Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: The Sun. It's warmer.

61394: The Foggy Swamp tribe keep themselves to themselves, so I don't know whether Yue or anyone around her would even know they exist. Which means regardless of how likely the South is to be targeted, it is there they must go.

Sharpe: Probably not, no. All air nomads are Airbenders, after all.

Zigzagdoublezee: No. Aang never married Katara in this timeline, so their children can't exist the same way they do in LoK.

TORONTOSUN: He's a Tenzin. He's not necessarily the Tenzin we know.

Again, the first half of this chapter contains spoilers for the Yangchen Novels. Be warned.

As Always, Please Review!

The library in the Northern Air Temple was a vast expanse of shelves upon which stacks and stacks of scrolls were placed. Yue had, with the help of a librarian who had used incredibly precise airbending to pluck individual scrolls from high shelves without disturbing any others, combed them for nearly a full day before finally finding them; Ancient texts written by Avatar Yangchen herself. She had taken herself to a desk by a window, sat down and begun perusing them for clues about the strange man who had attacked her. She had a lot of time before they would be ready to leave, after all.

It was hard not to be distracted though. The mountains stretched away into the distance, an awe-inspiring sight that made the breath catch in Yue's throat every time she glanced up. Children soared past on little gliders, laughing as they wheeled in mid-air. Yue envied them. Air was the element of freedom, and freedom sounded very nice to her then.

With difficulty, she turned back to her studies. Avatar Yangchen was a towering figure even by Avatar standards, and had used her skills at statecraft to engineer an era of peace that had outlasted her, and her successor Kuruk as well. It had only really broken down just before Kyoshi had been discovered.

The events Yue was concerned about had happened before any of that though. In the scroll, Yangchen narrated how she had encountered a superweapon known only as Unanimity, which a powerful corrupt official had been intent on using for her own ends. Firebenders had been horribly tortured by being forced underwater to awaken destructive new abilities, abilities uncannily similar to those the man who had attacked her had used.

Did that mean her assailant had been forced to go through... that? Yue shuddered at the thought. Water was supposed to be her element, she had grown up surrounded by it, but the thought of it suddenly made her uneasy. And if he had gone through that, then who had put him through it? He had been working for the Firelord, did that mean Ozai had an entire program dedicated to torturing and corrupting people into super weapons? And if it wasn't him, then who else could it be?

"Hello?"

Yue's head snapped up from the scroll to find an airbender boy about her own age staring at her. He was dressed in the same yellow and orange robes as the rest of his people, and clutched a brown staff that was taller than he was, and that Yue now realised concealed glider wings.

"Hello!" She greeted him. "I'm sorry, did you need these?"

The boy shook his head. Yue noticed that he did not have arrow tattoos.

"Thanks, but no. You're the Avatar, right? Everyone's talking about you. Pretty girl with white hair. That's not my words! Everyone's saying it. Came from the northern water tribe but managed to earthbend. Apparently you're a Princess on top of all of that."

Yue nodded.

"It's an honour to meet you!" The boy chirped. "My name is Rinzen! The Council sent me."

Yue stood up suddenly.

"Oh, you're the one who's coming with us!" She said.

"Absolutely!" Rinzen boasted. "Don't worry, you're in safe hands."

He leaned in closer.

"You will vouch for me afterwards, won't you? If I do well here I could get my mastery tattoos out of it."

Yangchen felt a bit overwhelmed by the energy of this boy. Rinzen just didn't slow down, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Now he was telling her about his experiences.

"I've seen some of the world before," he was saying. "I visited the Southern temple before- and hammered them at airball like we always do- and some other places. I've never seen the South Pole though. Or the north for that matter. What's it like?"

He spoke so quickly that Yue needed to take a moment to register what he had said.

"It's... nice," she said. "I suppose to you it would seem cold and dark, but it's beautiful. To stand on a bridge at midnight and see the canals in the moonlight..."

She trailed off, remembering home. She was not sure whether she would ever see it again, certainly not how it had been before.

"Sounds wonderful," Rinzen told her softly. "I would have liked to have gone."

"Maybe you still can go," Yue told him.

"Maybe," Rinzen shrugged. "Something tells me that's not especially likely in the near future though. You already have visitors."

Yue took a shaky breath.

"The temperature wouldn't have been a problem." Rinzen had noticed her discomfort and swiftly changed the subject. "We air nomads can regulate our body temperature! I guess that will come in handy in the south."

His eyes lit up.

"And I could teach you!" He said. "When it's time."

"Are you a master?" Yue asked.

"Do I need to be?" For the first time, Rinzen seemed a little bit offended. "No, I don't have mastery tattoos. But I'm really not far off getting them. I have all but one of the techniques down!"

He folded his arms and pouted.

"I'm sorry," Yue said. "It's just... there's a lot riding on this."

"I know," Rinzen brightened up again. "That reminds me! Would you like to meet Gembul?"

"Who's Gembul?" Yue asked, frowning.

"Gembul is my bison!" Rinzen bounced up and down. "He'll be pleased to meet you! He loves people. Just don't get too close to his face. That's just asking to get licked."

Yue looked down at the scrolls on her desk, and then back up at Rinzen.

A disturbing history about torture, or a session of sky-bison therapy? She asked herself. When put like that, the answer was obvious.

"Very well," she declared imperiously. "Take me to your bison."

Rinzen mock-bowed, and turned to lead her away.

"It would be my honour, Avatar."