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.

41. The Invasion

Thu-thud.

Thu-thud.

Thu...

Thu-thud.

The pain radiated through his chest with each missed heartbeat. A pain he couldn't understand. Not the least of which was how he felt so weak. Every muscle in his body felt like they were carved from wood, or some sort of semi-resilient putty. His limbs were leaden, and the world seemed to buck and spin even as he was lying flat.

"Ugh..."

The first word from his mouth in this strange, dark place wasn't exactly the most graceful or uplifting, but considering what had happened...

Come to think of it, what had happened?

In the darkness, he tried to remember. It took longer than he'd expect; it was like his mind was packed with fuzz and running about half as fast as it should. Ba Sing Se. The Eastern Air Temple got blown up by... something. But they didn't even get there. Because... "Long Feng took over Ba Sing Se?" he asked, seemingly shocked by the words, by the memories. He tried to rub his face, but only managed to slap himself with an extremity which felt like a day-old fish. Still, that did bring something like clarity, because pain was a useful motivator. He couldn't say who taught him that. Maybe Zuko. Probably Zhao. Ba Sing Se.

"I was in the Avatar State... what happened?" he asked nobody, and his hand flopped down onto his bare chest, where it found a nub of scar-tissue, right over his heart. Blinking in the darkness, he prodded at that stiff old wound for a long moment, before a frightening notion occurred to him, and he awkwardly climbed fingers up his back... until they found a nearly identical wound in his back.

"What happened?" he repeated, and he flexed his fingers, trying to call in fire, to light his world. But it didn't work. Not the first time at least. There was another odd lurch, as his heart missed a few beats, before thundering back to life and slowly plateauing again at a rate which didn't make him feel like he was about to keel over. He breathed deeply, and flexed his fingers. A ball of dim, red flame appeared, burning lazily, but casting the room in scarlet relief.

And showing that there was already a lot of red, here. Aang's gasp of shock was enough to snuff that flame. The next attempt at lighting it was slightly more successful, but by the time he managed it, he was hoping that what he'd seen was a mistake. Some sort of... he couldn't come up with a proper – or improper – metaphor for what he wanted. Under a golden glow, his worst suspicions were confirmed. The walls were black steel, and the decorations and standards were all tripoint flames, black against red. Fire Nation, all.

He tried to kip to his feet, but managed to trip over his lack of balance and fall flat on his face. With a moment to mutter '...ow', he slowly pushed himself up to a crawl. The room continued to buck and spin, and he had precious little purchase in it. He needed to get out of here. There had to be some way out of this room. He looked around, but couldn't see anything but a pile of bandages – useless, since his injury seemed long healed – and a sort of overcoat which had been cast aside. Aang stumbled over to it, giving it a look. It was red, as all things in this room seemed to be, but it was better than wandering bare-chested. He pulled his arms into it, but could help but feel another wave of faintness overtake him.

That was getting very, very annoying.

With a deep breath, he forced himself up again, and almost fell a second time, but this time managed to keep his balance. He stumbled his way to the door, which he began to lightly tap at, trying to figure out where the lock was. There was an old trick to opening locks, one that Kuzon had taught him, a century ago. He just couldn't quite remember how it went, so he leaned on the valve for the hatch, and continued to rap, until his weight on the valve caused it to lurch down, and the bolt to slide out of place. The door swung open.

"Huh. Guess I must have remembered the trick without realizing it," Aang said to himself. He started to walk out of the room, but his footing was far from sure; the floor didn't seem to want to be consistent in which direction was down, so he found himself ricocheting off of the walls as he headed to a stairway. A black iron stairway... He'd seen this sort of thing before.

"Am I on a ship?" he asked.

"Aang? Are you awake?" a voice asked at his back. One which ignited every self-defensive neuron in his brain. The last time he heard that voice, it's source tried to eat him. He didn't even turn to face her; he just hurled a blast of wind at the would-be cannibal, which sent her barreling toward the far wall, before making his swift if lurching way up the stairs and to the door. He hurled the valve open with all of the haste available to his weakened and leaden form.

When he opened that door, it was a fraction of a second before he was absolutely soaking wet.

Between the driving rain and the spray over the hull every time it crested the brutal and unforgiving waves, it was a miracle that the ship hadn't been swamped under the sheer volume of this deluge. He only looked to the prow, as it carved upward into a massive wave, and was in awe at the power of the storm. He knew that weather got bad on the oceans. He'd been in it when they fled south from Summavut. But this? This was a whole other beast. That greatest wave, which looked poised to smash the ship to scrap-iron, suddenly parted, its crash and crush diverting away. Only a little bit. Just enough for the ship to slip through the gap, if with a solid thrashing along the hull. As they cleared that wave, Aang could see, only for a moment, the blue form of a waterbender, right at the forecastle. Breaking the waves so that the ship would live.

Going outside wasn't going to work.

This place was as good as a prison, but all of the little things kept bothering him. Why would a waterbender work with the Fire Nation, especially considering what had happened to them? He wasn't thinking clearly, and continued to not think clearly as he ascended, letting that door hang open to the storm, into the higher levels of the ship. What happened? That question continued to rattle in his brain. He was in the Palace... Azula was hurt. Oh, no. Azula! He looked to and fro, in a vain attempt to locate her through osmosis. He continued to lurch, this time fleeing that voice which called his name, told him to stop running. Like he'd stop so Imbalance could eat him!

There was more, though, as he moved ever higher. Royal Palace. People were hurt. Dai Li were everywhere. And Aang... He'd gone into the Avatar State. He could have stopped everything. He could have ended Long Feng's coup single-handedly. Why didn't he? That question rebounded to him, and he found himself rubbing at that scar in the center of his chest. He finally reached the highest point that this stairwell would take him, part of the way up the tower which no-doubt commanded quite a bit of the ship, and forged inward. He only made it ten steps before he saw a door, open to the hall, and heard voices coming from within. Accents. Some the tones of Ba Sing Se. Others, Si Wongi. One had a Huo Jian twist on it. He came to that threshold, and blinked a few times, trying to shake the darkness which had occluded his vision.

They were here. The Mountain King, the Dragon of the East, Toph. Her mother, Zuko, General How. Hakoda, Bato, Sokka. "I..." Aang began.

"Aang! You're awake!" Sokka said with enthusiasm and glee, quickly hauling Aang into a bear-hug. He then turned Aang toward the others at the table. "See? I told you this kid was a tough one!"

"He looks as though he is about to fall over," Sativa pointed out having given him only a glance before returning to her maps.

"Considering his dire predicament, it is a miracle he even lives," her daughter pointed out tersely.

"Guys, that airbender, the one that's got Imbalance inside her? She's on the ship!" Aang blurted, his words falling over themselves like a bunch of impatient people fighting to be first through a narrow doorway.

"We know," Nila said. "It was surprising to see her again."

Aang stared at he, and he clawed at his cheeks. "WHY AREN'T YOU PANICKING ABOUT THIS?" he shouted.

"Please, there is no shouting in the war room," Piandao said with a smirk, waving at Aang to calm himself.

"Aang? Are you up there?" the Host's voice called from behind, and Aang rooted himself before the door.

"Everybody, stay behind me. I'll try to hold her off as long as I can," Aang promised.

She poked her head around the corner, a confused look on her face and one eyebrow raised. "Hold me off? And here I thought I was a touch more welcome than that by now."

"Mysterious Void, the arrow which pierces the finest armor, the sign of–" Aang began.

"Oh, knock it off. I'm not a Host anymore," Malu said.

"But... how?" he asked.

Malu's face took on a momentarily haunted look. Her grey eyes met his for a moment. "It wasn't easy."

"I don't feel right," Aang said, as his world continued to spin, and far more than the mere bucking of the waves – as much as it could be called 'mere' given those waves – could account for.

"Buddy, you'd better lie down," Sokka offered.

"I..." Aang began, but his eyes started to roll up into his head, and all strength left his limbs and he wavered severely, as his heart thudded without direction and purpose, before falling utterly still.

"Somebody catch him, he's going to f..." Toph said urgently, but was cut off when the Avatar hit the floor. "...all."

Nila stared at the Avatar on the floor. "So this is the hand of our salvation?" she asked. Sokka could only give her a shrug. "I see then. We are doomed."

Aang's heart started beating again, but consciousness would be a while in coming back.

---

Hundreds of miles away, there stood an observatory. It had been a home, once. Then abandoned. Then, again a home. Now, abandoned for a second time, this time with great haste. And just barely enough haste, all things considered, as a being of inky shadow walked silently through the shadowed hallways. It had arrived mere minutes after the group, who had arrived by the Dirak artifact, departed. The kettle on the stove was still warm. But the Shard didn't pay attention to that. It was hunting something far more ephemeral than heat or human flesh. It was hunting a spirit. It was hunting the Avatar.

To call it mindless would be doing it disservice. It could think, but only in ways utterly alien and foreign to any normal person. It didn't understand that it could have followed subtle tracks toward the river, followed that river to Merchant's Pier, followed the clues that the Avatar was aboard a stolen Fire Nation ship. It didn't think in this direction.

Other Shards started to join it, scouring that place. For the Avatar. For the void which spoke to it. One and all, they found nothing. There was no word spoken by any of that mass, who were lightless but for the evil and arcane red and black pulsing of their eyes. But there was an understanding. They didn't have what they wanted. But they could have... something else.

They moved apart, walking through the walls and dropping down to the base of the Observatory, forming a perfect ring around it. More and more of the Shards appeared, filling the gaps until they had it fenced in completely. Then, one and all, they raised their hands. There was a crash of metal against metal, erupting from no less than a hundred throats, and the Observatory... changed. Its walls buckled and twisted, stretching upward even as the metal flaked and rusted. The sunlight no longer fell on it properly, an unnatural pall getting in the way. The whole structure began to bend, and crack, and crumble... then it halted, in its twisted and unnatural form.

But not really, because it wasn't there anymore. The Observatory no longer was. In its place, a different observatory, one situated wholly in the Spirit World. The Shards began to wink out, vanishing into that false dusk, until there was only one left. It swung its head left and right, before picking a direction, and starting to walk. It seemed at random. That seeming was half right.

---

Three Families, Book 3: Order

Chapter 1:

The Invasion

---

An airbender grumbled as consciousness slowly returned to him, and he rubbed at his eye groggily, feeling the uneven beat of the heart in his chest, the spiderweb traces of pain that a bad beat sent through him. They were frequent enough, and quiet enough, that after only a minute or so, he'd gotten used to them to the point where he could put them out of his mind. Another grunt, this time coming from deeper, as his stomach announced that it would compete with the heart for the attention of the brain, no matter how that temperamental piece of meat wanted to behave.

"I figured you'd be hungry. Have some of this," a voice said. Aang opened his eyes. And he saw Imbalance staring back at him.

He let out a yelp and pushed back, but after a moment, he could tell that he wasn't in a nightmare. Maybe a very strange dream, because Sokka and Katara and Toph were all crowded in the room, the former two playing some sort of card-game, and the latter looking unbelievably bored. Teo stood behind Katara, whispering down into her ear as she worked her hand. She cracked a smile at that, a fairly warm one. "Guys... what is she doing here?" Aang asked quietly, afraid even to move out of a frankly idiotic conception that if he moved, she would pounce on him. There would be no pouncing today.

"It's a bit of a long story," the other airbender said. Aang glanced to Katara, but a finger was snapped in front of his face, and she leaned into his line of sight, looking mildly annoyed. "Hey, you're talking to me right now, kiddo."

"Kiddo?" Aang asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know. Technically you're a day older than me. Yahoo," she said, and her body disagreed with that statement completely. She couldn't be a day younger than seventeen. "But this is the way things are now. I thought some dumb things. Made a few really dumb choices. And that's how I ended up here."

Aang's brow rose, unable to really parse what she was trying to tell him. "...Are you still a Host?"

"No."

"Since when?" Aang asked. There was a stab of pain in his chest as his heart stopped beating again. "Ooooh, why does it keep doing that?"

Katara was instantly moving to his side and leaving Teo where he leaned against a wall. She eased him back to a recline rather than a nervous squat. "Just take it easy. There is scar-tissue on your heart, and until you're used to it, it will take some time for your heart to learn how to beat properly again."

"And I thought I had a monopoly of getting my heart shot out," Malu said with sarcasm and a roll of grey eyes. Toph turned a scowl in her general direction. "Ask Nila. She's the one who did it. In her defense, I definitely needed shooting."

Aang leaned forward, against Katara's advice. "What happened to you?" Aang asked. "How did you survive? Where did you go? Were there others?"

Malu blinked for a moment. "In reverse order: No, I looked for months, but I couldn't find anybody; I hid in the mountains near the Eastern Air Temple, until I couldn't anymore; technically, I didn't survive – I got Hosted and as I understand, that keeps you young; and finally, I thought I was the Avatar, so when I tried to go 'glowing badass' – as that one puts it," she gestured toward Sokka, who gave a nod, "Imbalance had a perfect chance to slip into somebody. It's why it's been slowly killing the world for the last century. Because I was a coward."

"Now tell 'im the best part," Toph said dryly.

"There's a better part?" Aang asked.

"I was being sarcastic," the earthbender noted.

Malu cleared her throat, and looked up at Aang with a very serious expression. "Aang, while Imbalance was inside me, it couldn't do much. It was safe, but it was hog-tied. Have you ever wondered why things like Sentinel Rock or the Great Divide could happen so quickly, but hadn't for the last hundred years? Because without an opening, without me letting down my guard, it couldn't. Now... It's got nothing left holding It back."

"So... freeing you made things worse," Aang summarized. Malu bit her lower lip, and nodded. Aang looked to the others. "...am I really awake?"

Toph answered that by taking a shoe lying on the floor and hurling it at Aang's head. It hurt the way that a shoe-to-the-head ought to. Aang glared at her. "Did you really need to..."

"Yyyyup."

"Well, I've got a feeling that this is going into spirit mumbo-jumbo, so I'm going to go make sure Mom and Sis are comfortable," Teo said, casting a thumb over his shoulder. Katara gave him a very warm look as he left. Not surprising, even in his wounded state, that those two would have spent time together. He might have been... distracted, but he was hardly blind.

Aang leaned forward, wincing through another lance of pain, and rubbing his face. Then, his eyes shot open. "Wait a minute. I had an arrow through me. I wasn't just hurt. I was dead!"

"No, only mostly dead," Malu corrected. "And..."

"Turns out this 'spirit-magic mumbo-jumbo's actually a bit useful," Sokka said from where he was trying to surreptitiously alter his and his sister's hands so that hers would be worse, as her attention was currently on Aang. "Remember that nail you picked up the first time we met Sharif? Turns out, if you drive that into your brain it keeps you from dying. Ain't artifacts the weirdest things?"

Aang blinked a few times, then turned to Katara. "How did I get here? Where is here? I... how long was I out?" he asked

"We used that sphere," Katara began.

"Dirak," Sokka interjected.

"...to get to Teo's observatory. From there, we stole a boat at Merchant's Pier, since it'd gotten annexed a few months ago by the Fire Nation," Katara soldiered on, ignoring her brother's interruptions. "We're somewhere near Senlin, I think. And you were... unconscious... for more than a week."

"A week?" Aang asked, again rubbing his chest.

Katara nodded. "I like your hair."

"I HAVE HAIR?" Aang shouted, clapping hands over his pate. While he did still feel his scalp, it was hidden under the bristles of new growth. Malu reached aside and brought up a mirror, reflecting his face back upon it. It was weird, seeing himself like that; despite his young age, he actually looked a bit haggard. But the biggest change was that the blue sweep of his arrow was by-and-large hidden under short black hair. Only the point, inked onto his forehead, remained visible. "Ugh. This just keeps getting worse!"

"I may be directly responsible for the world ending, and having hair is worse," Malu said flatly.

"Kid's got priority issues," Sokka said with a shrug.

"And how did you get so friendly with her so fast?"

"Nila," Sokka said. "They go way back."

"We go back to this past winter. And stop cheating, you're just getting blatant with it, now," Malu said, slapping Sokka's hand.

Aang sat for a long moment, turning all of this over in his head. "Well... what are we going to do?"

"Long story short? We're invading the Fire Nation," Sokka said. "Only we're not going to be doing it without Ba Sing Se's say-so. Long Feng owns that place. So we're going to gather our most trusted friends and allies and bum-rush 'em on the Day of Black Sun."

"...And how many friends and allies is this again?" Aang felt compelled to ask.

"Don't be like that. Bumi's got an army he can lend an old friend, I'm sure of it," Sokka said brightly.

"Stop it," Malu said, and slapped Sokka's hand again.

"I'm not going to keep playing if you keep cheating," Katara told him.

"Hey, I'm only leveling the playing field. I know you spent five minutes stacking the deck!" he complained. Katara got a flabbergasted expression and huffed her incredulity, but even Aang could see through her facade. She tried to deflect for a few more moments, before the door banged open, and Nila walked in, a very sour expression on her face, and a lemur draped over her head.

"You are a masochist to feed this thing. All it ever does is screech and befoul all it flies over," Nila said darkly to Sokka.

"Hey, Momo's great. He gets along fine with Destroyer," Sokka began.

"We're not calling the cub Destroyer, Sokka," Malu cut him off flatly, with much the same tone as Katara always would.

"You lost naming veto when you ate its mother," Sokka said blithely, which made Malu set her jaw. Momo offered a few chitters, and flew over to Aang, picking and prodding at him with its nimble little fingers. Sokka turned to Nila, and winced. "Ooh. Been talking to your mother again, haven't you?"

"Would that my hands were broad enough, I would strangle her," she made a choking out gesture with her own tattooed hands.

Aang looked at everybody, and definitely noticed who was missing. "Guys... where's Sharif? And Zuko? And what about Azula?"

Everybody went silent for a moment, even Nila, who let her hands fall back to her sides. She looked around at everybody else. "Well, are you going to tell him, or must I, Tribesman?"

"Sokka," Sokka corrected her.

"Whatever," she dismissed. She looked a bit haunted, and her hands formed into fists. "My brother... he is missing. He was lost when you fought these ones' wayward sister. I... do not know where he is."

"You'll find him, I know it," Sokka tried to reassure her, but she shook her head sternly.

"You say that without understanding. I have always known where my brother is! To the degree-minute upon any map, to the mile by dead reckoning! Now he is... gone!"

Malu nodded at that. Aang looked at her. "She's a twin," Malu said, as though that explained it. Aang thought about it for a moment, though, and it actually did make sense. Twins shared more than just a womb, after all; they were two halves of the same soul. And even if one soul turned out to be a shaman and the other's wasn't... there was still a connection there. A connection which transcended distance, consciousness, or dimension. A connection which could pull a sleeping secularist into the Spirit World in her dreams.

Nila took a breath, steadying herself, and looked up at him again. Her eyes were now both properly green again, so that was an improvement over how he'd last seen her. "And as for the Prince; he is with his sister, and she is not well."

Aang felt his skin growing a bit cold. "How... not well... are we talking about here?"

Nila just slowly shook her head. "She is how Sharif was, in the time immediately after he was struck in the brain. Her words are nonsense, she runs a high fever, and she cannot control her body. Her brother has the patience of a Darvesh to see to her in such condition."

That Katara nodded told Aang that things were every bit as bad as he assumed. "I need to see her."

"What? Why?" Katara asked.

Aang didn't have an answer for that. Not one that she'd understand. So he answered by getting to his feet, and starting to walk into the halls of the ship that rolled on eternally storm-lashed tides.

---

She wasn't sure if it was a miracle of sheer luck, or whether the message had somehow gotten to her, but the six of them all managed to get home. Back to the island desert, one of the few places in the Fire Nation where one could see the sun... sometimes. They made it back, in time. The weather had turned, and rains pounded down on the wastelands, flooding the mines and bringing production of coal to a crawl. Low production of coal now meant that her family was in for a rough winter coming. And a frugal summer in between.

And still, despite their waning wealth, she couldn't deny Mother's request. Despite her waning health, even, they took her, moving furtively from island to island, until they finally reached the mainland. Then, a long voyage on the rails, over the mountains into Azul. The most dangerous place in the world. All because Mother wanted to see the sun set over that ocean one more time. And she wasn't going to say no, not now. The others might have pegged her as the 'evil sister', but the fact was, she was just trying to be pragmatic, but there was only so far pragmatism went before family got in the way.

She turned, and looked at the five sisters who looked essentially identical to her, and the one who seemed simply a sub-standard imitation of the others. While Zhu Di might falter on the physical appearance front, she had a mind better than any other. Kah Ri, ever the fashion-plate, did her best to outshine the others, which was difficult because Ty Lee's ignorant but raw charisma worked wonders. Rai Lee, always staying back from the others. Her hair, unlike the others, was cut almost boyishly short, but just as brown, and her dark eyes didn't look to Mother, nor out to the ocean. Aan Jee stayed near the quietest of the sisters, but in her case, it wasn't out of discomfort, but a long-standing habit of staying out of the public eye. Those in her 'line of work' didn't survive long by being brash. And finally Tzu Zi, back from her jaunt across the East Continent with the Si Wongi and the monster from the Storm Kings. It had strained credulity, but if she knew nothing else, Gwen knew that there was more to the world than she was presently aware. It was a problem she constantly sought to rectify.

She sighed, staring out over that water, trying to ignore the sensation that something was going to leap at them and try to kill them. Since she was in Azul, it was a very real possibility. Another sigh that she couldn't be so fortunate as to have something break the tension. "Is anybody going to say anything?" she asked.

Her sisters answered in their silence. Mother just lay still, her body withered away so that she had to be moved around in a litter. She barely even looked human. But there was enough – just enough – that she knew that the woman deserved... something. She wasn't sure what. She hadn't the years of experience to put it into words, but she needed something. Maybe now, she'd gotten it.

And it had cost Gwen her firstborn child, metaphorically speaking, to get all of the sisters Baihu into one room. Mother couldn't praise her. She couldn't say a word. "Fine," Gwen said. She looked to the litter-bearer, and nodded. He started to gently raise the woman back up, bringing her to the carriage which she'd had to ride alone because of her condition. "That was... distinctly unsatisfying."

"M-m-maybe she just wanted all of us to be t-t-together again?" Rai Lee offered. Not sobbing. Just stammering, as was her way.

Tzu Zi shrugged, but cleared her throat, causing the bearer to pause. She pulled something from a pocket, and laid it into Mother's bony hand. Gwen only got a glimpse of it. It seemed a leaf, from a tree like a maple, but it seemed made of softly glowing white light. The glow every-so-slowly started to dim, though, and she was cut off from closer scrutiny as Tzu Zi put Mother's other hand atop it. Mother... let out a tiny sigh.

Tzu Zi turned to Gwen, as Mother was loaded into the carriage. All of them knew that she wouldn't survive the trip back. They would be orphans this time next fortnight. Wealthy orphans, but still. "We're a family," Tzu Zi said, putting Mother behind her physically and addressing the others. "That means we've got to take what's coming. No matter how much it hurts. We're Baihu. We're not going to vanish. We're going to leave a mark on the Fire Nation. For Mom."

Gwen could see other heads nodding, but in her own head, she already had a plan for leaving a mark on the Fire Nation. Although, it involved emptying its throne.

---

"Zuko? Can I come in?" Aang asked, his heart thudding in his chest both unevenly and a little bit painfully as he asked.

"If I said no, would you go away?" Zuko asked through the doorway.

"Yes."

There was a silence, and then the door opened. Just a crack, so that Aang could see the left side of Zuko's face, and that he looked how Aang felt. "I heard you were up. I was... going to come up at some point."

His tones were distracted, distant. He looked like he hadn't slept in as long as Aang had been comatose. The door opened, and the first smell that impacted Aang's senses was that of human waste. The lights were dimmed, but there was a lump upon the cot which was the source of both that smell, and a great deal of concern for the two young men withstanding it. "She's gotten worse, hasn't she?" Aang asked gently.

"She's got no control of anything," Zuko said. "She can't talk. She can't eat. She can barely swallow. She has spastic fits every few hours. She's... dying."

Aang felt his heart lurch, in a very different way. "But... Katara should..."

Zuko shook his head. "She's tried," Zuko said, his tones flat. "I could tell, she didn't want to, but she did... and nothing."

"I don't accept that," Aang said, his jaw setting.

"What do you mean? There's nothing left to do but try to keep her comfortable... before..."

"No," Aang said, and he ignored the lance of pain as his heart managed to almost beat itself in half. "There's a way to fix this. There's a way to make this better. I know it."

"And that's probably my cue to enter," a familiar but unexpected voice sounded from outside the door. There was a zapping sound, and a blue-dressed Tribeswoman walked through the closed bulkhead as though it weren't present. Given what Aang now knew about the spirit using Huuni as a Host, it shouldn't be too surprising that she could. The spirit had a smirk on its face for about a half of a second, before she looked at Azula, and that smirk vanished. "Me-damn, what is that smell?"

"You!" Zuko snarled, bounding to his feet and drawing his twin dao in one motion, leveling a slash at her. There was another zap, and Irukandji was now standing on the other side of Zuko, who staggered for not having a target to strike. "You stay away from her! This is all your fault!"

"Indirectly, yes," Irukandji admitted, as she leaned over Azula. Zuko twisted his arms through the lightning kata, and Irukandji turned to him. "This isn't the time for that, Zuko. I'm trying to save your sister's life, here."

"What? Now you try? After all the suffering you caused, now you try to reverse it?" Zuko demanded.

"Don't take that tone with me, would-be-Fire Lord," Irukandji snapped. "Your sister was dying slowly since she was eight. All that happened at the North Pole was that it started happening faster."

"What is actually wrong with her?" Aang interjected before Zuko could steer the conversation into an angry and indicting rant.

Irukandji skinned open Azula's eyes, and clucked her tongue. "The walls are completely gone," she said. She looked up at the two teenagers. "There are walls inside Azula's mind. Walls I put there so that she could have something like sanity, and something like a life. But this time, when I tried to give an old woman a second chance, something went wrong..."

"Imbalance," Aang said. Irukandji nodded sternly.

"I didn't know it then, but yes," Irukandji agreed. "I was doomed before I even arrived in this reality. And so was she."

"What did you do to her in Summavut?" Zuko demanded.

"I talked to the old woman. Tried to convince her to stop pitching a shit-fit and trying to kill the Avatar here on general principle, and Katara because of what she'd eventually do to Azula's yet-unborn daughter. It's a long story, and one I can't really discuss. But I got interrupted before I could reverse it."

"So you broke my sister? That's why she's been acting like this all spring?" Zuko demanded. Irukandji got to her feet and glared down at Zuko.

"I had the choice between restoring the structural integrity of your sister's brain, or preventing reality from ending in a twist of abject hunger and never-ending oblivion. You're welcome, by the way, for the whole 'I'm still existing' thing that you're doing. Masterful performance. But don't for a second think that you've got any moral high-ground on me, human. I'm playing a different game from you entirely, and the stakes are higher than you think."

"Can you fix her?" Aang asked.

Irukandji took a breath, calming herself, and turned toward the Princess, lying on the cot. "No. Not fix her. I can repair her, but it wouldn't be a fix."

"What does that mean?" Zuko asked, sliding his blades home at last.

"I can erase everything in there which is killing her. She's got three minds rattling around inside one skull, and fairly few humans can take that sort of background noise. I tear down the walls, wipe her clean, and rebuild her from scratch," Irukandji said, and she raised a forestalling finger, cutting off Zuko before he even started talking. "And before you ask, no, it's worse than you think. Everything that you knew about her? Gone. Every quirk she had in your company? Gone. She will be a different person, inside your sister's skin, with something like your sister's memories. Are you willing to live with that? Are you willing to make her live with that?"

Zuko just stared at the spirit for a long time, unable to really answer. Aang took up the slack, then. "I don't like those options," Aang said. "Death, or being turned into somebody she isn't? That's a terrible choice, and I don't want either of them!"

"Those are the choices you've got, kiddo," Irukandji said without humor.

Aang scratched at his hair for a long moment, and then he remembered something that Irukandji said. "Wait... what would it take to fix her? Not repair her, but make her whole?"

"Impossible," Irukandji said. But she stopped herself from turning away. "Unless you have a direct line to Agni, anyway."

"The sun? What does the sun have to do with this?" Zuko asked.

"Not the sun, the spirit which embodies it," she said dryly. "Agni could do it. And since our favorite antisocial psychopath is a firebender, Agni will be predisposed to."

"Don't call her that," both Avatar and brother managed to say as one.

"Koh would do it better, but you don't want to deal with Koh," then, she rolled her eyes. "Assuming Koh was even awake. You're right, kid. Agni's the key."

Aang frowned. "I'm right?" he asked.

"Yeah. You find Agni, you can fix her. Agni's got the strength needed, strength of her kind. She still won't be quite the same, not completely, but... it'd still be better than the other alternatives."

Aang nodded. "A while ago, when I was on Crescent Island, Sharif told me he saw a 'four soul-mind'. I think that was Azula."

"No, she's only got three in there," Irukandji said. "I'm sure. I can count to three. Speaking of, where is that guy anyway? I could use a bask."

Aang glanced away. "He got... taken, when we lost at Ba Sing Se."

Irukandji sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Okay. New plan, then. See if we can find Imbalance's Host, stuff it back in there, and seal it, and then hunt down Agni before your sister's brain cooks itself."

"We're not sealing Imbalance inside Malu," Aang said.

"It's the best option."

"You've got a bad habit of giving me two options which are both terrible and overlook a third," Aang said.

"Look, do you want my help or not?" Irukandji asked.

"I'm not selling one girl for another," Aang said. Zuko stared at the floor, not speaking. "Can you do anything for Azula now?"

Irukandji nodded, and tapped the Fire Nation Princess on her crown, which was marked by a heady electric zap, and her entire body went rigid, before she slowly sat up. Zuko's eyes went wide. "Azula!" he cried.

"Don't get too excited. I just got her mobile again," Irukandji said. "She'll backslide unless you move fast."

"Where do I look for Agni?" Aang asked.

"Somewhere in the Fire Nation. Agni never could get away from the heat," Irukandji said. "Now if you don't mind, I've got an everything to save."

"Wait, what ar..." Zuko began, but with a jolt of lightning slamming into one of the walls, she was gone, followed by a muted thundercrack outside as she left the vessel entirely. Zuko stewed for a long moment, before turning to Aang. "She does that frequently, doesn't she?"

"I think so," Aang said. Azula turned to Zuko, with lidded eyes, and babbled nonsense in a language that Aang couldn't recognize. Then, she looked down, and gave a horrified expression of utmost disgust. "I think she just realized what she's lying in," Aang offered.

"You don't say," Zuko answered flatly. "Get out," he said, but not harshly. Aang nodded, and heeded Zuko's wishes. After all, this was something for family to do. And much to an airbender's confused relief and dismay, giving Azula a bath wasn't something which would be looked upon kindly by somebody as protective as Zuko.

---

"The Gates of Azulon pose a problem," How said, as he sat at the table, trying to keep the bottle he was employing to keep the map spread from rolling off the table. "If they raise the Great Chains, then our naval force will be trapped in the bay. Or worse, split in half and at the mercy of two navies."

"So why are we going through the Bay of Tenko?" Sokka asked.

"It gives us a direct path to Caldera City. You should get some sleep, you're obviously too exhausted right now," How said somewhat patronizingly, which made Katara fume a bit.

"He is not wrong, How," the woman who shot Aang in the back said. "I know Long Feng's canny, but in war, he is a very untested leader. He will think of such a plan. He will doubtless come up with countless strategums to break the Chains."

"If you admire Long Feng so much, why don't you let him lead the invasion," Katara asked snarkily. The woman turned a glare at the waterbender, but Katara didn't back down. She'd stopped shrinking from dirty looks a long time ago.

"Oh, I intend to," Sativa said, which caused the two generals on the other side of the table to lean back in concern. "As your brother has rightly pointed out, there is folly in making a direct attack. Mostly because we know that another force will be acting, in that direction, at that time."

Sokka nodded. "Long Feng knows that the Great Wall isn't going to protect him if the Fire Lord decides to invest in more flying fortresses. So he's got to act pretty fast, and break Ozai while he can. And I'm pretty sure he knows about the Day of Black Sun... since I told him about it..." Sokka trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not your fault you got tricked, Sokka," Katara tried to reassure him.

"I would say it is," Sativa noted, but she kept her attention on the maps, starting to point to the west. Katara didn't let her continue.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over how you tried to murder the Avatar!" Katara snapped.

"That was a single incident, more than a week ago," she said.

"And how do we even know that you're not going to," Katara snapped her fingers, "flip on us when Long Feng wants you to, and put arrows through more of us? You're a hazard to this entire mission!"

"I am aware," Sativa said evenly. "The serpent's fangs sunk in more subtly than I expected. I presume he still has a hold over me. Which makes me expendable. Thus, I will not be leading anything of importance."

Sokka nodded, and pointed to the west coast of the Fire Nation. "That's the real trick of this. While Long Feng is attacking from the Bay, we're going to sneak an army over the mountains, and attack from the west!"

Katara looked at the path his finger plotted out, and something twigged her as implausible, even with her limited understanding of warfare in general. "Wait, how could you possibly move an army through the mountains? Wouldn't that exhaust the soldiers, use up all of their food?"

Sung leaned forward at that. "I believe that with some careful preparation, we can move those soldiers into position with less than a single percent's attrition," he said with some pride. Katara turned to the Mountain King, who was keeping his silence nearby. He gave a shrug.

"Sung knows his logistics, I will give him that," Zha Yu said. Katara then turned to Sativa again, but she was already speaking.

"As Long Feng's attack will be but a diversion for my own, my attack is itself nothing but farce and facade," Sativa continued, which caused Katara to sputter a bit. She glanced over, almost as though she didn't have it in her to descend to be smug, then continued. "The whole and entire purpose of this entire military campaign, is to bring the Avatar, and his most trusted and capable agents, into a position where they can unseat the Fire Lord in his moment of weakness. In the vacuum that creates, Prince Zuko will take his place, and bring an end to this generational war."

"That's got quite a few holes in it, even I can see that," Katara said.

"No plan survives the first contact with the enemy," Sativa said.

"There's a bit of a problem, though," Dad said from the other side of the table, between the two Earth Kingdom generals and the Dragon of the East. "Somebody has to go to Omashu, and have Bumi rally his troops. The Fire Nation hasn't claimed the southern Earth Kingdoms yet, and..."

"And it has to be you?" Katara finished for him.

"No," How said. "Not him. To be frank, young lady, this is an Eastern problem, requiring an Eastern solution. I will go."

"Do I look like some sort of firebender?" Sativa pointed out. "I can easily muster Omashu's levies."

Sokka cleared his throat, and when that didn't seem to work, he picked up a wrench holding open another map and hurled it at a bulkhead. The resounding boom caused all of the adults, who were currently arguing and talking over each other to stop and look at him. He had a confused look on his face. "Why is this even a problem?" Sokka asked. "Anybody who wants to go to Omashu, can. There's nobody stopping you."

"This boat can only reach one direction. Its skiff does not have such capacity," Sativa pointed out.

"No, but my bison does," Aang's voice came from the door. Katara spun to see him, standing there with his staff in hand, battered though it was, and his head still covered in short hairs. He looked years older, even just like that. He looked up at them all, walking with barely a hitch, for all his heart was surely not working entirely properly. "I can take Katara, Zuko, Sokka, Toph, and Azula to the Fire Nation. And while we're there, we can find some way to help prepare for the invasion."

"You'd fly into the dragon's nest of your own free will?" Sung asked incredulously. How, though simply weighed the Avatar with a look.

"Why are you volunteering for this?" he asked.

"Azula needs help, or she's going to die. That help can only be found in the Fire Nation," Aang said.

"And why do you even care? All she ever does is try to kill us!" Katara pointed out.

Aang glanced away.

And right then, Katara finally got it.

"No. Noooo, that can't be," she said.

"Look, this is the only way that she can get..." Aang began.

"You've been crushing on her this entire time?" Katara asked, baffled. "Her? The woman who tried to murder you a dozen times in the last six months alone? HER?"

Aang just kind of shrugged at that, like he couldn't answer her charge with words. She threw up her hands into the air in utter bewilderment. "You're... nuts!" Katara offered.

"I know," Aang said. "But it doesn't matter. She needs help, and I'm going to offer it."

"Are you sure about this, Avatar?" Zha Yu asked. "If you go to the West, we won't be able to help you, to assist you in any way. You'll be on your own in enemy territory. And I don't even know how we're going to explain those two," Zha Yu waved his finger between Sokka and Katara, "considering that the Nationals are going to be paranoid for Tribesmen."

"I do not see Tribesmen," Sativa said evenly. "I see Hillmen."

Katara frowned. "What did you call me?"

"It's alright," Aang interrupted Katara's snit, and quite a shame, because it was shaping up to be a good one. "She's right. The Azuli hill-folk do look a lot like Tribesmen. As long as you can speak Azuli Huo Jian, you'll be fine."

Sokka gave a look at Katara, who stared at Aang for a moment. "Yup, we're dead," Sokka offered.

"Give her some credit," Aang said. "She's picked up a lot..."

"And if you mess it up, they'll just blame it on your redneck Gork upbringing," Zha Yu said, rubbing his beard. He nodded. "That might actually work."

The Dragon of the East gave a nod at that. "And for once, the 'common knowledge' that the Avatar has been slain in Ba Sing Se works to our advantage."

"Wait, what?" Aang asked.

"Oh yeah," Sokka said brightly. "You're dead! Nobody will even think to look for you, since there's no point anymore!"

"That's terrible!" Aang said, his eyes wide. "I've got to tell them that I'm..."

"You will do no such thing!" Sativa cut him off, rising to her feet and casting one hand aside in a slashing motion. Katara moved to Aang's side, giving him at least a spiritual ally against this never-again-trusted associate. "The ruse of the Avatar's demise is the only advantage you have, and the only one which could keep you safe in the West. Do not be foolhardy or proud, boy! Think with your mind and not with your ego."

"But..." Aang said.

"Please, if it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place!" Katara shouted at the Si Wongi woman. "After all, it was your arrow which went through his back!"

"No human in the world would have been able to resist Long Feng's compulsion in that moment," Sativa said darkly.

"And you wouldn't have had to if you hadn't gotten captured by him!" Katara continued. "Yes, I talked to your companions, and I hear, the entire reason they got imprisoned and tortured was because of your ego, and your pride!"

"So not speak on what you know nothing about," Sativa said coldly, her tone drawing out like a knife in the darkness.

"I think I know a bit about traitors and..."

"Katara, please!" Dad interrupted her. He then turned to Sativa. "And shame on you for goading her! This isn't doing anybody any good. It's just dividing us against ourselves, and that's exactly what our enemies want! Our only chance is to stand together, no matter what. It's the only chance we have."

There was a glaring silence between the two women, one teenaged, the other a mother to same. Then, both looked away in almost absolute unison. "Very well," Sativa said. "Your words are true enough. We serve no purpose but our own destruction in this bickering. Whatever the case, I know what I must do. The Lotus has fallen in Ba Sing Se, and with it, any chance of it's armies. But I will make due."

"Good, and Katara..."

"I'm going with Aang," she said. Dad just gave a nod.

"I didn't suspect you'd do anything else," he told her. He let out a weary sigh, and seemed to stare through the bulkheads. "It's been so long since I've been home. And... I know Hikaoh is out there, now. I've... got to do something, but I just don't know what. I don't like this feeling."

"Nobody does," Zha Yu said with a note of empathy. He looked to the Tribesmen and the Avatar. "I've known from the moment you walked into my shack in the woods that you'd be bound for larger and crazier things. Infiltrating the Fire Nation via the most dangerous place on this planet sounds exactly up to par. But if anybody can do it, it's you four."

"Five," Nila piped up from the doorway. She was leaning against it, her firearm repaired and hanging from her shoulder on a strap. Sativa turned to her and said something in Altuundili, thus out of Katara's comprehension, but Nila shook her head sternly. "No, Mother. There is no home. Not anymore. And as it was the likes of this one's sister," a nod toward Katara, "who absconded with Sharif in the Zutara ruins, this is my best chance of recovering him."

"Um, actually, it's going to be seven," Aang pointed out on her heels. All eyes turned to him. "Zuko and Azula, remember?"

"You play a dangerous game indeed, bringing those two. They are almost as dire enemies of that land as are you," Sativa pointed out.

"I'll find a way."

Dad gave a slow nod. "Good hunting, Avatar. Find a path."

"I have to do it," Aang said. He looked... tired, then. Worn thin. "If I can't, then I'm letting down everybody, all those people who put so much faith in me only to have it shattered again and again, and again. I have to do this," he looked up at them all. "The world needs a victory. All of the worlds do."

Only some of those gathered knew what that meant, but also knew just how right he was.

---

There was a noise in the blackness, just the slightest shuffle of cloth moving past cloth. Something that would have been overlooked, and not overheard given the thunder and the pounding rain outside the window, but for the listener had very, very keen ears. He waited, though, as the information he'd gotten was quite clear. Vulnerable, yes, but the heir was not unprotected.

The Fire Nation was in a very dire strait, and the common opinion was, as the hostile coast and islands of Azul were still gifted with sunshine in an almost majority of their days, that the current Royal Line had fallen into disfavor. With Agni Himself, with the spirits, or with nothing more than the universe, the Azuli wouldn't say. But they knew that the blood was in the water. They could feel it dripping from Ozai's wounds, far faster than ever it had from the man's father. Azulon was a tyrant of the first order, and his authority, absolute. Ozai? Well, not so much. This was a time of great promise, great opportunity. Who knows? Perhaps the Azuli could even bring the sun back to the Fire Nation?

All, thoughts which slipped through an assassin's mind. The grim nature of his deed was one he didn't bother contemplating. It was for the good of the Fire Nation itself that an infant die. There was nothing personal about it, and no sadism in particular on his part. It was just something that needed doing, and he was skilled enough to do it. But he had to be patient. He'd spent hours moving through the upper levels of the crawl-spaces, finding the perfect place to wait until the nurses were gone, and the infant was alone. He even planned to be somewhat gentle; suffocation, after all, wasn't quite so cruel a death.

But he wasn't alone. That whisk of cloth against cloth informed him of that clearly. Somebody else was entering the room, carefully moving along the floor, the clothing so dark it almost vanished against the stone and the walls. But not quite. The assassin wondered. What was this interloper doing here? He didn't quite know. But he had to make absolutely sure. After all, Ozai's Children were infamously capable of undoing the Coordinator's work. The newcomer seemed to be moving very-slowly toward the cradle. To the edge. Another assassin? This was beyond odd.

The assassin's confusion was put on hold, though, as a feminine figure pulled up through the window, every bit as drab and concealed as the one already next to the cradle. But the sound was unmistakable, and the assassin turned to face her. There was a hiss of metal, as a long knife of indeterminate make announced itself into the otherwise silence of the bastard girl's room. The first assassin answered the Child's charge with his own blade, and they ran forward in silence. The slashing of blades through the air, the tearing of dry cloth and the wet sheering of wet cloth were the sum total of the noise of the fight. But the Child seemed to have been born with the upper hand, and the whole conflict was over in a matter of less than a minute. There was a lightning-strike of steel, and the assassin went rigid, before slumping back and crashing to the floor. The Child stared down at the assassin, not even bothering to raise an alarm. Her mistake.

The assassin dropped from the ceiling, landing with a quiet roll, and when he came up, it was to loop a garotte around her neck, to instantly pull it tight and heave her up onto his back, so that there was no force in her body which would free her from strangulation, and without so much as a sound. He twisted, pulling harder, until the fibrous wire cut into her neck all the more deeply, crushing her airway, and starving her brain of blood. She stopped fighting. He kept the hold for another minute, to be absolutely sure. Then, he released his garotte and she slid off of his back with a wet thud. She was good, he admitted to himself, but he was better.

With that dealt with, he started to move to the cradle, timing the wetter of his steps to the lightning crashes outside. He wasn't about to allow that Child to raise an alarm; who knew when he would get another chance. But he did have to admit, his information had been good. The Child had shown up exactly as he could have anticipated. Truthfully, he'd expected one waiting for him when he snuck in. But they were canny. They knew how to throw his kind. So he put out of his mind the past, and focused on the present. A long bolt of thick cloth, to smother an infant.

The thunder continued to roll, as he moved to the side of the crib, but something was wrong. Namely, the Royal bastard wasn't twitching in the crib as an infant should. It was there, still as death. The assassin's brow furrowed, and he reached down, sliding the backs of his fingers along the child's cheek. And to his growing horror, he felt not flesh, but porcelain.

His horror would have been greater, had he been listening between the thunderclaps, and heard the electricity gathering much closer than the heavens. And more still, if he'd not gotten wet, and thus allowed his hair to stand on end. As it was, he only had the faint glow of electric blue light to warn him, and while he did bound away, the instant he rolled to his feet, knife cocked to hurl, it was to be intercepted by a bolt of lightning.

There was a moment of silence, and then a ball of golden flame appeared over the Child, the true Child's hand. Because now the assassin could see that the woman he'd killed, was every bit as Azuli as he. "Impressive work, but not quite good enough," the Child said. The assassin blinked through the pain and the paralysis, trying to get his limbs to obey him. The girl ahead of him... she didn't look right. Her skin looked like some sort of ghastly bone-white mask, but her eyes seemed to glow like azure flames from out it. "Three assassins and I only had to kill one of them. That's a new record for me," she said.

The assassin looked around, trying to understand. Great Agni's fire, this was all a trick. "You set us up..." he wheezed, mostly because one of his lungs was now burnt to a crisp, and the other hurt to breath with.

"Yes," she said. She leaned down. "Inform one assassin that another was hired to protect the child, and a safe place to hide until he showed himself. Inform another assassin that one of the Children would be guarding the heir, and when an assassin showed himself, he would be dealt with, deepening the ruse. Tell the last that there was an ample opportunity to slay the Royal Heir, and a relatively clear path to her. And you did all the rest. Bravo."

"That was..." the assassin gasped. Foolhardy. Risky. Putting a lot in the hands of fate.

"Very good planning," she said. "And this is the end of it."

Yoji cast that flame down at the Azuli assassin, stealing his breath before he could even scream, and then roasting him down into a charred heap. A part of her relished in that. Not killing, she wasn't so crude. But the fact that her plan had worked, perfectly, without a hitch.

It still wouldn't bring back Omo.

She stared at the bodies on the floor for a long time, the thunder crashing outside frequently enough to keep the room lit with the flares of lightning. All of this, and she still felt like a failure. Because she couldn't bring back one of her own. Part of her wanted to say that her sorrow was that the greatest of the Children's earthbenders was now lost to them. But that was a hopelessly clinical and utterly incorrect reason. She wanted to say that her sorrow was because one of the Children's premier infiltrators had been lost, and with it, much of the chance of ever rooting out what resistance would remain in such places as Omashu. But that simply wasn't true.

She just wanted Omo back, because he made her feel human.

She stepped out of the infant's room, and outside, she let her flame snuff. As the halls were lit even in the night, there was more than enough to see by. And in short order, stepping out of a long-cast shadow, Kori was at her side. He kept pace, but also silence. Waiting for her to speak first, no doubt.

"The assassins are dead," she said.

"All of them?" Kori gave a shrug.

"A tragic misunderstanding," she said flatly.

Kori smirked. "That's a new level, even for you," he pointed out. "I thought you'd be a bit more satisfied, though."

"I am thoroughly satisfied," Yoji said. Lied.

"We both know that's not true, Yoj," Kori said quietly.

"You presume much," Yoji said with a quiet edge.

"But do I presume correctly?" he asked. She glared at him. "Look, I know that you're still a bit torn up over Omo, but there was nothing that..."

"I am not torn up over Omo. This is war, and there are always casualties in any conflict," she told him, coldly.

Kori shocked her by grabbing her hands and hauling her to a halt. Her snort of outrage came out aflame. "No! That's enough! I know you're hurting, and all you're doing by stuffing it into your boots is making sure that it'll trip you up when you need to move fast! At least let yourself grieve!"

"The Children died a long time ago. It's just that our bodies haven't stopped moving yet," Yoji said, pulling herself away. Kori stared after her as she stormed away.

"Wait, one more thing, Hikaoh?" he called after her.

"What?" Yoji asked. And then, he realized what named he'd asked. And she glared, so hard. He didn't say another word, though. He just walked away, his dark blue eyes on her own, until he passed into shadow and vanished from her sight completely. A chill ran through Yoji, not like any she'd ever had. Something wasn't right. And she didn't know what it was. It was a wound she didn't see and didn't know how to stitch, one which bled her, even now. Something had to change. She knew it, even now.

She just wasn't sure what.

---

The rain had let up to a hot drizzle by the time that Team Avatar had assembled on the deck of the ship. Appa, who had been riding contently in the cargo hold surrounded by all the hay it could eat – also used to cushion the blows of rolling around on the hellish waves – was now standing, soaking wet, on the deck, with a newly if hastily crafted howdah on its back. Aang had taken up his place upon the beast's brow, reins in hand, and lemur on shoulder. The saber-toothed moose-lion cub which had somehow both managed to stay with them and remain unnamed for that vast duration was standing on the front of the howdah, looking out over the water with infantile curiosity and waggling its little stump of a tail. It was strange that Sokka, a long time ago, would have considered this thing food. Well, he still did, but this particular little meat thing was off of the dinner-plate. Especially considering they were entering the land of ten thousand spicy meats.

"I don't know what to say right now," Aang said, looking down at Dad and Zha Yu and all the rest. "I wish we didn't have to do this, but this is our only chance."

"I know, Avatar," Dad told him. "We'll join you with the invasion force when the time is right. You just need to make sure that there's a road through the mountains waiting for us."

Zha Yu leaned forward, a smirk on his face. "And if there isn't, I'll make one."

Aang nodded, and looked back into the howdah. They were all in it, which gave Appa a fairly heavy load, all things considered. Two firebenders, a waterbender, an earthbender, Sokka himself, and an explosivebender, as he called her, along with the airbender himself. Nila looked nearly her old self ever since her repaired eye returned to its natural green, but there was a fatigue about her. One which didn't seem to go away for anything. "I'm going to win this. I swear," Aang said. And the adults below, those placing so much hope and faith on the kid's fairly narrow shoulders, could only nod.

"I know, Avatar," Piandao said up to him. He turned to Sokka, next. "As for my blade..."

"I know, I know," Sokka said, reaching to unbuckle it.

"No, you don't," Piandao said. "Every student of mine takes a weapon of his own, usually forged by his own hand. But I can see that the meteoric sword is as much a part of you as your mind, and every bit as sharp. Use it well."

"Oh... wait, does that make me your student?" Sokka asked.

"Do not become captured again, Mother," Nila pointed out from the rail. "I shall not be able to save you again."

"You should not speak so flippantly."

"What can I say? I rubbed off on her," Sokka pointed out. Sativa's eyes flashed into outrage.

"You did what?"

Nila rolled her eyes, and rattled off something in Altuundili, which seemed to mollify the Dragon of the West, but only slightly. She still watched Sokka like an angry mother hawk. Yeesh. He must have really said something wrong. "Hey, Twinkletoes, are you just going to lounge on Appa's head all day, or are you going to get flying? I don't like bein' soaking wet for no reason!"

Aang glanced back at Toph, where she was sitting under the tarpaulin next to the barely mobile and extremely confused seeming Azula. Whatever Irukandji did, it had regressed quickly to reach its current state, but at least she wasn't having disruptive fits anymore. Not that it was much comfort for Avatar or sibling, either. Toph was right. There wasn't anything else to be gained by staying here. He turned, and gave his reins a flap, and said those two fateful words. "Yip yip."

Appa let out a groan, and then hopped off of the deck, rising into the drizzle somewhat lethargically. The cub was still staring out and down at the water excitedly, wagging its tail. Sokka really had to name that thing someday. Something besides 'dinner'. That joke had run its course, he pondered. The drizzle seemed to come harder as they rose through it, slowly scudding toward the level of the clouds. "At least it'll be impossible for the Fire Nation to track us when we're moving," Sokka said.

"However, we shall have to travel by dead-reckoning," Nila pointed out.

"Something wrong?" Sokka asked, catching something in her tone.

"I am fine," she said.

Sokka stared at her for a moment. The argumentative in him wanted to point out that no, she didn't sound fine. The wise man who had been kicked and drubbed into existence over the last half of a year told him it might be a good idea to let it rest. Needless to say, the wise-man didn't have complete say in Sokka's brain, to his dismay. "Well, you could have fooled me," Sokka said.

"She should be here," Nila said simply. Sokka frowned.

"Malu?" she nodded at his query. "You do realize that most of us are still a little terrified of her. Even though she did save our baconchops back in Ba Sing Se."

Nila just shook her head, and sat against the rail. "You fear her. I shot her twice, fatally each time. I think if I can give the airbender a moment's forgiveness, then you are a hypocrite not to."

"Well, point taken," Sokka said. "But it's a bit too late now. Aang said she was going to Omashu, so she's going to..."

"Catch up to us in about five seconds," Zuko interrupted. Sokka frowned at him, and then leaned around the tarp and saw that yes, there was a bright form rapidly gaining distance on Appa's tail even as he watched. There was a twist and a snap as she closed that glider staff of her own a full two yards short of Appa's paddling tail, and managed to land with her toes barely on it before kipping forward and landing at a sit easily, if soaking wet, between Sokka and Nila.

"Did you guys really think you were going to the Fire Nation without me?" Malu asked, grinning through the black hair which was plastered to her face.

"Whoa, where'd that one come from?" Toph asked, instantly glaring through Nila since Malu was on her left.

That question caused Aang to look back, and note that he'd taken on another passenger. His eyes went wide, and he quickly bounded up onto the rail, causing the cub to drop back down and give him room, cuddling amidst the barely-conscious firebender's legs. Zuko didn't pay the beast any attention, and Azula couldn't have said anything about its wet body on her lap if she wanted to. "Malu? What are you doing here? I though that I said..."

"Yeah, well, you might be the Avatar but you're not the boss of me," Malu said. "Besides, I'm technically older than you, now. Years of experience. And I was always the better airbender!"

"But..." Aang said.

"Hey, Aang," Malu said, and made a silencing motion. Aang's jaw set with annoyance, before there was a flit of his eye, and he rubbed at his chest, as he seemed to often do since his awakening on that ship which now slowly disappeared into the distance behind them. Malu then leaned back, once again draping an arm past each of Nila and Sokka. "As I see it, you need me more than the old guys do. A lot more."

Aang frowned. "How?"

Malu's smile curdled a bit at that, and those arms pulled in, so she seemed to be trying to rub out a shiver, despite the heat. "Look, I know for a fact that things are going to get worse. Imbalance was once one thing, stuffed inside one body. Now it's a lot of things, and they're walking the world with impunity. And I can feel them, Aang. Every single one of them. I know where they are, when they're coming, when to run. You can't see them, not the way I do."

"So you want to keep Imbalance away from me?" Aang asked. Malu just nodded. "How?"

"When you see a dark, evil, red-eyed me out there? Run. Run like hell."

"Sounds like good advice even were Imbalance not a problem," Toph opined.

"But... I don't know if we can do this. Four would be hard to hide," Aang said, motioning to his oldest traveling companions. "Seven's a lot harder. I don't think we can do eight."

"Hey, eight's a lucky number, remember?" Malu said, that smirk returning. She then leaned to one side. "And you'd better see to Appa. It's getting distracted by your lemur."

"What?" Aang asked, turning behind him. His eyes shot wide. "Momo! Stop picking at that! It's dragging us off course!"

With a bound, he was over the rail once more. Malu then looked to Sokka's sister, who was watching her carefully. "I assume you've got something to say about this?" Malu asked.

"No. No I don't," she said, but Sokka was sure she didn't mean it.

"And as for you?"

"I have no idea who you are, and frankly, I don't care," Zuko said, trying to comfort the bewildered girl who could only speak in gibberish and word salad. Malu nodded at that, and turned to Sokka.

"No problems here," Sokka said.

"You know full well that I will not censure you," Nila pointed out. Toph just threw the girl a gesture of utter-uncaring.

Sokka, though, got a bit of a wonder in his mind, as they rose up into the clouds, the drizzle becoming a drench. "Malu, could you tell me something?"

"I can tell you a lot of somethings," Malu said with a smirk, managing to echo something Aang had said a long time ago.

"She keeps on taunting me," Sokka pointed past Malu to Nila, "about how she never wears underwear. She's just trying to rile me up, isn't she?"

"Who, Nila?" Malu asked, turning to the Si Wongi. "Oh, no. Never wore underwear as long as I've known her. But then again, she did spend a long time in a pirate's pants."

"Yes, and thank you for reminding me of that unpleasantness," Nila said flatly. She then turned to Sokka, and smirked. "And just so you know, as has been in the past, so remains today."

Sokka scowled at Nila for a long moment, and then rose to sit under the tarp with Zuko, Azula, and Toph. Zuko just looked at him. "Girls are crazy," he said direly.

"I'm well aware," Zuko answered him. And then got punched by Toph for the trouble.

---

The sound of a thunder-strike, slamming down in the darkness of the South Polar winter, pulled Yue's attention from the fire and those gathered before it. Many of those present knew what that sound meant. An equal number did not. "I suppose I'll have to take a moment. Hahn, could you continue?"

Hahn nodded, and took her seat when she vacated it, and she pressed out into the biting wind, and tucked up her hood over bone-white hair to keep the tiny flecks of wind-borne ice from stinging her ears clean off. Chimney Mountain was a lot bigger than it had been when Yue arrived here, but then again, before she arrived here, there hadn't been a waterbender present in decades. Needless to say, the de facto capital of the Water Tribe – as there was no further need of distinction between North and South Tribes as both had become one people – experienced something of a Renaissance in recent months. And the timing couldn't have been better; walls to break wind made it so that brutal winter storms coming off of the water couldn't bury homes as they once, purportedly, did.

"Excuse me? Did you hear where that thunder-strike landed?" Yue asked one of the locals, a willowy woman who was fairly tall for her gender.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure," the woman said. She looked down at her daughter, who was tucked tight in against her side against the cold. "You were closer. Did you see it?"

The girl didn't look like a Tribesman by a half, but Yue could see a bond between mother and child clear in the way the amber-eyed, pale girl smiled up at her mother. "Of course I did, Mom. It was right over there!"

Yue leaned aside, and could see that Benell was pointing directly to Yue's residence, off to one side of the rejuvenated city. "Thank you," Yue said with a faint bow, before pushing her way through the drifts which nevertheless dropped between the buildings they had built here. It was almost as cold as she remembered in the North. But Summavut was further north than Chimney Mountain was south. That there was still the length of days here attested to that fact. She moved through the 'streets', and every Tribesman who saw her, nodded with respect. Some, because she was Hakoda's chosen 'regent'. Others, because she'd proven herself as wise and fair as that regent. Others still, out of old habit, revering the Princess of Battles. Those ones bowed the deepest, the longest. Those ones still couldn't quite look her in the eye. Those ones broke her heart a little.

She turned a corner, and saw a few people glancing nervously amongst themselves, but they parted when they saw her approaching. "Shaman Yue, I'm not sure if you should go in there right now," Lana said to her. Unlike most from the North, Lana had not simply broken down when they landed here. She was as dedicated to surviving as a people as Yue was.

"What? Why?" Yue asked.

Lana simply pointed up, and Yue's eyes saw what others had. Namely, there was a gaping hole in her roof. "I'll deal with this," Yue said. "And when I do, could you have somebody come and patch that hole so I don't freeze tonight?"

"Of course, but don't say I didn't warn you," Lana said with pursed lips as she moved off into the crowds. Yue wasn't quite sure what to make of that. She pushed through the flaps which led into her main-room, the one open to the elements due to a blasted wound in its overhead. The ice even showed signs of scorching, which Yue was fairly sure wasn't physically possible. But when she struck the flint and steel to light her oil-lamp, and cast a bit of light into her house, she could see what caused it.

There was a woman in a rich blue dress, sitting on a stool in the center of the room. Her head was hanging, hair disheveled, face in her hands. Around her were a truly remarkable amount of vessels of alcohol, every one of them emptied but for a few drops. "Irukandji?" Yue asked. The spirit and the shaman who hosted it both turned to Yue, eyes bloodshot and sunken.

"You know what's really terrible? This body can get drunk, but I can't," Irukandji said, her voice completely clear even if she did look – and smell – like she'd taken a bath in whiskey. She shook her head slowly. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Every plan I had, poof; gone. They won't seal Big I inside the girl. So where does that leave me? Trapped in a spiral of dying existences. Not fun."

"What are you talking about?" Yue asked, moving closer to the woman she'd known since birth, in one form or another. Technically, her grandfather had known Irukandji since birth, so it was little surprise.

"The Avatar decided to get all high and mighty, and in so doing he's doomed reality," Irukandji shook her head. "I mean, what are we supposed to do now? It's not like we can kill Imbalance! It doesn't even exist by the same rules you or I do! That's not something you can just throw fireballs at until it dies!"

"Why not?" Yue asked. Irukandji glared toward her, and then slumped her chin down onto her hands once again.

"Because Imbalance doesn't... exist. You can't destroy what doesn't exist. Not without a lot of help. And that help's out of my reach."

"What help would you need?" Yue asked, sitting down on the ice before the spirit who had fought so hard against the Fire Nation, at their side.

"Well, first, I'd need Koh, since he's definition itself. He says something exists, it exists. If it exists, it can bleed, and if it can bleed, it can die. But I don't have that kind of umph just kicking around. You'd need Tui and La to get his attention by now."

Yue thought about that for a moment. "And if we had Tui and La?" she asked.

"We don't," Irukandji said.

"If. We. Did," Yue pressed. Irukandji blinked a few times, and then sat up a bit straighter.

"Well, if we had Tui and La, then we could... we could try to wake Koh, and in the event he doesn't steal our faces, we could tell him what's going on, what he needs to do. And then, even if we royally bork it all up, there'll still be something left after reality ends," Yue frowned in confusion at that, and Irukandji just waved her hand. "It's a long story. Kind of Koh's ultimate raison d'etre."

"His what?"

"His... oh right, that language doesn't exist in this universe, does it?" Irukandji shook her head. "Right. If we had the Fish, we could wake big-ugly-and-necessary. But we don't have the Twins, so I'm not sure why you're even bothering with this."

"Who says I don't?" Yue asked.

"Reality," Irukandji said. "And besides if you did you'd..." she trailed off, and then she looked into the distance briefly before looking back to Yue. "Alright, I think it might be possible that I can get drunk, because otherwise I'd have seen that before you did."

"So you are thinking what I'm thinking?" Yue asked, an uncharacteristically cunning smile on her face.

"Possibly, but how are we going to get that many penguins tied to an iceberg?" Irukandji asked. Yue leaned back. "No, really, we're going to steal the fish," Irukandji said with a chuckle. As that chuckling ended, she sighed, and then leaned forward again. "So, how are we going to do it?"

---

There was thunder as the tiny boat pulled into shore, riding atop waves which had threatened the entire time to swamp it. Doubly so, since neither of the people aboard were exactly skilled in the art of sailing. But the trip was done, and for one of them at least, it was as close to home as she'd been in many, many years. A crack split the sky, and the rain was set alight by a bolt as the first of them, taller, more slender, bounded off of the front of that little skiff and headed immediately for the treeline, ducking under the shelter of the thick canopy which flourished in this hellishly wet weather.

The other wasn't long in following. This one was a bit broader, and his usually wild hair was now plastered to his head for the wet. "Shouldn't we keep the boat?"

"Have you been hiding some coal?" the other asked.

"I see your point," the young man answered. He started to pelt up the saturated sand and under the trees, where the deluge was not so much stopped as strongly reduced. "By the gods, why can't we get a tenth of this?"

"Couldn't tell you," she answered him, and gave a bit of a shiver. He gave her a smirk.

"Seriously, Mai? You're cold, here?"

"I'm soaking wet."

"It's summer in the Fire Nation. You can't be cold," he expounded.

"Jet, just because I got used to the East, doesn't mean I liked it. And that was a dry cold. This isn't."

Jet sighed, and rolled his eyes. "You're kinda nuts, you know that?"

"I must be, otherwise I would have never agreed to that Tribesman's plan," Mai pointed out. She looked down onto the beach, which was quickly reclaiming the skiff which had borne them here, pulling it out into grey waves which otherwise crashed onto black sands. "It's been a long time."

"I can imagine," Jet said. "So... where do we go from here?"

Mai leaned aside, trying to empty out the water which had somehow infiltrated her hood and flooded her ear. Then, after using that moment to ponder, she pointed west. "On that side of the island, there's a military garrison, and a town just past it. Even in weather like this, there'll be ships heading to the rest of Ember. All we have to do is follow the islands."

Jet nodded, and glanced at the money in his pouch. It wasn't much. "Do you think they'll accept it in payment?"

"As long as you change some of it, they won't care," Mai said. "'Silver spends, no matter the mark'."

Jet nodded, and he turned, facing out to the east once more. Mai let out a quiet sigh, into the rattle of raindrops against broad leaves. "You're thinking about Bug, Longshot and Bee, aren't you?"

"I can't help but feel like I'm betraying them, leaving them in Ba Sing Se like that."

"They made their choice," Mai said. "They picked their fight."

"But those guys were our gang!"

Mai shook her head, and guided Jet's eyes to hers. "We don't need the gang. We did once, but that time is passed. We can do this."

Jet puffed out a breath, and nodded. "Yes. I can do this. Long as I've got the deadliest lady in the Western Hemisphere at my side, how can I go wrong?"

Mai smirked at that, as she fell in step with him as they moved forth through the forest. "Charmer," she said, and pulled a bit closer to him. After all, he might be soaking wet, but at least he was warm.

---

"Gods, do you think Mai and Jet are having this much trouble?" Bug asked, as she tried to rotate an injury out of her shoulder. Longshot just gave her a look, one which Smellerbee interpereted as 'knowing him, he's having more.' "Good point, Longshot."

"Look, we're still alive. And we've even made it to the Lower Ring," Smellerbee pointed out, ticking the points off of her fingers. She wasn't sure how, but with Jet out in the West, the others started looking at her for leadership. She couldn't have said why. She was just as much a follower as anybody else, Jet excluded. "And we only took a week to do it!"

"A week to travel two miles. Must be a new record," Bug said with a smirk. She then glanced ahead to the ramshackle library where they'd been told to go. It wasn't exactly an inviting sight. The building was the most dilapidated building amongst some admittedly fairly dilapidated buildings. The people lounging outside of it had the look of both the dealers and the addicts of some horrible narcotic substance. And they watched the teens who approached with very unsettling eyes. Even Smellerbee was mentally undressed by those leches, and that was not something which happened often.

Longshot stepped ahead of the two young women, and tipped his hat back so it laid on his back, and glared with those dark, dark eyes at the crowd ahead of him. Smellerbee knew that look. It was his 'I'm looking for a target', look. One which even the soused and the debauched knew without a word being said. First one, then another, until the whole group was splitting away and finding somewhere else to stand, somewhere where a teenager with a lunatic eye was sizing them up for a sudden growth of a foot and a half of wood.

"Thanks, Longshot," Smellerbee said, clapping a hand onto the archer's shoulder. Longshot gave her a shrug, clearly a 'Not a problem'. She glanced back to Bug. "Alright. Let's talk to this guy."

The three of them moved into the building, and found it mostly devoid of books, and utterly devoid of patrons. Smellerbee might not have been in many libraries in her childhood, but she knew that they tended to be at least a bit more busy than this. Sporting, spirited debates over the meaning of a scripture. Sometimes fist-fights when those debates got a bit too spirited. But this? This was like walking through the ribs of some long dead and decayed beast, something dissolved of its purpose, until only a shadow of itself remained. True to her instructions, Smellerbee moved to the back of the library, and pounded hard on the frame of a shelf a few times.

"Do you think this was the right building?"

"I don't forget directions, Bug," Smellerbee said. Longshot's dubious look was clear enough. "What? I don't!"

It was only a moment later when the back of one of those benuded shelves slid aside, and she could see a brown eye staring back at her. "Who dares stand at the garden gates?" the bearer of that eye asked, tones quiet and hesitant.

"..." Smellerbee drew a blank, and then she turned back to Longshot. "There was some sort of password, wasn't there?"

Longshot answered that by palming his face with a crisp crack of hand to forehead.

"Let them in, woman, don't be so obstinate," a man's voice came from behind the closer, and there was a flinch in the bearer of that hidden passage, before the panel slid back into place, and there was a clunk, before the shelf slid aside whole. Smellerbee could see the woman who was letting them in – a mousy middle aged woman who had 'meek' written all over her – and a path leading down, paved entirely in scrap metal. The woman nodded that they follow, and she began to descend. But after only one circuit, she stopped, and tapped a few times on one of those panels. There was a click, and it hinged aside, rather than descending any further. She motioned they enter.

"Yeah, this seems like a great idea," Bug muttered as she stooped through the door into the darkness. The path was slowly sloping down, but also turning steadily to the right. Smellerbee knew that such a path would make it agony for any right-handed fighter to invade. She had to wonder what exactly was going on down here. Her answer came as they stepped into a pool of guttering light, and into a room at the end of that path.

And more specifically, the answer was in the almost comically large stockpile of weapons in that room. Turning to face them was a fat man, his head obviously newly shaved, but his eyes were far more shrewd than any who'd have known him before. His attire was that of a man of waves and bloody decks, and the firearms which lay lashed to his back and descending a strap across his chest made him seem the very image of a pirate lord.

"I was told you'd be arriving soon," he said, pointing to the waterbender who had left them behind days ago.

"You bastard! You left us to die back there!" Bug shouted at Qujeck.

"You survived," Qujeck answered. "Alright, Bai, you've got us all here. What's the plan?"

Hua Jin Bai, once entrepreneur and trader extraordinaire, and obviously long forgotten pirate, cracked a grin at that. "It's remarkably simple. We kill the Grand Secretariat."

"Easier said," Qujeck pointed out. Bai, though, turned to face a standard which was stretched across one wall. It was a white lotus flower, but the standard was the bright scarlet and came to the tapering point of a flag of the sea, one which promised violence in the future.

"Of course, it will take some time," Bai said. "But first things first. We need to get a Grand Lotus out of prison."

---

"Rise, children of the Fire Nation," Ozai declared, and the two children – teenagers at the oldest – both got to their feet, but their eyes remained downcast. Respect. So seldom he seemed to get it. "I am told that you have performed a deed of great heroism, despite great trial and danger to yourselves. You have manifested the greatest that the Fire Nation has to offer in its citizens. You have shown a hidden danger which was hiding in our midst, and in the critical moment, you made the proper choice and brought her to her end."

"...but... she got struck by lightning, Fire Lord," the boy said.

"The circumstances are irrelevant. You have performed a great deed, and shall receive a great reward for it. A terrorist is dead by your actions, and her victims restored to a productive life," Ozai said. In honesty, he was bored about the whole thing, but there was a certain rumbling in the lower classes which he had to address. Without Akemi around, he was finding it harder and harder to manage those little day-to-day problems which kept popping up. He wondered where she'd gone? It'd been more than a week. He knew she'd come back to the Palace, though; she wouldn't abandon her child.

"Thank you, Fire Lord," the girl said, her eyes still down.

"That's not respect in their voices. It's fear," Azula's voice taunted him, but while his lips did pull into an angry sneer, he didn't allow himself to lash out at her. Despite desperately wanting to. He turned golden eyes to the two before him.

"Approach," he declared. The two of them hesitated.

"You see? The only control you hold over your 'great and glorious empire of Fire' is one of terror. The moment they no longer fear your hand on their leash, they will slip from your grasp, and have their jaws upon your throat," Azula said with sinister delight. He flicked a glance toward her, watching how she leaned against a pillar, inspecting her nails as this whole farce continued.

"I said, 'approach'," Ozai said again, and this time more harshly. The two started, but began to move forward. Slowly. But they did reach the bottom of the dais of the Burning Throne. Ozai rose, and walked through the flames. "Your duty deserves great reward. So you shall have it," he said. He snapped a finger, annoyed that he had to do so; ordinarily, the official would have already been in place and prepared. Instead, he had to stand, waiting like some sort of rough-merchant while a maroon robed Fire Sage approached from the side, and laid a ceremonial amulet over the heads of each.

"Look at them. This is what you do to your nation, Father. You turn it into a laughingstock, where its people are terrified of their leader. Terror isn't infinite. It just slowly turns to anger," Azula was somehow much closer to him now. She leaned in, whispering into his ear. "How much longer, do you think, until that anger reaches a boil?"

"That will be all," Ozai said with a snap, causing both of the 'heroes of Grand Ember' to flinch and retreat a step, before bowing low once again, and hurrying out of the room. Ozai's eyes glared around the room, trying to pick out where she was standing. Not near him. But as he turned, he did notice something else which conspicuously wasn't near him. His brow furrowed with outrage, and he snapped a command loudly, causing one of the Royal Clerks to hastily rise from the stool off to the walls and run through the corridors. Ozai continued to stare, until he found her; she was leaning against the Burning Throne itself. "You have no right to be there."

"Of course I don't," Azula said. "You didn't, after all."

"I was saving this nation from my brother's folly!" Ozai shouted.

"And that meant killing a sick, eight year old girl?" Azula asked. Ozai seethed, but in confusion.

"I did not kill any children..." Ozai said.

"That's a lie and you know it," Azula pushed off of the pillar and stared down at him, her eyes blazing like the very sun. "You murdered all of House Loyo Lah, down to the last babe. Man, woman, child. Every. Last. One."

"That was necessary!"

"That was gratuitous slaughter, on the level which would have made Sozin proud," Azula mocked. Ozai set his jaw.

"They were..."

"A lot of them? Innocent of whatever you hated them for," Azula cut him off. She stomped down the steps to the dais until she could lean forward and look him squarely in the eye. "All you've done for this nation is destablize it, demoralize it, and despoil it. You've sold your morals, you've sold your family, and you've sold your soul. For what?"

"You're wrong..."

"Am I?" Azula asked. Ozai thrust a finger toward her, but he was interrupted by the doors banging open, and a solid platoon of Royal Imperial Firebenders moving in with tight formation. He turned, tucking his hands into his sleeves as they assumed positions, and their captain bowed down before their Fire Lord.

"I came as soon as you summoned me, my lord," the man said.

"And how long was the Fire Lord unprotected in these chambers?" Ozai asked.

"Unprotected, my Lord?"

"Look around you; do you see others you are replacing or bolstering?" Ozai flicked his wounded hand around, heedless of the fact that he wasn't wearing his usual white gloves. He thrust that discolored finger forward, jabbing an indictment at this so-called 'loyal' soldier. "Any assassin with a desire could have walked in, slain me, and vanished while you dithered about out in your barracks!"

"But, Fire Lord, you ordered..." he began, rising from his deep bow to a confused squat.

"I do not wish to hear it!" Ozai cut him off, his pique, fanned by the mockery of his phantom daughter, sending a redness around his vision. "You have proven yourself incapable of serving as my bodyguards, and by extension, so have every one of the men under you."

"I was only following your..." the captain said, leaning back with a baffled, fearful visage.

"Not one more word, or you'll forfeit your tongue," Ozai snapped. He breathed deeply, the anger burning in his lungs like a marathon sprint. Sweat dribbled from his brow, despite his easy morning and the relative cool this early-summer day. And his fists, wounded or not, clenched. "For your treasonous neglect, you will have a treasonous reward. You are all hereby banished from the Fire Nation. Any citizen who sees you on black shores by this time tomorrow will be defended by law against raising any hand against you. You are banned from this continent, this nation, and any colonies thereof. You return, upon pain of death."

"But..."

"Go. Before I rescind exile, and make it execution," Ozai ordered, his voice growing quite grim toward the end. The captain swallowed nervously, and rose to his feet, clapping a fist to his heart in nervousness, before backing up a few steps, and whistling for the others, who had overheard the whole discourse, to follow him. No few of them shot hateful glances at Ozai as they left.

"See what you do? Now you tear apart families, for what?"

"If they can't do their duty, then they should be punished," Ozai told the girl. One soldier, who was passing somewhat close by, gave Ozai an outright confused look, and leaned toward another and whispered something. Ozai didn't care. He turned to Azula, who was now lounging across the dais like it was some recumbent couch. "I can trust nobody but myself. Until Sozin's Comet returns, I will have to do everything personally."

"And we all know how well that will go," Azula mocked, filing her nails. "But by all means, fall all the farther. You keep forging forward, but you don't know where you're going. Honestly, it's a little pathetic. I would have expected better of you. Wasn't it you who demanded I be perfect? Well, maybe my failures, and Zuko's failures, and Ursa's failures... can all be traced back to a common source," She tapped a finger against her lips for a moment, in mocking consideration. "Now I wonder, what – or rather, who – do all of these people have in common?"

Ozai's jaw clenched, and he could stand it no longer. Even as he spun, he twisted his arms around, and the lightning gathered around them with stupendous speed, faster than any other alive, before he lashed out with paired, thrust fingers, and the bolt of lightning seared into Azula and into the pillar beyond her. Azula vanished into a waft of smoke, but the pillar cracked and crumbled, spilling dark stone into the trough which ought only carry flame. He ground his teeth for a moment, and then turned to leave once more. But this time, as he walked, he was followed with mocking laughter.

---

"This is not wise, mistress," the old woman said. She didn't care. "Your father will be furious."

"If I cared what my father thought about what I'm doing, then I wouldn't have to do this," she answered.

"Mistress... Maya... please," the old nurse begged. "There must be another way. There is enough sedition in these lands without your father thinking you have gone to his enemies."

"Let him think what he wants," Maya said. There was a space on her shoulders, which for so many years had been saddled with an interminable weight, an inescapable burden. A father's legacy, passed whole to her. But it wasn't something she could live with. It wasn't who she was. When she decided to run, everything became... lighter. Much lighter. Lighter than air.

"Where will you go? There is no place in the Far West that he cannot find you," the nurse warned.

"Then I won't stay in the Far West," she said.

"And he can find you anywhere on this continent," she continued.

"You aren't going to dissuade me," she said, blinking slowly. "I need to do this."

"Running away won't solve any of the problems you face. It'll only make them worse, mark my words."

Maya smirked. "Only if I come back to them," she said.

The nurse sighed, hanging her head, and then reached into her robes to pull out a small pouch of coin. "Any you got from your father's boxes will be tracked by its strike. This will take you farther."

Maya smiled, and pulled the nurse into an embrace. After all, Maya had been practically raised by this old woman since her mother died giving birth to a brother who didn't live to see his second birthday. 'Father' wasn't exactly that. "Thank you," she said, tenderly.

"You're going to get yourself killed," the nurse said back, also tenderly.

"We all get ourselves killed. I just intend to go down in style," she said with a smirk. She kissed the old woman on the cheek. "Now when Father asks where I am..."

"I have no idea. I haven't seen you all day," the nurse said. Smiling dully. Because Maya knew as well as she did what would come if Father found out she was lying. And he had a tendency to find out things. The only reason Maya hadn't been cowed into obedience was because she knew her nurse's family was out of Father's reach. "Goodbye, mistress."

"Not goodbye. Farewell and good hunting," Maya corrected.

The nurse gave a chortle. "Better to pray for bad hunting, for it will be pursuing you."

"Oh, I think Father's far too busy to chase down his daughter in a time like this," Maya said bitterly.

Maya then turned, and walked out the door. Of course, that door was to a hallway, which ended in a window. A window she clambered through quick as a flash, and she dangled out of the portal to the world beyond, to the sooty, industry-stained metropolis of the city of Azul. She glanced over her shoulder, to the hay-stock used to feed the Ostrich Horses that they used for their feasts. She closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly. Then, with faith in gravity and trajectory, she released, and plummeted toward the earth.

The crash of her body falling into the deep pile of cushioning straw was a slim comfort, but she was only part of the way out. The hardest part would have been getting past Father's guards. This way, she bypassed that obstacle completely. Now, she just needed to go west, through the deadly plains, to the canyons of hanging mist. She didn't know what she'd find there, but she had a feeling that of anywhere, the Western Air Temple was a good place to start. Pulling the hood down over her face, she pulled herself out of the straw, struck off what bits clung to her, and vanished into the workers, before the workers reached the great mass of humanity that filled the industrial center of the world, at which point she disappeared utterly.

---

The wind blew the rain into their faces as they dipped lower, and lower, and lower, the terrain approaching with somewhat alarming speed. "I'd like to get out of this rain. Azula's not doing so well," Zuko said from where he leaned on the howdah, looking down on the Avatar who frankly looked exhausted where he sat. "Avatar? Aang!"

"Huh what? I wasn't sleeping, honest!" Aang blurted, jerking to an at least somewhat more alert posture. Zuko raised a brow, but didn't say any more than that.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Toph asked from Zuko's back. "I mean, there's not exactly a lot of places that we can hide in the Fire Nation."

"There's a few," Zuko said, and not happily. "A lot of them are suicide, for other reasons."

"I can think of one that the Fire Nation would have trouble getting to," the other airbender pointed out, a finger raised. "And I'm pretty sure it's where our buddy the Avatar is heading to."

"I'm heading somewhere?" Aang asked. The other airbender flicked her bangs out of her eyes and leaned over the edge of the saddle.

"Of course you are. Don't you see it?"

"See what?" Aang asked, his tone one of somebody about to pass out where he stood. That other impossible airbender cast an arm forward, and pointed at a cleft in the land, one playing host to a thin waterfall where a stream had utterly overflowed and now poured over the edge into the canyon below it. While not nearly so impressive as, say, the Great Divide, this was a gully not to be taken lightly. And more, Zuko knew exactly what this particular canyon played host to.

"This was the first place I looked when I hunted for the Avatar. What's keeping others from coming to the same conclusion?"

"That we would have to be such idiots to do so that any sane hunter would think us wiser than that?" the Si Wongi girl offered. Zuko let out a chuckle, but only one. After all, his mind was currently pointed at another issue at this moment. The bison continued to descend, passing the lip of that canyon and plunging further, out of the meager sunlight that could penetrate the clouds. The din of falling water, and the wash of the rapids below was rather loud, but after they reached a certain point, the sound... changed. Toph perked up immediately, as the only other one besides himself he knew would be capable of discerning that difference of tones.

"Oh, right," Aang said, and he pulled the beast sideways, right into that falling screen of water. And then through it, into a place vast and dark, a cave hewn by methods Zuko knew not, nor cared, and at a time he didn't bother learning. He only knew that the Western Air Temple, which they now approached, was the most intact Air Temple left in the world. The bison found a nice open space, landed on it, and then flopped straight down to lay on its belly, six legs splaying in all directions. "Appa? Are you alright, buddy?"

"Where are we?" Katara asked, as she climbed off of the bison's back. Since Aang seemed content to fuss over his pet, it was Malu who answered that question.

"The home of the Sisters of the Forty Winds. Once our second-greatest library. And, historically, the seat of the Storm Kings' empire. Welcome to history," she said, and she motioned to Zuko with a bursting gesture. Zuko gave her a wan look, but ignited a bright yellow flame above his hand, and that light spread throughout the darkness, pushing it back and showing the others what Zuko had seen long before.

The clear spot that they'd landed was indeed a landing, looked over by partially crumbling statues of airbender women. But it was the rest which was far less mundane, and far more impressive. Rather than towering spires and impossible vistas, the Western Air Temple hung from the roof of the cave like a flock of bats, its towers pointing downward, hewn stalactites all. There wasn't much grandeur here, not anymore. But scale? That tended to be its own sort of grandeur.

"Wow. This place is amazing," Sokka said. "So... where do we sleep?"

"There's lots of places to sleep," Malu said, motioning for whomever cared to follow her. "After you pick a spot, I can show you the giant Pai Sho board and the never-ending echo chamber."

"You're enjoying this a lot more than you should, fly-girl," Toph muttered, following after. Zuko, though, took the time to pull Azula out of the saddle, and gently guide her litter to the ground. She was... not so much alert, as more awake than she had been for much of the flight. She looked vaguely at him and uttered some sort of nonsense in no language that Zuko could understand – not even in her usual cipher, which he'd cracked.

"Avatar," Zuko said.

"You can call me Aang," he said.

"...right. That thing said that Azula could be helped by Agni. Do you know where we could find Him?"

Aang turned to him, suspicion on his face. "Why do you think I do?"

"Because you're the Avatar."

"That doesn't mean I'm omniscient!"

"Then because you're a shaman," Zuko said.

"Once again, I'm not omniscient," Aang answered. He put on a weary smile. "You shouldn't worry too much. I'll think of something. Or Sokka will, or you will. I'm not letting Azula die. Not after all of this."

Zuko scowled at the airbender. "All of what?"

"Oh, nothing," Aang turned away quickly, leaving a certain firebender to mutter under his breath several dark things that he would do to a certain airbender, Avatar or no. But only if it came to that. He turned back to Azula.

"Just you and me, now," he said, and helped her to her feet. Her steps were awkward, stiff, but she was walking. Even if it was only with him holding her hand. "I'm not going to lose any more family."

Azula said something, but it was noise and sound without purpose. He finally had what he'd wanted for the last two years, though; a way to help his sister get better. Become well. And if Agni wouldn't give it willingly, then Zuko would make Him.

---

The last Fire Sage slowly shuffled his way up and out of the Dragon Bone Catacombs, leaving the dusty, dreary place quiet as the tomb that it was. But while leaving it quiet, they did not leave it empty. Slipping out of the shadows, a young man in dull red robes stole quietly through the darkened recesses, through the literal and figurative bones of the past. Looking for something in particular.

There. He saw it quickly enough, and homed in on it. A shelf of books, a table near it clear of dust and obviously used for reading relatively recently. So he turned his attention to the shelf. There was something out of place, but he couldn't quite pick it out. Not yet. He would, though.

"Now where are you, you elusive devil?" he asked, running a finger across old, bound spines. He tipped them out, trying to see their titles. Not it. Not it. One, though, he tilted out and saw that there was a smear of old, dry blood on its back cover. Hm. He'd seen that before somewhere, but he couldn't say... Oh. Right.

He pulled the book from the shelf, and began to flip through it. His eyes narrowed as he looked over the entries within, penned first from the hand of a so-called oracle, and then annotated by Lord Zhao of the North. "Thanks for doing all the work for me," he said, as he read the ambitious navy-man's work. But some of it had him frowning in confusion. "That didn't happen."

He flipped the page a few more times, reading the entry thereupon. "That didn't happen either," he said.

A few more flips. "Now I know that didn't happen, because we haven't conquered Ba Sing Se."

He glanced up for a moment, and came to a realization that others probably had before him, but was still somewhat off of the wall. "So... she's remembering another lifetime. That would explain it. But where is..." he trailed off, as his finger ran down words. Until it found something which positively leapt out at him.

He smiled. "The Western Air Temple," he said, with a smirk. "I think I'll have to have a visit."