A/N: Apologies for the late upload. Ongoing conflicts with the writing of one of my other stories and underestimating how long this chapter was going to be meant that it was not ready by last Tuesday. It is important to me that I generally not skip multiple Tuesdays in a row. To make up for this, I'm doing my best to have the next chapter out in a week, and hopefully the next one after that as well.

In The Legend Of Korra, Korra comes from the Southern Water Tribe and her animal companion is a polar bear dog. Hence, a brief reference to polar bear dogs at the South Pole. I only watched the first episode of Korra and I have absolutely no desire to see any more, so that is likely to be the only reference.

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Sokka flew the next morning. He let Appa fly at whatever speed he felt like. Was Katara right? Was the water spirit really still following them? Sokka was starting to have his doubts. They hadn't seen a sign of it for several days, days that were spent flying ever further inland. They were nowhere near the ocean. It had to have lost track of them by now.

Appa seemed to agree. Now that he was not being urged on, the bison did not fly straight as an arrow. He meandered through the air, checking out the land they passed over. The sight of a family of platypus bears below made him snort. "It's all right," Sokka said to him. "They can't touch you up here."

"Which one's the mom platypus bear and which one's the dad?" Aang wondered. "Or maybe one of them is an aunt. I've always wondered if platypus bears make friends. They're so big, they have to have big hearts too."

"If they're anything like polar bear dogs, the dad isn't around," Katara said. "Males don't get along with babies."

"Aw…"

The platypus bears were long gone. Appa flew along a small river winding its way around the edge of a dark evergreen forest. Up ahead, the land grew more rugged and the small river disappeared into the heart of the forest. Appa roared. "He's glad to be back in the mountains," Aang translated. "That's where flying bison are meant to live."

"Slow down, Sokka," Katara said. She squinted down at the ground. "What are those?"

"They look like people." Aang looked again at the approaching mountains. "They're heading right for the mountains. It's going to be cold, and they'll have to camp in the cold, dark, scary forest."

"I get it. No need to make yourself hoarse." Sokka guided Appa down to the ground. They landed behind the travelers and walked up to them.

The travelers stopped. "The Avatar," they whispered.

Aang grinned. "You guys want a lift?" The travelers glanced at each other and nodded.

Appa sighed. He was noticeably less excited about flying through the mountains than he had been just a few minutes before. "Don't worry," Sokka said. "We won't be carrying them for long. Just until we find a good resting place."

They entered the mountains. Tall cliffs rose on either side. The trees too grew tall, forcing Appa to fly carefully. It was like making their way through a maze. Then they hit a wall of clouds that the mountains had trapped, and Appa's flight slowed to a crawl. Sokka pulled up his hood and tucked his gloves in his sleeves. With visibility this bad, they would be lucky not to run headfirst into a cliff. But even so, Sokka preferred that to having to slog through drifts of the powdery snow that fell around them.

The travelers huddled together to keep each other warm. Katara raised her hood and tried to tuck in the bottom of her coat. Momo dashed under before she could and curled up inside, shivering. Katara patted him. "Are you cold?" she asked Aang.

"Not really," Aang said.

"But you don't have a coat."

"I don't need one," Aang said. "None of the air monks wear coats unless there's a storm. We're used to the cold."

"But it's been a long time since you were anywhere this cold."

Aang looked down at his arms. "I can feel the cold. it just doesn't sink in."

"Powerful firebenders often feel that way," Iroh said. "The heat from within keeps you warm. Unless temperatures are low enough to give you frostbite, you won't suffer from the cold."

"Really? Cool!"

"We already knew that," Sokka called.

No response.

"That it was cold. Get it? He said cool."

Katara groaned. "Keep looking forward. Make sure we don't crash. I think the snow is getting thicker." She turned out to be absolutely right. The forest below was hardly visible as a giant splotch of gray. The cliffs? Gone - for now.

Katara opened one of the packs and got out their tent. With Aang and Iroh's help, she secured the tarp over most of the saddle. The travelers gratefully huddled under it. "Remember that he said frostbite was still a problem," she called to Zuko, who had wriggled his upper half out from under the tarp.

"In a sec," he replied. Was it possible to play as a snowstorm? If he was going to keep winning at Pai Sho, he needed to collect all the strategies he could find.

Katara passed Momo over to Aang and relieved Sokka. After a while, Aang did the same for her. It was Aang who noticed that the forest below had finally become black again. Distant peaks started to appear as grey shadows. The dangerous part was over. Appa threw himself forward. He landed at the next hint of a path and licked crusted snow off his forelegs. Aang helped brush him off, and the tarp was taken down. Down among the trees, there was almost no wind. They decided to stay down there. Everybody got off and walked along the path.

One of the travelers had a map. They pointed to a nearby peak. "If we go to the base of that peak, we will find mountain people who will guide us through the forest." The whole party headed in that direction, consulting the map as required.

The mountain people met them on the path. There were three of them, and they carried packs stuffed with ropes and markers, firewood and food, with firestarters and axes and many other small tools hanging from the sides and from their belts. "Did you go through the snowstorm?" they asked. "Have you seen any others?"

"We flew over the forest," Aang said.

One of the mountain people, the oldest, turned to the other two. "You two go on. Search for anyone who might need help. I will take these people to our shrine." He handed his enormously heavy pack to one and his quite heavy belt to the other. Neither of them staggered. Sokka tried not to show it, but he was deeply impressed by the strength of these mountain people. The younger man put down his pack and tied the extra belt around his stomach. Then he put his pack back on and picked up one end of the extra pack, sharing his sister's burden. They hurried down the path, looking grim. Then again, Sokka supposed he would look grim too if he was responsible for saving people who could all too easily be freezing to death.

The older man led them around the base of the peak up a stony path, which ended at a circular plateau. Appa snorted and lay down at the base of the plateau. The path up there was too narrow and the circle too small for his comfort. In the center of the plateau was a small shrine, really just a roof over a comfortable base, and outside the shrine were bare stone benches. An old man dressed in the clothes of the mountain people sat on the shrine under its roof, another pack at his side. Presumably he had been tending the fire that was flickering happily in front of the benches. The travelers sat around the fire with grateful sighs.

Their guide introduced himself. "And this is my great-grandfather," he said, indicating the old man. "Great-grandpappy has stories more incredible than anything any of you have ever heard of." He sat down on the steps of the shrine. "Once he was walking through the forest, on a day just like any other. The weather was mild. The sun shone. Then, he heard a bizarre sound that he could not explain…" The story meandered like a forest path as the guide described his grandpappy's attempts to find the source of the sound, searching ever more desperately in ever crazier places. Finally, Great-grandpappy came out on the edge of the forest and saw something incredible: people in the air! Human beings flying in flocks like birds, their joyful shouting carrying all the way into the forest. "So, travelers, the next time you think you hear a strange, large bird talking, take a closer look. It might not be a giant parrot, but a flying man!"

As he finished his description of the air walkers, Aang smiled. "Aren't airbender stories the best?"

"Was it really like that back then?" Katara asked.

"Yeah! I laugh at gravity all the time. Haha! Gravity."

"What a beautiful sight," Iroh said. He looked off into the distant sky as if he could see it. "Flocks of birds and men and sky bison, all soaring in harmony together. If only such things existed today!"

The guide had been going around with his cap in his hand asking for money. He stopped in front of Sokka. "Jingle jingle!"

Sokka felt around under his coat. He really did want to give something to these strong, brave people he respected. But he had nothing. "Sorry."

"Cheapskates!" the guide huffed as he walked away. That stung Sokka's honor. But he regretted having nothing.

Aang ran after the guide to thank him for the story. "Tell it to the cap!" the man said. Aang searched his clothes, but he too had nothing. Fortunately, Momo spotted a coin that fell out of the cap and returned it. The guide smiled again and thanked him, patting him gently on the head.

"It means a lot to hear airbender stories," Aang said. "It must have been a hundred years ago your great-grandpa met them."

"What are you prattling about, child?" the man asked. "Great-grandpappy saw the air walkers three days ago!"

That. Changed. Everything.

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Aang didn't feel tired at all that night. His head buzzed. But there was nothing else to do, so he buried his head under his pillow and tried to quiet his thoughts. It didn't work.

The next morning, he sprang up from his bed as fresh as a spring hare. Nobody questioned this. They all understood what it would mean to him if any of his people were still alive. Out of courtesy, Aang stayed long enough to say goodbye to the travelers they had helped. Then he lifted off, following the guide's direction to the place where his great-grandfather had seen the air walkers.

"Do you think we'll really find airbenders?" Katara asked Sokka, who sharpened a knife with a bored look on his face.

"Do you want me to be like you, or totally honest?"

"Are you saying I'm a liar?" Katara asked. Zuko looked over sharply.

"I'm saying you're an optimist. Same thing, basically."

Aang finally realized why his surroundings seemed familiar. He had been here before! "We're almost at the Northern Air Temple," he announced.

"What do you think?" Katara asked Zuko.

Zuko turned away. He hadn't said a word about the possibility of Aang's people being alive all morning. He refused to engage with the matter at all. His silence was starting to seem creepy.

Aang was just glad that he didn't deride it as stupid. "This is where they held the championships for sky bison polo," he said. "I won a lot. Maybe my past lives who were airbenders were giving me a hand."

Memories of the past flashed in front of his eyes: competitors whirling through the sky on their bison, mother bison (when able) corralling their young before they could get too wild. Sky bison polo was only for young bison; it helped them to fly. This was the place where he and Appa had learned to fly together, where their friendship had been cemented forever. Aang mistook the shape appearing before his eyes for a memory. But then he blinked, and remembered where he was, and it was still there. "Hey, guys, look at this!" A faint mountain mist cleared, and there it was: the Northern Air Temple.

But it did not match Aang's memories. Smoke plumed from it in several places. The shape of it was wrong, as if several towers had been enlarged. And those weren't sky bison flying through the air; they were gliders. His smile faded. This was not the place from his memories. This was not his home. This was not his people.

"They really are airbenders!" Katara exclaimed.

Aang closed his eyes to take another look at his memories. Himself. Young Appa. Holding up the trophy before a proud monk Gyatso. He opened his eyes, and all of it vanished. "No. They're not."

"What do you mean they're not? Those guys are flying!" Sokka sounded like a little boy. He did that sometimes.

"Gliding, maybe. But not flying. You can tell by the way they move, they're not airbending." The gliders looked nothing like the racing sky bison. There was nothing familiar here. "Those guys have no spirit."

Just then, one of the gliders spotted them. It buzzed over the saddle, close enough for them to see the boy inside. He looked about their age, and he was laughing. He rose into the air for another buzz. "You sure about that, Aang?" Katara asked. "That kid seemed pretty spirited."

The boy on the glider flew close by to their left. He looked back at Aang with a smirk. Aang started to feel a little warmer. The boy's glider was nothing like the warm bulk of a sky bison, and his flight with it was nothing as sacred. It was just a clumsy copy. Aang opened his glider and leaped off Appa's head. He would show this imposter what real flying was supposed to be like! Real flying was a spiritual experience in and of itself. Real flying was a dance in the air. Real flying was freedom and power. Pulling levers and shifting your weight just to stay in the air was an insult to the idea of flight.

Aang was surprised by how good the other kid was. Once they were flying together, he saw how graceful the boy's movement was. With the most minor tilting of his wings, he swooped in a loop as perfect as anything Aang could manage. He tilted and dove between the towers perfectly. They ended up flying in the same movements. The very same movements. As the kid laughed, Aang remembered the laughs of his competitors. He was not airbending, but perhaps he was really flying?

"Hey there, you're pretty good," said the other boy.

Aang narrowed his eyes. "I know, but I can do more than fancy gliding." He flew straight at the wall of the Northern Air Temple. He let his glider fly free and ran along the side of the wall, speeding his steps with airbending and even using his air scooter just to show off. He reunited with his glider just before its path would have fallen away.

The stunt worked. "Wow! I don't think I could do that," the other boy admitted. "But here's a good one." With a minor movement, he popped free a tank on the backside of his glider. Smoke and dust spilled out of it. He flew up and around, making a pattern in the air. A circle, with smaller curves on the side of it and straight lines coming down… He jerked from side to side to get the last of the smoke out, creating eyes and a small mouth. He had drawn a stupid-looking version of Aang's face in the sky.

He came back to fly beside Aang again. People watching from below cheered. "What do you think?" he asked.

There was no way Aang could admit to being impressed with a glider. Not after everything he'd just said. "It's great," he muttered.

Aang landed next to Appa on the grounds of the temple. The other boy did too. As he brought his glider chair to a screeching halt, Aang's eyes widened. The chair wasn't for his comfort. People came and removed the wings, showing that the glider was an ordinary wheelchair when not in flight. The boy who flew so well couldn't even walk.

He wheeled himself up to their group with a smile on his face. "You're a real airbender," he realized. "You must be the Avatar! That's amazing! I've heard stories about you."

Sokka ran up to study the chair. "This glider chair is incredible."

"You think this is good, wait until you see the other stuff my dad designed." The boy wheeled himself inside the temple, presumably to give them a tour. Aang followed, but with increasing reluctance. Why was there so much smoke billowing from the temple? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out…

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Zuko stayed silent as he followed the Avatar into the Northern Air Temple. So what if the Avatar's people were gone and a bunch of strangers had moved into his home. So what.

Iroh nudged him. "Try to be respectful," he whispered. "We are entering a sacred place filled with the remains of an entire vanished culture. Even if they aren't your people, you must pay respect."

Zuko continued to say nothing. But his fists clenched.

The boy in the gliding chair led them to a central room that was dark and gloomy, with hissing and screeching noises echoing off the walls and the shadows of pipes burying everything in a jail-like pattern of darkness. The Avatar stopped in his tracks. No wonder; this was not a place that air spirits would be happy in. Zuko listened to the gliding boy explain that all of this was his dad's invention with half an ear. The other part followed the Avatar's footsteps as he walked up to a place where a lot of pipes protruded from the wall.

On closer look, the wall there was not blank. It had once been painted with images of monks, mountaintops and flying bison. The pipes punched through monks' heads, and a layer of grime coated the whole thing. "This is supposed to be the history of my people," the Avatar said sadly. He then went to look at the statue in the middle of the room. It too was dirty, and it belched smoke from its guts. "Ugh!"

Zuko looked at the painting. The whole history of airbender civilization was recorded. People of the past. Where they all had come from, how they lived. His fists clenched tighter and tighter. He turned away from the wall before the rage simmering inside him could come to a boil and burn down the whole temple.

The Avatar looked so sad. Katara comforted him with the thought that some parts of the temple were still the same. Zuko wasn't sure he wanted to see those parts. The stupid painting was bad enough.

Iroh took him by the elbow. "We are guests here," he said. "Be gracious."

Zuko shook him off and stomped after the Avatar and the gliding boy. Fine. I'll go on the stupid tour of places that don't matter. But he already knew what the tour would do to him. Coming here was a mistake.

The gliding boy led them across a bridge to a part of the temple where air and light existed. Statues of airbenders past surrounded them, all intact. The Avatar sighed in relief. "It's good to see that some parts of the temple haven't been destroyed."

Moments later, they all heard a shout from beyond the wall. The statue the Avatar was standing in front of exploded in his face with a loud crack. Dust filled the air. A man walked through the hole in the wall, a wrecking machine behind him. He adjusted his glasses. "What the - Don't you know enough to stay away from construction sites? We have to make room for the bathhouse."

"Do you know what you did?" the Avatar yelled. "You just destroyed something sacred, for a stupid bathhouse!"

The man waved his hand in front of his nose. "Well, the people around here are starting to stink."

"This whole place stinks!" The Avatar yelled and blasted the wrecking machine off the side of the mountain.

Zuko saw red. His rage boiled over in frothing waves and he barely suppressed the urge to scream. He turned and ran out of the open-aired room, shaking with the desire to firebend until everyone knew exactly what he thought of this idiotic, stupid farce of a -

Iroh followed him out. "Are you alright?"

Zuko roared at him. A dragon's roar, full of fury and power. It was not firebending, but it was the next best thing. He stood there breathing heavily, fists clenched. Say one more thing. Say it.

Iroh stepped back. "Zuko, what's wrong?"

Zuko turned away. Everything was wrong. This whole quest was wrong. The Avatar was wrong. We never should have come here. I hate it here! Just to avoid any more of Iroh's questions, he stalked back inside.

The man was in the middle of some sob story about how his son, Teo, had been orphaned and his people needed a new home and bla bla bla. Zuko didn't bother to hear the rest of it. He looked around the space. Most of it was completely untouched. It was as if the past airbenders who built it had left only yesterday. If the Avatar put his hand against the wall, he would be able to feel the hands of his ancestors. Zuko saw red again. He shook terribly, as if possessed. He felt the fire spirit inside him boil outward, searing his skin. His vision, still red, started to swim. He would pass out if he stayed so overheated. There was no choice; he had to escape. With one hand on the wall for balance, he stumbled out of the room onto the bridge. Iroh was still there. Zuko did not look at him. He walked past, then stood and breathed until the fever died down.

Teo rolled out, followed by Katara and the Avatar. They were going somewhere. Iroh put a hand on Zuko's shoulder. "Something about being here is setting you off," he said. "What is it?"

Zuko swatted his hand away. "None of your business." He followed the Avatar down the bridge. Even if it hurt, he was suddenly desperate to know. What is he going to get upset about next? Iroh did not follow. He looked after Zuko for a while, then turned and went elsewhere.

Teo led them to a long hall that ended at a large door. The door was blocked by a large circle of twisted pipes. Apparently all the air temples had one, and it was a lock that could only be opened by an airbender. The Avatar refused to open it. He was so upset about the rest of the changes that he couldn't bear to disturb something that hadn't changed. If that wasn't an overreaction, Zuko didn't know what was.

The Avatar rubbed his head. "So much has changed," he said. "It's a lot to handle. I think I need to be alone for a while."

Katara and Teo nodded sadly. "I completely understand," Katara said.

"Thank you." The Avatar opened his glider and took off. The hall had windows large enough to fly out of, which is what he did. He flew up and out of sight.

"I'm sure he'll come around," Katara said to Teo. "It's just a big shock to him. Finding out that all his people are gone, and now this."

"I can't imagine what it must be like," Teo said. "To lose your home and all the people you knew. I was a baby when the flood happened. I don't remember it."

"It's terrible for him," Katara said sadly. "I was with him when he first found out his people were gone. He felt so much rage and pain. It hurt just to see him that way."

"Are you okay?" Teo had finally noticed what effect their discussion was having on Zuko. Every muscle in Zuko's body was clenched. He shook as if possessed, and his face was bright red. He did not answer. Instead, he ran out of the hall.

With instincts honed by months of experience, Zuko pursued the Avatar. He traveled uphill, scanning the towers. He saw a flash of orange and made his way to it. Gritting his teeth, he climbed the outside of the tower. He was out of breath by the time he pulled himself onto the roof. He wrapped an arm around the central spire and sat there catching his breath. The Avatar sat on the other side of the spire. They rested there together for a moment.

"I can't believe how much is gone," the Avatar murmured. "My people. Our history. Will any of it be left in another hundred years?"

Zuko's fist clenched again. He gave the Avatar his sternest glare and asked, "Do you have any idea how much of a spoiled brat you sound like?"

The Avatar gaped at him. "Spoiled brat? For losing everything I knew and loved?"

"For ignoring how lucky you are to have any of it," Zuko shot back. "You have an entire wall showing the history of your people, and you're upset that it's a little grimy? You have twelve years of memories of being with your people, and you're sad that you don't get to have any more? Stop being such a baby. Some people would love to have what you have."

"It hurts more because of that," the Avatar shot back. "I know what the wall's supposed to look like. That's why it hurts to see it like this now. I knew the air monks. That's why it hurts that they're gone. I'm sad because of all the things I used to have."

"No you aren't," Zuko snapped.

"How do you know?"

"Because someone who's never had any of those things can feel the exact same way." Zuko glared at the Avatar with undisguised fury and envy. "People who've never known others like them don't feel any better than you. They feel worse, actually, because they have the same hole inside but can't talk about it with anyone. Nobody understands. How can someone miss something they never had?" His breathing was harsh and ragged. "But they can. So stop pretending to be so pitiful. You're not the only one in the world to be alone, and you get to have whole temples to hold onto. Shut up and be grateful."

The Avatar stared back with wide eyes. Slowly, understanding crept into them. "But…your people are still alive."

He understands nothing. Zuko looked away. "I don't have a people."

Something in his chest cracked open. His breathing faltered. The hole in him where a people should be was impossible to ignore, now that he admitted to its existence. He couldn't stand to be around the Avatar. Without another word, he climbed down the tower as fast as he could, then broke into a run. He ran back the way he had come: past the hall, across bridges, past the former construction site, into the temple's mechanical insides. He passed many people who gasped and stepped out of his way. Zuko didn't care how he looked to them at that moment. He only cared about the burn in his legs and lungs, which kept him from feeling anything else.

But then, he found himself in the dark room with the pipes. He stumbled to a halt and grabbed his chest. Tears blurred his vision as he looked up at the wall. Instead of sky bison, he imagined air spirits. Instead of trees, water spirits. Fire spirits dancing around in the form of dragons. Where was that wall? Where was the history of the people claimed by the elements themselves? Where were the stories told by people who talked with campfires and ran with the wind, who were never alone at all, especially not at night when other humans were sleeping? What were the traditions of people with ice for weapons and wind for wings?

Zuko knew the answer. There was no wall. There was no history. There never had been such people. He was unnatural, a freak, a curiosity. An accident, and nothing more.

He turned away and stumbled out of the pipe room. He slumped against a wall, gasping for breath but at the same time trying not to let himself sob. He only barely managed it.

I'm alone in the world.

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A/N: Credit for the conversation on the tower goes to Charley1925, who really needs to be someone's beta editor. Seriously, dude, you have good ideas.