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.

39. The Void

The first sensation that returned to her was that of something slick sliding past her teeth and tongue, coating her throat as she involuntarily swallowed. It tasted somewhere between sweet and foul, an unholy mixture of bananas, pickles, onions, and something else she couldn't put her finger on. Since she couldn't move her fingers at the moment, the saying was more accurate than she could have believed. The featureless grey began to break apart, mote by mote, until she could see stars overhead. The prickling numbness gave way until she could feel a wind against her face.

The hunger was still there, every bit as terrible as it had ever been... but it seemed distant. Somebody else's hunger.

She swallowed, and the concoction did nothing to feed that beast. Her eyes swam for a moment, until they beheld the slender form of Brother Pathik before her, finishing tipping an austere wooden bowl of something yellow toward her. She drank it without question, since the alternative was choking. When she was finished, she smacked her lips, trying to clear the unpleasant aftertaste from her palate. To no avail, sadly. She looked to Pathik, and she tried to understand.

"Where are we?" she asked, her words slow, like they'd been dragged through mud just so they could see the sky.

"We are atop the ruins of the temple," Pathik said. His eyes opened sluggishly, and as always, he had a serene smile on his white-bearded face. "I sense you have many questions."

"...how are you still alive?" she asked.

"One of the greatest lies of this world is the lie of death. It is an illusion," Pathik said, which answered her in no way whatsoever.

"What did you just push down my throat?"

"A mixture which is a wonderful purifier," Pathik said, with a slight shrug. "Perhaps not the most appropriate, given the scale of what needs purifying, but there is a power to symbols."

Her lips worked dumbly for a moment, as she tried to pick one question out of the myriad to put voice to. Finally, a salient one rose to the fore. "Are... you a shaman?"

"No," Pathik said. "Not all of the kin of the Air Nomads were benders, nor all shamans. I am... something else."

"Then how can you exorcise this thing?" Malu asked, confusion starting to give way to a bit of worry.

"I cannot," Pathik admitted evenly, which caused a cold brick of terror to settle into her ravenous stomach. "Only you have that strength."

"I don't," she tried to shake her head. "If I did, none of this would have ever happened. If I did... I'd have kicked it out on my own by now!"

"There are things which I do know," Pathik calmly said, his voice almost as soothing as a lullaby. "Not all things are of spirits and bending. Some are more universal. More ephemeral. And there is a strength in you that may well surprise you. Once we begin, though, it cannot be stopped," he looked her squarely in the eye. "If you attempt to halt at any point once we begin, there will be no second attempt. You will be consumed by the creature which hides under your skin. You must have focus, and wisdom, and will, and strength. I can provide the first two. You must provide the rest."

"What do I do?" Malu asked.

Pathik nodded once, then tipped his head back. Malu couldn't do the same herself. "Tell me what you know about the Chakras, daughter of the winds," he said.

"Nodes of the energy of the soul," Malu quickly and effortlessly recited. "Divided into seven Chakras and one hundred eight sub-chakras which can manipulate them throughout the human form. The energy flowing through them determines what we are, vain or humble, meek or mighty..."

"You speak as one who has read many books," Pathik gently cut her off. "What do you know about Chakras?"

"...I was just telling you," she said.

"You were telling me what you knew that others knew about Chakras. Not the knowledge of a woman alone, derived in contemplation, through adversity and trial, through victory and failure."

Malu glanced away. When he put it that way, she honestly didn't know anything, only what others who came before her said. "I... guess I don't know much."

"Do not be ashamed of ignorance, child," Pathik said. "No canvas is so valued as one which is blank and ready, for nothing can stain what comes upon it. He rose to his feet, and rested a hand amidst her hair. "There are, as you said, seven Chakras of importance in this. The first is here, at the crown of the head. It deals with cosmic energy and enlightenment itself, and in the presence of distraction and earthly attachment, it is weakened, and falters."

"What do you need me to do?" she asked. Pathik patted her lightly on the head, as though trying to comfort a fussing child, before returning to a lotus kneel before her.

"Consider the things which tie you to the world, which distract you from living a life well lived. Think, on that which keeps you from becoming who you were meant to be."

Malu's eyes drifted down once again. "I don't know who I'm meant to be."

She looked up again, and she could see... herself. She was painted in stars, a spectre of blue-white light against the darkness of the night, but her eyes were brightest of all, as though she were looking at some representation of herself in the Avatar State. She looked down, and she wasn't on the roof anymore. No, she seemed to be hovering, high above the planet. And below... she could see the world starting to burn.

A red line started to slide across the edge of the abyss in which the sparkling, Avatar Malu rested. But the line halted, and she could hear Pathik's voice. "These are the things which tie your focus, your energy to this world. If you wish to become healed, and whole, you have to let them go."

"Let go of what? That I was ever so stupid that I thought I was the Avatar?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that."

Her eyes flitted over to the red line, so starkly out of place, but she returned them to the burning world, to the testament to her vanity which hung in the heavens. She closed her eyes, and she... willed them away. She gave them up. The world had already burned, a century ago. Malu was not the Avatar. Aang was. Lazy, layabout Aang was the Avatar, and not her.

She was just an airbender.

Malu was an airbender.

She opened her eyes, and breathed a little easier. Her fingers twitched, curling in an involuntary movement, as a weight lifted from her shoulders. She wasn't the Avatar. Never was. And that wasn't her fault. She couldn't have done anything about it.

So now, she stopped trying to be something she wasn't.

"Very good," Pathik said kindly, smiling to her as he rose, and scooped her up in his stick-like arms. Honestly, she had no idea how a tiny old man could have such strength. "You have begun the journey to your power, to your freedom. It will not be easy. Others have much greater difficulties letting go of what binds them to this world. They feel they have more to lose."

"I'm all I've got," she said, her tone quiet, sad.

"This is the first step of many, child," Pathik said, as he bore her down a stairwell, and they both vanished into darkness. But his voice didn't leave. "And I was not exaggerating the danger. You must be strong, and face what comes with an open heart and a keen mind."

"Or I'm done for."

"Or we are all done for," Pathik's voice sounded just a little bit unhappy at that. "Rest, child. The next trial will be more difficult. Sleep. We will face it together, in the dawn."

And with his words, Malu's mind fled into something like sleep, but far darker, far quieter. Something just this side of the grave.

---

Chapter 19

The Void

---

The knocking on Iroh's door dragged his attention away from the pot of jook which he was stirring on the stove. In truth, it was just another distraction in a long list. He didn't even have half a mind on what would be his breakfast. Azula hadn't come home. Not for several days. While Iroh wasn't above thinking that she'd gone off on her own, struck off with the old friend who had reconciled with her after the incident at Pang's tea-shop, this had him increasingly worried. Especially since Irukandji made its requirements clear. Iroh looked back to his jook, and noticed a strange odor. He sighed. In his long inattention, it had caught and burned, at least a little. Still edible, but it would be like bargain tea – something partook, but hardly enjoyed.

Iroh got to his feet, wiping off spatters on his apron. He would soon need to undertake the 'grand opening' of his new teahouse. It felt oddly empty, to have to do it alone. Some part of him wished that Zuko was here. Or even the Azula whom he had traveled with on his old, battered ship. But it was too late to whine, to complain that things weren't happening the way he wanted. If he had everything he wanted, he'd be the Fire Lord, Lu Ten and Qiao would be alive, and he would be absolutely miserable.

"Who is it?" Iroh shouted to the door.

There came a thump on the wall, followed by silence. Iroh's eyes narrowed briefly. "A stranger in the darkness. Who could be more trustworthy?" the answer came, a tone laden with sarcastic wit. That had Iroh all the more confounded. It was not a voice he knew from first impressions. He moved to the edge of the door, and slid it open a finger's-width, to see what lay beyond it. In the false dawn in the Upper Ring, the streets were almost clear, lit either pale blue by the waxing moon or by spots yellow by the lanterns much closer to Earth. It took a moment of maneuvering to see who had knocked, and when he did, Iroh was all the more suspicious. In fact, he was coming very close to running out of more suspicious to get.

The Tribesman looked to be in an unhappy mood, tempered by a degree of anger and a lot of focus. While his face was hidden in the shade of a pan hat, his stance revealed what his face would not. Most of what it said would have screamed 'fight' to Iroh, but the way he was standing was obviously not to intimidate or ambush Iroh. No, there was something else going on here. "Who are you?" Iroh asked.

"I'm told we share a mutual friend," the Tribesman said with an odd tone, flipping a small coin-like object through the air, managing to get it through the gap in the door. Iroh caught it, and held it to the light. It was a black Pai Sho piece, carefully marked with a white lotus. Iroh looked back up to the Tribesman. Was this one of the fallen Pakku's proteges?

"Who dares knock at the garden gate?" Iroh attempted.

"Somebody baring gifts and bad intentions," the Tribesman answered, which was about as far from what a White Lotus member ought said as could be. But still, Iroh had a feeling that there was enough going on that he needed to bench some of his paranoia. The explosions yesterday were probably a sign of things to come, he considered. Hard times made for strange friends. "Do you mind if I come in? I've got a guest that you might want to meet."

"If your intentions are honorable, I will allow you in," Iroh said.

"They're probably not," the Tribesman said, as Iroh opened the door for him. "But I don't have a lot of options at the moment."

"Who was this guest?" Iroh asked. And the Tribesman answered by reaching down and dragging a bound and gagged man in green robes out from a wicker basket and pushing him over onto his chest just past Iroh's threshold. Iroh turned from the Dai Li agent on the floor to the man who'd delivered him. "...I see. Is there a reason you have brought this person here?"

"He's being uncooperative. I'm told you're good at changing that," he said. He stepped into the light and doffed the hat, and Iroh blinked at who he saw. He certainly didn't expect to meet this particular Tribesman again, particularly under these circumstances.

"Hakoda. We meet again," Iroh said, with a slight bow to the man who was technically his social superior. "Much of my confusion is now assuaged."

"Are these walls safe?" Hakoda asked. His usual good humor seemed to be a thin mask over darkness and violence today; thus it was with Tribesmen. When on their good side, you could enjoy a hundred songs and jokes and good humor. When on their bad side... well, suffice to say, Iroh made a point of not getting on Tribesmen's bad sides.

"Safer than most in this Ring," Iroh said. "Who is this person? What do you want with him?"

"One second," Hakoda said, before leaning out the door. "This is the right one, you can stop hiding now."

"Who...?" Iroh asked, a question not answered until a bruised and battered Hua Jin Bai entered on Hakoda's prompting. Iroh's eyebrows rose. "This explains the explosions, then."

Bai gave a bow to Iroh. "Honored be in the presence of a master," he said. "Can you believe they were going to actually arrest me? Me! They should be so fortunate!"

"You are still the pirate you were in your youth," Iroh confirmed.

"He knows where my daughter is," Hakoda said. "And I thought you might like to know why."

"How so?" Iroh asked.

Hakoda reached down, to pull the gag from the Dai Li's face. But only first after pressing a blade to the side of his neck. "We're clear?" he asked the man. The Dai Li nodded. "Tell me who your newest prisoner of note is in Ba Sing Se."

"Princess Azula, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai," the Dai Li said, but not exactly willingly. Iroh's eyes then narrowed. Hakoda gave a nod to the old man.

"My daughter is hunting your niece. If we want our families to stay intact, we're going to have to work together on this," Hakoda said. And Iroh didn't see any reason to disagree with him. But one thing stuck out from his understanding of the situation.

"You have children, yes?" Iroh asked. "Why do you not include them in this?"

Hakoda's eyes fell to the floor, and he shook his head slowly, leaning against the wall. "I can't do that to them. If I'm wrong, if that's not her... or worse, if it is, and she refuses to believe it... I can take that. My daughter died a long time ago. But for them? They've already had their family broken up once. I won't do that to them again."

"Then we will have to see what we can do, for both of our families," Iroh said gravely, and then, he turned his attention on the bound Dai Li who still languished on the floor. The Dai Li went pale. He was right to.

---

Sokka skidded to a stop, just outside the war room of the Council of Five, catching his breath with great difficulty. It was a long run from the University to the Palace. Well, that wasn't accurate. It was only twenty minutes from the fringe of the University to the fringe of the Palace, but it was almost another half hour at a sprint to cross the massive edifice just to reach the center of it. It was times like this where he wished he'd had the presence of mind to ask to borrow Appa.

After breathing hard, restoring a bit of brown to his skin instead of its grey, he forced himself upright. If he was going to make an ass of himself, he'd do it standing upright. Just like Dad taught him. He pushed the door open, and was greeted by a lot more light then he expected to see, at this hour of the night. Of course, as soon as the Earth King arrested Long Feng and agreed that the Avatar's plan was the only one which could save them all, he made sure people were pulling an all nighter. The man himself was probably... yup; a glance confirmed that Kuei, although present to the deliberations, wasn't taking part because he was asleep in his sedan chair. How turned his attention to the door, and then nodded.

"Generals, this is Sokka; son of Hakoda, High Chief of the South Water Tribe," How gave as introduction.

"This is Hakodason? Not exactly what I expected," the clean-shaven and very-short-haired general to How's left said.

"Nothing is what you expect," the sole woman amongst the Generals said. She was a hard bitten one, her skin seeming to have the same toughness, texture, and rigidity of old, sun-baked leather. "What is his business here?"

"I've found the information I was looking for," Sokka said, striding up toward the massive table which dominated the center of the room. Upon it rested a map of the entire world. One which, Sokka could tell with even a passing glance, wasn't the most accurate. At some point on this trip, Sokka had become something of an expert on cartography. He set down a scroll, and rolled it out, so that it eclipsed roughly where Chimney Mountain would have been if it were indicated on this map. "The professor in charge of stellar phenomenon had a 'sudden leave of absense', but I went through his almanac; there's going to be a solar eclipse before the end of summer."

"That is excellent news," How said.

"That's the problem," Sokka said, which caused eyes to shift to him, so that he could give an explanation. "See, when I said 'before the end of summer', I meant 'barely before the end of summer'. As in, three days before change of seasons!"

"I fail to see your reason for concern," the simpering general said with suspicion.

"I take it, then, that nobody informed you about Sozin's Comet?" Sokka asked, and then groaned when they all looked at him as though he postulated the existence of a second head growing out of every human being's elbow. "Look, the short version is this; On the last day of summer, Sozin's Comet comes back, and when it does, the Fire Nation wins."

"The what?" the woman asked.

"Sozin's Comet. The thing which let Fire Lord Sozin wipe out the Air Nomads a century ago," Sokka pressed. "Lets the firebenders do crazy-powerful crap as long as it's in the sky."

"Essentially, you're saying that we have a time-crunch until the Fire Nation's true secret weapon can be deployed, as it were," How said. He gave a shake of his head. "It's essentially irrelevant, since, as you said, the Day of Black Sun comes several days before it."

"But it's cutting it a bit close," Sokka said.

"If there is no World War when Sozin's Comet arrives, then it can come and go however it wants," How pointed out, and had a point at that.

"I guess you're right," Sokka said. As well as cartography, Sokka had also learned a valuable lesson on this trip that if somebody proved you wrong, you didn't get defensive about it, because that tended to end with you hogtied by your own belt while armored teenage girls laughed at you. "Can you be prepared by then?"

"Indeed," he said. He made a motion, and green stone markers slid across the face of the map, toward the bay which split the Fire Nation roughly in half. "In the days approaching the Black Sun Invasion, we will position ourselves here, off of Ember Island. The perpetual storms of the Fire Nation will mask our presence, until we are ready to make our advance toward Caldera City, just in time for the eclipse."

"Inelegant," the woman general noted. "We should bring in Badesh."

"No offense intended, General Fei, but perhaps she's endured enough for the time being," How said. "As valuable as her tactical acumen might be, we have Jong-Uu who is more than capable enough."

Jong-Uu gave a nod at that. "Is there anything else you guys need?"

How turned to Sokka, who'd spoken up, and nodded. "We will give the Earth King the seal to authorize the invasion when he awakens. But as for you, I recommend you rest and recouperate. You've done your duty well, so you can rest easy. The war is finally in proper hands."

Wow. If that wasn't a statement of utmost hubris, Sokka hadn't heard it. He turned away from the Generals and their council, and wondered for a moment if it was a good idea to let them strategize without without somebody like him to keep an eye on them. And that, too, sounded like a notion of hubris. Sokka might have done some rather amazing things with the last few months of his life, but where in the name of Tui and La did he get off thinking that he had any place controlling the discourse of what was likely going to be the most important battle of the War?

Sokka walked back out of the room, crushing a yawn behind his fist as he did so; the hour was indeed quite late. Midnight had probably come and gone. While he was usually good for quite a while longer, the truth was... he was exhausted. He'd run himself ragged for days. The only one who'd pushed harder, longer, was Nila! And that was because people were already trying to kill her while he and his sister were dragging Sharif out of a pink-lantern district. And as much as Sokka wanted to check up on his sister at this moment, or to reconnect with the men from his childhood home, he could barely keep his eyes open. It had taken hours of scouring the libraries, even with the full assistance of both the staff and Toph, to find even as much as he did. No wonder Toph, on her own, floundered in the weeks they'd been here.

He picked a random direction, and started walking. There were innumerable rooms in the Royal Palace, most intended for state visitors from the kingdoms south and west. Honestly, there were a hundred different rooms in each wing, and three wings to chose from. So it was a slim chance indeed that he would happen upon one which was being used. Still, he didn't consider the odds – the universe liked two things, apparently; making the unlikely inevitable, and making Sokka's life more complicated and unpleasant than it needed to be.

He walked, and passed by a small knot of white-robed Si Wongi. He didn't give them a nod as they passed, nor they he, but the one at the center of that knot bulged eyes at him, and not happily. Sokka didn't even give al'Jalani another glance, though. Apparently, she'd deserved Qujeck's punch in the face a dozen times over with the things she'd done to turn her race against his. If he wasn't so tired, he'd have torn a strip off of her for that. She glared at his back as he walked on. No skin off his nose.

Another yawn, threatening to pull his eyes closed and send him to sleep where he was standing. Yeah, it was time to turn in. Zuko had taken to bed quite a while ago. Firebender, after all. Toph didn't even bother going to the meeting, opting to lay out as soon as she was done finding the Day. So it was just him awake at this ungodly hour, as he pushed open a door into a darkened room.

Well, not quite just him.

"What do you want?" Nila's voice came out of the darkness, sounding a touch ragged.

"Oh, yeesh. I thought this one wasn't being used."

"As did I," she said. Sokka squinted, and could make her out on the wide chair opposite the bed. She seemed to be holding something.

"...are you alright?"

"Do I sound alright?" she asked.

"You sound angry as hell, but that could just be you at a standing state," Sokka noted. He moved a bit closer, and reached for one of the strike-matches which were apparently selling like hot-cakes in the city; instant fire in seconds. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, right. Wide spread city fires. Lucky that Ba Sing Se had so many walls, in that regard. The light bloomed into the lamp, showing what Sokka had half-way expected, and the other half-way didn't think possible.

Nila had been crying. "Ugh. Why do you torment me so? Snuff that light."

Sokka shook his head, though. "Something is wrong. What is it?"

"It is not your concern!" she said.

"What if I want to make it my concern?" Sokka asked, arms crossed before him. "I'll admit, I might not know you as well as some of your other friends did, but I know that you're not the sobbing type. So by all means, let it out. What's wrong?"

Nila didn't look at him. Instead, she just reached up, a tiny, slightly torn portrait in her hands. A dancing woman, looked like. "Anybody I'd know?"

"Unlikely," she said. "Latifah died when the Beast destroyed my city. And the bearer of this died because this city became as a beast."

Sokka let out a sigh, and sat beside her on the wide chair. There was plenty of room for them, after all. "I know it's not easy, now. We've all lost things. But like I said back in the bamboo; if you need to talk about it..."

"You will be there to listen?" she asked.

"Oh, gods no. I'm not the kind of person who talks about feelings. It'd be unmanly!" Sokka said, with mock indignation. Nila turned to him, annoyance on her face, before there was a moment of hesitation.

"You are being sarcastic," she said.

"Took you a while to figure that out," Sokka said. "Strange, since you do it so much yourself."

"I do not," she said.

"...yeah, you kind of do," he countered. He yawned, stretching his arms up as he did. When he did, though, Nila leaned away. "Wha?"

"I have seen young louts attempt such before in a hope of teasing a girl into a grope," Nila said flatly. Sokka then glanced up at his own arms, and realized that what he was doing might be misinterpreted.

"Well, I'm not a groping kind of guy," Sokka said. Technically lied. He wasn't going to turn it down if it showed up, after all. He might not have been the 'lout' he was when he left the village, but he still had blood in his veins and testicles between his legs. "You're probably more exhausted than I am. You should go to bed."

"I think I'll stay here," she said. Sokka scoffed, and moved to scoop her up, intending to deposit her on the bed if need be. She interrupted him with a fist in the nose.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked.

"You had ill intentions!" Nila answered.

"I wanted to put you to bed, so I can find a room and spend some time comatose," Sokka said around an aching nose. It didn't seem to be bleeding, luckily enough. "Now come on. And don't do that again. You might punch me in the forehead and break your hand."

"You claim a thick skull with pride? You are of a strange breed," she noted. Sokka then scooped her up to a hiss of alarm from her, before taking her the dozen steps and essentially dropping her onto the green bedspread. "I told you...!"

"Yeah, well, you can tell me again in the morning," he said. He pointed behind him. "I'll be out there somewhere. I don't doubt you'll awake me with your indignant screaming. And... wait a second."

Sokka stopped, and looked back. Then down at one of his forearms. They were reddened. He turned to her, a note of fear coming onto his face.

"Nila, are you hurt?" he asked.

"What?" the Si Wongi girl asked, even as she begrudgingly pulled a blanket over her.

"You're bleeding," Sokka said, pointing at the chair she had been sitting on, and his own forearm.

"As I do every month," she said dryly. "Put out the light when you leave."

Sokka thought that answer through a moment. "Oh," he said, as it clicked into place. Then, another moment, this time of mounting disgust. He looked down at his arm, and shivered a bit. "Ew."

---

Aang didn't snore in his sleep, but he was dreaming. The dreams didn't have a real structure, but there was something which kept popping up in them. Golden eyes. Golden eyes, and danger. He fought through a dead forest in flames, trying to reach... somebody. Before it was too late. It wasn't a terror he felt, not for himself. Like... if he wasn't fast enough, strong enough, Avatar enough, then somebody else would be the one to pay the price.

He awoke with grunt of surprise, which was repeated when a dark hand continued to jostle him. "What? I'm awake, you can stop shoving me," he said. The hand finally stopped, and he blinked a few times, as his vision came into focus. He'd half suspected it might be Hakoda, as Sokka's hands weren't quite so broad. But the person standing over where Aang slept against Appa's fuzzy leg was not a Tribesman. Sharif stared down at him, or rather, down through him, as his gaze didn't have a whole lot of focus to it. "Sharif? What is it?"

"I need to go," he said.

"You should tell your mother," Aang said. "She might worry."

"No. I... we... need to go. We. Yes," he said, nodding vigorously.

"I don't understand," Aang said. "Why do we need to go? Is something wrong?"

"It is too loud here," Sharif said to the silence of night. Well, not silence, not completely. As large and distant as the courtyards of the Royal Palace were from the bulk of Ba Sing Se, there was still a buzzing of din from people living their lives on a nocturnal cycle. "We need to go to some place less barren. Some place more... full."

Aang stared at the shaman for a long moment, before his still-barely-awake mind kicked in, and he figured out, roughly, what Sharif was talking about. "Oh, I get it. You want to go some place with more spirits?"

"They need me to teach you. Important things," he said.

"Teach me?" Aang asked. He sat up. "What do they want you to teach me?"

"How to be Avatar," he said. Aang's eyes opened wider. "How to hear the void."

"Can it wait until morning?" Aang asked, his natural laziness trying to trump his also natural curiosity to see what he could learn.

"We must go now. There is so much to learn," Sharif said, awkwardly crawling up the flank of the beast, holding himself in place on Appa's back. Aang gave a glance toward the Palace which dominated his view, and to the people within it. He should probably tell them where he was going. So they wouldn't worry.

"Just a second, Sharif," Aang said, before bounding down onto the smooth stone walkway which ran between the ornamental and decorative plants. With a finger of focus, he etched a note into the grounds.

Gone to Reaches

with Sharif

Be back soon.

Aang

"Alright. Let's get going, buddy," he said, giving Appa's great head a bit of a push. The beast let out a groan, and shook its head lightly. "Come on. Up and at 'em. Yip yip!"

With another mild, if base, mumble of protest, Appa got first to its feet, and then bounded into the air. "Finally, I get to learn how to use the Avatar State correctly!" Aang said. "How are you going to do it? Some sort of chakra thing? Dim Mak massage?"

"I... am not sure," Sharif said. "Not yet. The way will become clear."

"Oh... I guess you know what you're talking about," Aang said. But still, it was with a note of glowing hope that he flew to the west, the sky starting to lighten gently behind him as the sun came up once more.

---

The light began to pour into Malu's eyes, and she found herself staring toward the rising of the sun. She blinked slowly, her head beginning to bob, to waver, but the distant rancor of her hunger settled her attention exactly where it needed to be. She flicked her eyes to one side, noting the ancient guru who was kneeling at her side, his form no doubt maintaining a yoga which kept that thing inside Malu at bay. For the moment, at least.

"You have awakened. Please, drink this," he said, tipping another bowl of that unpleasant concoction past Malu's lips. She gagged a little as she swallowed it, only because of her unending hunger did she not spit it back up. Food was food. Malu found herself licking her lips, trying to make sure that even though it tasted terrible, it all went down. Pathik turned toward the sunrise, as she did. "The next Chakra we must open is the Chakra of Light," he reached gently over, and tapped a finger in the center of her brow. "It is the wellspring of insight, and is sullied by illusions."

"I think I know what's clogged that one," Malu muttered.

"You would be wrong," Pathik said, but as usual, not harshly. "There is a more fundamental illusion that you have fallen prey to, one which blankets all of this world. It is a grander thing than personal hubris."

Malu frowned, trying to figure out what he meant. "I don't understand."

"Why does the world find itself at war?" Pathik asked. Huh. Malu wouldn't have wagered he'd even notice a war going on around him. Malu swallowed, again holding down the sour funk of banana-onion-pickle.

"It's not just because the Fire Nation started it," she said.

"It is a deeper illusion than that, I am afraid," Pathik said calmly.

"They're trying to take over the world. They've brought violence to everybody!"

"And what is the illusion behind that?" Pathik asked. Malu stared to the sun for a long moment. And as the sun rose, starting to slowly creep up over the horizon, she felt a similar understanding rising up within her.

"...because they're just like we are," Malu said. "The Fire Nation's not bad. They're people, like Tribesmen and Easterners and anybody else. Fighting as though they're different from the rest of the world; set apart. But they're not. We're all the same."

"You see the illusion, then," Pathik said. "The illusion of separation is the greatest of lies, greater than any you have told yourself. In service to this lie, you have walked a path of revenge, and received the fruits of such a stunted and twisted tree. But in seeing beyond it, that all are connected in this world, you finally see the path which can lead into a new day. They live as though they are apart, but they are one."

"But what about the elements?" Malu asked.

"Even the elements are one," Pathik said. "There are elements to all of us; fire in our ambition and will, water in our adaption and loyalty, earth in our resilience, and air in our freedom. When we are balanced, a whole unto ourselves, we are greatest. The elements are four parts of the same whole. Just as all human beings are part of one nation, that only lives apart because they cannot see the truth."

Malu blinked slowly. It was simple, now that she actually knew what to look for. It was almost like she was trying to learn it the entire time she was walking the East with Nila and Tzu Zi. The firebender had probably been the kindest person that Malu had ever known, and since she'd known Nomad Elders like Gyatso, she knew kindness well. There was probably more firebender in Nila then there was in Tzu Zi.

All were one.

There was a lurch inside her, like her stomach trying to flip itself inside out. She groaned as she slumped forward a bit, the pain radiating out from where that hunger was, for the moment, barricaded. "Ohhh. What was that?" she asked.

"The path you are walking is a dangerous one," Pathik said. "Each Chakra you open tears out more of the abomination's grip on your soul. And each Chakra in turn is one the beast has a greater grip upon. They will be more difficult, one upon the other, until you reach the end. That will be hardest of all, I fear. I can sense that its roots are sunk deeply."

Pathik rose, and put one of Malu's arms over his shoulder. Even as he rose, Malu's legs felt leaden and tingled unpleasantly with every jolt of weight upon them. But still, with a difficulty usually reserved to people walking on pegs, she hobbled with him, spiraling down the ruins of the tower. "If it's going to get harder, do we have to do it all right now?"

"The moment you started this path, your hours in this world became numbered," Pathik said. "It will be a delicate balance, between the strength you hold between tearing the abomination free of your Chakras, and the amount of time it would take for it to overwhelm you completely, now that the gates are open. Too long, you are lost. Too fast, you will not have recovered enough."

"I can do another," Malu said. Pathik turned a glance toward her, not so much questioning, as gauging. "I can do another," she repeated.

"Then best it were done swiftly," the guru said, and gently let her down onto the stone, aiding her in getting her feet shifted into a proper place. The howling pain was closer, now, the barricade a bit weaker. With pin-pricked fingers, she tipped the next bowl of that greasy off-yellow mess down her throat as soon as offered, and let out a much-unwelcome burp as it passed. He squatted down into a lotus beside her, and reached out aside, tapping old, calloused fingers to the front of her neck. "The next Chakra which must be opened, is the Chakra of Sound, here."

There was a pounding in Malu's head, which muffled the next few words that came from the guru's mouth. It almost sounded like a heart the size of a mountain, made entirely of iron, beating sternly, implacably, right behind her eyes. She shook her head, forcing that cacophony to one side. "Could you say that again? I... wasn't paying attention."

"You were," Pathik said. "The Sound Chakra is the guide to our truths, and is weakened by lies. The lies we tell ourselves," he turned to her, and gently pushed her eyelids down. "What are your lies, child?"

It was almost like seeing it again. Elder Tengeh's knowing look as she mastered in minutes what her fellow pupils would take months to begin. The intense discussions that he, Gyatso, and Midwife Szei would have, always falling quiet whenever she approached. And then...

Malu was standing in Sentinel Rock once more, the shouts of anger and hatred pouring through the streets, as she threw up her hands upon a frustrated growl. "Fine! You wanna know the truth? I'm not just an airbender, alright? I'm the Avatar! I've been hiding for years, but now, I'm going to bring the fight back to the Fire Nation... no offense Tzu Zi."

The truth at last. She expected Tzu Zi to turn on her, right then and there. She expected... a lot of things. Disbelief was amongst them, but fear and awe should have been first and foremost. Instead, there was a suspicious glance between the two girls, and a dull shaking of the head of the scarred youth in the back of them. "You're not the Avatar," Ashan said clearly, almost as though it was self-evident. The utter surety of it made Malu's confidence waver a bit.

"Of course I am," she answered his charge. Nila only shook her head, slightly. "Of course I am!"

"You are not the Avatar," Nila said, her voice... almost sad. "We've met the Avatar. You are not him."

And in the sky, a red line began to split the night. Malu heaved her eyes open, as easy as ripping off her own skin. And that red line... it was still there...

"What is the lie you have told yourself?" Pathik's voice sounded like it was coming from the far side of a mountain.

"I am not the Avatar," Malu said.

"And you know this to be a lie?"

"I am not the Avatar!" Malu shouted. The red line began to grow, and that horrendous, metallic banging was threatening to overtake all of her senses, to tear apart her mind.

"You must not lie about your own nature," Pathik said, his voice... hurried? The red began to split, veins of black beginning to creep out, where it split the sky, trying to ignore the sun. "You must accept yourself as you are, no matter how that may be. Even if it is painful! Even if it is less!"

Malu pressed her eyes shut once again, and this time, she drilled that simple statement into her mind, and then, past it, into her soul. I am not the Avatar. I never was.

Malu was not the Avatar.

And then, with a crash, the pounding ended, but only to a sensation the likes of a thousand quills erupting from inside her and bursting out of her skin. She let out a shriek of agony at the feeling, crumpling to the ground, as a wail sounded in that barricaded part of her. Her entire body throbbed, and she felt like she should be bleeding from every pore.

A tentative swipe of her face. Sweat, not blood.

She pushed herself up, past the lacerated feeling in her palms, the ragged feeling of the rest of her. She looked up into the sky. Nothing but the growing light of a breaking dawn. Pathik was now before her, sitting with his back to a precipice. "You have freed the Sound Chakra. Its influence grows more tenuous."

"What was that?" Malu asked, her voice ragged.

"I was not speaking in allegory when I said that the abomination has its claws embedded into your soul," Pathik said with sadness and sympathy. "And each one below the next, it is embedded much more deeply. I am sorry, my child, but this is the least of the agonies it will inflict upon you to tighten its grip."

"How do you know so much about it?" Malu asked, finally returning to a sit. And the fact that she could said something. She didn't know what, but something. More unsettling, though, was that the hunger was returning. Growing more vicious. More sadistic. And it was getting closer. The barricade was falling.

"I know many things," Pathik said. "And sometimes, knowledge brings very little comfort."

"I've got to keep going," Malu said.

"Yes, but not now. You are wracked. Rest for a time," Pathik said.

"But you said I had to do this before..." Malu began.

She was cut off when Pathik gently laid fingers on her brow and the bridge of her nose. And an instant later, she slumped down into unconsciousness.

But the hunger was waiting for her there.

---

They had removed Mother hours ago. Whomever thought it was a good idea to store the two of them together had probably done so in a dreadfully misguided attempt to seem sympathetic, to paint themselves as a potential ally. She knew their manipulations, as they were transparent to somebody who'd spent decades seeing through more subtle masks. Long Feng was an old enemy. One which, to his credit, did rise up to torment her a few times after she'd thought he'd have the good sense to vanish into obscurity, but the truth of the matter was just much better at the game than he was.

She flicked golden eyes toward the door, and to the nervous looking Dai Li beyond it. To most, there was no sign of that nervousness. Once again, Azula was the kind who'd broken harder. She knew what it looked like when they were sweating on the inside. And from the pallor, from the involuntary and frequent swallowing, from the way he kept glancing toward her as though to make absolutely certain that she was still there... it confirmed her belief.

The time had come.

Azula rose to her feet, idly pushing off of the stool and standing before the bars which separated prisoner from warden. "I am prepared to see Long Feng, now," Azula said, a smirk on her lips. The Dai Li looked at her, a brow raised.

"And who exactly is that supposed to be?" the disguised Dai Li asked.

"Why, your Grand Secretariat, of course. The man who has led the Dai Li since the assassination of the father of the current Earth King. The man who convinced two million people that 'there was no war in Ba Sing Se'. He is expecting me."

"I would have been informed," he began, obviously unaware that he let slip that not only was there a Long Feng who ruled Ba Sing Se, but that there was dire calamity about him at the moment.

"Does the Grand Secretariat of the 'Greatest City on Earth' lay out every iota of his daily living to you? Are you so presumptuous to think that you know the machinations of a man at least a dozen times your intellectual superior?" Azula browbeat him. She nodded sternly to one side. "Long Feng was cast down by the Avatar and his cronies, because he was unable to hide his failure at the Wall. So now comes the point where I enter into the picture."

The Dai Li blinked at her for a few seconds, then vanished from sight, as silently as a ghost. Azula just smiled, and not in any friendly manner. Years; no, decades of her life had been leading up to this moment. A perfect coup, not a drop of blood spilled. At least, not a drop that mattered. Not like last time. And from here, she would have momentum. From Ba Sing Se, she would have the power, the armies, the authority to hunt down the Avatar no matter where in the world he fled. She would chase him down no matter how high he flew, no matter how far, and she would destroy him so utterly that Agni itself could shine for a thousand years and never reveal his reincarnating soul.

That would give her peace.. right?

Footfalls approached the door, and Azula held herself upright and stern, her eyes focused and her expression anything but helpless. A woman, older and greying haired, opened the door and slid it aside, taking a measure of Azula even as Azula took a measure of her. "So you are the Princess Azula. You aren't what I expected," the woman said, the Ba Sing Se accent thick in her voice.

"I frequently defy expectations," Azula said. "Long Feng is ready for me. Take me to him."

"I will be the arbiter of who you see, if any," the woman said.

"Supervisor Joo Dee, we've just gotten the verdict back," a voice came from behind the older woman. She glanced aside. "Guilty, ma'am. To be executed in four days."

"So you see how little time you have left," Azula said. This woman was probably his second in command, if not his mistress. She hadn't met this woman before, not back then, but that might have been simple bad synchronicity. "Without my aid, Long Feng will lose this city to the Avatar. The Dai Li will crumble to dust, to be blown away by the passing of ages. Is that what you want, Joo Dee? To be the ignominious footnote on the back page of history? Or do you want something better?"

Joo Dee stared at her, those eyes of her flat and cold, but measuring her very, very carefully. And the decades of confidence, the years of physical preparation, they shone through. Unknown to Azula... the decade of inconsolable rage did as well.

"Bring her. Hoi, get her a disguise," Joo Dee said. And Azula's smirk widened, as she began to walk, flanked by the earthbenders who had fire in their hearts, but water in their guts. This would be glorious.

---

The sun was well risen when Sharif had picked a spot, on the northeast shore of Lake Laogai, as far from the city as one could be realistically and still remain within the Reaches. Aang watched the shaman as he unsteadily picked his spot, glancing around as though trying to take note of things which Aang couldn't see. Even when he opened the World Eyes, there were obviously things he wasn't understanding, things Sharif could see that he could not.

"So is this where you're going to teach me how to become the Avatar?" Aang asked, still unable to mask the excitement, of his birthright being completed, and with sufficient time to spare!

"Avatar? Why would I teach you to be Avatar? Avatars are an Avatar thing," Sharif said, but then, he shook his head, and rubbed his brow. "Oh... Oh, I see. Yes, it is a thing of Void," he offered a guilty smile. "My mind? It wanders sometimes."

Aang stared at him, face flat. "...do you know how to make me go into the Avatar state?"

"No. You do," Sharif pointed out. Aang shook his head.

"No, I don't."

"You don't know what to listen for. The voices are quiet, and amongst so many. To hear the message, you must listen between," Sharif said, sitting down on the dusty ground, covered in dried, withered grasses even as it clung to the edge of the lake. It was the weather, Aang guessed. Usually, these grasses would burn away in the summer heat. But with so little rainfall – Aang hadn't seen so much as a drop since they came in from the coast – plants had a hard time taking root anywhere, and an even harder time keeping that root.

"I don't understand, Sharif," Aang said. Sharif reached forward, and grabbed Aang's staff. "Oh! Wait! That's a delicate instrument!"

"What?" Sharif asked, then looked at the staff. "Oh, yes yes. A finger will do."

Sharif handed the glider staff back, and stooped to begin drawing in the cracked dirt. It started with a circle, which he quartered. "You know a thing of elements. The Four. The Balance, yes?"

"Yes, I do," Aang said. "I have to think with four minds to be Avatar. I have to bend with four souls... kinda."

"No. Yes," Sharif shook his head, then shrugged. "There is more. You bend. The elements, you bend them. But you do not see them. Why do you not see them?"

Aang was quiet, waiting for him to answer his own question, but the scarred Si Wongi didn't.

"Um... should you maybe do that thing where you make your scar glow?" Aang asked.

"I do not know what you mean," Sharif said.

"The thing with the fake brain?" Aang said.

"Oh. No. There is no time. I must know. The hard lessons are strictest learned. Things that... fit. Not easy to say. Must be heard, and understood," he shook his head, and then pointed at the circle once more. "What do you see, Avatar?"

"Four elements," Aang said, quickly scratching in a quick symbol for each, in its own slice of the pie.

"No! No do not be so simple! What do you see, Avatar?" Sharif stressed, pointing at the circle once more.

Aang stared down at it, trying to understand the message that the mentally wounded young man was trying to give, that he was only capable of giving in this state. He pointed at the circle, and he waited, not really so much patiently as without any notion of haste. Aang flopped down into a squat before the circle, rubbing his chin. It had to be something fundamental. Something basic, but profound. Something that was staring him in the face such that Sharif couldn't see anything but it, yet it eluded Aang.

Yeesh. Zuko was right. Aang was an idiot sometimes.

"What do you see, Avatar?" Sharif asked once more, pointing at the center of the circle.

"Four elements," Aang said, but he stared at Sharif's finger, right at the point where all quarters touched, right at the heart of the symbol. "...and all four are one."

"Yes. That is Void," Sharif said.

"Void is all four elements?"

"Yes. No. It is Other." Sharif shook his head, muttering to himself in broken Altuundili of such poor form that Aang couldn't decipher it. "It is the All, and the None. It is the bind, and the breach."

Aang reached down, and widened the lines between the elements. "This is the Void. The balance between the elements, the definition of the elements. Without the other elements, each couldn't exist. But without the void, one couldn't be different from the other, is that what you're saying?"

"No. Yes."

Aang threw up his hands in the air. "Ugh! Sharif, can't you give me one straight answer?"

"Answers are," Sharif said, as though it was painfully obvious. Aang was about to chastise him, try to get him back onto topic, but there was something about the earnestness, the way he stared a thousand yards through Aang.

"Wait... Answers are Void?" Aang clarified.

"Yes. No."

"You're not making any sense! Are answers Void or aren't they?"

"Yes."

Aang just stared at him. It was lucky he had a shaved head, because he was fairly sure that this would have had him tearing his hair out by the roots if he'd had to do it for any length of time. It only happened slowly, dawning like a bison falling asleep on somebody's foot, that Sharif... was actually saying something. Just in about the hardest way to understand, since he was so damned literal. He was a lot like his sister, in that, Aang figured.

"Alright," Aang said, screwing his patience to the sticking place – good gods, was this what it was like for others to teach him? – and leaned toward Sharif once more. "Are you saying that answers are void, but are not all that is void?"

"Yes."

Aang let out a sigh of relief. "Finally. What else is Void."

"Void is, and it is not. The only thing void is not is Imbalance," Sharif said. Then, he shook his head. "No. No, there is more. Void is less... not, and more... outside. But void is not Imbalance. Void cannot be Imbalance."

Aang scratched his head. "So is Void that which connects the elements, even as it allows them to be defined?" he hazarded.

"Yes."

"It is the gap between them, and at the same time, the force which holds them together."

"Yes."

"And the Avatar is..."

"The word of the Void," Sharif said. "They speak through you. You are Void. You are the answer. You are the breach, and the bind."

Aang sat back, agape. "...how is this supposed to teach me how to enter the Avatar State at will?"

"The young prick fingers but I can sew," Sharif said simply.

Aang blinked. "...are you saying that if I don't understand what I am, I can't control it?"

Sharif stared for a long time, then tilted his head aside, glancing toward the north. Then, he turned back to Aang. "Yes."

"Great, and..."

"No."

Aang let out a growl which could have belonged to a Storm King. "Why isn't anything ever simple!"

"Void is," Sharif said.

Aang gathered his patience, which was beginning to fray. He'd sometimes heard it said that no Air Nomad monk could ever earn the right to claim patience and zen until they'd had hyperactive children. This was probably about the same level of... urg! Aang didn't even have a completely broken metaphor to come up with how frustrating this whole thing was. He pointed at the very center of the circle.

"Is this where the Avatar is?" Aang asked. Sharif shook his head, and reached forward, tapping Aang on the chest and on the crown of his head.

"No. This is where the Avatar is," he said.

Aang glared. Sharif stared glassily through him. This was going to be a very, very long day.

---

What sun there was didn't reach into the ruins, and blackness surrounded her the likes of which usually only could be found in her most horrible nightmares. But not as stifling, nor as brutal, nor as cold. And not as lonely. Even as she sat in the complete darkness, she knew she wasn't alone. The grinding of the hunger was a sort of companion, but the guru, who shared the darkness with her, there was a connection in that. Somebody was fighting for Malu.

Malu blinked a few times, not completely sure that she was conscious. It as only because of the ache of her muscles, the familiar and different pain compared to her hunger, that she assumed that she was. "Brother Pathik? Are you still there?"

"Of course, my child," he answered her gently, and Malu felt wood bump into her lip. She carefully tipped it back, pouring it down her throat so quickly that she barely even tasted it. And more power to her; she definitely hadn't acquired a taste for that horrible garbage. She felt an old finger touch the crown of her head. "So far, you have opened three of the chakras. The ones that the abomination had the weakest grasp on," he moved down, tapping her upon the brow, then at the front of her throat. "But there is one, which while must be opened, holds no seeds of the beast's corruption."

"Where?" Malu asked.

The hand lifted from her throat, and tapped very lightly in the center of her chest, between her breasts. She blinked a few times at that, but the finger was withdrawn once the point was made. "The Heart Chakra is the bastion of love, in all of its forms. It is clouded and stifled by abundance of grief. Where has your grief taken you, child?"

Malu turned aside, even though there wasn't much point in the blackness. She sighed, and she thought about... everybody. Tengeh, Gyatso, Iruka. Mom. Dad. She turned her eyes forward again, but they widened, as she could see... everybody.

At the fore were her parents. Air Nomads traditionally weren't supposed to be raised by their parents, or even know who they were. Malu's own had flouted that convention, to their own detriment. But it meant that Malu had something that few Air Nomad children ever did; roots. She didn't look to the Elders for guidance, for approval, for tradition. She looked closer. Beyond, marching back in ranks upon ranks, swelling out, came everybody she had ever known, and lost. There was even an open space where she once would have considered Aang, despite his miraculous survival of the Day of Fire. Tears began to leak from her eyes, as she looked on the history which only she could remember, and the victims of a war that only she would now mourn.

"Are... they really there?" Malu asked, even as she reached forward, just to touch Mom's hand one more time.

"I am sorry, child, but they are a part of you, not this place," Pathik said, and one by one, the spectres began to break apart, like baked dust struck by a gale. They whorled, and they swelled, a great cloud rising out of what once had been a host a hundred thousand strong. Malu watched, and it was like losing them – losing everybody – all over again. Her chest wracked with painful sobs, as the isolation began to encroach once more. It was her, and the Avatar, and he would never take her in after what she'd done. After what she'd become. There was a sigh at Malu's side. "I can sense the enormity of the loss you feel, child," Pathik said, sympathy clear in his words. "But you must not fall to despair. Love is a force of nature, something which cannot be destroyed by time or fire. It is like the soul, even in death, it finds rebirth. Rebirth in new love, and new friendship.

The dust cleared, showing two teenaged girls standing where once there had been legion. One, pale and long-haired, brown eyes staring at her with kindness, a small if warm smile perpetually on her lips. The other looked outright sour, but there was something like an acerbic acceptance in her expression. Stubble-headed sarcastic Si Wongi, and kind-hearted firebender renegade. The first friends she'd had in years. It wasn't so much a tearing of claws out of flesh, that she felt. It was a swell, and upwelling of resolve. She would be strong, for them. She wouldn't let them down again. She wouldn't be blind or weak or afraid. Even if this killed her, it would be a better world, because those two still remained in it.

"Let the pain flow away, down the river," Pathik said quietly, and the darkness slowly mounted, and the forms of the two girls whom she'd adventured and traveled with faded away. Malu was still sobbing, but it was a less wretched thing, now. And it was something she could, with a bit of effort, master. "Very good. The next will be the hardest yet, and each after it, worse. Hold onto that strength, child; you shall need it."

---

Long Feng turned to the rattle of keys to his door, his eye taking in his trusted lieutenant. And because of that, he got a scowl on his face. "I thought we agreed it would be most prudent not to come here," Long Feng said to Joo Dee.

"The situation warranted your personal attention," Joo Dee answered. He gave a motion, and Long Feng's eyes widened somewhat, this time in outright confusion. He certainly recognized the person who had been brought before him – he would have had to have been an outright fool not to! – but there was no scenario devised in his mind which would require her for something like this. Princess Azula was a political pawn, and not capable of more.

"Explain yourself, Joo Dee," Long Feng said, his patience already thin.

"You are trapped as a result of your failure to maintain a grip on the Earth King," the girl answered, edging out the woman who was escorting her. Long Feng turned his attention to her. The accent was unexpected, and so was her force. He only had barely learned of Azula's place in his compound by the time the Avatar's coup was in full force. There were many things he could have planned to do with her, but... those were operating off of certain expectations.

Expectations the living article did not adhere to.

"Joo Dee?" Long Feng asked.

"You will speak to me, or not at all," Azula interrupted him, "and you will not speak over my head. Accept these terms, or accept your fate. Which, as I understand it, comes to an ignominious conclusion in half a week."

Long Feng glared at her, and shot a look to Joo Dee promising harsh words later, but not for what he had initially assumed. So the Princess had a level of cunning that had been hidden from him? That opened her utility greatly. He leaned forward, hands clasped behind his back. "What do you want?"

A smirk came to her face. "I'm here to offer you salvation," Azula said, darkly. "You want to rule Ba Sing Se? I see no reason to stop you. But you have something I require to meet my ends. I consider it a remarkably fair trade."

"And what do you have that I do not?" Long Feng asked.

"Autonomy," Azula said. "I am the last thing they will expect, for reasons you're no doubt aware. And more, I have already learned the lessons in fighting that creature that you are denied."

Now, Long Feng was interested. "What would you do, in such a situation?" he asked.

"Your execution is in four days? Let them think that," she said. "The time has come to bring the Five Generals to heel, and put a boot onto the back of the Earth King's neck. You know it. I know it. You have at your disposal the most disciplined and dangerous earthbenders on the planet. Under my dispatch, they will reclaim the city from the hands which would bungle it," that smile suddenly turned innocent, or some mockery of innocence that she knew wouldn't entirely transit. "And all that I ask is for a token force, to end the Avatar, and his cronies once and for all."

"I had not taken you for a patriot," Long Feng said. "How will this act stand in the eyes of your father?"

"Who knows, and who cares?" Azula answered, her expression becoming dark and drab. "He is not here. This is the only offer I will extend to you, Long Feng. Are you interested, or are you not?"

Behind a silent smile, the machinery of Long Feng's mind was whirring, and he liked the shape of what came of it. This... would do very nicely.

---

Hours passed in what seemed like... well, eons. There was a strange relativity of time, Aang had discovered, that when wrapped in joy, a lifetime could pass in a moment, while agonies could turn moments into lifetimes. He was feeling the latter at the moment. He thought over that metaphor he'd devised in his mind, and then shook his head. Time is relative? Preposterous. No wonder people had such a hard time following his trains of thought. They went in weird directions.

"So," Aang said, trying to sum up what had taken Sharif so long to say. "the Void is the connector, definer, divider, and expression of the four elements, and also a strong aspect of what is fundamental to the Avatar. Void is the voice of the Spirit World, the answer to questions and the questions themselves. It is the prophet and the historian, the infant and the crone. Right?"

"Yes." Sharif said, even as he mechanically ate the bread which Aang had given him.

"But, and this is important," Aang suddenly grabbed the youth's shoulders. "HOW DOES THIS HELP ME GET INTO THE AVATAR STATE?"

Sharif chewed for several more seconds, staring at a place very far beyond Aang's head, until he fell still. "The door cannot open without a key," Sharif said. Aang threw up his hands with a growl of frustration that he must have borrowed whole from Zuko, since there was so much in common with it. "The key cannot mould without the sand. The sand cannot form without the master."

"You're not making any sense," Aang accused.

Sharif swallowed, then glanced aside, at a waft of purple light, a spirit of some description, which joined the innumerable other ones which either circled Sharif, or else outright clung to him like a blizzard of radiant fluffs. "One leads to another. A city is a pile of bricks."

Aang stared at him for a moment.

"A city is a pile of..." he began, and then his eyes widened. "Wait, you're saying that one leads to another? That bricks make buildings, and buildings make cities, so... something about the void is vitally important to being the Avatar?"

Sharif stared at him, and Aang braced himself for the worst of all possible answers; the non-answer.

"Yes."

"Why doesn't anything ever make – what?" Aang broke off, mid-frustrated-tirade, when he realized what Sharif had, indeed, said. "Wait, the void builds the Avatar?"

"Yes."

"How?" Aang asked.

Sharif's head seemed to bob side to side, causing the fluff upon him, and the spirits around him to spin away before settling back into place. "It is what you are for," he said. "To be voice for the first. To fight which cannot be defeated," he shook his head. "The Avatar is the light against the darkness."

Aang slowly nodded, drawing his own assumptions from the meander that Sharif spoke. But with a sigh, he settled back onto his crossed legs and faced Sharif directly. "Alright. What is next?"

"Next, you need to speak to the void. Its voice is quiet."

Aang sat, and he looked around. "Which one is void?" Aang asked. Sharif raised a hand, and the whole host which had wafted upon him broke and fled at random, although not with apparent panic. He extended a hand, and through the World Eyes, Aang could see Sharif rubbing at the fabric of the world, teasing apart where it had folded over its own breach, until a tiny aperture stood, connecting one world to the other. And when he did, a whisper of silvery light approached, hovering above his fingers. Aang stared at it. "Is that it?"

"Yes."

Aang leaned in closer, looking at the amorphous blob, notable only for the light it emitted, and didn't quite get it. "How can something so small be so powerful?" Aang asked.

"You do not see," Sharif said sadly. He rose, leaving the silvery mote to rise up and stay level with him as he did. He beckoned Aang to stand, and the Avatar did. The silvery mote moved close to Sharif's ear, and he nodded. "This will not be pleasant."

"What won't be ple–"

Sharif reached forward abruptly, slamming a palm into the center of Aang's chest, and the other flattening against his arrow, pressing down as though trying to pop Aang's head. Then, there was... pressure. It welled up inside Aang as though there were something inside his body, pressing outward against his skin. Threatening to tear him apart. "What are you doing?" Aang asked.

"What does it say?" Sharif asked, his tone still as distracted and distant as ever, somehow managing to break through the horrible roaring in Aang's ears which cut off all other sound.

"I can't hear anything!" Aang said, as the pressure, the power, became almost unbearable. He staggered back, trying to break Sharif's grip. The shaman matched him, step for step. "Sharif stop! It's hurting me!"

"You can see the light, but not the candle," Sharif said. "Open your eyes."

"The World Eyes are open!" Aang pointed out at a scream.

"No. Open. Your. Eyes." Sharif demanded. And when Aang closed them next, in a rictus of agony, they opened to something truly unexpected.

They opened to a bath of golden light. The pain stopped instantly, and the noise dropped away completely. It was a pristine silence beyond any that Aang had ever known. He glanced down at himself, and started at the realization that his body was transparent. "...hoooh boy," Aang said. "Sharif? Can you hear me?"

The eyes of the Avatar are open.

Aang flinched back, recoiling from the mote of silver, which still showed against the unimaginable vastness of the projector of that golden light. "What are you?"

I am.

"Are you a void spirit?"

I am.

"Do you know how I can enter the Avatar State at will?" Aang asked, trying to look between his fingers at the blinding glory beyond.

Yes.

Aang's face became flat, and he wished he could level a dry glare at that thing. "Are you going to tell me?"

Yes.

Aang stood in silence. "When?"

...I am.

Aang stood agape. "What do you mean? You're not telling me anything! When are you going to teach me what I need to know? The whole of reality needs me to be able to enter the Avatar State!"

Yes.

"Then why aren't you teaching me right now?" he shouted.

I am.

Aang paused, looking down at his hands. Nope, still blue. "No, you're not," Aang said.

I am.

Aang grumbled. But he was an airbender monk, even despite his young age. He sat down, on the ground, and collected his temper, however badly it had been frayed in the difficult conversations with Sharif that lead to this point. He took a purging breath, his eyes pressed closed against the majesty. "What do you need to tell me?" Aang asked it.

The center has fallen. The fringes cannot hold.

Aang frowned for a moment. "Your home? The Black City?"

The center has fallen.

"What is Imbalance? How did it do this to the Spirit World?"

It is outside my answers. I cannot see how it came to become. I can see only the shadow upon the wall of the cave.

Aang sighed. "What is happening to the Spirit World? Why has the center fallen?"

Hunger. All consuming. Insatiable. We were not prepared. We did not see the fall, only after did it enter our sight.

Aang tilted his head slightly. "Why do you say that you didn't see it, but you did?"

There was a long silence. Almost like the thing was trying to find a way to explain itself. We did not see what happened, until it... happened.

Aang frowned lightly. "...does the Void see the future?"

No.

"Well..." Aang began.

We are in the future. We are in the past. We are all, everywhere, everywhen. I am watching your birth. I am watching your death. I am watching she who comes after you. I am watching he who came before you.

Aang's eyes opened then... and the majesty was not so much dimmer, as less overwhelming. "Are you saying that you couldn't see Imbalance, what it was doing, until it was too late? That you couldn't see it the way you see everything else?" Aang asked.

Yes. It is a cipher to our vision.

Aang nodded. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

You could not hear the voice.

"But Sharif could? Why?"

The shaman is a unique individual. Strong. But calm. He does not order; he listens. He does not demand; he requests. He is like the Avatar. He is what the center requires.

Aang sighed. "Was it because of his injury?"

Another silence. Yes.

Aang slowly bowed before the spirit before him. "Can you tell me, in this moment, what I need to do to end this conflict, to stop Imbalance before it's too late?"

No.

Aang had feared that'd be the answer. "Why not?"

It is not time.

"But when will it be time?" Aang demanded at a yell.

When the fires burn bright once more. When the betrayers are betrayed, when a family fights itself on the brink of crumbling into madness. When a child asks forgiveness; when a child gives forgiveness. When a family reunites; before a family is sundered. When the heavens war with the land; before the world goes dim. When the heart grows cold. Before the end. When the time is right.

"Is there anything you can tell me right now?" Aang asked. "Like... what was that tooth relic for?"

It has served its purpose.

Aang frowned. "Which was?"

You.

"I don't understand," Aang said.

It will keep you where you are. It will allow a tomorrow. The time is not right. You must return.

"Where did I go?" Aang asked, suddenly confused. There was another long silence.

...I am.

And with that, the light faded, until the world returned around him, like the light was folding into itself, until only a tiny scrap of silver light remained, floating between Avatar and shaman, under the darkness of the approaching full moon. And with that, Aang's eyes shot wide open. "Wait a second! Why is it nighttime?" he asked of the shaman.

"You had to listen," Sharif said, gesticulating vaguely. "...that takes time."

Aang blinked, the after-image of the Void spirit – the actual form of the void spirit, and not the tiny whisper of itself that it allowed to be seen – still lingered in Aang's mind like a twist of sourness after eating a lemon. "What was that?" Aang asked.

"The Form." Sharif said. "It is a deeper sight."

Aang nodded slowly. "...I'm sorry I was so impatient with you. It's obvious that there's a lot I don't know about being a shaman. Can... you tell me more about that?"

Sharif blinked as he stared through Aang, his head shifting side to side as though trying to catch a glimpse of something, or like a man so tired he was barely standing on his feet. "I... can try."

"I'll accept whatever you can give me," Aang said with a bow.

---

"Not here," Yoji said, her eyes flitting around the room even as she walked past it. There wasn't anybody else in the hallway but they, but she wasn't about to give any indication of what she was doing, not to these dire phantoms in green robes. It had taken a lot of effort and solid planning to get their hands on the disguises that they had; she wasn't about to negate that with sloppy investigation work.

"That much is obvious," Kori answered, walking ahead of them with his hands in irons. While she and Omo could conceivably pass for locals, he because he was one and she because she was even in her late teenage years as tall as most Easterners ever became, Kori could be nothing but a Tribesman. So they used that to their advantage. As soon as they were past the outermost checkpoints, 'moving a person of interest' gave them almost free rein to move as they would.

"Any idea where they would have taken her?" Omo asked, giving Kori a shove which meant that he was staggering as another Dai Li passed the corridor they were in. Yoji smirked at that. Omo had a way of making even deliberate and purposeful deeds seem brash and ill-conceived, when the need called for it. He was good at what he did, and what he did, was manipulate people.

That was what the Children were for, after all.

The Dai Li continued on, not sparing them more than the barest glance as they went. Kori retook his footing, and glanced back. "We don't have many options at this point. Searching would take days that I don't think we have. We need to find somebody who knows where she is," Kori pointed out, not barbing Omo for the shove. They three knew each other too well for such pettiness. He gave a shrug. "It might be a poor suggestion, but I think we've reached the point where we're going to have to split and find her that way."

Yoji glanced toward Omo and Kori, where they stood fore and back at her side. He wasn't wrong. There was only so much that Yoji could plan for, much as she'd like to believe the opposite. And when the plan failed? You moved to a contingency. When you run out of contingencies? Well, that was what she had Kori for. He was good at improvising. "You aren't wrong," she said.

"I thought so," Kori said with a smirk. "I'll go with Yoji, you..."

"Actually," Yoji said, cutting him off, "it might be better if Omo stuck with you. It would raise less questions than me."

Kori glanced at her, and shrugged. "Point taken. Not too many women in the Dai Li, and fewer still looking like you."

"Was that a compliment?" Yoji asked.

"Please. We both know I find you physically repugnant," Kori said blithely.

"As you should," Yoji pointed out. She looked to Omo. "Don't let him get you into trouble."

"Trust me. He won't," Omo said, smiling at her. She felt herself smiling back, even a moment after he turned away down a different hall, pushing Kori ahead of him. She chastised herself for being such a love-struck girl. At least, she tried to. Because, as much as the rational part of Yoji's mind knew that fraternizing with Omo – if that term could even be used to describe what had happened between them – was bad news, another part of her pretty much wanted to wrap her... arms... around him and never let go.

And another part, equally irrational but much more unsettling, was one which reminded her of one very important fact, the kind of which made her so useful to the Children; Omo was good at manipulating people. That thought kept recurring to her. What if... what if he was just doing to her what he did to everybody else? After all, the Children were tools of the Fire Nation, first and foremost. And tools needed to be kept sharp. She shook her head. This entire line of un-reason wasn't doing her any benefit in finding where these green robed assassins had taken Yoji's quarry. It was about as easy as walking through magma, but she forced herself to get it out of her mind.

She was of the Children. She was better than this.

A side-trip down another path revealed more Dai Li, heading toward where one was taking off robes and changing into the outfit of one of the palace's royal guards. She rose an eyebrow at that. While she did know that there was a fair degree of turmoil at the moment within the Dai Li, the possibility of using them to infiltrate yet deeper was an inviting one. A less intelligent agent would probably considered using such a disguise to assassinate the Earth King. Yoji knew better. The Fire Lord had the Earth King exactly where he wanted him. But access to the Palace, unmolested and unrestricted? Useful.

Yoji kept her distance, orbiting the agent who was changing his disguise, always making herself innocuous, out of sight. It was a matter of waiting for him to finish, itself not a long process. Then, the hunt was one once more. There was no reason to believe that a prisoner such as the leader of the Dai Li would be left in the Dai Li's care. And he would be the kind of man to know where Azula was, if anybody did; after all, it was his men who took her from Yoji's grasp. It would just be a matter of extracting that information.

She followed, getting closer in degrees of subtlety to the impostor, her eyes always alert for a place for the deed itself to take place. Some place private. Some place quiet. Some place with a door. A smirk came to her face as she saw such a lovely location, just ahead of him. She picked up her pace, and was almost walking on his heels by the time the door was at their side. Just the briefest glance behind, to make sure nobody was observing, and then she took one swift step forward, hooking her leg behind the infiltrator's. She then heaved up and back on the helmet, exposing the throat, which she sent a knife-hand chop into. His cry of alarm came out as a shocked gurgle, and hands flew to neck. He tried to swing at her, but her next blow was a fist to the face, which sent his head rebounding against the floor. The helmet had cushioned the blow, it seemed, but he was still stunned. Less than three seconds, and not much more than a whisper.

Yoji kicked the door open and dragged the impostor into the room, which stood in dull and unadorned bricks. Obviously not a prison cell, since the door was neither metal nor locking. But it didn't matter. He'd be unconscious in a cupboard before too long. She quickly started to pull of his ceremonial armor, piling it conveniently on hand. She had only pulled her own robes over her head to start putting that armor on when she heard the door open once again. Her eyes went wide, even though they were trapped in a prison of green silk.

"Look away! I'm naked!" Yoji screeched, which at least caused the intruder with her to hesitate, which gave her the opportunity to simply shuck the robe away. Contrary her words, she still wore undergarments, and truth told, they were much easier to fight in. There were two of them, one tall, the other short and fat. She lashed forward with a gout of furious flames, to blast both into the corner where she could dispose of them later. The last thing she expected was the fat one to blast her flames away with his own.

As she turned her assault into a low wave – which the fat firebender cut with a chi knife – the other was rushing her. She sent a backhand of flame at him, but he ducked around it like water around a rock, before slapping her on the back. She kicked him in the knee, which caused him to falter, but not as much as she'd have thought, since he used his position to shoulder-check her hard enough to send her back-first into a wall.

She pushed off the wall, preparing to leap into attack...

And didn't.

She glanced back, and then pushed hard again, but this time she could feel something unyielding tugging at the skin of her back. She glared forward, and cast out fists of fire, which the fat one once again deflected aside. The tall one then threw, one after another, four more white-powdered balls at Yoji, each one either splattering over her ankle and locking it down as well, or hitting the wall behind her. Then, with a final surge, both rushed forward, and the tall one forced her arms back into that goop that the balls had contained.

She was trapped.

"I feared that I would find her here," that voice which called rage to heart said, the tone gravely and decrepit. The hat was tipped off, showing the golden eyes and grey beard of the traitor, Iroh. "And that means you were more right about the danger to my niece than you knew."

"I will tell you nothing," Yoji promised. But the other was likewise letting his hat fall to the floor. She turned to him, and had a second take. No. Not him again.

Skin dark and eyes blue, a trim-bearded Tribesman stared at her with obvious and overwhelming emotion. But as to what he said? It was very, very succinct.

"Hello, Hikaoh."

---

"This will be unpleasant. I can assure you of this," Pathik warned, as they settled into the ruins of what once had been the East Temple's smithy, where the bridles and tack of the sky bison had been forged. "From this point on, there can be no rest. I know how terrible it will be for you, child, but whatever strength you have gathered, you have gathered it for now."

Malu nodded, eyes hard as that hunger tore at her. "I'm ready."

Pathik shook his head slowly, and sadly. "No, you are not. But must do so anyway."

Malu slowly shifted how she was sitting on the floor of the smithy, and Pathik joined her, crossing his legs under him as his fingers joined in meditation. "The next chakra is the second most dangerous. It is the Fire Chakra, located in the stomach."

"It's what's doing this to me?"

"No. But it is a place of great power and infestation to what has claimed you," Pathik answered. "It is filled by power, sometimes literally, and is barricaded by shame. If you would tear out the abomination, you must relinquish your shame, that it clings so jealously to. What has given you shame, child, more than anything else?"

Malu's eyes lowered to the floor of the smithy, and she let out a sigh, as the most painful of all memories boiled up to her. As they came, the smithy seemed to dissolve away, leaving the night, and the fire, and the screams.

It was like standing before herself. Only she wasn't standing. She ran. This Malu from four or a hundred years ago ducked and sprang, trying to avoid the bolts of massive, unbelievable fire which even the weakest of the firebenders seemed capable of. Every soldier was the birth of a pillar of fire which brought noon to the dusk. Her airbending wasn't enough to keep her safe, not by a mile. A strong enough wind could snuff a flame, yes, but not when that flame was larger than the Temple was tall!

"Mom! Dad!" Malu screamed, coming to a halt only for a moment, and lucky that she had, since one of the firebenders in those spiky uniforms turned toward her and swept out with a blaze of horrible glory. Only by running straight up a wall did she manage to avoid its all consuming mass. Instantly upon landing past its fading edge, she hurled a bolt of air so tight that it was almost solid; it slammed into the firebender with a clank of cracking iron, and the soldier went down in a squirming pile. It was the first time that Malu had ever used her airbending to hurt somebody, severely and intentionally. And she was too scared, too focused to even bother trying to understand it.

Her feet blurred, and the air displaced around her swept behind her as a bow-wave as she rocketed across what was once the vast and open fields of the Eastern Air Temple. Firebenders above tried to smash her down with their gargantuan flames, but she was too fast, and she was too focused. She didn't notice them; rather, she ignored them, and shot past them. Only at the outer fringe, near where the bison-pens began, did she slow. "Mom! Where are you! Dad, are you alright?"

"Malu? Are you alright?" Mom's voice was an instant balm to her panicking mind. But she moved from relief to panic again in a heartbeat as she ducked into that stall, and couldn't see Dad. Mom was there – although she looked positively ashen – as well as one of the other, older Monks, but not dad. Well, there were some brutally burnt people, but no Dad.

"Mom, what's going on? Why are the firebenders trying to kill us?" Malu asked, trying to make this day make some kind of sense. Mom was... holding onto one of the burnt people. "Where's Dad?"

And Mom was crying. Malu looked to her mother... and then at the burnt corpse in her arms. Oh... Oh no...

"Malu, you have to get away. Somebody needs to survive this. Somebody who knows what you know," the elder nun said sternly, even as she breathed deeply and wrapped bindings over what had to be horribly painful burns.

"Why? Why did they kill Dad?" Malu asked, dropping to her knees in front of her mother.

"Malu! Do your duty!" the nun ordered.

"To hell with my duty! My Dad is dead!" Malu screamed back at the old woman. Mom, though, just looked at Malu.

"You have to hide. Promise me you'll hide, Malu," Mom said. Malu was shaking her head, trying to deny all of this, even to herself. "No! I don't care, just promise me!"

The next question to Malu's lips was 'come with me'... but when Mom shifted, Malu could see that she didn't have much of anything left of her legs. No wonder she was so pale. Malu swallowed a sob, and, tears in her eyes, nodded. "Alright. I promise, Mother," Malu swore.

The nun glanced 'round the corner, and winced, shaking her head. "They're breaking through... how did they get so powerful?" the nun asked, mostly to herself.

Mom turned to her, her eyes fierce even if she looked minutes away from shock, or worse. "You're scaring Malu," she said, voice ragged. The nun turned back to her.

"She should be scared. She should be running!" the nun countered. But Malu turned from her, back to her mother.

"...Mom?" she asked, unable to summon anything else to say. Mom reached up to her, slipping a hand under her hair behind her neck, and bringing their foreheads together. The forearm Malu could see was cracked and oozing, although unlike her legs, not cooked to the bone.

"Just run, baby," Mom said, her voice a desperate whisper. "Please. Don't make this pointless."

This. The family that she'd had, in defiance of every tradition the Air Nomads had. This. Malu didn't even say yes. She just nodded, sobbing in her throat. Mom whispered something as she let Malu go, but Malu didn't hear it, not then. In retrospect... it sounded like 'I'm proud of you'.

And Malu was running again. She screamed through the temple grounds, both metaphorically and literally. She didn't even bother to slow until she was on the outskirts, and she jammed her fingers into her mouth and let out a hard breath. No human would have heard it, but the sound ticked the ears of any bison within miles. She looked around. Nothing. She did it again. This time, she started running even as she finished, to see the bison-pens themselves.

So much flame.

So much death.

"Ihah? Ihah, are you there?" Malu asked, barely able to breath for the smoke and the sobs. For the stink. Burnt hair. "Ihah! Please!"

There was a grumble, and a mound of burned hair struggled to get up, its six legs not giving it complete purchase. "Ihah!" Malu cried, hugging the beast's head even though doing so probably hurt it. The beast let out a weak groan, and Malu scrambled up onto its brow, holding onto the one horn Ihah had left. "Come on, Ihah. I know it hurts, but you've gotta do this for me. Can you, Ihah?" the bison let out a rumble, but there was resolve in that sound. "Yip yip."

Ihah began to rise, first to its feet, and then, out of the pens and into the sky. Malu looked down, on the ruins of what had once been her home. She could see... dots. Others. Not firebenders. She should have tried to save them. She had the only Bison in the sky.

But she turned away.

And a red line split the sky, running perpendicular to the blazing wound which was the comet which presaged this death. Malu turned to it, and the vision began to fade, but that red line remained. Until it started to open.

"You must accept that this choice is one you have made," Pathik's voice came through the void. And the red line began to expand, opening into an Eye of Terror.

"Brother Pathik, what's going on?" Malu asked, real terror in her voice.

"You are seeing the infestation inside you. You must be strong," Pathik warned. "Why do you feel shame?"

"I could have helped those people! I could have at least tried!" Malu shouted, as that eye turned on her, and began to see her. She could see black wisps breaking off of the twisting lines which made up the Eye's corpus and drift toward her, blind and idiot, seeking and grasping.

"And had you failed?" Pathik asked. "You cannot undo the past. You can only move forward with the world as it stands."

Fear and shame mixed, tears flowing down her face as she beheld the trophy of her arrogance, of her cowardice. "I should have gone back," she said. "Even if it killed me, I should have gone back!"

"You cannot undo the past," Pathik repeated. "And you cannot dwell in it. Nobody can walk into the future looking backwards.

HUNGER

The word tore at Malu, tearing at her guts even as it crashed against her ears. "I don't..." Malu began, but Pathik was there. Malu couldn't see him, but he was there, with her. His very proximity burned like a beacon in the fog.

"You must move beyond the shame of what happened on that day," Pathik said sternly, yet still serenely. "The fate which was woven for you into Samsara willed you not die in the fires. Instead, you are here, now. As you should not have shame for something which you could not have changed, you should not have the arrogance to believe you can change what was."

"But..." Malu began, as the dark wisps began to trace along her face. Each was a violation, claws ripping at her soul. Each made her numb. Made her... want to just give up.

It wasn't until right then that Malu understood. She pressed her eyes closed, her fists slamming together, and she gathered her will. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the Eye, but the fingers of blackness had receded. "I was young," she said, simply and calmly. "I was afraid. It wasn't my fault."

Then, there was a bang, like a mountain crashing into another, larger mountain.

And a moment later, it felt like her eyes exploded.

The agony of it tore at her, as she abandoned the shame she'd lived with for all these years, the raking claws of the beast tore at her, trying to find new purchase. Each rabid rake was more painful than anything she had ever experienced in her life, even if it gave no ground. Each stole the wind from her lungs in unending screaming. Each stole the water from her body in unstoppable tears. Each stole the blood in her veins, which now dribbled out of her nose.

And then, there was a lurch, something fetid and foul, so long stuck to her that she'd built her entire life balancing against it, that when it came free and fell off, she found herself suddenly barely able to remember which way was down. The pain cut off in an instant. The void disappeared. The Eye of Terror, vanished.

And Malu felt like she'd just been murdered to death. But somehow, wasn't dead. She panted, tasting the blood from her nose, which she wiped away with a hand that stood almost as ashen as Mom had been. "Is it..." Malu asked, turning to Pathik.

"Yes. You have cleared away its infestation upon your Fire Chakra," Pathik said. "You have abandoned the shame which had so burdened you, and doing so, made it impossible for the abomination to cling to you there. But its hold is still tight. Only you have the strength to free yourself."

Malu nodded. In its way... she felt good. Even as the pain of the hunger was practically back to the state it had been before, there was a faint wisp of a smile curling at the corner of her mouth. She couldn't change the past, but if she survived this, then maybe she could build a better future. Just like Mom and the Elder had intended. Gods knew Aang wouldn't be exactly aces as a teacher!

"What now?" Malu asked, her voice still ragged from the screaming.

"Next," Pathik said, rising to his feet. Malu rose, easily as she had for the last four or hundred years, "we must deal with the child of your shame, for it has grown to a great and fearsome beast of its own."

Malu knew what was coming. "...guilt."

And at that, Pathik only nodded, before handing her a bowl of banana-onion-pickle slime.

---

Toph turned as she 'saw' somebody walking up behind her, not to look at him, since she obviously couldn't, but rather just so she'd have a good ear in if either started talking. He didn't seem willing, so she did first. "Didn't figure I'd see you out this far, Sparky," Toph said as she kicked a pebble in the park so that it landed in a pond and in all likelihood spooked some fish.

"I needed to get out of there," Zuko said. While she couldn't tell what expression he had on his face, she knew from the tension of his body – he was tighter than any clock-spring she'd ever encountered – that understatement was the order of the day. "They're hiding her from me. I know it."

"Your sister?" Toph asked. Zuko didn't answer her, he just stormed up to the edge of the water, where Toph was, and leaned hard and pointedly against the lantern post near it. "Have you thought about just beating it out of them?" Toph asked.

Zuko turned toward her, probably with a look on his face the likes of which said 'do you think I'm an idiot?', but then he shook his head. "I can't touch them. If I do, they'll know. They'll hurt her."

"Gotta say, Sparky, you might be underestimating what your Sis is capable of," Toph said. Zuko let out a light, almost bitter chuckle.

"It helps me sleep at night," Zuko said.

"Fei Hua. You never sleep," she countered.

"I didn't know you watched," Zuko said dryly. And Toph blushed a bit. Damn it, girl! Get your act together! "It's not that I don't think she's... tough enough," and he said that like he didn't want to believe it, but had to, "it's that I'm afraid of what happens if she... tries to do something rash. Gets in over her head. Azula always was... a bit of an instigator."

"Hah," Toph said. "I wouldn't be surprised from what I saw of her if she wasn't already trying to take over Ba Sing Se!"

Zuko let out one laugh at that. "Can you just imagine?"

"Oh, I easily can," Toph said. She held herself haughtily. "You there, Dai Li peasant! Obey me and betray your master! Good, now take over the Earth Kingdoms for me this instant!"

"Your impersonation is terrible," Zuko pointed out.

"Is yours any better?" Toph asked.

Zuko was silent for a moment. "That's not the point."

"Face it. Your sister doesn't need you to hold her hand. Heck, I'm pretty sure she'd be sick of it by now if you had," Toph pointed out. Then, she gave a shrug. "That is, if she's anything like me. And from what I know about her, she kinda is."

"You're not like my sister," Zuko said. "You're just loud."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"

Zuko just shrugged. He glanced behind him and shook his head. "I need to get some air. Get away from all this... noise. Uncle always said that a man is at his best when his mind is focused, and I don't feel very focused right now."

Toph was about to offer a sarcastic comment when she heard something, like something metal slamming against something larger, also metal, echoing across the heavens. She frowned, and turned to the south east. "Did you hear that?" she asked.

"I heard something," Zuko said. Then, he shook his head. "I'll be back in a day or so. I have to..." he didn't seem able to describe what he needed, either because he didn't want her to know, or because he didn't know how to say it.

"Blow off some steam?" Toph asked.

"Yeah. That works," Zuko said.

"Good. Then I'll be the one keepin' ya out of trouble," she said, slugging him in the arm. Zuko turned to her, very likely a confused expression on his face.

"You? Keep out of trouble? I'd have to accuse you of brainwashing for a comment like that," Zuko pointed out.

"Oh... shut up!" Toph said. And while Zuko didn't answer her, she could tell he was smirking. "How about I just tag along and point out to all the people you pass that you're the Fire Nation Prince? Lots of fun to be had that way!"

"You do remember that most of Ba Sing Se isn't aware that our nations are at war?" Zuko pointed out drolly.

Toph's shoulders slumped. "You're taking all the fun out of this," Toph muttered, as she began to move after him as he started to walk toward the edge of the Palace, and then, the city beyond it.

"You said I needed a hobby," Zuko answered her. Nobody was allowed to be that smug around her! She just had to find out the right way to get him back.

---

The water pounding on Malu's shoulders was frigidly cold, chilling her to the bones. So cold, in fact, that it was becoming painful, flattening her hair against her head and causing her new kavi to stick to her skin. The pain was a relief, though. It distracted her from the hunger.

"The Water Chakra, I'm guessing?" Malu asked through chattering teeth. Pathik, likewise sitting under the spray, nodded serenely, not even batting an eyelash at the deluge.

"It is located in the loins," Pathik said, gesturing vaguely. "It is the seat of pleasure, but is choked by guilt. The abomination has clung powerfully to this place, into the guilt you have gathered. But its hold is less strong than had been upon your shame. Your guilts are newer. Your shames ran to the bone. But still, the beast continues to hold to your guilts. So what leaves you unable to sleep in the night? What sets your soul to tears? What in you needs redemption more than light or life?"

Malu shivered and sputtered, the water crashing over her, and she closed her eyes. But when she opened them...

Blood.

A wail, coming from her own lips, as she let that thing rise to the fore, bearing her toward the sky on threads of corruption and worse. She could see the world begin to twist under its power, as the people who had so swiftly become friends stared up at her in mounting horror. As the newest one, the unscarred Si Wongi boy fell to his knees in terrified prayer.

She could feel the arrow through her neck. Feel the bullet through her heart. Each should have killed her, were this a fair and just world. And then, she started to feel the death. All of it. It was her fault. Because she thought she was something that she wasn't. Because she never questioned her belief. Because she let it out.

And she felt more death. This time, between her teeth. No longer were men dying around her. Beasts were. Bugs. Fishes. And then, anything she could catch. And she caught everything. And everything she caught, she ate, red and raw, blood and warm meat sliding down her throat in heedless abandon. Worse than heedless; blasphemous. This was so against everything that she was, that she promised that she would be. Not just to eat meat, the flesh of another living thing, but to mercilessly and wantonly slaughter everything she could find to get it.

She was a murderer, both of beast and man.

And it was tearing her apart just as much as the hunger was.

"You must accept these things which you have done," Pathik said quietly.

"How can I accept this?" Malu asked, looking at the horror she had created. The dead eyes of those things she ate, staring at her as though asking 'why?'. Before she ate the eyes as well.

"You can no more change the things which have happened, than you could will yourself be the Avatar. They have happened. And while it has shaped you, there is no reason for it to define you," Pathik said. "You have to be able to forgive yourself, or you will never be free. Not just of the abomination, but of your own self-hatred."

Malu looked down, her eyes on the water splattering around her. "What if I don't deserve to be forgiven?" she asked.

"You do," Pathik said.

"No, I don't," Malu said. "All of those people, all of those innocent people, they're dead because of me! Because of what I did! I'm not an Air Nomad; I'm a monster!"

"Child, you must be wary, this way leads to..."

"I don't deserve a second chance," Malu said, and as she pushed herself up against the pounding of the water, a great red line opened, tearing through the space of what was, somehow both in the sky and in the cave, an Eye of Terror, watching her. "Nila should have just burnt my body to ashes when she had a chance!"

"This is what the abomination wants, to tighten its hold," Pathik warned.

"I'm a horrible person," Malu said, her fingers clutched around her face. But she didn't feel cold, not anymore. Now, she felt like she was about to burn from the inside out. "No wonder this thing ended up inside me."

THE VESSEL

"Child, you must listen to me," Pathik said, now standing before her, still dripping wet, but his eyes were as stern and hard as flint. "If you surrender to your guilt, then the abomination will have a hold upon you that you will never be able to slough. It will own you; it will own your soul and mind as surely as it owns your body."

"That's what I deserve! To be a shell with something like that inside it!" Malu said.

THE VESSEL IS

"Listen to the words which you are saying," Pathik said. "Listen to them, and ask yourself, are these your words? Or are they the words it is giving you? Are you its slave, or are you its enemy? Do you stand against the darkness, or at its foot?"

Malu swallowed hard, trying to listen to the guru's words, to understand their meaning. A part of her told her that they were meaningless, and that it would be so much easier to just give up. To make the pain stop. To not be so...

No. No, this wasn't right. Malu looked down at her hands. There were no tattooes upon them, as she never really considered herself a master of the airbending arts. Even though she knew more than most practitioners alive in her day, she was humble enough in that. That was Air Nomad. She thought she was Avatar, yes, but that drove her to try to be the best Avatar that there ever was, instead of just allowing what came to come. That was Air Nomad. When people wronged her, she didn't seek revenge, not petty spite. She might have gotten them back, but she never answered a closed fist with a closed fist. That was Air Nomad.

She stared at her naked hands, and the water dribbling through them.

"I..." she said.

THE VESSEL IS REA

"I'm better than this," Malu said. And then, there was a crash, of metal against metal, of something so massive that its scale beggared her understanding. It was almost like that Eye of Terror blinked, in shock. If it even understood such a concept. "I will be better than this. I'm not who it wants me to be. I can be better!"

NO. THE VESSEL IS READY.

"It was my fault that they died, but..." Malu said, as that hunger reached a crescendo throughout her. "...but I will be better. I will be a better person. I will learn from that. I will move on from it," she stressed, even though it felt like the water that struck her body was hissing away to steam. And the reason why it felt like that, unnoticed by her, was because it was. "I will learn from my mistakes. I won't let them hold me down, turn me into something I'm not. I won't give in to that thing, or to anything else. I have something which the world needs. I can't throw it away, not out of self-pity. I deserve to be forgiven."

And then, even as the sensation of pleasure began to swell through her, it was crushed, unmade, and for that brief sting of joy, crushed all the harder by the mind-twisting agony which dropped onto her head as though it a mountain falling from the heavens. Her mind was smashed like glass, reformed, then smashed again, the wrathful raging of the beast inside her skin flailing and striking at her in complete and maniac hatred.

YOU ARE THE VESSEL. YOU ARE READY. YOU WILL...

"NO!" Malu screamed through the agony, through the blindness that the agony placed upon her, through the coppery taste in her mouth and the twisting in her guts. "I deserve to be forgiven!"

And then, another wail, a crash of mountains colliding, and that Eye of Terror folded in on itself, and then, the line pulled closed. It snapped out of existence with nary a whisper. And Malu, screaming with agony, as blood seeped from her nose and mouth, fell to the bank of the stream, crawling up out of the water on curled and numb hands. It felt as though somebody had ripped her whole skin off of her. And the pain lingered, even as Pathik moved to her side, gently bringing her up. "That was a stronger reaction than I expected. Your guilt runs deep," Pathik said. "But now, and I am sorry, child, you must confront your final trial. There is no time to rest. As you have felt, the beast is crashing at the gates to your soul. You must cast it out, now or never."

Malu nodded dumbly, not even trying to flick the wet hair out of her eyes. "I'll... I'll do it," she mumbled. She wiped her bleeding nose and spat yet more blood onto the ground, limping with Pathik's help toward the site of the last Chakra's release.

Behind her, that blood she spat onto the ground hissed and bubbled, as it ate away at the fabric of reality, creating a hole the size of a man's fist into the Spirit World.

---

"Are you sure you're going to be alright, Nila?" the Tribesman asked. In most other circumstances, she would have given him a brutal glaring for presuming upon her capabilities. At the moment, though, she was just glad for the company. And to be completely honest, she wasn't sure the answer to that question.

"You did not need to come," she pointed out.

The Tribesman shrugged. "I've got a thing for cute girls in trouble. What can I say?"

"Then you have missed your mark by a wide margin," Nila muttered, even as some small and irrational part of her accepted the hidden compliment and filed it away to be poked and prodded later. Strange, how even the irrational parts of herself could be so scientific in their madness. "Bring it here."

The Tribesman nodded, and lugged the flag of white stone – dolomite, as she had specified – and set it down onto the hilltop. There was already another unmarked flagstone on this hill, a testament to some other who had died long before from the wear of it. The remnants of a pair of sticks of incense remained powdered atop that other flag; without a rain to wash them away, and sheltered as it was from the wind, the flagstone would likely linger there, perhaps indefinitely. Nila pushed the fresh stone into a better position, lining it up with the one before. If nothing else, she could at least be tidy.

"Is there something I should say?" the Tribesman asked earnestly. "I didn't know him very well. Not like you did."

"I... am not sure," Nila admitted. "There are rites. I may well have bungled them."

The Tribesman set a hand onto her shoulder, and she instantly lifted it off and set it aside. She took a step aside, and pulled the tiny painting from her pocket. "You did the best you could," he said, as she stared at that rendition. "I'm sure that in the extremely unlikely event that Ashan is watching from somewhere, he's happy with how you did it."

"Extremely unlikely," Nila repeated. And for once, she wished she was as incapable of rationality as would be required to believe in speaking to the dead. To at least give Ashan a goodbye. Or even... a thank you. The Tribesman gave a nod.

"He was a good guy. I could tell that much about him. He deserved better than this. And maybe he finally got it. Maybe. Hypothetically speaking."

"Your irrationality is showing," Nila pointed out, turning to face the Tribesman who had joined her in this foray. "He was, as you said, a good man. Better than he had rights to be. Better than I deserved in friendship or otherwise. And now, that friendship has ended him."

"It wasn't your fault," the Tribesman pointed out. "If you're going to be mad at somebody, be mad at Long Feng. End of the day, he's the one responsible for what happened to you two."

Nila nodded. "You are not wrong, Tribesman," she said. Sokka gave a sigh, and looked down to the flagstone, resting atop the grass beside one which had long sunk into it.

"Should somebody etch his name, or something?" Sokka asked.

"No. That, I know, is not our way. The reminder should be to those who he left behind. Those who do not remember him, need not be made to," she gave a shrug. "My people's ways are strange."

"I'm not one to judge. My people sled on penguins," he answered her. And from the look on his face, he had likely done so himself. She turned to the stone, and laid the picture atop it. While she had not so much as ashes to bury here, at least, there was some part of him that could be memorialized.

"Go into the arms of the Highest Host with honor and dignity, Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa," she said. There was something more to the prayer, but she had never paid attention to it, thus it eluded her now.

There was a long silence, until the Tribesman coughed slightly. "So what do we do now?"

"We go back," Nila said. "Perhaps your flighty Avatar and my equally flighty brother shall have returned by now."

She had turned and started to walk toward where the grain-cart came to a halt, a walk of about two miles, when something arrested her feet. It was a sound, one she had heard many times before. But not in the waking world. Not while her feet were rested firmly in the Mortal World. Metal against metal, echoing through the skies, a sound from her nightmares.

She turned to the southeast, and her sudden turn caused Sokka to do likewise. "What is it?" he asked. "I thought you wanted to be back in time for the execution... morbid as that may be."

"Did you hear that sound?" Nila demanded, her blood cold.

"I didn't hear..." the Tribesman began, but halted as the sound echoed forth once again. "...wait... that sounds familiar. Where did I..."

"The Blowout," Nila said. "But why here?"

"What?" Sokka asked.

Nila turned to him, eyes flashing. "We must collect your Avatar and his pet. Something transpires to the southeast. Something from outside the mortal ken."

"...so how would you know about it?" Sokka asked.

"...just follow and heed me," Nila said. The Tribesman gave a chuckle.

"And here I thought you were going to taunt me with underwear-lessness on our way back."

"It seemed in bad taste to remind you of the obvious," Nila pointed out, and they began to move more swiftly to their passage in from the Reaches, she leading as the Tribesman fell a pace behind in baffled silence.

---

Malu still hurt pretty much everywhere as she more collapsed than sat onto the stone which lay in the very deepest point of the Eastern Air Temple. They called this area the Trials of the Deep, the vault in which the elders of the airbender monks would steel themselves to stillness in darkness and stagnant air, fighting their very nature in order to better understand it, to gain a level of enlightenment. There were statues of Avatars long past which cycled the wall. Unlike those at the South or North Temples, though, they didn't try to portray specific past incarnations. Just the cycle of air, to water, to earth, to fire. Even looking around almost upset Malu's balance, though, and it took Pathik's gentle hand to steady her.

"It's time, isn't it?" she asked, still unable to rid the taste of her own blood from her mouth. Pathik nodded gently. No words needed to be said on that regard. They had already been uttered, discussed. Talked to death. The final Chakra, where the infestation took root. Its strongest bastion. Its most resilient grip. If there was any mercy at this point, it was that she didn't feel hungry anymore; there was too much pain, everywhere, for her to feel hunger.

"The final Chakra is the Earth Chakra, located at the base of the spine," Pathik said, his voice still serene, but there was an edge to it, just the slightest alteration of tone in his words. A tone of deep-set but almost-hidden fear. Whether for Malu, or of Malu, she couldn't say. "It is concerned with survival, safety, security, and peace. It is disrupted... by fear."

Malu knew the drill at this point, and her eyes slid closed. "I'm ready."

"Then you must picture your greatest fear, and not succumb to it. This is as far as I can take you. The rest, is all upon your shoulders," Pathik said. And this time, the voice was almost sad.

Malu tried to think about what made her afraid. That thing inside her? Definitely. But she couldn't picture it. She tried to, but it was too... big. Too amorphous. The only thing she had on it was that one great and terrible eye. Still, she tried to focus on it, opening her eyes once and twice and again, but each time, not seeing the object of her terror. Instead, only the crude statues, and an ancient, bearded man in a yoga.

She kept trying. Imbalance. Oblivion. The hunger. She tried everything she could think of which connected to that thing inside of her. But nothing... stuck. It was smooth as glass.

She let out a groan, and tapped her hand to her side. When it came back, it was bloody. Her eyes widened at that, and she pulled up the tail of her kavi. The skin on her side had pulled apart as though it were rotting cloth, and blood oozed out lazily. She turned a fearful glance toward Pathik.

"That is the threat. It knows its time is short. It will have you, one way or the other," Pathik said.

She hadn't even noticed the specific pain of her flesh tearing, amidst the clamor of everything else. She stared at her hand for a long moment, and then, like a bolt from the heavens, she realized something. She was overlooking something. The pain gave her focus, clarity. It made her ignore the obvious – her agonizing hunger – so that she could feel a bodily pain more strongly. And then masked a bodily pain amongst it. There was a third factor obscuring her life, something which was before Imbalance, before the hunger.

Not a connection, a cause.

How did it get in?

And Malu cast her mind back, though the fog of anguish and suffering, to a time, near a century ago. She was alone. Ihah had died bringing Malu to safety, succumbing from her wounds within seconds of landing in the mountains. Sadly, those seconds were in the wrong direction of landing, so the plummet had snapped her legs, for the shock and the exhaustion she'd felt. She huddled in a cave, her legs bound with the most basic of splints, for months until she could walk again. It would be almost a year before she had the courage to leave the mountain, and see what had become of the world, and her once-and-no-longer home.

She saw the Eastern Air Temple in ashes. She swore vengeance. Was that it? Hatred? No, no it ran deeper than that. There was a reason she was so hateful in that moment, when she looked at ashes and ruined stone.

She sat, and when she opened her eyes, she wasn't looking at the vault. She was seeing another day. Herself, looking much as she did at this very moment. But fleeing. A home-made staff, whittled from gnarled branches, barely keeping the firebenders at bay. While they no longer possessed the incredible strength that they had when they purged the monks from the world, they now had numbers, coordination, and she had no allies whatsoever. She fought them for weeks in the mountains, tricking and dispiriting them. Sapping away their morale. Making them give up; for all she hated, it wasn't murderous. No then. Not now, when she thought about it. Some part of her still saw Fire Nationals as people, and their military divorced from that. She couldn't hate a people any more than she could hate all humanity. So why did she hate at all?

Right. The month of hell.

They had smoked her out. All of her bolt holes, so carefully created and hidden, so arduously stocked with the 'offerings' that locals left for her, burnt. Her every turn was beset by fire. Her attempts at flight, swatted down. She didn't understand why they were expending so much effort to kill one airbender. Or rather, she did, but because of a completely incorrect reason. They backed her to a wall. They had her beaten. Surrounded.

She had been so afraid. So she finally tried what she'd not dared to before that point. She tried to enter the Avatar State.

Her eyes widened. That was it. That was its base. How it got in.

There was a rumble, as the roof seemed to crack, and red light began to pour down into the room. Ridiculous, considering the vault was the lowest point of this structure. Her hair, long and shaggy from having not been cut in... well, a century... began to dance in a growing breeze. But she ignored it. That was the reason. Fear. Terror for her life.

Fear of the fire.

The fire burst into being, surrounding her, casting blazing heat and light into her eyes. Somewhere through that veil of light there was a figure, spikes rising from the shoulders. No, not one. An army. Ten thousand soldiers, in their death's-head helmets. And at their back, another figure, this one alone. Back straight, head level. A five-point flame resting atop the phoenix-tail his hair had been set in.

This was her greatest fear? Not something noble like the eradication of all that the Air Nomads were. Not something grandiose, that she wouldn't be able to collect the justice that her people so rightly deserved. No, it was small, petty, pathetic.

She'd let Imbalance in, because she didn't want to die.

The breeze rose, and begat a gale, which tore through the room she was kneeling in. She tried to ignore it, but after a few moments staring forward at that flame, those beyond it, and the message contained therein, a gust physically pushed her aside. She had to arduously push herself up, dripping dark blood onto the tiles as she did so; even that small of a fall tore the gossamer-thin flesh on her cheek, and caused blood to surge from between her teeth.

"This isn't happening," she said.

"It is!" Pathik's voice had a note of quite real terror in it, which was enough for Malu to glance to her side, and behold the guru still in a yoga, but his eyes were wide as saucers and borne straight up. The last vestiges of the ceiling of the room – and by virtue of this room being the lowest, every other mote of the Eastern Air Temple – cracked and drifted up and away, revealing that in the night, there was one star which hung low, red, and vicious. The rubble of the temple orbited upward, as though trapped in a very gradual and deliberate tornado, and that hateful eye, larger across than all of Ba Sing Se, hung in the air, glaring down.

"Wh... how..." Malu muttered.

THE VESSEL IS READY

Malu's teeth, bleeding though they were, grit, and she forced herself, even as she felt the skin tearing with every motion, her innards rupturing with every internal shift, to a stand. She put her back straight, and glared straight up, even as her breath shredded her lungs. Everything hurt. It hurt worse than the hunger. It hurt like dying.

"I. Am. Not..." Malu began.

"You must confront your fears, not the abomination!" Pathik warned. "The fears are an illusion you must master, not the beast which feeds upon them! You must surrender your fears! Not your life!"

The eye glared, and the black wisps reached down, tracing her cheeks, tearing them open further to greater agony even with such a tiny touch; every touch was a violation. She could feel this thing inside her, for the first time. She knew what it was. She knew its nature. She could feel it, in a way she couldn't deny nor explain, not to anybody but the Avatar, if even he. The fingers came with whispers. Promises.

SURRENDER AND THE PAIN WILL STOP

"The pain never ends," Malu said, her voice strangely calm. Almost madly calm. That was a fundamental fact of life, an underpinning of entire philosophies. Life hurt. It always would. Even in the best of times, there would be pain. But did that mean that she would flee, abandon life, because it might hurt? No. No, because she had a calling. She had a reason.

SURRENDER AND YOU WILL HAVE REVENGE

"I... don't want it," Malu said, understanding that very basic notion for the first time. She didn't want revenge. She wanted her people safe. She wanted the Air Nomads to continue, in any form. She wanted the war to stop. Not because it put her in danger, but because the world had been wounded enough. It was bleeding. Dying. And it deserved to heal. It wasn't about revenge. It never was.

SURRENDER AND I WILL GIVE YOU POWER

"I don't need it," Malu said. She already had all the power she would ever need. Even had she lost the ability to bend a breeze for the rest of her life, or see the slightest spirit until her dying day, she had all the power anybody could ever ask for. She stared up, defiant, at the being which would, she now knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, end reality itself. And in that, she showed more power than she thought possible. Even as blood dribbled down the arms which hung at her sides, as her lips stood cracked and peeling, her teeth red and bloody, she was not...

SURRENDER AND

"No," Malu whispered into that pandemonium. "You have nothing I want. Except your egress."

Her lips pulled back as her face formed a hard scowl. "Go. You are not wanted here anymore."

The black wisps, which had been caressing her, began to drift up, with greater speed, with greater anger, until they started to bind around her throat in a great and tightening noose. Others reached down, pinching her arms to her sides, her legs together. The Eye of Terror glared down at her. She glared back up at it, as her throat began to crush under that squeezing force. So she made her last words good ones.

"I am not afraid of you," she said, the slightest smile coming to her lips. She smiled, because for the first time, ever, it was true. She wasn't afraid. What came after this would come, but in this moment, she was not afraid. And in that moment, that single and pristine moment, there was peace. Silence. Numbness.

…

And then, with a howl which tore off half of the mountain and sent it spraying a thousand miles away, the bearer of the binds around Malu pulled hard in every direction. And the pain spiked once more, before it went away completely into absolute darkness, and she, with it.

---

He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been out in the Reaches with Sharif, only that he'd eaten at least once and was hungry again. But the hours – or perhaps days – that had passed had been frustrating but enlightening. Dragging knowledge kicking and screaming out of somebody barely able to elucidate it was a long, drawn out, taxing, and frustrating process. But Aang had learned something important. Not how to enter the Avatar State; apparently, 'the time wasn't right' for that yet. No, in the absence of that lesson, he learned something he should have learned a long time ago.

How to really talk to spirits.

While the vast and overwhelming majority of them still clung to Sharif, more and more of them drifted closer to Aang than had before. Their voices were so quiet, but now, unlike before, Aang could at least hear them. He knew that they spoke. Not what they said, not unless he focused, saw their Form. A lesson like that, he was pretty sure, should have been given a long time ago. Or at least, sought a long time ago. After all, he'd spent weeks sitting on his hands in the Middle Ring. Why hadn't he had a long talk with Sharif in that time? What kept getting in his way? The more he thought about it, the weaker his excuses seemed to be.

"I think it's time we go back," Aang said.

"...why?" Sharif asked, as he stared into the southerly distance, the nearly-set sun throwing long shadows and the first stars winking on in the eastern horizon.

"Be...cause the sun's going down, and we're out of food?" Aang offered. Sharif blinked, then looked over to where Appa was contentedly chewing on the dry grasses which were even here fairly sparse, and the lemur which chattered and yammered as it picked at the beast's fur and horns. The six-legged bison gave an idle grunt to its life-long companion then returned to chewing. Aang nodded, as though that had been an offer of agreement. "See, Appa's with me on this one."

"Oh." Sharif said. "Well... I think... I don't know if there's more that I could teach you. Not yet. They say it isn't time yet. The sacrifice is not yet breaking free."

Aang raised an eyebrow at Sharif, but considering the way that he was now aware that the Void talked, it made a lot more sense, those cryptic things which Sharif had said. Somehow, taking a hatchet to the face had somehow turned Sharif into exactly the kind of shaman who could think the way the Void did, to some degree. And for the life of him, Aang wished that it hadn't, that Sharif hadn't lost his mind in the way that he had. It was profoundly sad, and unfair. Especially to his family. "Sharif... do you ever think about what you'd have been like? You know, if you hadn't gotten hurt?"

Sharif blinked at the Avatar, as though he didn't understand the question. "I am not hurt. I feel no pain."

"I mean your head," Aang said.

Sharif rubbed at the scar on his brow, and blinked a few more times. "Oh... I don't know. Something else. Maybe. I don't know."

"Has anybody ever tried to heal the injury?" Aang asked.

"The faithful sister tried. The faithful sister could not. Nothing to heal. I feel no pain."

Aang sighed at that, but got to his feet, helping Sharif up as well. An odd thing to do, considering how much bigger Sharif was than Aang, but the Si Wongi didn't seem to have any initiative of his own, at times. "Let's get back to the others. They're probably wondering what's taking us so long as it is."

"Sister does fret. She should not. It ages her," Sharif said quietly. But just as they reached the bison's side, Sharif violently pulled away from Aang, spinning around and facing the south. "What."

Aang turned as well, as the bison behind him let out a snarl of fear, backing away before rearing up and hopping back almost a dozen yards before landing again. Had Appa almost run away without him? That wasn't something that Appa would do... But then, as Aang looked south again, he could see anything with wings had taken to the sky, darkening the horizon under a weight of terrified birds. Then, Aang heard something. Something meaty, something visceral, something larger than the mountains or the earth, something colder than the void of outer space.

Something familiar.

"Do you hear that?" Aang asked. Sharif, his eyes now focused, if on something over the horizon and far away, only nodded, his expression no longer confusion or dopey inattention, but very real fear. "That sounded like..."

Aang was cut off when he spotted a shockwave in the distance. The waving wheat, which struggled up despite the drought and the approaching summer, bucked in an almost solid line, before screaming toward them as a wall. In three seconds, it over took them, a horrid din of sound, the noise of a mountain being torn to shreds from hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. But the most terrible, the most horrible thing? The red, brightening the southern horizon in defiance of the setting sun. A red which rose, gaining definition as it divorced itself from the hard line where the heavens met the earth, until it was a clear and obvious shape.

A red eye, staring straight down from the sky.

But not staring at Aang.

"That cannot be..." Sharif said.

"I know that," Aang said, backing up toward Appa, pulling Sharif with him. "That's Imbalance! That thing tried to eat me!"

"We have to flee!" Sharif said.

"No, we've got to find out what he's looking at!" Aang countered. "Anything that can catch his attention's got to be something I need to know!"

"I... that is..." Sharif, baffled as ever, couldn't come up with the words to express his consternation at Aang's plan. "Not wise."

Aang stared at Sharif, who was somehow being the moderating voice in this conversation. He hung his head for a second. "You're right. I need to get my friends, too. I can't do this alone."

Aang turned and bounded up onto Appa's brow, but at his back, Sharif stared at him like he'd finally found somebody more brain-damaged than he. But after only a few moments of that mute and confused staring, the shaman likewise clambered up the white flank of the beast. With a 'yip yip', Appa was airborne, with Momo keeping up as he couldn't just sleep in somebody's lap or the saddle. Neither was available.

They flew, back into the heart of the city, overpassing the inner walls, the Outer Ring. The whole of Ba Sing Se passed at a streak, hundreds of thousands of buildings under their feet as they rocketted toward the Upper Ring, toward the Earth King's Palace. Toward friends, allies, and a force to be reckoned with. Aang kept glancing over his shoulder, and in stark defiance of his own desire that this be just some sort of strange dream, the Eye of Terror remained hanging in the sky, staring down at something which was over the horizon to the southeast.

Aang looked forward again, just in time to let out a terrified yelp and dive Appa down, because he'd almost been hit in the face by a flare. Aang wheeled around, and from the contrail of the flare alone he could tell that it was coming from the monorail below him. He stared down at it, at the cart which was grinding along its path, trying to figure out why somebody would shoot at him.

"Sister's aim is improving," Sharif noted distantly, not even having cried out at the sudden maneuvering. Nila did that? She must have been trying to catch Aang's attention. He swooped low, riding along side that train, and saw Sokka waving vigorously at him, pointing back at the horizon, and shouting something which was lost in the wind. Nila, though, remained silent, focused. Sokka then ran to the back, leaned hard out the window, and shouted something to the men propelling the craft. The cart started to grind to a halt, nowhere near a departure station, and when it did, Aang let Appa levitate gently beside it.

"Sokka, what are you..." Aang began.

"The Eye of Terror has returned," Nila interrupted him, barging past Aang and clutching her way to her brother's side. "As you have my brother, we have what we need."

Aang glanced to Sokka, who shrugged, before clambering on himself. "I'm just in this for the ride," the Tribesman said with an uneasy laugh. But when he turned to the south, saw that thing floating so high above the world, even his unsteady smile started to fall apart. Aang turned to Nila.

"You almost shot me in the face!"

"I needed your attention, and have received it. Now, we must..." Nila began, but was cut off by Sokka.

"She's pretty sure that thing is majorly bad news," Sokka explained simply. Nila shot a glare at him, but in its wake, nodded. "So what're we doing here, Aang? Are we being smart or are we doing the usual Avatar-y thing?"

"I fear I already know the answer to that," Nila said flatly.

Aang nodded, and was about to wheel Appa around, when he saw something familiar below him. Two figures, one tall and lanky, the other tiny and bare-footed. The lanky one pointed up, and then the small one did what was obviously earthbending, sending a diagonal pillar of rock catapulting them into the sky. They approached rapidly, and Aang bounded off of Appa's brow to flick open his staff and wheel it swiftly creating a cushion of air which Zuko and Toph landed into, rather than either shooting past the Air Bison or else slamming into its legs.

"Was that necessary?" Zuko asked, as he dropped out of the air-pocket onto Appa's broad back.

Toph, though, answered at a squawk as she first fell out of the air-pocket, then promptly lost her balance and almost pitched straight over the side of the bison. Only a timely grab by Sokka kept her from plummeting at least forty feet. She pulled herself up, and cuffed Sokka on the shoulder for the save, before not really turning to Zuko and answering, "Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"You could have warned me," he said.

"Would have taken the fun out of it," she said. She then not-turned to Aang. "Had to wonder what you're doing flying this low over Ba Sing Se. Did it have anything to do with that noise like a mountain exploded?"

"I was going to find out, once I had some help. I just need to get Katara, and then..." Aang began.

"I'm not sure we have time," Sokka pointed out. "Whatever that thing is, it's nasty-lookin' and getting nastier."

A glance to the south proved Sokka's words true. The Eye, which previously just burned hatefully down, was now shuddering and quaking. Specks, tiny for the distance and thus massive indeed, flitted between Aang and the surface of that unnatural behemoth. Aang gave a nod. "I think you're right. We should go now. Besides, Katara's about as safe as anybody could be right now."

There were a couple of nodded heads at that, but Sharif's gaze was fixated to the south. It became much easier for him as Aang turned Appa about, and began to speed toward the Eye of Terror, toward Imbalance's avatar in this mortal world. There was no excitement on any of Appa's riders. Just focus for some. For the Si Wongi, and for Aang, though, the expression was fear and fear alone. Mostly, because they knew what they were getting into.

They were back over the reaches, when the red light beaming down from the Eye began to darken, and blackness began to well up from inside the red, whipping around it like the colorful veils of Si Wongi dancers. There was another sound, one which carried over the distance. It was rage, and hate, and violence, and brutality. It was hunger and madness and cruelty. But to Aang's mind, as he had learned the secrets of Form, it was also words.

THIS IS NOT OVER

Then, in the distance, the red burst, exploding in all directions, motes of red and black streaking through the air. Some vanished without ever touching the ground. Others seared up into the sky, as though joining the stars. But below, Aang could see another shockwave coming, blasting leaves from trees as it passed.

"EVERYBODY HOLD ON!" Aang roared, and sawed hard on the reins he'd created out of simple rope, causing Appa to twist violently in the air, and give the blast its tail and legs rather than a plain table to sweep the passengers off of. The blast hit every bit as hard as Aang feared it might, sending Appa barreling forward. Screams of terror and surprise abounded at Aang's back, and ahead of him, he could see Zuko plummeting. Aang pulled on the reins once more, diving under the falling firebender, and gently slowing down under him, arresting his drop only a few hundred feet from the unforgiving, baked earth.

Zuko, looking a bit more wide-eyed and alert than the aloof and distant figure he'd been for weeks, breathed deep, clutching at his heart as though he was sure it was going to fall out of his ribcage. "You... You saved my life."

"I always save my friends," Aang said, and pulled up and back, toward the Great Wall, which had done nothing to stem that shockwave. When he reached it, he could see why.

There was a tower slammed through it. An entire tower, bright, white stone capped in bronze, had seemingly impaled and brought tumbling down a roughly hundred foot wide section of the Great Wall, and the devastation was clear beyond. The tower was all cracks and fissures, as that impact had almost shattered it completely, but for the incredible hardness of the rock the tower was made of. The softer rock of the Great Wall stood no chance against such a battering ram.

"What is that?" Sokka asked, staring down.

Aang stared at it, and knew exactly what it was. "That's the spire of the Eastern Air Temple," he said. And then, he looked to the south once more, through the hole in the Great Wall. This, he decided after all of that thought and rumination, was not good.

It was an opinion shared by everybody on Appa's back, because everybody knew exactly how far away the Eastern Air Temple was.

---

"This is taking us nowhere fast," Kori muttered back to his 'jailer' who followed in his wake. Omo let out a quiet grunt of acknowledgment, but otherwise didn't answer. "Something must have gone wrong with Yoji, otherwise she'd have gotten back to us by now."

"You underestimate her," Omo said.

"I know her," Kori answered back, still quiet. A glance behind him showed that the other Dai Li who was in the hallway turned a corner and vanished from sight. "Her layers of contingencies only go so far down. And if we keep going like this, we'll never find Azula until the Avatar does. And if that happens... well, she'll be out of our hands."

"You underestimate us," Omo pointed out.

"I know us," Kori replied. "We need a regroup and a new strategy. These corridors run for miles under the city, floor upon floor of maze and megalomania," he scowled for a long moment. "We need something to draw Azula out. Or else, cause them to have to scramble to move her."

"That's for Yoji to decide," Omo said.

"You really aren't big on that whole personal initiative thing, are you?" Kori asked dryly. Omo just shrugged.

"What can I say? I know my place. Unlike some people I know," he said, punctuating 'some' with a shove which sent Kori staggering forward. The Tribesman shot a glance over his shoulder which said 'Really, Omo?', but the earthbender ignored it blithely.

"There's knowing your place and then there's being willfully ignorant," Kori pointed out. "And besides, my wrists are starting to chafe, here. I can't work my 'magic water' if I'm so raw that my arms are cracking."

"You've done better with worse," Omo said. Kori rolled his eyes and stepped forward into a t-junction. But as soon as he did, his eyes shot wide at a voice in the distance, and he slammed himself straight back into Omo's chest. It was shock and confusion that drove the burly man back, not Kori's musclepower. "What in the name of..."

"Shh!" Kori shushed urgently, and flattened himself against that corner, glancing beyond it with the corner of his eye. There was an army walking through that much-broader hall, not far away, at least a thousand men in green robes and conical hats. But they were all upon the heels of one in particular. A teenaged girl, wearing a green dress and her hair held in place with bronze pins, golden eyes flashing surely as her lips pulled into a dark smile. Princess Azula? Here? Working for the Dai Li? Kori motioned around the corner, and Omo took a scant glance, before pulling back in, concern clear on his face. He saw it, too.

"...of the loyalists. What about..." one of the Dai Li walking in Azula's wake began, only to be cut off.

"As long as you have your men in position for Long Feng's execution, then the rest will fall into place. And as for the Five Generals?"

"They can be neutralized swiftly," the Dai Li said. Kori ushered Omo back, and they had to duck into the threshold of a supply closet to stay out of sight. "When the Avatar returns, he will find a very different Ba Sing Se waiting for him."

"This seems somewhat drastic," a different Dai Li pointed out.

"This coup is for you a matter of life and death," Azula said, crossing that intersection, and the horde of Dai Li following after her, silent enough that her words could still be quite clearly heard even over their massive number. "The Generals and the Earth King have to be removed simultaneously. Are you doubting my leadership?"

"...well..."

"You had best cease," Azula said, and the horde came to a halt, no doubt as she wheeled on the one who had doubted her. "Long Feng placed you under my command to overthrow this government before the Avatar's influence becomes unshakable. If you lack the resolve, then leave now. Because if you don't, and I find any whisper of hesitation, betrayal, or disloyalty from this instant forward, I will snuff it out. Am I being completely clear?"

A moment of silence.

"AM I BEING CLEAR?" her voice burned with indignant anger.

"Yes, of course, ma'am," the Dai Li said, and then, the column of secret police continued to move past the intersection. Kori turned a glance toward Omo, and Omo returned it, just as nervously.

"...Something isn't going according to plan," Kori said.

"You don't say," Omo replied flatly.

---

We're steadily coming to a head, now aren't we? But which way are the chips going to fall? Well, I already know. The rest of you are probably going to have to be left hanging for a couple weeks.

This chapter was surprisingly easy to write; probably because the interactions between Sharif and Aang were so fun and interesting. If you can find two characters to bounce off of each other, make them do so as frequently as feasible. Sharif trying to teach Aang was one such moment. And while I wish I could have said I planned from the start to have Void speak with their... unique... cadance and syntax, it was something which occurred to me into the second book that there had to be a reason why Sharif could talk to them when so few others could. And having his thought processes rendered at least a little bit alien made the most sense.

Malu's journey was also an intentional inversion of Aang's from The Guru. Where Aang starts centered, and grows more unsettled as he raises up, Malu starts terrified and desperate, and the danger grows as it descends into the fundamental aspects of her. Imbalance is something which is, for all its alien nature, primal and base. It dwells in shadows, and clings to anything near it like a sticky cancer. Malu, at her lowest level, is a frightened airbender girl. Until now, she never even realized how afraid she was. It'd have been better if she hadn't had to confront that terror while Imbalance was preparing to rip her to shreds.

How unfortunate that things so seldom turn out well for our protagonists.

No one ever said being good was easy.

---

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