A/N: Yes, I left you on a cliffhanger. And I'd do it again!

Disclaimer: don't own ATLA, may own some random headcanons I've been tossing in the fic? Idk how that works.

Ursa…

Floating. Or falling. Or floating. It wasn't clear what exactly was happening to her, not that she felt conscious enough to differentiate. Darkness surrounded her (was it darkness? Or were her eyes closed? Or did she even have eyes anymore?) and she could barely even feel her own body, let alone anything else.

Ursa…

Was she dead? Was someone calling out to her from the afterlife? Whatever was speaking her name didn't sound like any human she'd ever heard; instead, the deep voice seemed to reverberate through her from inside her own mind.

Ursa!

A bone-chilling cold slammed through her body. Her eyes snapped open with a gasp. She was very much alive, but as she took in her surroundings, she wondered how long that would last.

The last thing she remembered, the forest, was gone. Instead, she was in the middle of what seemed like a dimly lit cavern that extended into a tunnel. The source of the light was a mystery, but it cast blue-ish luminescent ripples over the rocks around her, like the sun shining through the surface of a clear lake. Panic welled in her throat; she was not a strong swimmer. If she was underwater, she hoped whatever pocket of air she'd found herself in would last long enough for her to get out of this mess.

"Hello?" she called out hesitantly, half-hoping the voice that had woken her would come back and tell her what to do, half-fearing she would catch the attention of whatever unsavory creatures roamed around tunnels like these. Fortunately, or unfortunately, nothing responded.

At least Ursa herself seemed to be in decent condition. Her clothes were damp (from the rain, she vaguely recalled), so she couldn't have been unconscious for too long, and there was a dull pressure inside her skull, which could explain why she'd been unconscious to begin with. As she got to her feet, she gratefully noted that she didn't feel dizzy or nauseous, a promising sign that she hadn't suffered a concussion.

Unless, of course, this whole thing was a hallucination brought on by severe head trauma.

Even that was the case, there still remained the mystery of where exactly she was and how to get out. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to trace through her most recent memories. She'd been walking - no, storming through the woods - when it had begun to rain, quickly turning thick enough to obscure her vision. Mika and Rei had been with her, calling to her that it was dangerous to be out in the downpour, that she should turn back, but she hadn't wanted to because she'd been angry. She'd been so angry…with Iroh.

Iroh. Something twinged in her chest. Yes, she remembered now: the argument over Ikem and Ozai that had turned into a fight without reason or rules, the harsh words that had rolled off her tongue so easily.

"I've hated every moment of being Princess Ursa."

It had felt so good to throw that hate in his face, to make him feel just a sliver of the heartache she'd experienced as a princess. But now that she was looking back on it…

"You are exactly like your father."

As soon as she'd said the words, she'd known she was wrong. Azulon would not have been fazed by such a comparison - if anything, he would have been thrilled by it - but Iroh had just looked stunned. Even…hurt. Not enough for her to apologize as she'd pushed past him and stormed out of her tent in a huff, but enough for her to feel a semblance of guilt in hindsight. Maybe, potentially, she'd gone a smidgen too far. Of everything she'd been through since leaving home, Iroh was the least of her problems. He'd actually served as something of a bright spot: when she was with him, she was able to be herself, or as much of herself as she could allow in the palace. Iroh never minded her smart remarks or her challenges to the palace's status quo. If anything, he seemed to enjoy and encourage them, to the point where she'd tentatively started looking forward to spending time with him.

Until she'd found out how much he'd covered up for Ozai…and how possessive he was apparently capable of being, as evidenced by his upset over Ikem.

In the grand scheme of their marriage, Iroh letting her be herself was so little to be grateful for. Convincing the Fire Lord to let her visit Hira'a again had admittedly been a much more substantial gesture on his part, but she refused to be treated like she was completely beholden to him in return; especially after what had happened with Ozai. She was thankful that Iroh had brought her to see her parents, but it didn't change the fact that Iroh had taken her away from them in the first place.

"Do you think this was what I wanted for my marriage, Ursa? To steal a woman away from her life and have her resent me for it for the rest of mine?"

No, Iroh wasn't the one to blame. Ursa sighed. He was not as powerless as her, but he was still effectively powerless against the Fire Lord's will. It was much harder to maintain her anger with him now that the sting of their words to each other was no longer fresh. Even when they'd been arguing, he hadn't seemed truly angry once the subject had turned away from Ikem. More…tired. Dejected. Spirits, there were so many ways to say he'd looked sad.

They would have to continue that discussion a little more calmly if she got out of this. When she got out of this, Ursa corrected herself. Having a bleak outlook would only shape a bleak reality to match.

Ugh, that was definitely something her mother would say. And Iroh would probably agree.

There was nothing to do but walk. Unable to see a difference between the tunnel to her left and her right, Ursa chose to walk right. She always played to the right first in Pai Sho, not that it had helped her beat Iroh yet, but she wasn't about to change strategies now.

Walking through this strange, underground (underwater?) tunnel quickly became nothing short of nerve-wracking. The blue light, wherever it was coming from, was not consistent, and there were strange, misshapen shadows dotting her path. For a few steps every now and then, Ursa had to move in complete darkness until she reached the next patch of visibility; in those moments, a fear bubbled up in her frazzled mind that the light would never actually get any closer and she would remain futilely plodding through pitch-black forever.

At some point, she began to hear things as she walked, whispering her name. None of them sounded familiar. She wondered where the deep voice that had woken her up had gone, and oddly found herself wishing it would return.

Suddenly, Ursa walked smack into a wall. She cried out and pinched her aching nose, hoping it wasn't bleeding. Was this the end of the tunnel? She blinked and squinted, trying to make sense of the dimly-lit path through her watering eyes. It was not an end, but an intersection, giving her the option to turn left or right.

One of Iroh's bedtime folktales surfaced in her mind. He'd spoken of a maze in a mountain, formed by a pair of earthbender lovers who secretly rendezvoused at its center, with the only way out lit by nothing but crystals. This wasn't that maze, of course - Ursa was relatively confident that she had not somehow teleported to the Earth Kingdom, and there were no crystals producing the strange light anyway - but Iroh had mentioned something else. The key to getting out of a maze, he'd told her as her eyelids grew heavy, was to pick one wall and follow it. Follow it in as many consecutive turns and dead ends as it took until eventually, there would be nowhere left to go but out.

The idea of touching the walls of this strange place sent a shudder up her spine that wasn't just from her damp clothing. But if she didn't…there were so many shadows obscuring the path that it was inevitable she would eventually miss a hidden turn. If this was some sort of maze, that could be a death sentence; her mouth was already starting to become dry with thirst. It didn't seem like anyone else had stumbled across whatever hidden entrance had brought her here yet.

Well, she'd all but broken her nose on the wall in front of her earlier, and nothing had crawled out of it to try and eat her. If she was continuing her pattern, then she had to keep following the wall to her right. Ursa closed her eyes, braced for something awful to happen, and thrust her hand onto the dark wall.

Nothing but cool stone made itself known beneath her touch. Tentatively, she opened one eye, then the other and relaxed slightly. She could actually see her hand on the wall, and…had some of the shadows gone away?

Ursa.

The deep voice had returned. "Hello?" she whispered. Maybe it would say something besides her name now.

Come.

It was gone again, but it had seemed less faint than before. Feeling encouraged, she continued forward.

The blue, rippling light didn't grow any brighter, but there were fewer shadowy patches on Ursa's path now. She walked with a new urgency, cognizant of the fact that her body would only last so long in this tunnel, and her hand lightly traced over the cave wall's ridges and bumps. She found one turn, then another, then a deadend, and another turn at what seemed like a grand four way crossroads. If this really was a maze, it was an intricate one. Ursa just hoped it included an exit.

It was after the crossroads that Ursa saw her first sign of life. Ahead of her, dressed in plain but ragged green Earth Kingdom clothing, stood a man. A firebender, as evidenced by the small fire he held aloft in his right hand as he glanced around the tunnel. Perhaps he was from the colonies?

Before Ursa could call out to him, she accidentally kicked a small pebble, and the man immediately spun to face her in a fighting stance that clashed with the simplicity of his clothes. Ursa had seen that stance before, assumed by both Iroh and Ozai as they prepared to spar. His body was wrong for his attire as well, with broad shoulders and a brawny build that boasted a history of battling far worthier opponents than Ursa and emerging victorious.

His face…looked familiar. Hard yet warm amber eyes studied her from under thick eyebrows, clear frown lines highlighting a thoughtful gaze accentuated by a full beard. The graying and thinning of his dark hair indicated that he was much older than her, but that didn't stop the strange recognition between them.

"Ursa?" he whispered, face and stance slackening with shock.

His voice had deepened with age, yet as she glimpsed the star-shaped scar on his left palm in the firelight, it was undeniable. She was looking at an older version of Iroh.

"My love, what are you doing here?" he asked, sounding heartbreakingly earnest. Unabashed wonder overcame him as he took in her appearance. "How…" he breathed.

The words my love sliced through her like a knife. "Go away!" she gasped, nails scraping against the wall as she stumbled backwards. She didn't know what trick this was, but she wanted no part of it.

Immediately, his hands went up in a clear show of peace, extinguishing his flame. As the fire vanished, so did he.

Ursa blinked rapidly, eyes readjusting to the dim blue light now that the warm orange of the fire was gone. Although her gaze swept across the tunnel, looking for the vision of Iroh or something else lurking in a shadow, she found nothing. Her trembling hand remained anchored on the wall.

If that was just the first of what she was going to see down here, she wasn't sure how much longer she would last.

Thirty hours.

Ursa had been gone for thirty hours.

It didn't feel right. Surely it had been longer, Iroh's instincts protested as he watched the sun sink towards the western horizon. Surely it wasn't just at noon the previous day that she'd disappeared. It must have been weeks ago, that was why Iroh felt this empty and exhausted; surely just one night of her missing couldn't do this to him. One night that had passed too slowly, with Iroh tossing and turning, unable to shake the feeling that he should be doing something to bring her back from wherever she'd gone; the nagging sense that even with the anger she'd thrown at him, she was somewhere in need of his help.

He'd had a dream, when he'd finally managed a brief hour of uninterrupted sleep, that he'd found Ursa in the trees. Not giggling at him for missing her hiding spot like Rina had described, but silent, her sunshine eyes filled with sorrow and her face deathly pale like it had been after the Red Ash and her bloodless lips parting to accuse him once more-

"You are exactly like your father."

The trees around camp had been empty when he'd checked them again at dawn. Iroh had been relieved. Then he'd scolded himself for feeling that way because surely, her returning to repeat those haunting words would be better than her being gone.

Now, in the light of the setting sun, he came back upon the spot where Ursa had vanished for what felt like the hundredth time. It was unmistakably marked with his knife in a tree to avoid the soldiers walking in circles as they fanned out across the area. Not that the searching was doing much good.

"Prince Iroh?"

He turned. "Rei."

Rei and Mika were probably the only people whose worry for Ursa was anywhere near Iroh's, as evidenced by the redness of Rei's eyes. Iroh doubted either she or her partner had slept more than him last night.

"There's still nothing to report," Rei updated him dutifully. "If she was taken, the trail was washed away in the rain, and there's nothing to track."

Iroh nodded. It would be a ballsy move, abducting his wife right out from under him, and he couldn't imagine who would be brazen enough to try it. "Tell me again what happened."

"It was so fast." Her low voice trembled uncharacteristically before she drew a breath to steady herself and continued. "The princess stormed into the woods with Mika and myself following. She was clearly upset, so we tried to give her some distance, but once the rain began, we started to quickly lose sight of her. We called out to her to return to camp, or to at least wait for us, but she didn't want to. She started ranting about…your disagreement, before she suddenly went quiet. By the time we made it to this area, she was gone, and we found no trace of a struggle or anyone else nearby. Her tracks seemed to end at this tree." She tilted her head at Iroh's knife marking the tree in question.

Aside from her awkward phrasing around Ursa and Iroh's fight, the explanation had not changed at all. He could have recited it from memory while clearly recalling the look on Mika's tear-stained face when she'd delivered the news that Ursa was missing.

"Prince Iroh," she pressed hesitantly when he didn't respond, "Jun and I believe it would be prudent to speak to her parents now."

"No."

"Forgive me, Your Highness, but without evidence of a kidnapping, there's not many other places she could've gone."

Iroh had arranged for patrols between here and the nearest villages as soon as the rain had let up, in case Ursa somehow made her way to one of them. Hira'a was one of those villages. But he just couldn't stomach the thought of going to Rina and Jinzuk to tell them of their daughter's disappearance, let alone accuse them of having something to do with it. How could he look them in the eye, having lost their daughter so soon after promising to take care of her? It had been hard enough to face their tearful reunion with Ursa. This would be so much worse.

"Do you think she ran, Rei?" he asked, turning his attention back to the tree. "You've been attending to her closely since she came to the palace. Does it seem like something she would do?"

The waning sunlight made the blade of his dagger look unusually molten, like it had been forged out of gold instead of steel. "No," Rei whispered from the edge of his eyesight. "But I have to think practically, Your Highness. I don't know what else could have happened."

"The storm was forceful enough that a kidnapper's tracks would have been washed away, isn't it true?"

"Not in a matter of minutes. I was not that far behind her when she vanished." Guilt tinged the words, and she bowed her head when Iroh glanced at her. Despite himself, he knew she had a point, one that he could not afford to spend much more time ignoring. If Ursa didn't turn up soon, Iroh would have no choice but to get his father involved, and the Fire Lord would not hesitate to accuse the Avatar's daughter.

"Do you truly believe we'd find her in Hira'a? With her parents?"

"No," she confessed, voice trembling once more. "But she has to be somewhere. We can't leave that stone unturned, can we?"

Molten gold couldn't be good for a tree. Iroh thought of how Rina had thanked the plants in her greenhouse when she'd plucked their fruits for breakfast, like they were creatures with feelings, and pulled his knife out of the oak's trunk with a mental apology.

"I'll go to Hira'a tomorrow morning," he told Rei as he wiped down the blade, "but I want additional patrols dispatched tonight."

"Of course, Your Highness. Where to?"

Iroh took a breath and uttered the other possibility he'd been avoiding, "Forgetful Valley."

It was pure speculation, the notion that the domain of the spirits might have had something to do with Ursa's disappearance, but Iroh had reached a point where he would accept even the most unlikely explanation.

"If you believe that's best, Your Highness."

"I do." Iroh raised an eyebrow, pointedly reminding her that he was the superior even if she didn't agree with his idea. "Forgetful Valley is in the vicinity, and few people venture there because of superstition around its spiritual activity, meaning anyone lost in those woods has little chance of being found without an active search effort. Regardless of personal beliefs around those superstitions, we can't leave that stone unturned either."

"Of course," Rei swallowed. "I meant no offense, Prince Iroh."

"I know. Go dispatch the patrols, please, and try to get some rest."

If it were up to him, Rei and Mika would face no punishment for this fiasco. They felt bad enough, and considering that Iroh himself was unable to figure out what had happened to his wife, it hardly seemed reasonable to penalize others for the same difficulty. Of course, the Fire Lord was much less likely to see things that way, especially after he'd been so reluctant to give Ursa her night in Hira'a. Iroh could already hear the accusation that she'd used her time back home to plan a desperate attempt at freedom.

"My 'freedoms' as princess are at your generosity, which only extends as far as your father permits."

She had been right, of course. She had been right about so much in their argument, and it had bruised Iroh's pride more than anything.

His wife, the one person who was meant to be by his side for the rest of his life, was more beholden to his father's wishes than his own, and there was close to nothing he could do about it. At least he would be Fire Lord someday, and then he and Ursa would be free to do as they pleased, but he wasn't sure their marriage would make it that long without crumbling into a pile of resentment or even hostility. Blast it all, even if he hadn't chosen to marry her, he still liked her. He liked her passion, her empathy, her tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. The two of them had been getting along pretty well, all things considered; if nothing else, he didn't want to lose that companionship.

But he couldn't fix what had broken without her. And with every passing minute, the likelihood of her coming back and things returning to normal decreased. Once the morning came, he would be forced to alert his father and go looking for her in Hira'a, and the involvement of their parents in the whole mess would for sure banish any chance of salvaging their delicate partnership. Time was running out. If he was going to find her his own way, tonight would be his last chance to do it.

Of course, his plan was incredibly desperate and entirely theoretical. Iroh had read some accounts of people using the Spirit World to find lost loved ones, but they had all been masters searching from a highly-regarded spiritually active zone, like the Northern Water Tribe's spirit oasis. Iroh was an inexperienced prince in a random patch of the woods. To be fair, he would rather try this in a forest than in some Fire Sage temple; any spirituality in those places had likely withered away over decades of corruption. Plus, if the spirits actually had taken his wife, any residue from that activity would ease his venture.

Fortunately, he did have one thing that the accounts of spirit-searchers always recommended: a token of his lost person to guide him to her. He pulled the white lotus tile out of his pocket and nestled it in the palm of his hand, feeling its cool, round weight. Ursa had left it behind when she'd stormed out from their fight, and as she had sharply reminded him during said argument, it was the one of the few possessions that truly belonged to her instead of the royal family.

Feeling somewhere between hopeless and ridiculous, Iroh turned and sat cross-legged at the base of the marked tree. He lay the tile on the ground in front of him and focused on it as he began to breathe slowly and evenly, feeling his vision begin to blur into the heat and light of energy pathways.

If his wife could be found this way, he was going to do it. Sorting through everything else - the fight, the regret, the confusing swirl of emotions in his chest - could come later.

Azulon III, cont.

Where did Ursa go during that fateful first Autumn Festival? The Royal Family's official records settled on a very human account of events - the reasons for which will soon become clear - but the first couple days of her absence have always been murky in the details. In hindsight, with the aid of Ursa's honest testimony recorded here, it's clear she was swept into some part of the Spirit World. Iroh himself even suspected it at the time, although he wasn't proven correct until much later.

The Spirit World remains literally uncharted territory thanks to a century of war, further limited by the fact that very few humans are both educated enough and spiritual enough to explore it. Avatar Aang, raised as an Air Nomad, naturally led the charge in reconnecting our world with the spirits, but he was never interested in technicalities like mapping out the realm for future scholars. Perhaps his successor can aid in that effort, once she has completed her training.

But until we gain the expertise of an Avatar's guidance once more, I think we can tentatively regard these tunnels that captured Ursa as a 'location' within the Spirit World, as much as such things can exist. I believe that these tunnels, or whatever spirits guide its actions, are not particularly malicious or benevolent towards humans. They are a neutral place, seemingly with their own flow of time, but inexplicably drawn towards people who find themselves at a crossroads moment in the physical world. Perhaps a more spiritual person than I can dub them with a more appropriate name, but I've come to think of them as "The Tunnels of Turmoil" in my attempts to piece together this story.

What made Ursa's turmoil worthy of the tunnels' attention? I propose that part of it was the same thing that caught the Royal Family's attention to begin with: her lineage as the Avatar's granddaughter. But I also argue the influence of her family itself brought her to the Spirit World, trying to shape her destiny into something more. Indeed, if Ursa had remained separated from her family as Azulon I wished, she may have ended up a footnote in history: the woman who bore Fire Lord Iroh's mighty heirs. But returning to Hira'a so early on in her marriage opened the window of opportunity for her to carry forward her family's legacy as a Fire Princess, and it's evident that The Tunnels of Turmoil lived up to their name by pushing her further along that path.

With a little help from her family, of course.

The unchanging blue light made it difficult to judge how long it had been. Ursa's only clues of time passing came from her own body, through the dryness of her mouth and the growing ache in her feet. She was really regretting not putting on appropriate shoes before storming out on Iroh. Her stomach was starting to growl, so it must have been a few hours by now. At least she knew she wasn't dead; she was pretty sure dead people wouldn't have to deal with hunger and sore feet.

There hadn't been any other visions since running into the older Iroh. That didn't stop questions about him from rattling around in her mind, though. Was he really the future of her Iroh? Why had he been clad in Earth Kingdom attire? Why had he called her…his love? He had gone so soft as he recognized her, transforming from a fearsome warrior to a tender husband in the blink of an eye. She wanted to stick to her belief that it had been some sort of trick, but she couldn't stop thinking about his thoughtful gaze and the scar she'd recognized him by. Any trickery that could mimic such specific details was more than she could handle.

The deep voice hadn't helped her much either. She had called out to it a few times in desperation, both in her mind and out loud, with no response beside Ursa and Come. Still, she couldn't shake the persistent feeling that she was being watched, but every time she worked up the courage to peer behind her, there was nobody in sight.

She wasn't sure if it would be better or worse to see someone at this point.

Her foot suddenly skidded on a stone that sent her sprawling, scraping up her hands as they broke her fall. She tried to get back on her feet only to wince as her ankle sharply protested. A sprain, better known as the last thing she needed right now. She sat with her back to the wall and pulled up her dress to massage the wounded joint, casting an angry glare at the pebble that had gotten in her way.

But… that wasn't a pebble, was it? It was unnaturally smooth and flat, almost like a large coin, except it wasn't reflecting any light. Ursa reached out towards it cautiously, and when nothing bad happened, picked it up to get a closer look. She squinted and blinked a few times to make sure the lighting wasn't making her see things, but there was no mistaking it. It was a white lotus tile.

So, this was the second weird vision she was going to have down here. She was certain she had left her white lotus tile in her tent - she distinctly recalled brandishing it while yelling at Iroh that the contents of her mother's jewelry box and a stuffed toy were all that were truly hers now, all that was left that hadn't been molded and polished by the royal family's will after which she'd slammed the tile down in a huff - but now it sat nestled in the palm of her hand as if it had been accompanying her the whole time.

It felt strangely solid for a vision.

As soon as she had that thought, it began to flicker and glow faintly orange. She jerked her hand away from it in a shock, half-expecting an explosion, but it simply clattered to the ground. The contrast of the orange against the blue-ish light of the tunnel reminded her of the older Iroh's fire, and she quickly looked up to see if he was in the vicinity.

He wasn't, but another flicker of orange light was, just a few feet away. Figuring a relatively harmless vision was better than continuing to walk endlessly, Ursa grit her teeth and crawled towards it. A second white lotus tile lay on the ground, virtually indistinguishable from the first one that had tripped her. Yet another orange light shimmered into existence, the three tiles forming a trail.

This was definitely new. Her heart leapt into her throat; maybe her mother was somehow reaching out to her. She'd never known her mother to have any talents such as this, but until a few months ago, she hadn't known she was related to the Avatar either.

That is promising.

The voice was now stronger than ever, and it sounded like it was coming from right behind her. She whirled around, drawing her legs in front of herself protectively. A tall silhouette looming over her was just barely distinguishable within the dim blue lighting.

"Who are you?" she asked, proud of herself for not letting her voice shake. "Did you bring me here?"

Dear child, I'm so sorry for what's happened to you. I thought I was protecting you by hiding away my family. But destiny is a funny thing that can rarely be understood, not even by me, let alone the royals.

Details were starting to become visible. The tall figure was dressed in red robes, and sported long white hair along with a matching beard.

"Who are you?" she repeated a bit more quietly, attempting to get to her feet while bracing against the wall. As she rose to her feet, she caught sight of the headpiece in the man's topknot: the same headpiece her mother had given to Iroh, the one she'd said had belonged to Avatar Roku.

She found a shaky stance, panting from both effort and shock, as her grandfather's face became clear in the dim blue light.

"Prophecies are not always what they seem," he told her, examining her with wise golden eyes. "Princes are still growing into the kings they will one day be. I am just this now, and the prince I knew is long gone. But you…maybe you and your prince will be different. Maybe you can fix what we broke."

Ursa wondered if all grandfathers were this cryptic. If her mother was to be believed, the prince Roku had known was Fire Lord Sozin, whom he'd attacked. If he wanted Ursa and 'her prince' to be different, to fix things…did he mean for her and Iroh to repair the bond between their families? She knew she should ask - there were so many things to ask, really - but it felt inappropriate to demand answers from this very old, very tall spirit. Had he been this tall in life too?

"You sound so much like your grandmother, do you know that?" Roku said with a sad smile, unfazed by her lack of response. "My beloved Ta Min. I suppose you never met her."

Ursa managed to shake her head. She hadn't even known Ta Min was her grandmother's name.

"She was a lovely singer. Perhaps she would've been a good actress too, if she'd been able to try such things."

"You know I'm an actress?" she asked, caught off-guard by the revelation.

"I know a great many things about you, dear granddaughter, and yet none of it will ever make up for not being able to know you or your mother properly."

Her mother had always said her parents had passed away in a volcano eruption when she was very young, refusing to speak of them because of the tragedy. Ursa wondered if that was the truth, but she didn't dare ask the Avatar how he'd died.

A flare of orange light from behind her drew her attention away from the conversation and the lump in her throat. An entire trail of glowing white lotus tiles had appeared.

"Go," Roku instructed. "I can't speak to you like this much longer. Remember our family, dear. Keep an open heart, and friends will find you."

"How?" she asked, whipping back around in hope of more information. But the light was washing Roku away: he was fading into a silhouette, the grandfather she'd never known vanishing once more. "Wait, please wait! Avatar Roku - Grandpa - what do I do?"

Remember our family.

"Will you talk to me again? Will you tell me how to fix it?"

I can try, if you keep an open heart.

With that non-answer, the sensation of being watched vanished, leaving Ursa feeling both lost and found.

Avatar Roku had spoken to her. Her dead grandfather's spirit had somehow materialized and shown her the way out of here. More than that, he'd given her a new purpose; a new destiny. It wasn't one she would've chosen for herself, but if he believed it was her 'destiny' to atone for his betrayal and restore her family's honor as Princess and future Fire Lady Ursa at Iroh's side, so be it.

She set her jaw, turned towards the trail of tiles, and began hobbling along their path.

A/N: Ursa really doesn't look like Ta Min at all. Like I spent a good five minutes staring at Ta Min and Ursa's photos side by side to pick a feature Ursa inherited from her grandmother but Roku's genetics are just strong af I guess.

~Bobbi