A/N: Hey everyone! Enjoying the story so far? I hope so.

I just wanted to pop in real quick at the beginning of this chapter to give a warning/apology. This chapter, and the next few, are kind of heavy on the info-dumping, and I'm sorry about that, but there wasn't a lot I could do to fix it. As you can probably tell already, I had to change a lot of things about the canon lore in order to make this AU work the way that I wanted it to (mainly related to the fact that I wanted Aang to be a character in this story even though he is not the Avatar and thus didn't freeze himself in ice for 100 years), and this book is where we're going to start getting the details on those changes. That means I have to explain a lot more. Sorry if that's boring.

Aang was freaking out. As soon as Zuko left to go get the others, he smiled awkwardly at the group of people around him. People whom he had grown up knowing, but who seemed almost like strangers now.

"Perhaps we should have a talk," Jaya said, gesturing to herself—and to his parents, who Aang still hadn't managed to look directly in the eye.

"My friends aren't far away," Aang said uncomfortably. "It won't take them long to get here."

Jaya frowned. "Later, then."

Aang stepped a little away and looked in the direction that Zuko had gone—which is why he didn't notice that his parents had come over to him until it was too late.

"Aang." His mother Ceba's voice was as stern as ever, and he turned around slowly to face her, tucking his head a little in expectation of a reprimand.

But instead, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug. "We were so worried about you."

His father Gaden stood a few paces back. "We woke up," he said, "and you were just gone. No note, nothing. Why?"

"I had to go," Aang said, pulling back from Ceba's embrace. Her eyes, gray like his, were filled with tears. "And I knew you wouldn't let me leave if I told you, so I didn't."

He could tell that his parents wanted to say more, but at that moment, Aang's friends started to appear, led by Sokka, with Princess Yue following. A few seconds later, Katara and Zuko appeared as well. All of them looked momentarily stunned by the sight of the village built inside the tree.

"I'll explain more later," Aang said. "Let me introduce you to my friends."

He led his parents over to the others, who were all looking around, very confused.

He was already starting to get a headache, thinking about how twisted all of this had become. His friends knew nothing, and his family knew nothing, and now he was going to have to explain himself a thousand times in a thousand different ways.

If you had just been honest from the beginning, he thought, you wouldn't be in this situation.

"Aang!" Sokka said. "Glad the forest didn't eat you."

Aang smiled a little. He waited until Katara and Zuko had joined them, and then said, "Guys, let me introduce you to my parents, Ceba and Gaden. Ceba and Gaden, these are my friends."

There was a quick exchange of names and pleasantries. Then Aang took them around, introducing everyone to his grandmother, and to all of his old friends that he'd grown up with.

As he did, he could tell there was a weird tension in the air, where both his new friends and his family had about a thousand questions that they wanted to ask, but they were holding it back until they could ask them in a more private way.

The last thing Aang wanted to do was actually answer any of those questions, but eventually, he had finished introducing everyone, and could put it off no longer.

Not that he didn't try. He started to head toward the door, saying, "There are some really cool spots on the island that you guys should see. Come on!" And he reached for the door handle, but Katara grabbed his arm.

"Maybe we should talk about what we're doing first?" she asked.

"And maybe you could explain some things?" Sokka suggested. "There's a lot about this whole situation that's not adding up, Aang."

"I think we could use some explanations, too," his mother, who had not left his side the whole time, said as well.

Aang sighed. "Fine."

And so they all made their way up the lattice of bridges and platforms to the very top. There sat the house where Aang had lived for most of his life.

He didn't have time to reminisce though, because they weren't going into the house. They instead went past it and climbed a ladder that led up and out of the tree.

Here, they were near the top of the tree, with branches and leaves spreading out in all directions and forming a cocoon around them. But they were outside. The light was brighter here, filtering through the leaves and coloring the floor and everyone's faces with greenish light. Thick branches obscured most of the view of the forest around them, but if you walked to the edge and looked down, you could see all the way down to the ground. And if you climbed up higher, you could eventually reach the very top, and from there you could see for miles.

Aang knew that because he would often come up here when he wanted to escape. The village used this space for many purposes—town meetings, parties, the like, but mostly it was reserved for the elder and her family. It was also where they'd kept Appa most of the time, which is why Aang wasn't surprised to see him waiting there. He rushed over to Jaya, Gaden, and Ceba and began nuzzling them affectionately. Aang smiled despite himself as his family laughed and pet him.

"I've missed you too, Appa," Jaya said.

Meanwhile, his friends were distracted looking around the space. Of course, Sokka was the one who brought them back to business. He gathered them around a table near the trap door.

"First things first," he said, "what the heck is this place? Who are all these people? I thought you said you were the only airbender left?"

"I am," Aang said, at the same time that Jaya said, "That is true."

Ceba frowned at him. "Aang, did you really not explain anything to your friends before bringing them here?"

Aang threw up his hands. "I thought that's what you would've wanted me to do. You spent my whole life telling me I needed to keep this place a secret."

"Yes, but to bring them here with no explanation…" She shook her head, then looked at Jaya. "Perhaps you should explain."

Jaya nodded. She took a place next to Aang and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"A hundred years ago," she began, looking out over the rest of the group, "the Fire Nation set this war into motion when they attacked the Air Nomad temples, wiping out most of the people who lived there. They did this intentionally, of course, knowing that the next Avatar would be an Air Nomad, and that he would still be young when they attacked. Too young, they thought, to stand a chance against them.

"In that, they were mostly correct. Avatar Aang was twelve years old when the attack came, and had only recently learned that he was the Avatar. He knew nothing of water, earth, or fire, but he was an exceptionally talented airbender, having already become a full-fledged master and earned his tattoos, the youngest to ever achieve such a feat. Thanks to this prowess, and the sacrifice of his mentor and master, Gyatso, he was able to escape the attack with a few other Air Nomads and run away to hide in the Earth Kingdom.

"However, in doing so, he also revealed his identity to the Fire Nation, and for the next two decades, they hunted him and the remaining Air Nomads, mercilessly. He tried to train in the elements so he could put an end to the war, but every teacher who took him on was killed a short time later, until it became impossible to find a master who was willing to teach him, or to gain access to any scrolls and attempt teaching himself. He was a talented bender, but even he could not become a master without guidance, so his training stagnated, half-finished.

"Meanwhile, we—the remaining Air Nomads, that is—were dying off. Airbending is a very spiritual practice, you see. In order to use it to its fullest potential, an airbender must be free in mind, body, and spirit. In the old days, every Air Nomad was born with bending, but as refugees of war, actively pursued by the Fire Nation, we were forced to hide in the shadows and let go of many of our traditions just to stay alive and keep our people from withering to nothing. As such, our connection to the element of freedom frayed until it snapped. Aside from the Avatar himself, those who once knew how to bend slowly lost the ability, and the next generation of children were all born as nonbenders. Even I, Avatar Aang's own daughter, could not call the air to my will."

"You're his daughter?" Katara asked, eyes wide.

Jaya nodded, giving a little smile. "Yes, child."

"So what happened, then?" Sokka asked. "Clearly you guys aren't dead."

"No." Jaya sighed heavily, closing her eyes. "It was many years ago; I was very young at the time, so I did not fully understand how dire the situation was. I had never known a life before the running, after all. It was just the way things were. But I remember that Avatar Aang was desperate to save us in any way he could, so he brought us to a secluded spot in the Earth Kingdom and told us to hide there until he returned. There were precious few of us left. Me, my mother, a dozen or so others. He left us there and set out on a journey.

"He was gone for a long time—days, weeks, it's hard to recall—but eventually, he returned, and I can vividly remember the way he smiled, and picked me up, and swung me around. He had found a place where we would be safe, a place where we could hide until the war was over, and no one would find us. He brought us to the southern tip of the Earth Kingdom, and there was an island, not far from the shore. This island."

"How did he know?" Sokka demanded. "It's just an island. Why hasn't anyone found you here?"

"Ah." She smiled. "You see, that's just it. It's not just an island, young man."

"Then what is it?"

"Perhaps you have heard legends of creatures as big as mountains, who once roamed this land and sometimes allowed humans to live on their backs."

Aang wasn't sure that they had. Sokka looked confused. So did Katara. Yue seemed confused, too.

Zuko, though, frowned for a moment, as if her words had shaken dust off a book high up on a shelf in his mind, then his eyes widened. "Lion turtles? You can't be serious. This place is a lion turtle?"

Now that the words had been said, it seemed that the others had some vague recognition of the term, as well.

"Wow." Katara stared at the ground as if it were suddenly made of diamonds. "That's…amazing."

"It is," Jaya said. "The lion turtle agreed to let us live here until it is safe to leave, and so this is where we have been ever since."

"But none of you can airbend, still, even though no one's after you anymore?" Katara asked.

"Well, we're still limited," Aang said. "Nobody has left this place since we first settled here eighty years ago—well, besides me, I guess." He rubbed his right arm nervously and pointedly didn't look in his family's direction. "And we lost a lot in the years when we were refugees. Like I told you guys before, everything I know about Air Nomad culture or airbending, I either learned from the few surviving scrolls we have, or I had to make it up. Everyone who remembers what it was like before the war has all been dead for a long time. Even Jaya wasn't born until after the war started, and Avatar Aang died not long after he found us this place, so he couldn't pass much on. For a while, everyone thought that maybe our people's connection to the air had been permanently severed—until I came along."

"That's why we named him Aang," Ceba said with a smile, reaching out and ruffling his hair, "when we found out he was an airbender. For his great-grandfather, the last air Avatar."

Aang felt his cheeks getting hot. "Yeah."

No one seemed to know what to say then. Or maybe they had too many things to say. That was probably more likely. They kept looking around at the others, then at Aang, like they were trying to decide who was going to start next.

"Okay," Sokka said finally, "now that we've got that all established, we should probably figure out what we're going to do."

"Well, for now," Zuko said, "I guess we're staying here and laying low for a while. As long as that's okay with you, Elder Jaya?"

Jaya's expression was impassive. "Our doors are open to the Avatar and his companions." As soon as Zuko had nodded and looked away to continue the conversation, though, she shot a glance toward Aang that clearly meant she wanted to talk with him later. Alone. He bit back a groan.

"We'll leave you to your planning," Jaya said, then waved for Ceba and Gaden to follow her out.

When the door had closed behind them, Sokka continued the conversation as if there hadn't been a pause. He turned toward Zuko. "Sure we can lay low for a while, but we need to figure out what we're doing after that. We've been out of commission for who knows how long at this point, and we have no idea what's going on with the war. Plus, you and Katara still need to find a waterbending master, and the only place in the world where we could find one is probably occupied by the Fire Nation by now."

"About that," Princess Yue said, and everyone did a double take. Aang had forgotten she was here, she was being so quiet. She seemed to be struggling with something internally, but finally she nodded to herself and, meeting Zuko's eyes, continued speaking: "You don't need to worry about finding a waterbending master. I am willing to fill that role, if you will accept me."