pressing it into his brow. As he did, the scar over his eye started to glow slightly. "No, this shouldn't be possible," Sharif said. Then he winced. "I'm such an idiot! It wasn't sleeping, it was waiting!"

Nila had seen enough, and pulled away from her brother, fighting with the door. Patriarch, that old bird, stared at that thing that floated in the sky with terror even obvious to something as intractable and animal as the Ostrich Horse. "What's going on?" Ashan said, flattening his back against the door of the stables.

"She's tearing the veil to shreds," Sharif shouted. "It shouldn't be possible! She's mixing the Spheres and dumping the lot of it into the Spirit World!"

"Wait... how do you know this?" Tzu Zi asked. "I thought you were..."

"I am stupid," Sharif said, striking himself in the head with anger. "I should have seen this coming! I would have seen it coming if I had more than half a brain! Damn it all," he turned to the others. "Run. Get away from this place, whatever the cost, I'll hold it off."

"Hold it off? Are you mad?" Nila shouted, finally shifting the bar. The door opened.

"Maybe a little, sister, but that thing will ack!" he was cut off when Nila grabbed him and hauled him through the doors into the barn. The others, Patriarch included, wedged in a moment later, before she slammed the door once more.

"That should hold... it... off," Nila said. "What happened to her?"

"Keep running," Sharif prompted.

"Nonsense. She can't get through that..." Nila began, but was cut off when there was a great crash of wood, as the entire top of the building was broken to dust and splinters and thrown into the air. Hovering just above the ground, the thing which had been Malu stared at Sharif, saliva dropping past her dislocated jaw and onto the street. Ashan couldn't even bring himself to look away, as she slowly brought back the hand with which she had so simply wrought destruction. Above her, swirling under the crimson Eye of Terror, green and orange clouds boiled into existence, dropping down unnatural lightning into the already twisting scape of the fortress of Sentinel Rock.

"Oh," Sharif said, sweating heavily, and a cunning terror in his yes. "This isn't even fair."

---

To Be Continued.

---

A couple of things which might need clarification. Calendars in my version of Avatar-verse run similar to the Gregorian, in that they have a hypothetical and purely arbitrary year zero, but whereas the latter depends on the birth of a religious figurehead (Jesus, or something), the former is the commonly held date of the fall of a world-spanning earthbender empire some three millennia ago. It is commonly held amongst historians in this setting that the fall of the Monolith, as that culture came to be later known, was the beginning of recorded history, because almost all history collected during the span of the Monolith's lifetime was destroyed in its collapse. This had the side-effect of regressing the world technologically almost back to the stone-age, and is held up as an example of how while Avatars can be a very potent force for good, unchecked, they can also be a force for harm. There are only two things which survived more or less intact from the time of the Monolith to the modern era: Ba Sing Se, and the Order of the White Lotus.

While by and large the history known today begins after the fall of the Monolith, bits and pieces do slip through. A few names of famous individuals from earlier eras, even from before elemental martial arts swept forth from the West, still circulate in certain circles. Nila and Sokka both, for example, know of the pre-Whalesh natural philosopher Archeophthese, who formulated the beginnings of scientific physics. There were other cultures (dare say, non-Eastern cultures) which existed before bending became a common practice, but with elemental martial arts, certain societal groups had an advantage over their counterparts, and those who could not bend an element were either wiped out or assimilated into those who could. The modern social map of the Avatar's world is a thing eight thousand years in the making, and its divisions are only three thousand years old.

Why put all this effort into history? Because the world has to have verisimillitude. This world is roughly at the equivalent of 1850, so a lot of crap has happened before that. And over the next seventy years, they end up with internal combustion engines and radio. No marks for part answers in things like this, so I took a look at where certain mindsets, codes, and such would come from to lead to Korra-Verse being where it is, when it is. But enough cultural anthropology. You're here to see people punch each other with fireballs.

Oh, and one more thing. Azula never predicted one single thing.

Leave a Review, and brace yourself for the finale.