(A/N)- Jumping right into Season Two with a mostly canon offering. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Haaaaaaa, nope.
Nightmares
The Southern Air Temple grounds were shrouded with mist. Clouds wheeled overhead, pushed by fast-moving wind.
It seemed... too quiet.
The rushing wind was the only sound in her ears, save her the scuff of her footsteps. Angka stepped across the courtyard, wandering.
She came to a curtain partition and pushed it aside gently.
Inside was a little room she thought she recognized, but it looked too empty, only a small sitting figure in orange at the far end. Too short to be an elder, had to be one of the junior trainee monks.
She was about to call out to the boy, when he turned his head and Angka startled to realize it was her. There was an alien coldness in her expression and her eyes and tattoos were glowing bright white.
No sooner had the other her laid eyes upon her than there was a gust of wind as if from nowhere, bellowing around her and almost blowing her over.
Angka cast eyes around once she was able to lower her hands. In a different corner she saw herself again, her back facing the curtain, a tight ball of moving air whipping around her. Sokki and Katar were huddled on the floor somewhere near her feet.
There was a clap, a bright flash, a blast of air that knocked her over.
The floor she landed on was not gray stone, but alabaster marble, illuminated crimson under lanterns.
The door to the inner chamber of the Fire Sages temple was before her, and unwound of its own volition, cracking open to reveal white light within.
It was her inside again. The angry her, the one locked in the Avatar State, wrapped in a ball of glowing swirling power.
Her heart gave flickering thumps of fear.
Her face looked so angry. Like a glowering statue.
It... it didn't look like her.
Her Avatar State mirror glared at her, then suddenly pinwheeled her arms, chopping with a hard slicing motion.
The floor split apart like paper and the ground disappeared from underneath her. Her chest clenched breathlessly as she fell into the black but a moment later she landed hard on a steel surface.
Grimacing as her tailbone stung, she looked up.
She recognized the top deck of a Fire Nation navy ship.
And then she saw her again, stalking forward calmly, her movements echoed by the fish-like creature formed around her, with her as the heart, suspended in water and air, the blue Spirit light of La in every crevice of the water-made body
Angka could feel the crackling anger in the koi monster, the hatred that moved through her mirror's body as if she was nothing but a hollow shell, a vessel for the power and wrath contained within.
She only had time to pinch her eyes fearfully as she looked up at the hulking kaiju. Her Avatar State self repeated the horrible chopping motion from before and white light exploded across her vision, her chest lancing with pain—
-ATLA-
She sat up with a gasp.
Her skin pinpricked with sweat and goosebumps, as the panic gripping her slowly dimmed away, eased by the gentle rock back and forth of the boat they were on.
The fur hammock tilted beneath her, and the moonlight fell into the ship's hold from the latter leading up to the deck.
It was quiet, but a warm quiet. A soothing quiet. Safe feeling, instead of eerie and abandoned.
Angka mashed hands over her face, flashing images from her nightmare playing before her eyes, fresh in her memory.
Her body already felt too agitated to relax and lay back down.
A bit frustrated, she left the softness of the hammock and set foot upon the ladder.
-ATLA-
Katar found her standing at the starboard railing moments later, having alerted to her leaving her bed and growing concerned after she ignored his call.
She was staring out towards the darkened sea, arms leaned on the wood.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
"No. Just a nightmare," she said. She continued even though she claimed she didn't want to talk about it, and Katar was grateful she wasn't shuttering, wasn't shutting him out. "I was in the Avatar State, but I was outside my body watching myself," she explained. Her eyes were somber. The breeze flitted through her clothes and hair. "It was scary," she said quietly. "I was scary."
Katar breathed in carefully. The sight of Agnka enveloped in the spirit koi had been awful, in both senses of the word. Inspiring awe and amazement. And frightening.
He reached to put a hand on her shoulder.
"Anything I can do?" he asked. "Do you want to try to go back to sleep?"
She shook her head. "Nah. I'm okay." She turned around, resting the small of her back on the rail. "You can go back inside though. I'm just going to be getting some fresh air."
"Okay," he said, starting to draw back. "If you're sure."
"I'm sure."
-ATLA-
He left shortly, leaving her alone with her thoughts again. Angka sighed and swiveled back towards the ocean, looking at the boat slicing through the surf below her.
She picked at the root of what was bothering her the most.
When she'd tried to fight off the Fire Nation siege with her own power, she grew quickly exhausted and overwhelmed with the effort. She had only mastered one element, was nowhere close to being a full Avatar. And time was running out for her to become one. The daunting task of learning three new bending disciplines, faster than any Avatar before her had done, loomed like a spire of rock her ship was heading straight forward to crash into.
She had only managed to save the Northern Water Tribe by bonding with the Ocean Spirit while in the Avatar State.
She was pretty sure she wouldn't have a powerful spirit's help when it was time for her to face the Fire Lord.
She was in over her head and so far behind where she needed to be, a hundred years late to a war that should never have had a chance to start.
She was drowning without a life raft in sight.
Sighing heavily again, she mused on the journey ahead dismally. She hoped with all his experience it would be an easy and simple matter for Bumi to help her master earthbending.
...Then again her old friend never made things simple.
Maybe she would go back to bed. There was no use standing out here and worrying over everything.
She slipped back down into the hold, curling back up into the hammock silently.
She drifted off into a light sleep moments later.
(A/N)- We foreshadow Angka's motivation for subjecting herself to General Fong's efforts as well as scrape a little on the surface of her major character insecurities of this season (and beyond). Meanwhile Katar is still best caring not-boyfriend ever.
Short and sweet, but setting up some foundational steps for later. Hope you enjoyed it!