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.

37. The Spirit World

Speed was an integral part of being an effective minister of the Cultural Authority. The ability to move swiftly when needed was invaluable. Usually, it meant being able to masterfully manipulate the bureaucracy. But just as validly, it could mean being able to be where one is needed when one is needed. Long Feng had already failed that.

How? That was the thought which kept bouncing throughout his thoughts as he hurried with almost undignified haste toward the innermost sanctums of the Earth King's palace. How had the Fire Lord made it here? How had he gotten an audience with the insipid child without raising a fuss, let alone an alarm? His legs were burning, from all the near-running he'd found himself doing, his arms burned from the furious bending which almost derailed a monorail in places to get him back into the heart of the city from its outer reaches with haste. He was exhausted. But his mind was a-whirl.

There had to be some trick. Had the Fire Lord been so brazen, so suicidally confident as to brave the Spirit Roads? Unlikely. Doubly so, since Long Feng was fairly sure that those like the Fire Lord couldn't walk them if he'd wanted to. Only shamans, or the Avatar, could. A fine thing that that one became leader rather than his brother. Had Prince Iroh ascended, he likely would have been popping in for tea on a weekly basis. Long Feng paused, before the doors of King Kuei's sitting room, smoothing out the disheveled rumples in his robes, soothing back the hair. He pulled a small mirror from a pocket, and gently prodded at the burning wound on his face. Joo Dee's art in makeup had hidden it, but it stung furiously. He took his breath, and then, pushed open the doors.

Kuei, the fifty second Earth King of Ba Sing Se, looked up as Long Feng strode through the doors. Kuei was a small man, narrow shouldered and narrow jawed. His eyes were small and wide-set, and his entire visage screamed weakness and undeserved prestige. It wasn't just that Long Feng had spent his entire twenty year career resenting that worthless brat, from the spectacles on his nose to the curled tips of his slippers. It was that Kuei was the very thing which the Dai Li were created to oppose. A stupid, worthless ruler, who would oversee chaos and adversity, be challenged by anybody with right mind or right ideas. If that meant burying the man in paperwork such that the world never saw him, then it was a feat Long Feng was more than willing to do for the sake of order and prosperity.

The other in the room, sitting comfortably in bright reds and rich blacks, was Kuei's polar opposite. Despite the lack of gold or fine jewels the likes of which adorned the smaller man, one could never mistake that this one was a ruler of men and women. A person of power. That was the greatest differenc between them. Not the golden eyes to green, the long tail of beard to clean-shavenness. It was that Fire Lord Ozai was powerful, where Kuei was weak.

"Ah, Minister Long Feng. You must meet my guest," Kuei said brightly, ignorantly. He waved his cup effetely toward the enemy. "I am told that Fire Lord Azulon has chosen Ozai, his second born, as his heir. Isn't that quite unusual?"

"The Fire Lord has always been a... meritocracy. We earn what we have," Ozai said, sipping of his tea. Oh, but if Long Feng could have had access to that tea-pot for just ten seconds before they started to drink of it. Then there would be two poisoned corpses, and a new idiot child on the throne. Which, in retrospect, didn't solve any of Long Feng's problems. But the thinking of it did make him feel just a little bit better.

"We were not prepared to accept visitors or guests," Long Feng said in neutral tone. "Especially not at this late an hour."

"Don't be rude to our foreign visitor," Kuei admonished. "He's traveled an incredibly far way just to be here. Tell me, is it true what they say about your capitol city?"

"That it was built inside a tamed volcano? Yes, that is true," Ozai said, but his eyes remained on Long Feng. "I suppose there's much that I could tell you about my homeland, if I had the time."

How? That question still demanded of Long Feng's cognition. How had he reached the Earth King without the Dai Li stopping him? Where were the guards? Where were Long Feng's agents? There was supposed to be somebody baby-sitting this fool at every minute of the day!

"Forgive my impertinence, but the Earth King will be retiring shortly. The hour is late, and he has many tasks he will be required to attend to in the morning," Long Feng said.

"I do?" Kuei asked.

"Yes, my King. You do," Long Feng said with only the slightest hint of annoyance. He turned his attention back to Ozai. "If you desire, we can arrange a further meeting when the Earth King's schedule allows."

"I think I'm able to keep talking for a while," Kuei said.

"My King, you know that your duties can be taxing. It is better to be prepared and rested for them," Long Feng said sternly. Kuei paused, glancing between the foreign leader and his minister, then he sighed.

"I suppose I should heed the council of my advisors," he said, as though long-suffering. Kuei hadn't learned the first thing about suffering. "But it has been a fascinating interlude. Do you think we can speak further when I have an appropriate time?"

"Of course," Ozai said. His eyes turned to Long Feng, a significant look in them. "It's not like there's a war going on, after all."

Kuei let out a laugh at that. "How droll! Everybody knows that there hasn't been a war in the East Continent in generations!" Almost hidden behind the tea-cup, Ozai was smirking. Watching Long Feng. Ozai gave the young fool a nod, as the man departed through doors leading toward the back of the room. It wasn't until they were closed and latched that Long Feng stepped closer to the Fire Lord.

"You must either be insanely brave, or insanely stupid to sit there," Long Feng whispered.

"I prefer confident in the capabilities of my agents," Ozai said, setting down the tea-cup. "After all, they've proven infinitely more effective than your rabble."

"I cannot help but wonder what you hope to gain here, Fire Lord. At a word, I could have you thrown in shackles into the Zutara Ruins. The World War would end by daybreak."

"But will you?" Ozai asked. He leaned forward, smirking still, rubbing the white gloved hands together. "Because if it were to become known that there was a war, even one you 'ended', it might... unbalance... the delicate system you've got running in this city. I know what you want. The war ending doesn't give it to you."

"You know nothing of me," Long Feng said.

"I could surprise you," Ozai said, rising to his feet. He looked Long Feng up and down. "You are peasant born. You rose from nothing. You had to scratch and scrabble for everything you ever had. That ruthlessness has informed every decision you've ever made. You fear the dark not because it is dark, but because of what others can do in it. You want control, and you are willing to sell anything, even your very soul, to have it. Your very existence is a small man railing against fate, and demanding more than is his place."

Long Feng glared. "An interesting fiction."

"Not fiction, I think," Ozai started to circle him. "I don't denigrate you for rising from the dirt. It shows a spirit most becoming to a firebender. Were you a child of the West, you could have gotten far. Much farther than here. But you happened not to be. Instead, you are here, saddled with a hopeless task, under a worthless leader. You lack the divine right of rulership, simply because you chanced not to be born to the right sire and mother. You chafe, because you know that, were you in that boy's place, you could be so much more."

"And what of you?" Long Feng asked, still watching him. "The second-born son of a drastically unpopular Fire Lord. The son of The Monster. I had heard that it would take a particular kind of man to accrue greater infamy than that of Azulon, but somehow, in only six years, you've managed to do it. A crushingly Pyrrhic victory against the North, against a people a fraction of your population, which took years and lives untold."

As Long Feng continued, Ozai's confident mockery dropped away into obvious restrained anger. "You know not of what you speak."

"The 'Victory at Summavut' is a term of mockery," Long Feng pressed on. "Something earned long after it was wanted, for far more than its cost. As I understand, your soldiers at the wall when they besieged Ba Sing Se under your brother were eager to the point of impetuousness to fight. I wonder how they stand now? Are they still steady, or does their will buckle?"

"My brother was a fool and a coward," Ozai said.

"And somehow, he managed to almost breach the Inner Walls. You, on the other hand, have never gotten a soldier beyond the Outer," Long Feng pointed out. Smoke began to drift up from Ozai's gloves. Long Feng kept his stance loose and ready, just in case he'd have to actually fight the man. He didn't like his chances, but he would take them as needed. "Your economy flounders, and I have no doubt that your approval is scarcely better than your Father's had been. Which makes me wonder what level of desperation sees you here."

"I am not desperate," Ozai said forcefully, the leather of his gloves creaking even as they smoldered. There was a moment, his head twitching minutely to one side. Then, a slow smile began to spread once more. "I am a paragon of calm and clarity. And honestly, I think we have much to offer each other."

"What do you mean?" Long Feng asked, confused.

That smile became a dark, venomous grin. "I thought you'd never ask..."

---

Chapter 17

The Spirit World

---

"What is wrong with the Avatar?" Hakoda asked instantly, as Katara let him slide down from where they'd been holding him manually on the beast's back. After all, they'd had neither time nor opportunity to recover Appa's saddle, and thus had to flee without. It was just a miracle that Appa had made it as far as it did, considering the sheer mass of people upon its back.

"I don't know, Dad," Katara said, worry clear on her face. "I mean, I used my healing, and as far as I can tell, he's fine. I mean, there's nothing physically wrong with him, but he won't wake up!"

"That might be due to the Dai Li's chemicals," the ragged voice of the Dragon of the East noted. Sokka turned toward her. She and her daughter both had been icily silent during the flight, which was remarkable since he was fairly sure that neither of them had ridden on a bison before, and he knew from experience that it tended to be an exhilarating experience. After all, both Zha Yu and Bato both hollered with the best of them as they screamed across the terrain. "They would have taken no chances in keeping the Avatar secure. He is likely very deeply sedated."

"That is not so," her daughter interjected. "Were he simply sedated, the smelling salts would have aroused him."

"What do you know about comas, girl?" the woman asked.

"As much as you, if not more," Nila declared, staring her mother in the eye. The only reason their glares weren't identical was because Nila's once-wounded eye was still, at the moment, a discolored moldy-blue. "Did you really assume me so idle as to not know a drugged man from a comatose on?"

"This isn't helping the Avatar," Zha Yu interrupted, standing between the mother and daughter. He pointed to Hakoda. "You are sure you weren't followed?"

Hakoda leveled a look of wan derision toward Zha Yu, clearly a little bit insulted by the implication. "I'm a South Water Tribesman," he answered. The clearing that they were hiding in was a lightning-struck dead-spot in the midst of a bamboo cultivation. The tall, over-sturdy 'grass' which flanked them in every direction was likely culled regularly for building materials amongst the poor and non-bending. It was still cold, and quite dark, as the moon was hidden from view by the 'canopy' the bamboo imparted. "So if the Avatar isn't injured, why would he be in a coma?"

Sokka rubbed his chin. As he did, the black-and-white lemur whom had been much neglected of late flapped down into the clearing and began to tug and pick at Aang's insensate form, only breaking off when it was pounced upon by a saber-toothed moose-lion cub. There was something out of place about all of this. Aang was in trouble. When Aang got in trouble, he tended to go all Glowing Badass. So why hadn't he?

"Can somebody light a lantern?" Sokka asked. Zuko provided the next best thing, but just igniting a ball of fire over his hand. "Good enough," Sokka said. He leaned down, and actually gave Aang an inspection, not with waterbender healing, not with 'shiatsu' or anything else. He just looked at the kid. His clothes looked rumpled and torn. He had fading bruises from his capture. But there was something which caught Sokka's attention. He pulled Aang's kavi away from his neck, showing a narrow band which encircled his neck. "What is this?"

"It looks like a choker," Zuko said.

"Obviously," Katara replied with dry sarcasm.

"Katara, you're not being helpful," Hakoda said sternly. He leaned closer as well, running a finger along it. It seemed to be perfectly sized so that it just barely dug into Aang's neck, giving him room enough to breathe, to swallow with discomfort, but no more than that. "This thing... doesn't seem natural. Zha Yu, have you seen something like this before?"

"Yes," the man said. "It's a Death Ring."

"What!" Katara shouted.

"It's not as grim as it sounds, but not by much," Zha Yu said. He turned to the eldest woman amongst them. "You could tell the tale better than I could."

"Llewenydd is dead. Let him lie," Sativa shook her head.

"This is important. Tell them," Zha Yu said.

"Very well. The Death Ring is a device which if locked on a shaman's body contains their spirit inside its mortal shell. As long as it remains on the shaman's neck, the shaman can not speak to spirits, nor affect the spirit world in any way. They are trapped, muted, and neutered," Sativa said. "It was a device made out of fear to control what people did not understand, one the victim may never remove from himself."

"When we first met a friend, one we lost some time ago, he was hanging from his ankles from a rafter, one of these things on his neck," Piandao added.

"If it contained the Avatar inside his body, he ought be conscious," Nila pointed out.

"Unless..." Sokka said. "Sharif? Where's Sharif?"

"Oh no," Nila seemed to go a bit pale, until the scarred youth wandered into the clearing from the outer bamboos. Nila let out a sigh of relief. "You could well set me into a fit, the way you often vanish!"

"What is going on? Why is the Avatar not here?" Sharif asked.

"He is right before you boy. Shake your head and clear your eyes," Sativa said.

"I think Sharif's got it right," Sokka said. "Sharif, is the Avatar here?"

"No. No he isn't," Sharif said, his gaze locked somewhere in the distance.

"But his body is, right?"

"...his flesh is there. But he is not there. The he is not... there," Sharif shook his head, rubbing his scar as though he couldn't figure out how to explain himself better. Luckily, Sokka had a good idea what he meant.

"Aang isn't in his body," Sokka said. "When they snapped this puppy onto him, he was probably half way into the Avatar State, so he wasn't... you know... local. But if we pull this thing off, like so..." Sokka somewhat harshly tore the device from the young Avatar's neck. It came loose with a pop of its delicate locking mechanism being burst. And when it came off... nothing happened.

Glances were exchanged all around.

"I expected something more dramatic," Hakoda pointed out. And Sokka braced himself again for something to happen, since the universe had impeccable comedic timing. But still, nothing came.

"So we have rescued a vegetable?" Nila asked.

"Give some respect to the Avatar, girl!" her mother said harshly.

"I give him all the respect he requires of me, which is for the moment none," Nila told her.

"There's something I'm missing," Sokka scratched at his head. He knew that as much as the universe liked messing with him, he knew that it was the kind of thing which could be understood. There was a reason he was a believer in rationality and science, amongst other things; it was because they made sense. They could be predicted. They could be explained. And if there was something which he didn't know how to explain, it meant that there was a part of the equation he hadn't figured out, hadn't identified quite yet.

"Sokka, what if he never wakes up?" Katara asked, her eyes flicking around the clearing, clear even in the dim light.

"...Then we press on without him," Zuko said. "It's not the best solution, it's the only one."

"How could you be so heartless? He's our only hope!"

"I'm not being heartless. I'm being sensible. At any point in this little journey of yours, the Avatar could have died. What would you have done if he had? Gone home? Said 'so much for the world, we did our best, but the Avatar's gone so we give up'?" Zuko asked. He shook his head sharply. "No. You keep going. You keep fighting. Because that's what needs to be done. Ozai needs to fall. This war needs to end. And if the Avatar," he thrust a finger toward the supine youth, "can't be the one to do it, then somebody else will just have to!"

"There has to be another way," Katara said.

"Then find it," Zuko said. "If there's a way to wake up the Avatar, do it. But don't spend the rest of your life hoping. Either do something or move on."

"That sounds like a rather grimmer form of advice an old friend once gave me," Zha Yu said.

"Then your friend and Uncle have the same taste in advice-giving," Zuko muttered.

"I... think I can find him," Sharif said.

"What?" Katara asked.

"The Avatar. I think that I can find him. But I will need to go away. To the Spirit World. I need to find the Avatar to find the Avatar," he said.

"What are you talking about?" Zha Yu asked.

"Korra? You're going to ask Korra to find Aang?" Katara asked the shaman.

"Who is Avatar Korra?" Sativa asked.

"She's the Avatar that comes after Aang," Sokka explained.

"...you must mean 'before' Aang, and that was Roku," Zha Yu said.

"No, after," Sokka agreed. "Which is annoying because she won't tell me if I become rich or famous in my old age."

The elders all shared glances amongst themselves, Hakoda excluded. "That isn't possible," Zha Yu finally said.

"That's what I said," Sokka said.

"It violates several laws of physics," Nila added.

"I said that, too!" Sokka continued. "And yet, as far as we can tell, she's legit."

"How? How can it be that the next Avatar can appear before this one? It makes no sense!" the Dragon of the East asked.

Sharif, though, had settled himself down onto the ground before the senseless form of the Avatar, and crossed his legs. His eyes slid shut, and his distant, wistful expression faded into grim concentration. A hand reached aside, and he then rubbed against his brow. After he did that, Sokka was sure that he could see, just the slightest shade against the darkness, that his scar was a bit brighter than the skin around it.

"I suppose it's all moot at this point. It's Sharif's journey, now," Sokka said. He patted the simple shaman on his shoulder. "Good luck, and good hunting. We need him."

---

The pat of bare, ragged feet against stone was accompanied by the bare, ragged sound of her breathing. Even as she was approaching, the beasts, the prey, had all abandoned the ground and now circled above, bellowing and bleating down at her. The bison knew that she was a threat, that she would devour them whole if given the slightest sliver of a chance. The hunger was more than enough, after all. She could have devoured the world, would only her jaws open wide enough.

Feet moved, shufflingly, along the ruined stones of a ruined path. It spiraled upward, a mound at its center where once a tower vaulted into the heavens. Of all of the temples of the Air Nomads, the East had been struck by far the worst. Not simply broken down and invaded, it was subsequently blasted into rubble, such that only a fraction of its infrastructure remained. Whether done as an insult to the people who once called it home, or because they feared that there might have been some defensive device hidden in the depths was lost to history, and the minds of the soldiers involved. Malu had been here, once, and a long time ago. This was where the Day of Fire found her.

This was where her people died.

The pustule of acrid blood wasn't welling up as it had in the Divide. She didn't know why. She didn't even have the energy to think that it might be something worth considering. All that went through her battered, weary mind was that the hunger was every bit as great as it was before, and the agony which went with it was as appropriately vast. But there was enough left of her, after a fashion, to have the slightest sense of relief. To be home. To be in a place where she was once happy.

It wasn't much.

It was all she had.

She continued to ascend that mound, her feet dragging along the flat flags of stone, spiraling up as her path took her around its edge. To the west, she could see the mountains where she had hidden for years. Where the hunger began. When she moved to face south, she could almost see, with her impossible vision, the edges of the South Pole, and the Island of Da-Aer, where she was born. Lots of children were born on Da-Aer. Now, only two were left of an entire generation. Herself, now a slave to this insatiable hunger, and Aang, the lazy layabout who somehow was now several years younger than her, rather than a day older. Oh, and apparently he was the Avatar.

Her life was a mockery of reason.

She continued the spiral, moving up in pain. The hunger demanded food, and she knew that it wouldn't be too long before it puppeted her form to lash out at the bison overhead. That was a level she had not yet sunk to. But she likely would today, whether she wanted to or not. East, and the wild coast of Azul past the storms of the Sea, became the North, and Summavut. Only, it didn't look like she'd expected. Too black. Too metal. Too... Fire Nation. She let the thought fade from her mind. There wasn't room for it. Just hunger.

She reached the top of the mound, and she could feel the terrible grinding inside her guts screaming at her. Eat. Eat now. She swung her head upward, but as she did so, it slid past a slender man who was kneeling calmly in the center of the mound. He was old. His skin was dark and weathered by the elements. While bald, he had a great beard which hung to his belt, white as snow on the mountaintops as it nearly concealed that he was wearing only a loincloth. He looked frail, ancient, and slow.

He looked like food.

The hunger was calling the shots, as Malu's back arched forward, her center of balance lowering, her lips peeling back, her eyes bulging in their sockets. Her hands formed grisly claws, already twitching at the opportunity to rend flesh from bone. To eat. To fight down this horrible hunger. Anything to ease the hunger. With a howl, her legs projected her toward the old man, her next meal, and the aversion to cannibalism was completely gone from her battered, broken psyche. She just wanted the pain to stop.

And it did in the most unusual way.

As her pounce brought her close, the old man spun up and out of her path, eyes still closed and face still placid. As she zoomed past him, though, stiff fingers zipped out and jabbed her in the shoulder, the hip, and the thigh. She landed, and spun to bound again, but when she tried, her body didn't obey her. Not entirely. She instead managed to fall over herself. And when she tried to right her body, to launch into a fresh attack, she found that her right arm and leg were completely numb and powerless. So she powered off of her other leg instead. This time, spinning like a leaf in a whorl of wind, the man slipped under her attack and jabbed stiff fingertips into her neck, solar-plexus, navel, and the inside of her elbow in lightning succession.

She landed chin-first on the stone of the mound, but it didn't hurt, even though it split her face open from the impact. The grim black threads began tugging her skin closed, but she didn't feel agony. She didn't feel anything. She was completely benumbed. She would have wept in joy at the sudden absence of agony, if she even had the mastery of herself remaining to weep. Her vision swam, and then faded into grey, as old, weathered fingers carefully manipulated the skin near her hairline, and her entire body fell still but for the slow shift of her breathing.

The guru looked down upon the battered form of the girl, wearing only the barest tatters of an Air Nomad nun's robes. He shook his head slowly, sadly, grey eyes soft upon her. "Oh, what has befallen this poor and wayward daughter?" the guru asked the universe. And the universe answered him as it always did, in silence and introspection.

---

In a very cardinal way, the sense of where an Avatar was existed inside Sharif for his entire life. It was more that he was so sensitive to the process of spirits, the way that they behaved, that he knew instantly when the great tide which was the Avatar was forcing his way amongst them. For many years, that great tidal pull was in one spot, far to the south. Then, it started moving around, and he followed it that way.

Now, there were two of them.

He knew this place. It was a place which he'd visited many, many times throughout his life. The dangers to the Moorage were relatively plentiful, but when the blowouts came, it was a place of relative safety. If nothing else, the Wheelhouse offered lots of room, and adequate protection. His path, seeking that high-point in the tide of spiritual energy, brought him here, as he ran headlong along the flowing waters which now connected all of these places in the Spirit World. The flow was far stronger now than it had ever been before. Even as he stood, he could feel the water insistently tugging at his ankles, burbling over the rocks where once it stood clear and reflective as glass. Almost like... there was more power to the flow, now. Or... more water, perhaps?

He shook his head. He wasn't seeing enough of the picture to make sense of it, yet. Even with his mind augmented, there was simply too much left unknown. He turned his attentions up. The rise from the low waters of the Moorage to the great behemoth which gave this realm its moniker was quite steep indeed, and Sharif had to scramble up without dignity to ascend it. Great and barren forms twisted up toward the skies, almost like dead roots trying to imitate trees. But the greatest and singular feature, was the ship itself.

It looked like a Fire Nation vessel, if one knew the layout of such a craft. Its hull was all sheets of dull, grey metal, its prow a sharp point, and a wheelhouse not far back of it. But unlike any seaworthy Fire Nation vessel, it looked more like a half-formed idea of a ship than a real one. Somebody's half-considered fancy put to metal and held in place by... not rivets, that much was obvious. In fact, Sharif could see no reason why the plates of metal which clumsily outlined the 'vessel' – which was also of completely the wrong dimensions to have any sort of sea handiness – even stayed attached as he walked over them. The whole craft was crashed into the stone of the hills, rubble spilling onto its deck. The rubble was lit with blue light.

"There you are," Sharif said, looking through his fingers before his eyes as he approached the glowing form which hovered just above the deck of that almost-ship. She hadn't changed her appearance from the last time that he'd seen her, but since he could barely remember their last meeting, it was as well a new meeting. She was middle aged, from the look of her, and powerfully built for a woman regardless, glowing a semi-transparent blue in form and fashion. Dressed in what looked like futuristic versions of Water Tribe attire, she had her eyes closed, her legs crossed, and her fists pressed together. Sharif could remember little of their last conversation, true, but he could remember one thing above all else; she was a violation in what should be.

Sharif clambered over the side of the ship, dropping down with a clang against the deck. He walked up to her, and she remained oblivious to him. He cleared his throat, and she remained oblivious.

"This is wasting time," Sharif muttered. "Avatar Korra! Bear me attention!"

Glowing eyes opened, before the glow parted until spectral blue eyes took their place. One could be forgiven for thinking that Sharif and Korra looked much alike. The differences between a dead Avatar and a projected shaman were, to a point, mostly academic, after all. "Oh, there you are. I was wondering if you'd show up again."

"Have you been seeking me?" Sharif asked.

"Not particularly, but better than nothing, I guess," she uncurled from her position, now 'standing' on the deck below her. "I got into contact with some of the spirits I met when I was younger. Turns out, you aren't the only one who doesn't think I should be here. They did admit they knew me, though. Who's breaking causality now?" she asked the moon, which for some reason Sharif never uncovered had a staring eye on its surface. That eye-moon didn't answer the dead would-become-Avatar.

Sharif shook his head. When time-travel appeared, tenses became an obvious problem.

"You have been having fun, I notice," Sharif said dryly. "That is all well and good, but for now, we have a much more important task."

"Really? You're going to lower yourself to work with an 'abomination against the natural order'?" Korra asked sarcastically.

"I assume that I referred to you such last we met?" Sharif asked.

"Pretty much."

"Fitting, because you are," Sharif said. "But I need such as you to my ends."

"And those ends would be?" Korra asked, a smug look on her face.

"I must find what has become of Avatar Aang's mind, before his body withers away and dies," Sharif said. That caused Korra's smugness to vanish in a quite pleasing manner.

"Aang's dying?"

"I have not told the others. Unless his spirit finds its way back to his body, the body will perish, and fairly soon," Sharif said. The last was an exaggeration, as Aang had days before the damage to the connection from his body to his soul became dangerous, but anything which spurred this troublesome woman faster would doubtless be a boon.

"Then we better haul ass!" Korra said, and took one step. Then, she paused, looked down, and frowned in confusion. "Wait a second. Where the heck am I?"

"Did you not come to the Moorage on your own?" Sharif asked.

"...what's a Moorage?" she asked. She then looked around. "And what the heck happened to the Spirit World while I was resting?"

"That is a tale which would take longer to tell than the current Avatar has to live," Sharif said. "You will learn what is needed as it is needed, I can promise you that. But for now, we need to have haste. Reality itself hangs in a delicate balance."

"Always does when the Avatar's involved," Korra said easily, and started to follow after him, as he vaulted over the side of the ship and made his way back up against the current of the river.

---

He let the crunching of dry bamboo announce him, since he wasn't sure whether he trusted his voice at the moment. This was the sort of thing he usually left to Katara, but since she was busy trying to de-liquify Jet's ribs – and the flight had been understandably harrowing for the poor bugger considering his injury – now that she had time for more than a passing fix. The one back here, though, was not suffering from anything that waterbending could fix. No broken limbs, no torn flesh. But it was easy to tell, even for somebody as famously oblivious as Sokka, that Nila was a wounded young woman.

Her total reaction to his approach was turning a glance in his direction, before she returned to simply sitting, her half-complete rifle across her knees, and a blank expression on her face. "Came to check up, see if you were alright," Sokka offered.

"Others need more attention than I," Nila said.

"May be true, but that's not what I'm interested in," Sokka said. He sat down opposite her, trying to get a gauge of her. She looked... exhausted. Weary. Beaten. "So how about you stop trying to be tougher than your mother, and tell me if you're really alright?"

"What do you know of my mother?" Nila asked, probably rhetorically.

"Not much," Sokka said. "How about you enlighten me?"

"She is... frustration incarnate. Nothing I do is good enough for her. I find Sharif, having had to traverse the whole of the continent to do so. I bring her home, to find home destroyed. I then track down Mother, and free her from bondage. Well, she freed herself, but her exodus was by my influence," she shook her head. "But is it enough for a word of praise? No. Not from she."

"Some people are just... mean," Sokka said. Nila turned a flat glare toward him.

"That is the sum of your observations? Some people are rude and unpleasant? I could have told as much, using myself as example," she shook her head slowly. "I thought... that this would have ended some other way. That she would appreciate me more."

"I think she does," Sokka said. "She's just terrible at showing it."

"How terrible could one be? I am terrible," Nila pointed out.

"Actually, you're rude but I've had worse. I've deserved worse," he amended. "You know that you're not all bad, because otherwise you'd never have any friends."

"Who says that I do?" Nila asked.

"The firebender," Sokka said. "Tzu Zi, you said her name was? She's your friend. Malu, even though she went crazy and tried to eat Aang. Friend. And you know what? Me and Katara, too. You've got friends. More than you'd think."

Nila gave a mild scoff, and then her gaze drifted down to her weapon.

"...but that's not all that's bothering you, is it?"

She shook her head. Left, right, stop. Sokka turned, looking back into the heart of the clearing, where the others had gathered against the night, not even lighting a fire for fear of the bamboo catching alight, and creating a beacon for the Dai Li to find. And there was one person who was conspicuously absent from that gathering. "This is about Ashan, isn't it?"

She gave another dry chuckle. "You have the eyes of a thief, and the canny as well," she said.

"I'll take that as a compliment. What happened to him?" Sokka asked.

"He has been slain," she said simply, quietly.

"Really?" Sokka said, a sinking feeling dropping into his gut. That was a shame. Ashan always seemed like a nice guy. And had a decent sense of humor. "How did it happen? I mean, if you don't mind my asking."

She glanced up at him, then down to her weapon once more. "We were ambushed, in an eatery not far from Lake Laogai. That much you know. I was hurt badly in the flight from it. Ashan... he bore me all the way to the Middle Ring, despite his own grievous hurts. When the Dai Li closed on us, he hid me, and drew them away. When I woke up, he was long gone. But I know... I know from the wounds he had that he would not have lasted long. They have no waterbender-healers. He was... doomed."

"That's awful," Sokka said, shaking his head slowly.

"And the worst part? The last words I actually recall him saying? That he loved me," Her eyes pressed shut. "Loved me! He was a fool! He should have... should have..."

"It sounds like he just might have," Sokka said. "And I know what it's like to lose somebody you love."

"No, you don't," Nila said, her usual sharpness dulled. "The minx you pine for is only married to another man. You need only seduce her away. Ashan is dead. Likely, the only one who was so masochistic to bear such sentiment for me died with him."

"Oh, you're not that bad," Sokka said, lapsing into humor even though his brain told him this wasn't the right time. "I mean, how many guys would love to have a chick who can... blow up his house... yeah, I kinda lost my train of thought on that one."

"You see my problem? I am a destructive presence. Where I walk, death follows."

"Death follows everybody," Sokka waved the notion away. "The trick is to make it have to wait to get you."

She stared down for a while longer. "I don't understand how people deal with this."

"Losing friends?"

She nodded.

"It's never easy," Sokka said. "It hurts, and the pain seems like it won't ever go away. That's when it's important to remember that you're not alone. You're never alone, Nila. We've got your back."

"So you claim."

Sokka looked back at the clearing, where the shaman and the Avatar were claiming most of the attention of the group. "Tell you what," Sokka offered. "How about you come with us when we go to kick the Fire Lord's butt?"

"Excuse me?" Nila asked, the first expression which wasn't abject grief coming to her face since they'd landed.

"I know you heard me. Your mother can't respect you? Hell with her! Join Team Avatar and see the world, in the process of saving it!"

"That is the sorriest offer I have ever heard," Nila said flatly, but with a smirk on her face.

"Yeah, well, we don't exactly go around recruiting people at random. Usually, they come to us with the whole 'let's go save the world' thing," Sokka rubbed the back of his neck.

"That much is obvious, for I would not be the one million and first in a million-man army being levied against a blind fishwife for such a spiel," Nila pointed out.

"You'd better be careful of those blind fishwives. They can surprise you," Sokka said.

"How?"

"Ancient blind-fishwife secret. Sadly, I'm not privy to them," Sokka said with a roll of his eyes.

She stared at him for a moment. "You are a strange beast, Tribesman."

"Sokka."

"Whatever," she said. Sokka rose to his feet, and turned toward where the others were still waiting for the dawn. "Wait."

"What?" Sokka asked.

She didn't look up at him. "Stay," she said quietly. "For a while."

Sokka nodded. "Of course. Wouldn't dream of anything but."

Nila snorted. "Liar," and then, the two sat in the quiet of the night.

---

"It's a remarkably simple thing, the politics of nations, when you get right down to it," Ozai said smoothly, as he started to pace up and down the room before Ba Sing Se's true master. If there was nothing in the world else that Ozai could be thankful of his daughter for, it was the intelligence which forewarned him about the Grand Secretariat. "You could rule them with money, tell them that if they side with you, you'll back them when the night grows dark. You could rule them with fear, whispers around every corner, and the ever-present dread of death or worse keeping the lower orders in line. But those take too much effort. Money runs out. Fear becomes numb."

"You would be surprised how afraid people can be," the shrewd Easterner said dryly.

Ozai's smile tilted up a bit, and as he began to make his next point, he heard a voice interrupting him. "You do realize that he's smarter than you," Azula opined. "He'll wring you out with a plan as stupid as yours."

Ozai took a moment to clear his throat, so that he wouldn't shout her down. This wasn't the time for this nonsense. "Me? I rule with power. Keep the lower classes hungry for more, and dangle just enough that they will constantly war against themselves to attain it. If you do it right, you don't sacrifice much. And that's what this war is, between your nation and mine. A pointless sacrifice."

"Like all of the soldiers you threw away in Summavut?" Azula chided. She gave an expression of mock surprise. "Well, I'll be. The fool can actually learn from his own mistakes. Dress me blue and call me a waterbender."

The Grand Secretariat tilted his head slightly, pondering. "You cannot mean what I think you mean."

"Why can I not?" Ozai asked. "I've learned the value of certain things in my tenure as the Fire Lord. My father thought that Ba Sing Se would be his crown jewel. I'm not so avaricious..."

"...you could have fooled me," Azula said, inspecting her nails.

"...nor so foolish."

"Again, you could have fooled me."

Ozai's eye flicked toward her, just a tiniest glare of warning to the phantasm, before turning his attention back to where it belonged. He didn't notice, though, that the Grand Secretariat had noted his distraction, and filed it away. "What is there to be gained by more ruthless and pointless fighting, when we both know how this is going to end; armies at the gates, fire in the sky, and earth crashing down."

"That can be taken in several ways," Long Feng noted.

"So why not preempt the whole business? A simple agreement, between leaders of men," Ozai said. "You abstain from any military action in the East Continent, as you have for the last few decades, and in exchange, your city will remain in your capable hands."

"As a viceroy of the Fire Nation?" Long Feng asked. "Unacceptable."

"I told you he wouldn't go for it. Long Feng isn't a sycophantic toady, like the rest of your court is," Azula taunted. "He knows that once he opens those gates, he won't be able to close them again."

"You read too much into this," Ozai said, his first words slightly more forceful than he'd wanted them, as he interrupted his daughter. He forced the smile back onto his face, and changed his tactic. "Non aggression. Non interference. Keep your city however you see fit. I just want the East."

"You expect me to sell a continent to preserve one city?" Long Feng asked.

"We both know that's a rhetorical question," Ozai said with a note of snideness. "And we both know the answer is yes."

"You are... surprisingly well informed, then," Long Feng said. "But I still feel this is somewhat one-sided. You expect me to give you everything in exchange for nothing. That is not how bartering works. Especially when I have her as my private guest," Long Feng rubbed at his mustaches, letting the implication sink in. Ozai paused a moment. Who? Who would Long Feng possibly have that he thought he could leverage Ozai with?

"Who do you think?" Azula asked sourly. "Some father you are. Throw me out of my home and cast me into the dungeon of your worst enemies."

For some reason, that thought felt very sour in Ozai's stomach. But no more sour than what he said next. "I don't care about your guest, whomever she may be. Hang her in an oubliette for all I care. You will take the offer as it stands now, or else suffer the consequences in the future. I cannot guarantee, for example, that your walls will remain as secure tomorrow as they are today."

"You would sell her so swiftly?" Long Feng asked quietly.

"You are a terrible excuse for a human being," Azula snapped. Shut up, Ozai thought, as loud as he could. Shut up, you weakling girl! Why couldn't you have been stronger?

"Make your choice, Long Feng," Ozai said. "Peace or war? Safety or chaos?"

Long Feng stared green fire at him, but Ozai let it wash over him. "Very well. An armistice, then."

"So good to see that diplomacy can prevail in these trying times," Ozai said with sarcasm, and a smirk on his face.

"Your own child..." Azula shook her head, disappointment clear on her face.

"I presume that you will want this kept quiet," Long Feng said with obvious distaste. "When will you call your soldiers back from my walls?"

"Soon enough," Ozai said. "A week, ten days at the most. Things have to look convincing. There's an image which needs to be maintained."

"Pity the image is as hollow as your soul," Azula muttered. Ozai's eye twitched, but he managed to prevent himself from lashing out and screaming at her. She didn't know the first thing about politics, or the things he'd had to do to keep the Fire Nation whole since Father died. Her sickness tore the family apart. It was Azula's fault that everything happened as it did! Had she not fallen sick, Ursa wouldn't have had to...

"...is there something else?" Long Feng asked.

"What do you mean?" Ozai snapped, somewhat more sharply than he would have intended.

"You seem... distracted," he said.

Ozai forced a smile back onto his face. "Forgive me. The night is late, and I am fatigued. Firebenders rise with the sun, after all."

"Then you should rest. I can have our finest rooms made available to you," Long Feng said with a disingenuous smile.

"So that I could disappear in the night and never be seen again? I think not," he said. "You can enter, now."

"What?" Long Feng asked. As he watched, though, there was a shimmer in the air, and two youths in their late teens seemed to walk out of open space. They had been waiting in some sort of reflection of reality during the entire conversation, to make sure that nothing untoward happened. They were very good at their jobs, and he intended to commend them for it. The two Children flanked their leader, and he motioned toward them.

"The Children, of course. So good that you've decided to agree to my terms. I hear that these young men and women have... remarkable skills."

"Is that a threat?" Ozai asked.

"Why would I threaten Ba Sing Se? I thought there was an armistice in place?" Ozai asked tauntingly. He walked toward the window, and flicked out a flash of fire. In a matter of moments, there was a dull 'whoosh'ing sound above, as the airship moved into place. "And besides, if I wanted to threaten you, I'd show you how I got here."

Long Feng stared at him, but Ozai had tired of the games. And he tired of Azula looking at him like he was garbage. She didn't understand. This had to happen. He had to keep the East off balance, at least until the day that Sozin's Comet returned. Then, he would burn the armistice and the city both to dust in its wake. It was not a betrayal of trust if one party of that trust was dead, after all. Ozai grabbed the rope-ladder which dangled from the underside of the airship, and bounded out the window, swinging away with his robes fluttering in the early morning breeze. The airship began to climb, and the two shaman Children both joined the ladder lower down, leaving only Long Feng staring out, and up, in shock and terror.

Because, to that poor bastard's mind, he was witnessing the rebirth of the Storm Kings. Only now, they bowed to the Fire Lord. As it should have been a thousand years ago.

"You are going to pay, for what you've done," Azula's voice reached him at a whisper in his ear. Against the roaring of the wind, it should have been lost, but instead rang clear as a bell. He felt a shudder run through him.

"I will do whatever is needed for the Fire Nation to be supreme," Ozai promised. "You can't stop me."

"My lord?" one of the Children asked. "Did you say something?"

Ozai glanced down at the youths, but held his tongue for a moment. This was getting out of hand. "Rise," he ordered them. "The Burning Throne is calling us home."

---

"What are you going to do, Grand Secretariat?" Han asked, joining his master at the window, staring as that impossible machine flew away into the distance.

"What do you mean?" Long Feng asked.

"I listened to the plan. Do you really intend to honor an armistice?" Han asked.

"Of course not," Long Feng answered. "But let him think that I will. It gives me freedom to rebuild some of what the Avatar has cost me. When summer comes, we can rid ourselves of the Fire Lord, and much of the dead-weight of our leadership in one fell swoop."

"So you intend to ambush them during the Day of Black Sun. Fitting," Han posited.

"I would be a fool not to," Long Feng answered. "Have the Dai Li located the Avatar?"

"Not yet, Grand Secretariat. His allies have hidden him very, very well. They might well have fled the city."

"I am not so fortunate," Long Feng muttered. "Inform the guards that they are to treat every airborne contact as hostile, and respond accordingly. The Avatar will find Ba Sing Se much less friendly to him than when he remembers."

"I will do so at once," Han said. But he hesitated. "Was there anything else?"

Long Feng almost said no, but in fact there was. He was silent for a moment, and didn't look at Han when he gave the next order. "Send a messenger to my home. Tell Dun that I won't be returning for several days. Work just got... hectic."

"At once, Grand Secretariat," Han said.

---

"So it's not my imagination that the current's a heck of a lot stronger than it used to be?" Korra asked as she slogged through the waist-deep stream which served as both the arteries and highways of the fractured and hemorrhaging Spirit World. Their passage had been fairly uneventful, due to the water, but its insistent tug was becoming troublesome, and worrisome, to the young shaman who guided them forward.

"Would that I could expect an Avatar, who ought be the finest of us, to know what the symbols of a Spirit World mean," Sharif muttered under his breath. But because of the silence of the darkness around them, it carried clearly.

"Hey! I was a teenager when I learned this crap. Stuff came up, and it slipped my mind!"

"Slipped my mind, she says," Sharif rolled his eyes. "As well forget how to pass through the rifts. As well forget how to open the World Eyes! I could sooner forget how to breathe!"

"You're an up-tight little bug, aren't you?" Korra said, leaning in to pinch his cheek. "I should set you up with my kid. She was about your age when I croaked."

"And what would I do with her?" Sharif asked.

Korra stared at him, confused. "A teenage boy is asking me what he's supposed to do with a teenaged girl? Are you serious?" then she paused. "Oh, you're gay!"

"I have no interest at all," Sharif said, turning away.

"...how does that work?" Korra asked.

"One could easily blame it upon an injury of the brain. It serves me well, though, in that I am not distracted by fleshy things," Sharif pointed out. "The state of the world is not best left in the hands of hormonal youths."

"Hey, the world got along just find in the hands of hormonal youths before you, and after you, too," Korra moved to his side, sloshing through the water.

"I suppose you speak from personal experience?" Sharif asked wanly.

"You bet. I was saving the world from the time I was seventeen!" Korra said proudly.

"And how much easier would said saving have been had you the perspective of the day of your demise?" Sharif asked.

"I would have..." Korra began, but her up-thrust finger wilted, and her posture slumped a bit. "You might have a point."

"I am well aware."

"That still doesn't mean there's no place for it. Some of my best memories are from my love-life," she said with a nudge. Sharif rolled his eyes.

"You can cajole me as you will, it will not stir me. There is no passion nor lust in me. There has never been. Now please, focus on the important task, of finding our erstwhile Avatar!"

"You're not a lot of fun, are you?" Korra asked.

"Of the two of us, one must be the driving intellect," Sharif countered. Korra paused in the stream.

"Hey!" she complained. But she caught up a few moments later. "So... where are we going, anyway?"

"I am using you to direct my path," Sharif said. He glanced back to her look of confusion. "I take it that in your time upon the Spirit World, you learned its rules?"

"More or less," she said. "How two points in the Spirit World can be much closer together than two points in the world, and how distance isn't set in stone, a few things like that."

"...I see," Sharif said. "You might find they are somewhat different here. The stream connects the remaining pockets of the realm. The pockets themselves are not always laid out in the same order. I have explored them long, but I cannot make sense of their arrangement. Thus, I use your essence, even though you ought not exist, as a lodestone to direct me."

"Sounds complex," she said with a frown. She then glanced to a crevasse, where one smaller stream met the one they were wading through. "Where does that go?"

"I am not sure," Sharif said. "From the flow, I would say one of the orchards. Perhaps the Cage."

"That doesn't sound too frie–" Korra began.

She was cut off by the sound of metal slamming into metal, echoing throughout the entire black sky. The sound made Sharif's blood run cold.

"No. No, not now. There cannot be so much bad fortune in my life!" Sharif said, dread in his tone.

"What was that? I hear that sound from time to time but..."

Sharif didn't let her finish. He grabbed her hand and dragged her, practically at a sprint, up that crevasse and into the dead garden beyond it. "There is not time for explanation! Follow me or face obliteration!" Sharif screamed as he navigated the narrow confines of the divide. So focused was he, in fact, on his flight from the sound, which thudded powerfully from behind them, that he let his instincts falter. So when he emerged from the crevasse, he was moving too quickly to prevent stepping in a blob of elemental earth; in this case, taking the form of a powerful acid.

Sharif dropped at a roll to the ground, clutching his blue, phantasmal leg, and watching with horror as the lowest part of the extremity began to melt away. The agony was unbelievable, and his screams were a proper accompaniment for it. But after the first howl of anguish, he clenched his teeth, and rolled onto his chest.

"What's going on? Why are you so OH YUE'S BLOOD LOOK AT YOUR LEG!" Korra shouted. She then reached down and hoist Sharif off the ground, supporting his weight under one shoulder. "What was that?"

"I am a fool and twice a fool!" Sharif hissed. "I should have foreseen that!"

"Sharif, what's going on!" Korra shouted at him from a foot away.

The blast of sound cleared his agony for a moment, enough to glance over his other shoulder, and note the discoloring sky behind them. "We must make for the Cage, standing there!" Sharif pointed ahead of them. "It will protect us from what is to come."

The Cage was only somewhat appropriately named, in that there was a metallic structure which rose out of the trees, curling up like a sort of metal-frame pot. The bars were quite far enough for anything man-sized to slip between them, but it still maintained a sense of being a prison, if not for people. Korra was quick to her feet, at least, and was able to shoulder his weight. Another thud in the sky, and an electric crackle at their backs, as the bruise-color began to sweep forward, outpacing them. Sharif fixated only on the Cage before them.

He felt it an instant before they both hit it, and was able to shove the two of them aside with his one remaining foot so that they didn't barrel straight into it. The elemental air, which would have ground them into paste, instead threw them hard aside, dashing them against the crumbling earth of a hillock. "What was that?" Korra shouted.

"There are many dangers! One is catching up with us! The Cage, you clueless Avatar! The Cage!" Sharif shouted. Korra was on her feet and moving again, though, and with a last heave, came to a jolting stop in the center of that twist of metal rods. Sharif dropped to a pained sit, rubbing his knee, below which his leg abruptly ended. It would take a short while for him to restore the limb, now that he had a chance for focus. "Do not move beyond the rails. Death awaits if you do," Sharif said, teeth still grit.

"Noted," Korra said with a shrug. Sharif then looked up, to what he expected; death and dead wood. Instead, he found faint light, spiraling up the trunks, pulsing like the beats of tiny hearts. The last thud came, and the sky turned from burnt orange, to inflamed-flesh pink. And a wind began to sound. "That is..."

"The Spirit World on its knees," Sharif finished for her. The wind grew louder, and a tremor began to rumble the ground. The trees, though, began to glow more brightly, tendrils of light beginning to reach out from the trunk in a spectral imitation of branches, of leaves. He was watching the Cage come to life. And he wasn't sure what had changed to make it so. "It will be upon us shortly."

Korra nodded, but then tipped her head.

"What is it?" Sharif asked.

"I hear somebody coming," the Avatar said, glancing behind them.

"Another shaman who has blundered in at the perfectly worst moment," Sharif said, turning behind him, as the winds began to blow dust around the Cage. He could see somebody scrabbling down the wall, somebody slender and agile. Somebody approaching from the beyond. Somebody moving in a beeline for the Cage. "Pity he shall not reach us."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Korra asked. "And... wait isn't that..."

"If there was, I would have knowledge beyond that of the Avatar himself," Sharif said quietly. And then, even as he watched the wall of multi-hued annihilation approaching, he could hear something behind him. Not just the pounding of feet. He could hear very, very foul language. In Altuundili.

Sharif turned, shocked, as that approaching form took a great leap off of a stone much closer than Sharif would have predicted to be reached in that given time, and swung from the bar of the Cage into the ground in its midst. She, and it was a she, rolled to a stop, hands on the ground before her, panting for lack of breath. Sharif's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider. In that moment, the wind of death crashed upon the Cage, and swept beyond it, leaving those within it untouched.

"How can this be?" Sharif whispered.

"You simply have to be the luckiest chick I have ever met," Korra said, clapping the girl on the shoulder. The girl struck the hand off brusquely and rose to her feet. "And I've met Asami, so that means something."

"Luck would be me not landing here after so taxing a day!" Nila snapped, glaring up at the dead Avatar. Then, frowning. "Wait. Who are you?"

"Sister?" Sharif asked.

"Sharif? What are you doing here?"

"I would ask you that same question! You are no shaman!" Sharif pointed out.

"And yet here I am," Nila said. Of them all, she seemed the most substantial, almost as though she were here in the flesh. She looked down at his foot. "You stepped into a Fruit Punch, didn't you."

"A what?" both shaman and Avatar asked at once.

Nila palmed her face. "Just when I thought I could get a good night's sleep..."

---

Sokka was, as usual, snoring like a rusty saw trying and failing to bite through rock-hard cherry. He might have looked like he was just sitting there, arms crossed on his chest, but the snore gave him away. The other, nearby, was lying down, and likewise snoring, if not nearly the same volume. She honestly didn't know what to make of those two. The mad-scientist and the gunslinger. But she had to admit, right now, that chick needed a friend.

The painful truth, though, was that Toph needed one right now, too. The others were already asleep, as the day had been long and arduous, and the night growing short. The sun would rise soon, but they'd probably sleep through it, sheltered as they were. Toph, though, could sleep with her eyes open to the noon-sun. Perk of being blind. She kept 'looking' toward where Mom had separated from the others, the older people and the young. Toph didn't even give Twinkletoes and Brainless a thought as she quietly crept over to her mother.

A part of her hated that she felt this way. Hated that she felt weak and small and girly. That it hurt when Mom looked toward her, and felt nothing. Or seemed to feel nothing. She hated that after all those years trying to prove herself to her parents, she was right back doing it as soon as they reappeared in her life. "Mom?" Toph asked quietly. She turned her head toward the blind girl, but from the way she sat, from the beat of her heart, from her posture, she might as well have been staring at a stranger.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean," Mom said.

"This can't be real," Toph said quietly, desperately. "I mean, I finally find out that my mom was awesome covered awesome with awesome filling, and the next time I see you, it's only 'cause Sparky hit you in the head with a stool? That's not right. It's not fair!"

Mom lowered her gaze. "Life isn't," she answered, haltingly. She looked toward the others. "I... don't remember much. I know some things... The boy is the Avatar. I know Prince Zuko, who he is, where he's from. I know... Zha Yu. But..."

"But you don't remember me," Toph finished for her.

She nodded, slowly. Regretfully. "I am sorry," she said, voice breaking. "There's this great gaping hole in my life, and I don't know what goes there. Somebody stole my past."

"I know who, too," Toph said.

"What are you going to do?" Mom asked.

"I... don't know," Toph said, sitting beside her mother. "Twinkletoes... the Avatar, I mean... he's already earthbending. He's even got a bit of firebending to him. He could end the war tomorrow," she shook her head. "Maybe... it's time to go home."

"Home?" Mom asked. "It... wouldn't be my home. I don't remember."

"What do you remember? Do you remember Dad?" Toph asked, trying hard to keep the tears from her eyes. This wasn't fair! It just wasn't!

Mom shook her head. "I don't. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing! Why are you apologizing! You should be angry! You should be pissed off that somebody took your life from you!" Toph blurted.

"You'll wake the others if–" Mom began.

"Then let 'em wake," Toph asserted. "The Mom I know wouldn't take this lying down. And that means, neither will you."

"Maybe I'm not the mother you knew," Mom said quietly, her gaze down into her lap.

"I refuse to believe that," Toph said. "Maybe the memories will come back?"

"Zha Yu says that if they're gone... they're probably gone for good," Mom said.

"And what does he know? He still probably thinks that metalbending is impossible! I know you're still in there, Mom."

"I don't know," Mom glanced away. Toph finally lost the rigid control she'd been enforcing on herself, and grabbed the woman. Not to shake her, to slap some sense into her. No, she just clenched onto Mom's waist, buried her face in her shoulder, and quietly sobbed.

"I want my family back," Toph said, finally saying something honest. "I want my Mom back."

"I don't remember you, Toph," Mom said quietly. But then, Toph could feel arms reaching around her, cradling her gently, pulling her close. "But... I remember this."

"Really?" Toph asked.

Mom didn't answer. She just held Toph close, as the tears of catharsis finally flowed out, the stress of months ebbing away. The crickets chirping was the background melody to the scene, punctuated by Sokka's snoring and the crunch of bamboo being rolled over by one of the men. "Toph," Mom finally said. "Tell me a story about a blind earthbender girl. Tell me about her family."

Toph's laugh was still half sob. She didn't sleep that night.

She was okay with that.

---

The Blowout had rumbled past, leaving the trees around the Cage in full bloom, white and indigo leaves swaying in the last breeze of its passage, and Nila had to palm her face at the scene before her. "I am well aware you had come into the spirit to find the Avatar. I simply thought you meant the current one," Nila pointed out.

"One will find the other," Sharif muttered, as his limb slowly started to regrow. Nila leaned back.

"How is it you do such a thing? My grievous wounds stand with me 'till I awaken," she pointed out.

"It is a matter of remembering that your flesh here stands ephemeral. And you have not yet answered my question as to how you came to be in this place! It should be barred to you! Have you been so long a shaman without my knowledge?"

"If I am a shaman, then you are the Avatar," Nila muttered.

"Um, could somebody speak in a language I do? This is starting to feel a little ostracizing," Korra said, with a hand raised to get their attention.

"Avatar, this is my sister. Most call her Nila. She should not be able to be here," Sharif said, as his foot returned to coherence. It was a trick she would have to discover herself, if only to avoid having to limp around like a fool.

"So this is the storied Avatar-yet-unborn," Nila said, turning to face the older woman. It was strange to think that this woman would not be born for at least another fifty years, let alone the other fifty which were evident upon her features. "You are aware that your very existence defies the laws of physics."

"People keep saying that," Korra rolled her eyes. "And people keep assuming that I know their futures. Which, for some of 'em, I do, but it's not like I actually paid attention in history class."

"So the breach in the cosmos is self-closing by her own laziness. The universe has a sense of humor, and it is twisted," Nila noted.

"Hey!"

"Sister, please desist from taunting the Avatar," Sharif said, now on his feet again.

"Brother, I would not desist from taunting the Avatar would one enter its self-same State," Nila muttered.

Sharif barked a laugh at that, and for a moment, was quiet. "I miss this," Sharif said.

"I miss it more than you could imagine," Nila said quietly, before pulling her brother in for a hug. She shook her head over his shoulder. "It was a cruel fate which took you from me. Crueler still to leave behind what it did."

"I was always there, in some way," Sharif said, gently. "And I will always be there, Sister."

"Aw, how sweet," Korra said with a smirk. "Now, about this whole 'where's Aang buggered off to' thing?"

Nila released her embrace and nodded. "Though she stands in defiance of causality, she is right," Nila said. "Would that we had some clue as to his whereabouts."

She then paused, and looked around.

"What do you seek?" Sharif asked.

"I am tempting fate, and seeing what it casts at me. The presence of an Avatar nearby must make it an irresistible target," Nila answered.

"...what?" Korra asked, before she stopped, and glanced out into the 'forest' which was starting to calm down, and moderate its glow. "Wait, I know that sound."

"What sound?" Nila asked. Then she heard it. The shadows on the ground began to drift away, no longer cast by the diffuse light of the trees, pulling in until they stood as a great black void between the Cage and the treeline. Then, the white light from the leaves began to coalesce, surrounding and containing that darkness, so that it seemed to form a mirror, with two smokey panels. Nila's eyes bulged, and her urge to flee was almost overwhelming. "No, this is not even fair..."

"Heibai!" Korra shouted happily. The twirling panes of darkness seemed to shift, and flow, down onto the ground, where they formed the body of a massive panda, which sat staring at them placidly. It grunted at her, and she walked up to scratch its snout. "You remember me, don't ya?"

"You know this spirit?"

"He and I go way back. Aang made friends with him before my time," Korra said, leaning on the beast.

"Then how could he remember you, as you are not yet born?" Nila asked.

"Spirits do not have the same sense of time that we do," Sharif said. "Time flows strangely in this place."

"That much is obvious," Nila muttered. "What can this panda beast tell you?"

"Don't listen to the angry girl. She's just... Oh. Well, I guess she's got a reason to be angry, then," Korra said, as the bear glanced toward her. Korra rolled her eyes and shook her head. "That's what you get when you abduct people. It doesn't end well!"

"You are speaking to this brute?" Nila asked.

"Indeed. As am I," Sharif said. Heibai turned toward him, next. "You are welcome to bask, but please, do so with focus. Where is the Avatar?"

There was a moment of silence, after which, Sharif hung his head and Korra palmed her face.

"No, the current Avatar, not that one," Sharif clarified.

"Hey, that one has a name," Korra said, arms crossed before her chest.

"So she screams with every fiber of her countenance," Sharif noted. Nila barked a laugh at that.

The panda broke apart, drifting up into the air, reforming itself as the twinned panes of smoked glass, bounded by white light. The panes spun in, merging at an odd angle with themselves, and the white flowed in, painting roughly a scene upon their face, white upon black.

Sharif looked at it, and shook his head, frustration clear on his scarred face. "Damnation upon the Most High! I do not know this place!"

"Yeah, it doesn't look like anywhere I've ever been," Korra noted.

"You do not know this place?" Nila asked, incredulously. The scene was of a great tree, slumping over the ruins of a metal framed structure, the whole of it a scant dozen or so feet above the lapping of a shore. "This is the Death Garden. It lies at an edge of the Sea of Souls. I have been there uncounted times."

"That does little to help us, Sister. The Sea of Souls is remarkably hard to reach," Sharif shook his head.

"Are you daft? I said I have been there countless times. I know the path to it better than I know my own face," Nila shook her head. "I swear, Sharif. I have been coming here for years, and have memorized much of it. You could have been coming far longer, and have done precious little, it seems."

"Forgive me for living with a smote brain," Sharif muttered.

"So, we've got a destination?" Korra asked.

"Indeed. And we shall need your clout, I think, when we reach it," Nila said. She paused, though, standing before the portraiture. "You have served well... Heibai."

The panels rotated back away, and the panda reformed itself. It looked down at her, and pressed its nose to her forehead, even though she leaned back to avoid it. When it did, she got... not a vision. More an understanding. An enlightenment. She staggered back a step under the weight of it, and looked to Sharif, in shock. "...this is what you have been concealing from me?"

"What?" Sharif asked. He then turned to Heibai. "You swore you would not reveal it!"

"So the Avatar was not being facetious towards 'the end of the world'," Nila said, rubbing her face. "I can see the import, now. This must be done."

Sharif paused in his tirade, glancing back to her. Heibai turned a glance which would have been classified as 'smug' had it been human, and had Nila been paying attention to it. "...never mind," Sharif uttered quietly.

"So we've got a direction? Let's put the pedal down!" Korra said. Both Si Wongi frowned after her as she moved toward the crevasse at the edge of the Cage Garden.

"...the pedal of what?" Sharif asked. Both Nila and Heibai both shrugged their ignorance, before the latter dissolved into motes of light, and the garden, for the moment, grew brighter.

---

Music swirled around Iroh, the up-beat tempos of his distant homeland. He could hear the vibrancy in the notes as he danced, Qiao light as a feather in his arms. He could smell the faint spices, the incense in the air. She was smiling up at him, those dark eyes almost seeming to shine. They both had reason to be happy. It was their wedding. They didn't know then that she was already a month pregnant with Lu Ten when the ceremony was made official, but the timing couldn't have been better. Iroh, a younger, fitter Iroh, beamed. Qiao beamed back.

The crowd swirling around them gave them space, as was befitting his relative high station. But there was something strange about that crowd. Namely, it didn't look... complete. Like the crowd was only an impression of a crowd. Like the song was only a memory of a song. But Iroh, focused on holding onto this joyous moment, set those concerns aside. If he was dreaming, then he dreamed well.

"I want this to last forever," Qiao whispered into his ear, holding him close for a moment, before they parted in a graceful step.

"There's no reason it shouldn't," Iroh offered, all the heady impetuousness of his relative youth showing.

"You charmer," Qiao said, twirling as he spun her 'round, then coming close once more.

"He's always been that way," a new voice said, something jarring to the memory. Iroh's expression darkened slightly, and he looked up. The woman before him was dark, dressed in fine blue silks and jewelry, a vision of beauty, to be sure, but for some reason, Iroh was sure she didn't belong here. First of all, she looked like a Water Tribesman. And at this point in their history, they were still at war with the South. Then, Iroh smelled something amidst the memories of spices. Just a hint of ozone. She sidled closer, and laid a hand onto the shoulders of each of the then-newlyweds. "Do you mind terribly if I take the charming groom for a spin?"

Qiao glanced to Iroh, confused, but put on a graceful smile and gave a nod. "Of course. This is as much your day as it is mine," she said. Or at least, he imagined that's what she would have said, were this situation happening. The spirit wafted up and took Iroh back into the press of the crowd, which now encroached on them at all sides.

"Gotta say, nice place to spend your night," the spirit said.

"Tell me who you are, spirit. I was enjoying my dream," Iroh said irately even as he danced with it.

"Oh, you know who I am," she promised. Iroh pondered for a moment, as he sent her through a low dip, and the answer appeared to him.

"Irukandji," Iroh said. "I thought our last meeting would be the final one."

"Sadly, no," Irukandji said, leading him as though she were in control. "I've been trying to find your niece. Where is she?"

"You do not know? I thought you would keep better tabs on her, considering you are the cause of her current malady," Iroh pointed out.

"I've checked the usual suspects," Irukandji said, ignoring his jibe. "But the acrobat is back in Ember and the depressed one is living in a slum about a mile that way," Irukandji nodded in a direction that Iroh was certain was random. Direction had very little relation between the dream and the waking worlds. "Since Zuko's with the Avatar and she'd be bearing a fairly understandable grudge against him, you were my next option."

"Zuko has joined the Avatar?" Iroh asked.

"Yeah. Real bitter about it, too," Irukandji said. "You've got a messed up family. And I'd know messed up. My brother is literally a monkey."

Iroh nodded, a small smile creeping onto his face. "I am pleased," Iroh said. "I had long feared that Zuko might fall into despair. That he might turn his back on the right path, and take the easy road. If nothing else, I have taught him that the easy roads only lead down."

"That doesn't help with the Azula bit, is what I'm getting at," Irukandji pointed out.

"I did not invite you here, so I feel no desire to tell you anything," Iroh pointed out. The woman he was dancing with raised a dark brow at that.

"Iroh, you know as well as I do that if this came to a real fight, I'd smash you flat, even inside your own mind. You know what I am. Who I am," she pointed out. "So how about we have a civil conversation inside one of your pleasant dreams, instead of a donnybrook?"

Iroh glared at her, but then sighed, and nodded. "Very well. But not this one. I do not want this memory sullied by the likes of spirits uninvited."

"Fair enough," Irukandji said, backing away from him, and snapping its fingers. The scene changed from the chaotic dance, and a young and vibrant Iroh, to the apartment he was now sleeping in, and he, old and fat.

"I do not know where Azula is," Iroh said outright. "She informed me two days ago that she wanted some time with 'old friends'. I know that she is concocting some foolish notion to overthrow the government of Ba Sing Se. I fear that she might be just successful enough to cause the leader of this place to retaliate."

"Great. You don't know either," Irukandji rolled her eyes.

"Why are you so interested in her? You are the one who damaged her, made her this way," Iroh asked.

"Damage? Azula's perfectly fine," Irukandji said. "Better than fine! Had I not done what I'd done, then..."

"The family would have been torn apart from within?" Iroh asked, interrupting the spirit. Irukandji gaped for a moment, then nodded. "So you have some knowledge of future events?"

"No, but I'm a good judge of how things are going. I've seen similar enough stories enough times before. I've been doing this for... quite a while," she said.

"Taking the dead for passage into worlds to which they do not belong," Iroh finished. "Have you not considered that you might be the cause of all of this imbalance which has beset the world?"

"Don't you hang that on my head," Irukandji thrust a warning finger toward him. "I dropped Azula into herself at the age of eight, and surfed back another eighty. All of this," she waved around her, "was already set in motion by the time I got there. Otherwise, wouldn't you think I'd just grab the first soul out of here?"

"How can you be certain that you have not damaged the veils between worlds with your wanton wanderlust?" Iroh asked.

"Because it is part of what I am," Irukandji said darkly. "I cross the veils because it is part of me. Existence allows it. I do it because I hunger for it. I exist, Dragon of the West. I am not some blackness from outside reality. Unlike Imbalance, I have a place here. I have a purpose. And my purpose has let me see things you would not believe."

"So why Azula?"

"To spare her the pain she could have suffered. To give a bitter old woman a chance to rediscover joy. Because I like stirring the pot when it's at a boil. A lot of reasons," she said, sipping at a cup of tea which appeared in her hands. "But as for you? I don't feel much need to explain myself. I'm trying to keep reality from ending. Can you say the same?"

"Trying?" Iroh asked.

"It's a lot harder than I thought it would be," she muttered. "I try to put out every fire I come across, but it's spreading too fast. I don't know where the Host is. The Avatar is down for the count. Your brother seems to be losing his mind..."

Iroh leaned back. "Ozai is falling?"

"I wouldn't say falling. Just going nuts," Irukandji clarified. "Honestly, I'm worried. I don't know if there's enough strength left in existence to fight Imbalance, at this point. The only hope is that we find some way to seal the Host."

"So you would sell one to save the universe?" Iroh asked, nodding.

"I didn't say that it was a good solution," Irukandji said, with a shudder. "And I certainly wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the poor son-of-a-bitch that Imbalance has horned Its way into when we do, but it would be the best of all possible solutions. For most people. Not the Host, of course."

"And for that, you need the Avatar?" Iroh asked.

"A little bit, yeah," Irukandji said. "Because I need somebody who can wake up Koh, and he's about the heaviest hitter I've got on speed-dial since Agni went into hiding."

Iroh made assumption from context and let the odd term slide past. "And what does this have to do with my niece?" he asked. "...especially if this is, as you say, not entirely your fault?"

"Because I know she can help... somehow," Irukandji said, waving as though trying to summon up words. "Look, I'm not into prophesy. That's a thing for charlatans and Void Spirits, and I'm neither. But I've got a feeling in my synapses that your niece might be the second-most important piece on the board."

"After the Avatar," Iroh noted.

"After me," Irukandji corrected with a tone of scandal.

"I will only aid you if you swear to restore her," Iroh said.

"I can't," Irukandji stated.

"Cannot, or will not?"

"Yes," Irukandji answered. When Iroh scowled, she rolled her eyes. "I can't turn her back into the girl she was when Oldzula landed in her brain. That girl's long gone. I can't even turn her into the girl you knew on your little boat trip, since she's spent at least the last few months radically changing since Summavut. The old one is in charge, at the moment. And that's what needs to be. The world needs Azula. All of her. Not the girl, not the teenager, not the bitter old bitch. It needs all of her."

"You don't offer much," Iroh noted.

Irukandji shook her head, slowly. "Because that's what I get for trying to save the world," she scoffed. "Next time, I'm leaving it to you meat-things. You can all die in oblivion for all I care."

"We both know you're lying," Iroh noted, sipping tea, which he spontaneously manifested into his own hand. It was marvelous.

"Damn it. And I thought I was becoming less transparent," Irukandji muttered. She affixed Iroh with a blue-eyed glare. "Find your niece. Keep her safe, and when you find her, tell me. This could be the most important thing you ever do, in the history of existence."

"Of course I will keep my niece safe," Iroh said. And a smile came to his lips. "It's what Qiao wanted."

---

"You know, I don't see why everybody dotes on him so much," Korra opined from their back rank, as they moved away from the flowing waters, and through the fallen stones. She knew this path well, since the Death Garden was the best of both worlds when it came to surviving until she awakened. While it had traps, they were few, and it was well protected from Blowouts in the wooden embrace of its centerpiece. "He's kinda like a slightly less arrogant version of you."

"People dote because they see me as I am without my proper mind," Sharif said. "Fair said, I am all but helpless without the false-brain to think with. With it, I am my sister's brother."

"More impressive, you are your sister's contemporary," Nila improved. "That is a very select fraternity."

"Aren't we proud of ourselves?" Korra asked, smirk on face and arms crossed before chest.

"Says the woman who apparently picked fights with criminals because she could," Sharif said with a roll of the eyes.

"Who told you about that?" Korra asked, scratching at her hair.

"The Void has many answers," Sharif said simply.

"...are you sure he's not being needlessly cryptic on purpose?" Korra asked, leaning in toward Nila.

"He is a shaman," Nila answered. And it was all the answer she needed to provide. Korra let out a grunt of annoyance.

Even as she dreamed herself into this dead spirit world, her mind kept going back to Ashan. Ashan, who had sacrificed himself for her. Ashan who would never see a proper burial, because of her. Who would never see his home again, because of her. Who lost his family, because of her. By all rights, he should have despised her, for bringing so much calamity to his door. And instead...

She had long declared that she had no understanding of humanity. Usually, it was uttered when they did something which disappointed and annoyed her. In this, though, she could honestly say that she didn't know why he'd done many of the things he'd done, and not out of exasperation or impatience. It was often said – usually by herself – that there was no such thing as true altruism, for every good deed was a forepayment for a return of favor. But were that the case, then Ashan would have been forepaying for years and years, without any sign of a return on his effort. No, that theory didn't hold even as much water as a bucket without a bottom. There had to be something else.

Romantic attraction was something which was outside of Nila's understanding, thus, she shelved it. Rather, she tried to deal with the fundamental underpinnings. To understand why he put up with her. It couldn't be because of a romantic attraction. Surely, humans were not such short sighted beings as to become lustfully engaged with counterparts they couldn't otherwise stand! She turned the problem over in her head as she moved up through the extremely narrow cleft which ran up the cliff-face, so claustrophobic that they couldn't have walked abreast if they'd wanted to. The only thing besides the suffusive light was the stone, of various dark greys and black, upon which they stood.

"So, 'Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar'; tell me something. Why haven't I heard of you?" Korra asked, not even breathing deeply. Then again, given her physique, even in middle age and death, it shouldn't have been surprising.

"I do not understand," Nila said over her shoulder.

"Aang's a legend. Zuko's the Fire Lord. Well, former Fire Lord; his daughter takes over for him and his grandkid's in the navy. Sokka founded Republic City. So where were you during all of this?"

"I am not sure what you mean," Nila said, pausing as she glanced between two clefts. She reached down and plucked up a few pebbles, throwing one down each. One of them bounced back toward her. She chose the other fork.

"I'm just saying, I know the future. It's my past," Korra said. "So if you're palling around with my previous me, why haven't I heard about it?"

"Maybe I would much prefer to be left alone," Nila pointed out.

"...nah, I don't think it works like that. Even Haru had the spotlight on him, and he was, like, nobody in the long-run," she continued. She then paused. "I wonder if somebody tried to suppress knowledge of your existence."

"How lovely. I am deemed worthy enough by history to be forced into obscurity," Nila muttered.

"For the last time, cease this! You are altering things you cannot understand nor predict!" Sharif said, but Korra shoved him idly away.

"Well, let's see," Korra said. "Maybe we need to look at your father..."

"We do not know who our father is," Sharif pointed out.

"Then your mother, maybe. Who is she?"

At that, Nila turned in confusion. "You cannot be serious. You do not know of the Dragon of the East?"

Korra raised an eyebrow at them. "I know a Dragon of the West. Are you saying you're related to Prince Iroh?"

"No, not the Fire Lord's brother. The woman who defeated him at Ba Sing Se," Nila snapped.

Korra glanced between both siblings. "...Iroh was beaten by General How. A man. So I'm lead to remember."

"This is pointless," Nila cut the Avatar off, her attention so focused on the path before her that she neglected to consciously discover the secret Korra was unwittingly keeping. It did manage to slide quietly into her mind, but not knowingly, not yet. "The Sea of Souls is ahead."

"We cannot be so soon to the Sea of Souls," Sharif said, clambering up beside her, and giving her a look when she gently pushed him away from a place where he'd almost stepped on a Springboard which likely would have launched him clear to the bottom of the crevasse. "It is impassable to any but the dead! And besides, the elsewhere-ways are only passable through the rivers."

"For a shaman, you seem to know precious little about your own realm," Nila pointed out, as she crested the pinnacle of dull, grey rocks and looked out upon a listless sea, lapping almost begrudgingly at grey sands. Given the height they had reached, it was obvious that 'sea level' was much higher than the rest of the Spirit World, or else that space had itself bent back upon itself to accommodate the Sea's placement. Given their location, it could be either.

"She's good," Korra said. She looked up and down the shore. "Man, been a long time since I was here."

"Do not touch the water," Nila said.

"We are not morons," Sharif said testily.

"You are much of the time," Nila pointed out.

"Yes, but even I am no so much the moron as to touch that tide," Sharif answered evenly.

"Yeah, even I know that's bad news," Korra said. She stood, staring out onto the water, and as she did, the fog over the seas began to mount up, forming into something almost like a human shape. Korra's eyes hardened a bit when she saw it, and she glanced down, as though in shame. "Damn. That's one face I didn't want to see again."

"We all have regrets," Nila said, keeping Ashan firmly out of her mind. She didn't want to see him here. Honestly, she didn't think she'd be able to bear it.

"The duty of the living to the dead is to learn, and to honor them by living well," Sharif said with a nod. "I have to wonder. How is it you know this place as the Sea of Souls? It is not a place commonly known."

"I have spent years traipsing about this place," Nila said with a scowl. "When its nature was revealed to me, I made certain deductions of logic. Any with a brain would have done likewise."

Sharif gave a shrug and a nod, since he obviously knew she had a point. "Come then, sister. One way or the other should lead to this Death Garden of yours."

"Are they really there?" Korra asked.

"No," Sharif answered, taking her hand in his, slowly pulling her in Nila's wake. "Only your memories of them, bitter or sweet."

Korra let out a muted laugh. A bitter laugh. "I suppose that's for the best. After all that... It took a long time before I could look at myself in the mirror again."

"As I have you for guide, why do we need her, sister?" Sharif asked sarcastically.

"I would rather have an Avatar and not require one, than require one and lack," Nila answered simply.

Sharif released Korra's hand once they were certain that she would continue walking with them. Out of the corner of her eye, though, Nila could see why they were so concerned. Rising out of the mist, forming from the darkness above the water, she could see faces. Thousands of them. All of the people she had known in her childhood. The bullies. The idiots. The braggards. The fools. The only face she didn't see was that of Gashuin, which was fitting, since she knew he lived. They didn't address her, or try to clamor for her attention. Fitting, since she didn't give it. But she was still aware of them.

And she forcefully didn't think of Ashan.

The Death Garden announced itself in a most unusual way. By a soft, golden glow. Unlike most places that Nila had come to in the Spirit World, there was never the sense of cloying, the sense of being almost-touched by ghostly hands, here. It slid off of her like dust in a bath as she came closer. The sky, too, changed. While it was still grey, it was now a grey tinged lightly with gold, like sun trying to fight its way through thick clouds. Almost succeeding. But most important of all the differences was the ground. Not cracked mud, nor stone-chips worn down by decades of Blowouts, it was an honest humus, thinly layered atop simple clay. Their steps didn't crunch, here. It was quiet as the grave, warm as the womb, and peaceful as death.

The 'waters' lapped here, too, but at something which looked like twisted stone, bounding up out of its tides and then back down into the shore. Clay, all. She had half a mind to think that something great and massive had crafted this landscape out of boredom, then left it to cover over in detritus for a century. She wasn't entirely wrong, but she wasn't aware of that. Besides the golden glow, there were few other things here. A ruined building was clear amongst them. From the metal poles, it almost seemed like some sort of mockery of a Dakongese ger. Whatever it was supposed to be, though, was erased by the fact that a great tree had fallen atop it, smashing through it and unmaking it.

The tree itself was more 'tree-like' than most she could see. It didn't seem petrified, its limbs were intact, if wilting. It simply looked old, and dead. Finally passing back into the soil. An end, fitting for its place. "Where would the Avatar be?" Nila asked.

"Let's see, if I were a twelve..."

"Thirteen," Nila corrected.

"...year old Monk scared for my life, where would I be?"

All three shared a glance.

"He's in the tree," all answered the question as one. Nila turned the bend first, and saw the form, knees crossed, fists together, and eyes glowing furiously.

"Oh, this isn't good," Korra said.

"It seldom is," Sharif muttered.

---

"There's been no word of the Avatar's whereabouts," Han reported, as Long Feng flinched back into full consciousness. The long nights were taking their toll on him both mentally and physically. He leveled a only somewhat unsteady gaze upon his inferior, and nodded out of the room that Long Feng had, initially, only come into to read a report. The report became a sit down. The sit down became a nap. Walking would bring him back into coherence, if nothing else.

"We have to assume that he is waiting for us to show our hand," Long Feng presumed. "There is nothing that can be done except prepare for the worst of all eventualities. Keep the young fool in the dark as long as is humanly possible, and keep the Avatar away from him. I will not have that outsider destroy what I have dedicated most of my life toward."

"And if it becomes necessary to destroy him?" Han asked.

"You have my permission, and my encouragement. His interference couldn't have come at a less opportune time," Long Feng muttered. "And if nothing else, the years until the next Avatar arises will ensure that by the time she or he appears, Ba Sing Se will be safeguarded against it."

Han shook his head, sighing. There was a bag under his remaining eye, showing that he might not quite be as tired as Long Feng, but the gulf was not nearly as great as one might have imagined. "We planned for everything but the Avatar," Han bemoaned.

"A century has rendered us lazy and dim," Long Feng muttered, fighting back a yawn which was both unseemly and unwanted. "We will have to be better."

Han nodded, and turned toward a different branch of the palace. "The Avatar will not breach the King's palace."

"See that he doesn't," Long Feng said as the man vanished into shadows of an ill-lit hall. He knew he should have a touch more focus, of objectivity, but the thought most pressing on him at the moment was 'how am I going to apologize to Dun'? The gods knew he deserved better than this. And he would get better, even if it was over Long Feng's corpse.

---

The sun was rising, and Zuko watched as the sky over the bamboo turned from purple to something approaching blue. "No surprise that you're an early riser," master Piandao said, from where he, too, watched the sky shift hues.

"It's in my blood," Zuko said. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. Especially after Grandfather sent a hundred men to kill you."

"That was a long time ago," Piandao said, waving the point away, albeit with a stump. He paused, looking down to the ruin which once ended with a right hand. "And a hand, ago."

"I've learned well," Zuko offered. "Your skill already has passed into able hands."

"That's the thing," Piandao muttered, rubbing at his unshaven face with his remaining left. "One does not ever stop seeking new students. You learned well, and properly, Prince Zuko. I always respected that about you. You didn't grasp why, not at first, but you did in time. Your uncle would be proud of you, if he saw you here."

Zuko turned away. "Uncle... I'm not sure what to think about him," he glanced up at the sky once again. "On one hand, he lied to me. On the other, he was right."

"It might surprise you to know that you and Iroh are more alike than not," Piandao said. "You aren't the only child of a Fire Lord who spent his teenage years wandering the world."

"So Uncle keeps regaling me," Zuko muttered, crossing his arms. He then looked to the crippled swordsman. "What will you do now?"

"The same thing I have always done," Piandao said. "Just with a single hand instead of two."

"I thought you'd take this as an opportunity to stop," Zuko said. Piandao gave a shrug, and glanced toward the sleeping body of the older woman amongst them. Well, the one who was dark-skinned.

"I couldn't. I've always known that I'd rather follow than lead. Much the same, I'd rather teach than stagnate. I already have my eye on a new student."

"The Avatar?" Zuko asked. Piandao gave a chuckle at that.

"Not exactly," he said, giving a nod to the distant corner where the Tribesman was snoring loudly enough to challenge the frogs for mating rights – and win. Zuko's brow rose.

"Him?" Zuko asked. Piandao nodded. "Him."

"Yes, him," Piandao said.

"He's..." Zuko waved his hands, trying to come up with a proper descriptor.

"Remarkably fast on his feet, both physically and mentally. Inventive, intelligent, willing to learn, willing to be wrong, and more important than anything, willing to do what needs to be done, no matter the cost to himself," Piandao pointed out. "He might lack for skill, but that is what teaching is for."

Zuko just scoffed lightly. Not in dismissal, more like mild amusement. Of course, the master-swordsman would have a perfectly valid reason for an insane choice. It just jarred, to have the finest sword in the West training the biggest dolt in the South. The two then turned toward where Sharif and the Avatar were still kneeling, silently. "Do you think he'll wake up soon?" Zuko asked.

"He had better," Piandao muttered. "For all our sakes."

---

The blast of power sent Sharif flying onto his back the moment he tried to approach the Avatar. Nila pulled him to his feet, and he gave a grunt of surprise. "What is the meaning of this?" Sharif asked. The Avatar glared with burning eyes dead ahead. "Do you not hear me, Avatar?"

"Oh, this doesn't seem good," Korra said, walking a bit closer. She glanced toward them. "If he's going all Avatar State on us, why aren't I? I mean, he's pre-me, after all."

Sharif gently pulled away from his sister, and moved to the edge off the wall of force which had shoved him so rudely back. "Avatar, you must listen, and heed swiftly. There is a great upending in the world. You must see to it, or a great darkness will fall!"

The Avatar glared.

"Come on, Aang. You were always telling me that I had to fight my demons, no matter how terrifying they were," Korra pleaded, moving a little bit closer. Such, she was now standing in the barrier of energy, and it seemed to flick off of her. The Avatar glared, in silence. "We need you, Aang. Don't leave us like this. Don't keep me from getting born! History will be so much worse without me!"

"Arrogant," Sharif muttered.

"I would much like to see what this one would do in that one's place," Nila said, flicking a tattooed finger between Korra and Aang's position, respectively.

"You cannot be serious," Sharif said with alarm.

"...I'd probably kick some Fire Nation ass," Korra offered. "Aang, please, listen to us. We know you're hurt and afraid, but you're not alone."

"We are ready to stand beside you, to fight against the coming darkness. But we cannot do it alone. Be our beacon against the darkness, Avatar!" Sharif implored. "Return, that we may undo a century of harm!"

The Avatar glared, unmoved.

"Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment," Korra scratched at her head.

"Begging?" Nila asked. "You beg and plead at the demigod to come to your aid?"

"Your own words show the logic of the path," Sharif pointed out.

Nila shook her head and walked forward, only to bounce off of the same field of energy which had rebuffed Sharif. But not Korra. "Ow," she muttered. "Brother, even demigods can be petulant. I could name a dozen from our nation's own mythology. Power corrupts hearts, minds, and souls. Some, more than others," she looked at him. "He is very afraid, and will not bear coaxing."

"Then how do we get him out?" Korra asked, standing astride that barrier. Nila glanced at her, then beyond her, to the Avatar. Then, back to the dead older woman once more.

"You are dead, yes?"

"The ghostly pallor not give that away to you?" the woman said sarcastically.

"And ghosts have a certain control of their corporeality, yes?" she asked.

"Well... I'm not sure. I mean, it's not like I've tried," Korra muttered, scratching her chin.

"Then you would do well to become intangible," Nila said. Korra shifted, and Nila raised a finger with a tut. "Right as you stand, if you please."

Korra gave Nila a look of confusion. Sharif was just baffled, and shrugged. So she rolled her eyes, and then pressed them shut. "I don't know, Nila. This seems like a waste of effort to me."

Nila, though, was already walking. First toward the would-eventually-be Avatar... then through her. It was a strange, goosebump raising experience, passing through the body of the dead. But she allowed Nila through the barrier the Avatar had erected around himself. And that let her get close enough to the demigod himself for her own brand of encouragement.

It started when she reached out, grabbed one of his flaring ears, and twisted.

"Listen closely, you fearful child," Nila snapped. "You have been dealt a blow? Feh! I have suffered far worse! You have been defeated by your enemies? My own have killed the dear and the departed of mine! So you are not allowed to wallow here in the dreams of the dying while I of all people am still willing to fight!"

"Sister, have you lost your mind!" Sharif shouted, but it was oddly muted on the other side of the barrier. And the Avatar's face twisted into shock and pain, even as his eyes still blared light.

"In staying here when those depending on you need you, you are proving yourself worse than a coward; you are a traitor to them!" Nila continued. "You had as best be fighting on the side of this Imbalance that you so vehemently claim to oppose! While it consumes by mindless hunger, you have chosen to ignore the pleas of those dear to you, so that makes you a far worse monster, I would wager."

"Um, Nila? Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Nila then released the Avatar's twisted ear and gave him a strong armed slap across the face. When she did, the light on his hands, and in his eyes, finally faded away, and he clutched his cheek in shock. "If you would be the Avatar, then you would do it now. You have fallen. It stands to you to rise again. If not, then you are no hero, simply another of history's innumerable cowards."

"Why did you slap me?" Aang asked.

"So you now listen?" Nila asked, arms crossed on her chest. Then, with a whump, the barrier the Avatar had been projecting finally fell, and Sharif almost stumbled forward as he'd been leaning forward against it. "You must return to your form, Avatar. Others await you."

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"It is a long story, and one best told under the sun, not this..." Nila waved her ink-darkened hands vaguely around them.

"Korra? Is that you?" Aang asked.

"Yup," Korra said. "We were worried about ya, little-buddy," she continued.

"Huh," then, his eyes widened. "Oh no. I've got to warn them!"

"Warn them about wh–" Nila began, but was cut off when the light returned to the Avatar's eyes, and erased everything else.

---

Korra opened her eyes to a featureless grey, which pressed in from all sides. Silence, as well. She slowly started to look around, to gain her bearings, but a chuckle from directly behind her took her attention much more fully. She turned, and saw that she was not alone in this void. Sharif was here, too, floating with his legs tucked up underneath him. "Whoa, what just happened?" Korra asked, waving her hands around.

"The Avatar... dispelled us," Sharif shrugged. "I needed more time, to speak to you while I still had the capability."

"Where are we?" Korra asked.

"It is difficult to explain. Think of it as my dreamscape, if you must," Sharif said. He opened his eyes, a hard and focused look on them. "Avatar Korra, you might well be a fool and a sign of darkness in the days ahead, but I have doubts I will be able to teach the current Avatar what he needs to know to succeed in what is likely the grimmest of all paths. Thus, that duty may fall to you. Can you do it?"

"You bet I will."

"That was not my question. My question is 'can' you," Sharif asked.

"...I've been Avatar longer than he's been alive," Korra said.

"Longevity is little succor when knowledge is needed," Sharif muttered. His form began to bleach, and drift away as though being blown away by a gentle breeze. "Damnation and hells, I am awakening."

"Look, you can count on me. I'll make sure Aang's ready for what's coming," Korra swore.

"See that you do," Sharif said, his body now half-missing. "I believe he alone can wake Koh, and he will be necessary for what s t co

Then, Sharif was gone.

An instant later, Korra was, too.

---

Sokka's yawn and stretch might have had the inadvertent side-effect of punching Nila, but while she did grumble darkly as she was ousted from sleep, shockingly enough, it wasn't directed at him. Rather, she pushed herself to her feet and moved over to Sharif, speaking loudly at his sitting, yet sleeping, form. Since it was in Altuundili, Sokka couldn't listen in. But whatever she was saying, it obviously wasn't getting through, because she kicked him in the shoulder lightly, causing him to topple over, and finally awaken.

"What has happened?" Sharif said. "Did I find the Avatar and the Avatar?"

The answer to that came in the form of a flare of white light, belting out of Aang's arrows, and in the moment his eyes opened, they as well. He sucked in a gasp, as though he'd forgotten to breathe for days, then slowly sat up, clutching at his head. Likely, the poor kid had a ripping headache from sleeping in so late. "There is your answer, Brother," Nila said, turning to the newly awakened member of their group. "So the petulant sleeper finally returns to his duty? Good."

"What? Petulant?" Sokka asked. Nila glanced back at him, and pointed at Aang.

"He was being needlessly contrary and difficult."

"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Katara asked, near where Dad and Zuko were cooking breakfast.

"Yes," Nila said, unbaited.

"I... don't really know what happened," Aang shook his head for a moment, but then, it came up, his eyes flaring with urgency. "Oh no! Sokka, you've got to stop dealing with those Cultural Authority guys! They're..."

"Secretly controlling every aspect of life in Ba Sing Se under a pall of violence, darkness, and terror?" Sokka finished for him. "Yeah, we figured that out."

Aang got a very worried look on his face. "Oh, man... How long was I out?"

"A few days," Sokka said. "Toph broke the rules of reality while you were sleeping. Good times."

"So she claims. I'll believe it when I see it," Zha Yu said, coming in from the outskirts of the bamboo patch. He gave Aang a swat on the back as he walked past him. "Good to see you're up and about."

The swat had, of course, sent Aang forward onto his face. Aang, though, got back up, if a bit unsteadily. "...guys, what do we do now?"

And that was a question that Sokka didn't have a witty, snappy answer for. Silence descended back onto the clearing, save the gentle pop of a well isolated fire, and the tuneless humming of a brain-damaged shaman.

---

Alright, we're on the final stretch for this 'season'; there's only one more breather 'episode' for the Gaang, and for those who aren't in the Gaang, it's not a breather.

If you haven't already guessed (and if you haven't by this point, are you sure you're actually reading this story?) the Spirit World is going to play a massive part in the third 'book', and everything that has been going on Malu-related is going to get kicked up a few notches. So far, Imbalance has turned the Fire Nation into a rain-washed, perpetually cloudy bog, put the East under a sixty year drought, and made every ocean on the planet borderline unnavigable. To quote every pessimist ever; it's going to get worse.

You've got to be a bit of a sadist to be a writer. If you're not willing to make people suffer, then you're not doing justice to the story, and to the world that they live in. If they get a happy ending, it's got to be clawed up to. If they get a victory, it's by the skin of their teeth, one that in the end they all drop to the ground, coughing up little chunks of lung. Anything without cost is without value, and so it is with success. But I ramble too long. This took far shorter to write than I would have anticipated. Lucky you. Let's see how the next one does.

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