Katara and Aang practiced their waterbending inside their house using drinking water. They moved in harmony, going slowly at first until their ability to match each other's movements increased. Master Pakku had briefly had his students do this in his evening class, and Katara thought it was genius.
"It feels like I am the water," Aang said.
"Yeah," Katara said. They raised the water in an arc over their heads. "This feels totally different from practicing on my own. Better. I can feel my waterbending improving."
They tried a few flashy moves, splitting up the water and then recombining it like they had seen done at the performance. They struggled with that. Keeping themselves in synch was hard work, requiring constant alertness and lots of little adjustments. When Sokka came in and Katara stopped, it was a relief.
"Sokka, I'm glad you're back," Katara said. "I'm calling a group huddle."
"My day was excellent, thank you for asking," Sokka replied.
"Oh…sorry."
"What are we huddling for?"
Katara moved her hands in circles. "I'm not sure what's going on now. The arrangement we had with Zuko was super limited and based on us interacting with him as little as possible. Now that we've gone over to his place, is that arrangement still standing? Was that visit just a one time thing? Or was it opening the door to us visiting more in the future?"
Sokka raised a hand. "As the one in charge of all practical ways of keeping us safe -" He looked around. Nobody disagreed. "- I decree that we are not going over to his place without a really good reason. I further decree that figuring out what he wants to do is not a good enough reason. The teaching arrangement was his idea. If he wants to keep it going, he has to come to us. If he doesn't show, then he doesn't want to keep it going. We're going to stay right here and not worry about it."
"That sounds good," Katara said. Aang nodded. "So, sea cucumber stew or fish?"
Over dinner, Sokka told them about his warrior training. After telling them it was going well and that he had been praised for his quick learning, he said, "It's too bad I won't be able to use any of it until after the war's over."
"What are you talking about?" Aang said. "We're gonna have to do lots of fighting before the war's over."
"Yeah, but that's the thing," Sokka said. "We're a small group specializing in ambush and surprise tactics. I'm the only one using a weapon - you guys have your bending. But what I'm learning with the warriors here is how to fight in formation with other armed men. Dad and the other Southern Water Tribe warriors are going to be impressed when I come home, but it doesn't help me now."
"You'd better train extra hard then," Aang said. "So he'll be really impressed." He and Sokka fistbumped.
"Master Pakku taught me and Aang a whole new training method today." Katara and Aang briefly demonstrated their synchronized bending. "Having to keep up with another person is hard work, and it's helping us a lot."
"Kinda like the human version of what you were already doing with the water."
Katara blinked. "Uh… Yeah. It is. Because all bending is teamwork." She shook her head. "How did I not remember that? Thanks, Sokka."
"That's why it helps so much!" Aang said. "Because it's a lot easier to learn harmony with another person than with something I can't see or talk to."
"You can see it, Aang. It's the water," Katara reminded him.
"Yeah, but… Teaming up with water is so abstract. It's a lot easier with a real person."
"Zuko didn't talk about it like it was abstract." Katara looked into the fire and narrowed her eyes. "He talked about it like it was the same as working with another person. Why was he so comfortable working with the water spirit?" Something inside the fire popped, emitting several sparks. "Could those rumors actually be true?"
"The rumors that he's a spirit?" Sokka looked skeptical.
"No, the other rumors. That he's learning some special kind of bending with a water spirit. The water spirit is still around, and he is chummier with it than he used to be."
"I've got something new to ask him when he shows up," Aang declared.
Dinner was finished. Sokka told some highlights from his day. Then Aang shared anything remotely funny that he could remember. Then they sat in silence. A full minute passed. "He isn't coming," Sokka said.
After a pause, Katara said, "I guess not."
Aang groaned. "Why is it always like this? I'm just fine being enemies with him. Then he does something cool that makes me want to be friends with him. Then he pulls back. It hurts, and I tell myself I should get used to just being enemies. Then when I've finally moved on, he does something cool again! Why does he keep doing this to me? Giving someone like me hope and then pulling it out from under me is torture!"
Katara put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's not deliberate. His beliefs just reverse every so often. You got a few nights of teaching out of him. Now you should expect a few nights of not teaching. He'll come back when his mind reverses again."
"Right. Because he's different people or something." Sokka had forgotten that.
So had Aang. "Huh. That reminds me of something he said about the water spirit once. That it would want to play with me, and then it wouldn't, so I shouldn't be upset that it was ignoring me. Or something like that."
"He's the most fiery guy we know," Sokka said. "Since when does he have stuff in common with Water?"
"He did say humans are a group project of all four elements." Katara narrowed her eyes again. "But you're right. Since when is he so chummy with Water? Since when can he work with it so well that it's as easy as working with a real person? You don't get that after training for less than a week. He wouldn't have that if he'd been training with the water spirit ever since it first showed up." She straightened. "Why didn't he freak out? Everybody else on his ship was panicking, but he said, 'Ugh! Stupid water spirit!' as if Water itself coming alive and messing with him was normal." Her eyes widened. "That wasn't the first time. He's interacted with Water as a living thing before. Based on his comfort level, he's probably known it since… Since he was a young child, at least."
Aang and Sokka's mouths fell open. Momo, who had eaten his portion of dinner and then gone to sleep since he was being ignored, woke up. He chattered curiously. "You mean we got caught in an ongoing fight between Zuko and his childhood friend?" Aang asked. "The water spirit really didn't care about me at all."
Katara leaned over so she could look directly at Momo. "A mysterious childhood friend that nobody, not even his uncle, knew he had. Who taught him to speak lemur." Her mind made several loud clicking sounds. "He was talking about the water spirit."
"How can the water spirit teach anyone to speak lemur?" Sokka asked.
"No idea," Katara replied. "But how can you have a friend that nobody's ever seen you with and nobody knows exists…unless they do see you with it and they do know it exists, but they don't recognize it as a possible friend?"
Aang groaned. "I have so many things I want to ask him about now! Do I really have to wait a few days until I can talk to him?"
"Does this count as a really good reason?" Katara asked Sokka. He nodded. "It's too late to go over now. But we can meet him in the morning."
.
Meanwhile, Kalika and Mushi ate dinner together. She told him that she had independently realized (no need to breach patient privacy) that she was playing something of a parental role to Lee. He didn't seem to know anything about self care, among several other important life skills. It seemed like his mother was the only one teaching him those things. "When she died, that was the end of his education on how to be a functional human being," she said. "Ever since, he's been learning nothing but how to be the kind of person his father portrays himself as. His father sounds functional, so I'm sure he takes care of himself, but he does so behind the scenes where Lee can't see it. Lee's gotten a horribly distorted view of what it means to be a person. No wonder his identity's messed up."
"I learned some interesting things today," Mushi replied. "According to the people in the diner, he's been presenting himself as nonhuman. A spirit. He also tells people he's a dragon. I've never heard of a human being that insisted on presenting themselves as not human. What could it mean? Should I be worried? Should I try to make him recognize that he is human?"
"There is no need for that," Kalika reassured. "When I asked him what species he was for my official notes, he told me he was human. He does recognize it. Maybe identifying with other creatures and spirits is a form of roleplay. Dragons are powerful and don't need to answer to any human, not even a high-placed one like his father. And spirits are revered in our culture as wise and helpful beings who have mysterious ways that must be respected. Nobody would ever try to shame a spirit into fitting in. After everything I've heard about his life, about how he was always shamed and pressured into things, I'm not surprised that he pretends to be different species."
Mushi relaxed. "I don't have to worry, then." He took a bite of his dinner and chewed thoughtfully. "I've been worrying about all the wrong things. I was concerned about his behavior, when really I should have been concerned about the reasons behind it."
"His behavior does need correction. Just not now. Right now, any correction you try isn't going to take. He needs to be stabilized first."
"A few days was not enough. I still have a long way to go before I can see as they do," Mushi murmured.
"As who does?"
"The spirits. I've met spirits before. They taught me to see the world more like they do. But now I see that I'm not as good at that as I thought I was."
"Is speaking with spirits something that runs in your family?"
"No."
"Huh." Could there be a connection?
They finished dinner. Still no sign of Lee. "What else have you heard?" Kalika asked. She told him everything Yagoda had told her.
"Basically the same," Mushi said. "Except that all 3 stories seem to be blending together. Everyone I talked to agreed that he was a spirit training special spirit powers with a water spirit."
"What is he doing out there in the wilderness? He must have told you."
"The last I heard of it was shortly after we got here, when he said he was going to train the water spirit to cause less trouble. But a lot has changed since then. I have no idea what he's doing now."
Kalika's shoulders slumped. "He hasn't told you that, either. He didn't tell you he was teaching the Avatar, and he hasn't told you what he's doing outside the city. He's not telling you a lot of things."
Mushi closed his eyes. "That may be my fault. He thinks I wouldn't love him anymore if I knew he wasn't the perfect little nephew he's been pretending to be."
"Which implies that teaching the Avatar and training with the water spirit are things that would have damaged him in your eyes," Kalika murmured. "But you are the one who asked him to make himself happy and spend time with people. Why would he have kept his teaching the Avatar from you? It doesn't make sense. There must be something I'm missing."
There was still no sign of Lee.
"He should have been back by now," Mushi muttered.
Kalika turned around. "Water? Is Lee coming back tonight?"
A portion of the floor turned to water. It lifted up in a small wave and shook the tip of the wave from side to side.
Kalika froze. She hadn't expected that answer. "Should we be worried?"
The water waved from side to side again.
She relaxed a little. "Is he safe?"
The wave turned into a circle.
"Will he be back in the morning?"
The wave sloshed from side to side, then collapsed and went back to being floor.
Kalika turned back to the fire. "He is spending the night outside the city in perfect safety and may or may not be back in the morning. Okay. That's…" She turned back around. "A sudden unexplained departure from established patterns of behavior, which is never a good sign in the spiritual healing business. Water, are you absolutely sure I shouldn't be worried? I'm talking about the overall progress of his spiritual healing now."
The water lifted up and shook itself from side to side violently. It tapped the air in front of it twice, then turned into a circle. The water transitioned seamlessly from circling to dancing, leaping around the room in energetic bounds, circling again, holding itself vertically in a line and sashaying back and forth, performing this dance in a circle, flying into the air as a spray of droplets and then falling back down and becoming floor again.
"That looked like a celebration to me!" Mushi said. "His patterns up until now have not been good for him. Breaking them is a good sign!"
Kalika turned back to the fire. "If one of the four elements says so, I'll believe it." But privately, she still worried. Breaking with one's usual patterns of behavior was a bad sign because it indicated that a person's spirit had changed drastically. Such drastic change usually damaged a person's spirit. Maybe Mushi and the water were right. Maybe for a shapeshifter like Lee, it was different. His spirit could be flexible enough to change dramatically without breaking. But even so, she couldn't believe it was comfortable. Even if his spirit had merely dislocated, that must hurt.
He was safe. But she did not believe he was happy.
.
In dreams, Zuko wandered the halls of the palace, calling out. Nobody answered. He covered miles of hallway, crossed several large open rooms that he recognized, and still did not see anybody. The halls did not even echo with his voice. He realized that was strange, and looked down. His feet did not touch the floor. No wonder nobody heard him. He was a ghost.
As soon as he realized this, he spotted a previously unnoticed door to his right. He opened it. On the other side was his childhood bedroom. But the walls were made of ice, just like in the Northern Water Tribe, and instead of a bed there was a large pool of water. Zuko shook with fear as he looked in, expecting to see himself.
He did not. The pool was filled with roots. Suddenly, the roots untangled and shot out of the water, seizing him by the arms and legs and dragging him in. They pulled him down, down, until the water was so dark he could not see. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't escape their grip. He was going to die.
But then, a fish appeared. Its metal jaws cut the roots up. Zuko swam to the surface. He broke through it two seconds before he would have drowned. He gasped for air, grateful to be alive, and climbed out of the pool.
He still couldn't see. Everything around him was darkness. A voice he didn't quite hear whispered, Relax. Do nothing. There is nothing to be done. Not even existing.
"I want to exist," he whispered back.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing, said the darkness.
He sank to his knees. "There's too much."
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
"Shouldn't there be something?"
The darkness changed. Before, it had bathed him in peace and quiet. Now, Zuko perceived it as hostile, offended by his complaints. The darkness left him. He was bathed in light now, light that whispered, Everything, everything, everything, which moved and played and burned and fought and did every kind of activity there was to do all at once.
He opened his eyes, sat up, and started screaming. He grabbed the scar on his face, which burned again just like it had on that day almost three years before. He didn't stop screaming until he couldn't even exhale, his lungs too desperate for air to give up any. He gasped and opened his eye. He saw that the darkness had come back, that he was safe. He shivered and silently promised not to complain again.
But now, there was some light. Enough to see by. Dawn was coming, and part of the moon was visible around the bulk of the glacier. It was three quarters full. In just a few days, the full moon would be upon them. As Zuko looked at the moon, his fear ebbed away. It was replaced by…
Nothing.
The darkness whispered from inside him now. It was nothing. No fear, no shame. No love, no joy. No sadness. Zuko's brow furrowed. I want to be sad. He thought he did, anyway. The darkness didn't want anything. It was complete. But was he?
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The lack of strength, of motivation, of energy, of any resource whatsoever, made it difficult to move. Zuko had to imagine going back to the city, to its seductive canals full of darkness (Rest), sliding in, to give himself the Something needed to move. He stood up, lowered his hand and turned around.
The water spirit was there in its dragon form. Its body language was different from anything he had ever seen before. It looked at him very seriously and did not move. Not one twitch of a gill showed distraction on its part. It was totally focused on him and nothing else. Isn't Water the element of perspective? It looks like Fire now.
The water dragon nodded. We are spirits. No borders. It indicated the fire next to it, which had formed into a circle and was rotating slowly.
The sight of the fire made Zuko sad. He put a hand over his chest and sank to his knees. "I can't live like this. I don't want to be dead. I want to be alive."
The water spirit lowered its head. Putting one barbel beneath his chin, it made him look up. You were born with two destinies, it signed.
"Two?"
It nodded.
"What's the other one?"
It pulled him to his feet, then took his hand. It traced a line upwards from his stomach, through his chest, out his shoulder and into his palm. Then it curled both of its barbels under its chin and waited.
Using his inner grip, Zuko felt around inside himself. He found a tiny bit of hope, just a spark, that would soon fade unless he learned more about this second destiny. He carried it up through his chest, into his shoulder and down his arm. His hand tightened reflexively to stop the little spark from leaving his body. His palm erupted into light.
His eyes widened. He took a closer look at his hand. The light was small and weak. But it was a light, and it was there, and he was holding it. He looked up at the water spirit. "Am I holding a part of my own spirit?"
Yes.
Zuko looked down at the light and remembered his dream. His memories of it weren't fading like dream memories usually did.
The water spirit tapped him on the shoulder. It's time to talk about the others.
"What others?" He had a feeling like he already knew.
The water dragon made two signs it had never made before. It lifted both barbels up and then spread them, as if it was picking up the moon and releasing it into the sky. Then it touched the tips of its barbels together to form an angle that pointed towards Zuko, and pressed down. The downward press was familiar from its signs for quiet, rest, and similar concepts. Zuko gulped. "Light and dark." The water spirit nodded.
He took a moment to decide. This was something to talk about. If he refused to listen, there would be nothing to talk about. He had just told the water spirit that he could not live with nothing. Wasn't that effectively a promise to listen to whatever it had to say? "What about them?"
The water spirit held up one barbel. Wait. It touched his heart with the other.
Zuko shivered. It felt like his stomach and chest were filling with ice water. The imaginary ice water covered his heart entirely, then froze. Zuko closed his eyes. He tightened his fists. He surprised himself by yelling, "Gah!" His inner fire flared to life. The ice water went away, leaving him able to breathe freely. He took deep breaths and looked up at the remaining stars. They meant something again! He looked around. I'm on a glacier. It's real. It exists. It's doing things. It could do something to me. What a relief it was to be able to think those thoughts again!
He lifted his hand and channeled his inner fire into his palm. The light was larger and stronger. "I can make light," he said. "Am I involved in this? Are Light and Dark having some kind of war I need to fight in?"
The water spirit shook its head. No, no. No fight. They… It took a moment to think. It had never in his entire life needed to take a moment to think before. Zuko realized it must be talking about something much, much more important than anything it had ever spoken of before. They do not mix, it finally said.
"What about shadows? There can be darker and lighter shadows."
That is Dark and Light together. But they do not become the same.
"If the mixture is fine enough, isn't it the same as if they did?"
The water spirit nodded. Then it waved one barbel to dismiss this whole line of conversation. They cannot become the same with each other, but they can with us.
"Light and Dark are forces that can fuse with the four elements?"
The water dragon nodded very strongly, tossing its whole head up and down. Yes! Forces! We are substance. They are force.
"The force of…doing things and not doing things?"
It nodded.
"So Fire is fused with Light, and Earth with Darkness, and you and Air…?"
We mix with both of them. Yes, Fire mostly with Light, and Earth more with Dark. Actually, Air is just as connected to Light as Fire is. I'm mixed with both evenly.
Zuko struggled to combine this with everything he had learned before. "Doing things with passion, doing things with freedom, using stubbornness to not do things, and alternating between doing and not doing?"
The water dragon patted him on the head.
"You can't be both ice and water," he went on. "Ice and water can mix. You can have ice in water. But you can't be both at the same time. Because ice is dark and water is light, and they don't mix. That's why you have to have two different forms."
It flapped its fins. Happy happy happy.
"But Earth can do stuff."
We are spirits. No borders. It lifted up a ball of water and a bunch of snow, and showed Zuko the snow crystals whirling within the ball of water. They clustered at one end, then at the other end.
"I don't get it."
Earth mostly with Dark. Mostly.
"So these forces can flow around inside of you, and the earth that earthbenders use is the part of the earth that has more light than the other parts?"
They give it light. The water spirit traced the line from his stomach to his hand again.
"Spiritbending generates light? Because spirits are made of light? And regular bending relies on spiritbending, so it does the same?" I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. Hold on. Wait. What are we even talking about? The four elements didn't make the whole world? They're not everything that exists?
The water spirit flared its gills. We ARE everything that exists. But that's all. We only did things after mixing with Light and Dark. They act. We are.
"But the darkness told me just now that I should stop existing!"
Existing the way you do, which means breathing and sitting and heart beating. Your existence is Light. We have a different existence.
Zuko crossed his arms. "I still don't see what this has to do with me. Aren't we supposed to be talking about my second destiny?"
The water dragon nodded. Light likes to do stuff, so it concentrates itself. When that happens, we start doing stuff. Worlds happen. But Light, like Air, moves. If it moved away, this world wouldn't happen anymore. We like this world, so we want to keep the light around.
"I'm supposed to anchor the entire force of Light in place? Isn't that a lot to expect from one person?"
No, we do it. You just keep the world from being hurt too much.
"Hurt by what?"
Dark. It'll ooze in as the Light moves away. We'll keep the Light from moving away entirely, so the world won't be destroyed, but people can be hurt and fear can happen because of the Dark coming in. We like people being happy and not afraid, so you stop that.
"By using my spiritbending to push back any darkness that threatens people or their livelihoods."
Yup.
"And if I don't?"
Fear and fighting and chaos. The sign for chaos was the water spirit whipping its head from side to side, throwing itself off balance.
Zuko watched it do this and remembered how he had felt the day before. He shuddered. "I don't like that."
Yeah. The water spirit nodded, then sat there doing nothing. It had no more to say.
Zuko made more spirit light. "So I just shine this at…at what exactly?"
That other one will teach you. The water spirit indicated that it was talking about someone not present by pointing off to the side. Their gender or anything else about them was not described.
"Who?"
The water dragon flapped its fins once: a shrug. Later.
"What do I do until then?"
The water spirit tapped his chest. Now that his inner fire was lit, he could figure it out for himself. The dragon turned to water, then disappeared into the glacier. Zuko sighed. I guess I should go back to my normal training grounds first.
A spike of heat made him gasp. He whirled around and spat, "What?!" at the fire, which now had its normal fiery behavior. The fire flared toward him twice, making him twitch, and hopped towards him. He backed away from it. It hopped towards him. This repeated until Zuko happened to hold a hand out, at which point the fire hopped into it. "What the…" The fire made no further movements, so Zuko cautiously used his firebending to take control of it. When he controlled it, he closed his hand. It went out. "Oh. You can't put yourself out." The fire spirit flared twice, as if answering Yes.
Zuko spent the walk back to his training grounds creating fireballs, using his spiritbending to send them away from him and back, and using his firebending to catch them and put them out. It's nice to have something to do. He briefly thought about what the water spirit had said, then shrugged and went back to focusing on his fire. That stuff wasn't really important. All that mattered was that he had a reason to continue living.
He stopped at the trail of flags. I should tell Uncle I'm okay. He imagined the canals, his heart beating fast. To his relief, they looked like just canals. Nothing more. The temptation was gone. Temptation to what? Give up? Abandon my uncle and everyone who ever cared for me? I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't. He shivered all over. "Did it happen?" he asked.
A snow drift lifted up into the air and made a circle.
Zuko clutched his chest. Tears burned his eyes. "I didn't know what was real," he whispered. "I had nothing to rely on. Everybody in my life told me my own memories were fake. I was confused and lost. I was only four. I wouldn't have known what I was doing. All I would have known is that I wanted the doubt and questions to stop. I would have gone to the most stable presence in my life, and tried to find some peace there…"
The snow drift glided over and wrapped itself around him. He sobbed. Fear and sadness made his knees weak, set him shivering even though he was warm. But they were something, and that was all he had ever asked for.