The sun bore down relentlessly on Tanya's shoulders
The ostrich horse beneath her croaked pleading as it plodded, step after step, along the dry, dusty roads of the Earth Kingdom. Tanya pitied the creature, but she had little water to spare herself. What remained needed to be carefully rationed until they made it to the next source of water, and those were growing increasingly sparse as they drew closer to the Si Wong Desert. She had more than enough money to stock up on supplies the moment she reached the next town, but her need to travel as quickly as possible forced her to carry only the bare essentials.
For what had to be at least the nine-hundredth time in the past few days, Tanya cursed Azula under her breath. Their friendship was never going to recover from this. As mature as she considered herself to be, even Tanya had her limits; and being abandoned in the middle of the Earth Kingdom, where the families of the earth soldiers who'd died fighting her would go ballistic over rumours of a golden-haired woman, was past them. She'd been accosted no less than four times already by mercenaries and vengeful siblings, and though she'd dispatched them all quickly and effortlessly so far, it would only take one getting lucky and catching her while she was sleeping to end her life. How ironic that she'd spent a decade looking for a way to escape the dangers of military service, only to immediately be dropped in an even more dangerous situation the moment she was kick out
"I need to find a way to dye my hair." Tanya murmured to herself. Damn Being X for giving her such a distinctive feature. Soaking it in mud didn't hide it for long, as the sun soon crumbled the dirt and revealed the telltale flecks of gold hidden beneath. It was too bad that, in none of the three lifetimes she'd lived, Tanya had never learned a method for making proper hair dye before. She knew the product existed, but was expensive enough that only the nobility could afford it, and she doubted she'd find any of the upper-class this close to the desert.
As the hours passed and the sun sunk on the horizon, dry mud and dust gave way to sand. Before long the moon was creeping up into a rapidly darkening sky, and the terrain had turned into a shallow carpet of sand with long strands of grass swaying in the wind. The ostrich horse was close to collapse, but Tanya patted its neck encouragingly and bid in onwards to the silhouette of the town appearing in the distance. Misty Palm Oasis was their stop for the night, and from what she'd heard the natural ice spring the town was built around would be the perfect reward for her mount's hard work.
With night setting in, the streets of Misty Palms were growing emptier as Tanya passed through the gates. She pulled a hood low over her head, covering her distinctive hair, and drove her steed to the town centre. Soon she came across a bar with a full trough of water set out in front of it, half-melted ice glimmering just under the surface, and dismounted; letting the ostrich horse lunge greedily over to the trough while she tied its saddle to a nearby hitching post.
She was less than a day away now from Wan Shi Tong's library, and her own throat was scratchy with thirst. Going into as crowded a place as a bar wasn't a great idea for someone trying to stay incognito, but as an experienced manager she also recognised the importance of keeping her own morale up, and treating herself to a little luxury now and again would be worth the risk. Her decision made, Tanya pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The bar was clearly a bit of a rough place, with a few patrons who looked like the sort that dabbled in less than legal work. It was not the sort of establishment that Tanya had visited in any lifetime, but there was no reason to be worried. A business was still a business, regardless of its clientele, and she doubted that the owner would stand for anyone starting trouble with a paying customer like her. She walked up to the bar, watching with a small grin as the bartender used a set of wicked looking swords to carve a block of ice into a bowl, chop a variety of fruits, and serve it to a customer with a flourish. Now that was the sort of showmanship she could appreciate! Talk about a unique selling point!
"I'll have one of those as well please." She stated in a low voice, sliding a few coins across the counter.
The bartender's eyes flitted to her, and narrowed slightly at the hood clearly worn to hide her face, but he was familiar enough with such customers to not comment on it. Wordlessly he scooped up the coins, and Tanya sank into a barstool as he began preparing her drink.
"It's rare to see a girl so young travelling alone."
Tanya suppressed a sigh as a man sat down in the stool next to her, his body facing towards her. He was a muscular man; his skin covered in tattoos, and with at least a dozen sheathed knives strapped in various places across his leather clothing. Some sort of thug no doubt. Tanya ignored him, and hoped her silence would make it clear she wasn't interested in conversation.
"You should be careful." The man continued, obviously not getting the hint. "There are dangerous people on the roads these days."
Tanya continued to ignore him.
The man leaned in a little closer. "You know, word has it that there's one especially dangerous creature somewhere around these parts. A demon from the Fire Nation."
Tanya tensed.
"They say she has the appearance of a little girl, but that her hair is spun from golden fire. That the Fire Lord himself unleashes her only for the bloodiest battles, because if there aren't enough soldiers for her to eat the hearts of, she'll start hunting civilians until her hunger is satisfied." The man pressed on, one thumb gently rubbing over the pommel of a sheathed machete. "When she led the invasion of the north pole, she slaughtered so many people that the moon itself bled. These past few days there have been reports of brutal killings: young men and women left half-charred by the side of the road." His hand gripped the handle of his knife. "You shouldn't be travelling alone girl, for your own… protection!"
As he said that his hand shot out, tugging back the side of her hood to reveal the strands of gold concealed behind. Not a moment later a pained cry burst from his lips as Tanya grasped the fingers of the offending hand and yanked them all the way back, breaking the bones with a sickening snap. The machete slipped free of its sheath, but by then it was already too late. Tanya was a blur of movement, striking the stomach, kidneys and throat with crippling precision. The man dropped to his knees, and without mercy Tanya grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into the bar counter three times over, the thud of bone against wood ringing out like a bell across the now silent bar, until the man's face was a mess of red.
Tanya let go, allowing the man to flop limply into unconsciousness on the floor, and looked around challenging. All eyes in the bar were on her, but she could see the fear in them. They wouldn't mess with her. She reached down, unstrapping a large waterskin attached to the man's belt, and flung it across her shoulder, then looked back at the bartender.
"I'll take that to go please." She declared, nodding at the drink he had prepared.
The bartender nodded nervously, and held out the drink for her to take. Calmly Tanya took it, helped herself to a sip, and then strode away towards the door.
Resting here for the night wasn't going to be an option any more. It seemed like she had no choice but to press onwards to the library.
The sun had risen on Misty Palm Oasis when Aang and his friends arrived.
"I don't see anything wrong with having one of those fruity beverages while we plan our strategy." Sokka reasoned, gesturing over to where the bartender was carving an ice bowl for a thin, scholarly looking gentleman. "Excuse me!"
He ran up to the bar, with Aang, Katara, Toph and Blue following behind. As they approached the scholar stood up but tripped on the foot of his stool, accidentally bumping into Aang and spilling his drink on him. He looked at Aang in alarm, an apology forming on his lips, but Aang waved it off with a smile. "No worries, I clean up easy."
A quick blast of air later and the drink was flung off him. The scholar gasped in surprise. "You're a living relic!"
Aang shrugged. "Thanks, I try."
"An air nomad, right in front of me! I'm Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University…"
The scholar began fussing around Aang, asking him questions about air nomad culture, and Toph quickly lost interest. Her earth senses wandered out across the bar, and as the vibrations came back to her she noticed something unusual. There was a crowd of people in the corner of the bar surrounding a man who, if her sonic sense was reading the structure of his skull correctly, looked like he'd tried to catch a granite block with his face. Was he in trouble? She walked over to investigate, and her ears picked up the story the man was rasping out through his swollen lips.
"-… and tried ta' claw muh' stomach open. I tried ta' fend her off, but she gra'ed muh' hair and smashed muh' head again' the bar ova n' ova. Ev'rythin' went black after tha'."
Oh, it was just some guy complaining about getting his ass kicked by a girl. Toph turned back around to leave.
"Damn dude. And did she really have golden hair, like people say?"
Toph froze.
The smash-faced man nodded. "Yeah. No doubt 'bout it."
"So the rumours about the murders must really be true then. The Moon Slayer is here. What do you think she's doing out in the desert?"
"Excuse me." Toph popped up among the crowd as if she belonged there. "Are you talking about Admiral Tanya? She's here?"
One of the women next to her gave her a funny look, but nodded. "Yeah. Rolled into town last night, attacked Ryan outta nowhere, then took his water and headed out into the desert."
Toph grimaced. Great, the princess and the psychopath were on their trail again. "What about the girls with her?"
The smashed-face man, Ryan, shook his head. "No'ody was wit' 'er."
The princess and her entourage weren't with her? Curious? Why would they split up? And why would Tanya be interested in going to the desert? Come to think of it, she couldn't be pursuing Aang since she passed by here last night, while they'd only decided to come here on a whim this morning. There was no way she could have predicted they'd be here.
Toph returned to the group in time to overhear Zei finish explaining about a place called Wan Shi Tong's Library, and Sokka's declaration that he wanted to spend his vacation time going there.
"I hate to burst your bubble, but we may have a problem." Toph announced, drawing all eyes to her. "Tanya passed through here, alone, last night, and headed out into the desert."
Through her feet she could feel the effect her words had. Aang, Sokka and Blue all tensed, their heartbeats speeding up a step. They were still afraid of her. Katara stood up straighter too, all good humour drying out of her face, though until the others her heart remained steady and calm.
"Why do you think she's here?" Aang asked nervously.
Toph shrugged. "Who can say? The desert is a big place though; what are the chances we'll end up bumping into here out there?"
Tanya looked down at the sketch of the grandiose, cathedral-like building that Zhao had drawn in his notebook. Then she looked up, her eyes settling once again on the humble tower sticking haphazardly out of the sand.
"Well this is underwhelming." She muttered to herself.
If she wasn't mistaken then the rather pathetic tower before her was merely the top of one of the true library's spires. The rest of the building appeared to have sunk into the desert, but with luck the inside wouldn't be flooded with sand, so if she could find a way to get in from here she could work her way down to the library proper. With her course of action decided, Tanya hitched her ostrich horse up to a crack in the tower walls and began circling around the perimeter in search of an entrance. It wasn't long until she came across a window that appeared to have been boarded up, and a quick flaming fist shattered the obstructing wood and gave way to a long, dusty corridor that trailed off into thick shadows.
Never one to fear the dark, Tanya conjured a small candle flame in her palm to light her way and ventured into the gloom. She followed the corridor as it descended into a flight of stairs, taking her deeper down into the depths of the sunken library. The further down she went, the more space opened up around her; narrow walls giving way to wide, imposing bookcases filled to bursting with ancient scrolls and tomes. It wasn't long before she found herself within a vast hall large enough to fit an entire town in, with the staircase spiralling so far down the darkness cloaked the bottom, and doorways dotted along the walls of bookcases that led into specialised rooms.
"Human!"
Tanya bit back a sigh as a voice; deep and polite, yet underscored by a clear tone of anger, rang out through the hall, accompanied by the sound of flapping wings. She turned in its direction, slipping gracefully into a bow as a huge mass of feathers landed almost silently before her.
"Wan Shi Tong." Tanya intoned in greeting. Zhao had included a sketch of the great librarian in his journal. The idea of a giant talking bird owning a library had seemed ludicrous to Tanya at first, but after confirming that the moon did indeed chill out in the guise of a fish, she had concluded that spirits must find some amusement in adopting ridiculous forms.
Tanya did not like meddling spirits at the best of times, and this one seemed worse to her than most. If she had ownership of such a wealth of knowledge, she would have without a doubt started charging for entry! By controlling what knowledge was released to the public she could have guided the world towards a brighter future, all the while making a ton of cash! Alas, this self-proclaimed spirit of wisdom couldn't even see the beauty of the free market, and hoarded its collection away like a miser. Yet every shrewd businessman knew that climbing the corporate ladder required you to rub shoulders with unpleasant superiors at times, and Tanya had always been a shrewd businessman at heart. So she bowed, painted a polite smile on her face, and showed a facade of respect to the creature that did not truly deserve it.
The great owl looked down on her as if eyeing up a diseased rodent too repulsive to eat. "Begone! Humans are no longer welcome here! Thieves and liars, the lot of you."
Tanya held back the impulse to snap back angry against the slight to humanity. Instead she held her breathing to an even pace, and calmly dug one hand into her pocket. "I do not come here to rob you, great spirit. In fact I came to right an old wrong." Her hand came out, clutching the scroll of the moon and ocean spirits that Zhao had stolen long ago, and offered it to the owl.
"The Chronicle of Tui and La." Wan Shi Tong breathed, plucking the scroll reverently from Tanya's hand and carefully examining it. "Stolen long ago by a most borish intruder." He blinked, looking back at Tanya with suspicion. "Am I to believe it coincidence that this scroll would return to me so soon after Tui was nearly murdered? Do not think of lying to me, human!"
"Of course not." Tanya replied, bringing her most innocent smile to her face. "I killed the man who stole it."
Wan Shi Tong stared at her for a moment, trying to detect some hint of a lie, but Tanya wasn't lying. She had killed Zhao. Of course if the owl mistakenly inferred from that statement that Zhao had been the one trying to kill the moon spirit, and that she had been trying to stop him, well that was his own fault for making assumptions.
"-… I see." Wan Shi Tong finally huffed, the aggression draining out of his body. "Then it would seem that I am, lamentably, in your debt. Very well, I shall allow you to access my library this once. I suppose you sun warriors aren't quite so bad as the rest of the mortals."
"Thank you, I-…" Tanya stopped, her attention suddenly caught by the final part of the sentence. "Sun warriors? Is that an old name for people from the Fire Nation?"
"No, they are their own group within the Fire Nation. I don't believe I'd heard of them dying out." The owl tilted his head, giving her a curious look. "Was I mistaken? Apologies. Your features bear a resemblance to them in my eyes. But then again I wasn't aware that humans could have hair the colour of yours either, so perhaps you a simply a freak of nature."
A pair of foxes approached Wan Shi Tong, who handed Zhao's scroll to one, then pointed at the other. "This young lady will be our guest. Guide her to where she wishes to go, and make sure she doesn't get any ideas about taking something that doesn't belong to her."
With a flap of his wings Wan Shi Tong took to the air again, disappearing with surprising stealth for one so large into the gloom. Tanya narrowed her eyes in a silent, hateful glare at the retreating bird, then looked back to the foxes, where the one instructed to guide her was waiting patiently. "Take me to where you keep records of the history of the Avatar." She commanded authoritatively.
The fox nodded, then without a word trotted off further down into the library at an easy to follow pace. Tanya shot a quick glance back up to make sure Wan Shi Tong wasn't watching, then followed after the fox.
The further down they went, the older and dustier the scrolls lining the walls became. The air grew ever more musty, the smell of rotting paper turning from an unpleasant odour to a cloying stench, until finally the fox veered off into one of the specialist rooms. Tanya followed it in, and raised an eyebrow in impressed surprise at the sight within.
The room was one huge, round dome twice as big as a football field. Directly in front of her stood a stone statue of a tall, regal old man dressed in fire nations robes of a style that had gone out of fashion a hundred years ago, with a long yet tamed beard stretching down from his chin to his naval. He looked similar to the paintings of Avatar Rokku Tanya had seen, though the paintings had always made Rokku seem monstrous and cruel, like an evil wizard from a bad fantasy movie. Perhaps that was the result of fire nation propaganda hard at work?
Next to him was a stone bookshelf, within which rested a number of scrolls. Tanya picked one up and thumbed through it to a random section.
"…- Rokku knelt down beside the crying student, and placed a hand upon her shoulder comfortingly. "To fail is to be human." He told her, wiping away her tears. "I too failed many times. Yet failing is a natural part of learning, for we may fail a thousand times over, yet need only to succeed once. The only true failure comes when we no longer have the will to stand back up and try again…"
Tanya closed the scroll, uninterested in reading any further. All she'd needed was confirmation that this section was indeed dedicated to Rokku. It was then that she noticed the line carved into the floor that started at the base of Rokku's bookcase, and curved gently nearly in parallel with the wall towards another bookcase, this one with the statue of a woman holding fans. Tanya wandered over to it, again took a random scroll, and open it somewhere in the middle.
""Mercy!" The pirate screamed, blood oozing from the hole in his gut. "Have mercy on us!"
Kyoshi glared down at the mewling worm with disdain, raising her hand in preparation to strike. "The only mercy you shall find is in the cold embrace of death-…"
Tanya slapped the scroll closed with a wince. Yikes! It sounded like the current Avatar's disposition towards avoiding direct conflict wasn't something his predecessors had all shared. Still she recognised the name Kyoshi in passing as the Avatar who had come before Rokku. Given that pattern, then she could deduce that the line on the floor was a spiral, and each successive Avatar was placed further and further along it. By that logic then the very first Avatar should be at the middle of the spiral, and therefore in the centre of the room.
With that hypothesis in mind, Tanya made a beeline towards the middle. The further she walked, the more she began to realise just how big the dome was. The amount of statues must have pushed well into the thousands. Just how many Avatars had there been throughout this world's history? Would she soon find a caveman Avatar? Perhaps, if evolution was a thing in this world, she'd find an Avatar that had been an entirely different species altogether?
Eventually that question was answered. When she arrived at the centre of the dome, Tanya was greeted by the sight of one final statue. Unlike the others, this statue had been so worn down by the slow ravages of time that she could no longer make out its features. It's face had been sanded down to an almost flat plate, and both of its arms had fallen off, but from the shape of the torso she assumed it had been made in the image of a man. There was no bookcase next to this statue, but resting between its feet was a single, undecorated scroll.
Gingerly, Tanya picked up the scroll. It was beyond ancient, the paper so old that it felt like even the slightest bit of pressure would cause it to flake and crumble apart. Ever so gently Tanya peeled the scroll open, and began to read.
"I feel my body growing older, yet still the duty I swore to uphold remains unfulfilled. Indeed, I have come to realise that it never will be; for as long as mankind continues to learn and explore, they will always need a bridge between them and the spirits to maintain the balance.
I might have despaired at such a realisation when I was a younger man, but no longer. Why despair over what can never be controlled? I know that one day soon I shall be called on an adventure again that will be my last, and I have made peace with that. Yet as I feel the dusk closing on my life I wonder not about death itself, but rather what will come after? My greatest adventure has changed me down to my soul, and I cannot help but wonder what that shall mean for my reincarnation. Will they be ordinary? Will they be like me? Or will they perhaps be something different altogether?
And so I leave behind this record of my story in the hopes that, should my future incarnation ever find themselves in need of answers, they might one day find them in this. I wouldn't blame you if my tale sounds unbelievable; I doubt I would have believed it either had I not lived it, yet I assure you that every word I write is the truth.
My name is Wan, though in recent days people have begun to call me by another name: The Avatar. I am the man who first mastered all four elements. I am the man who separated the mortal world from the spirit world. And my story began on the day that I met my oldest and greatest friend: a spirit by the name of Raava…"
"We have a large military force currently laying siege to the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. I can make the preparations, and all you'd need to do is catch him at just the right moment."
Zuko gazed out across the empty sea of sand as Appa soared lazily above it, Mai's words from their last encounter echoing in his head. This was exactly what he'd wanted, wasn't it? One more golden opportunity to capture The Avatar and restore his honour. He'd thought all had been lost after he'd lost his ship and been declared a fugitive, but the spirits seemed to have granted him one last chance. He should have been elated.
But he wasn't. Just thinking about it made some small part of his stomach turn uncomfortably.
Perhaps it was because he'd had to resort to such guile to achieve it? When he'd first set out he'd imagined that he would capture The Avatar, an old yet powerful master of the elements, in glorious single combat, and march back home with him in chains for the whole nation to see. Nobody would have doubted that he'd earned the right to restore his honour.
What was his plan now? To hide behind a face, betray the trust of a boy younger than him when his back was turned, and hand him over to some faceless soldiers? Were those the actions of an honourable man?
"Don't be a fool." A voice that sounded suspiciously like Azula's whispered in his ear. "The Avatar is a threat to our nation. You have the means to eliminate that threat, and in doing so serve our nation. The means are irrelevant."
Were the means irrelevant? Uncle had told him once that life would teach you more walking its roads than you would find at your destination. What kind of example would he set for the children of the future if, when they told his story, they said that he lied, tricked and betrayed his way to victory?
"The needs of the nation triumph over the needs of the individual." Echoed the voice of his father. "If one must be sacrificed so that a thousand may prosper, so be it. Progress must not be stifled by misplaced compassion for those left behind, else how will the nation ever move forward?"
Behind his mask, Zuko grimaced. What nonsense was he thinking? Putting the wellbeing of the citizens of the fire nation in jeopardy because he didn't want to get his hands dirty. Pure arrogance. He had to be better than that. The Avatar had to be captured, there was no debate to be had.
"Hey, look over there! A tower!" Sokka cried out, pointing into the distance where some sort of building was poking out of sand. The others rushed to his side to look, but Zuko held back, observing them from behind.
His moment to strike would come. For now he just needed to be patient.
As she read the final words, Tanya gently closed Wan's scroll. She placed it back carefully at the statues feet, make sure not to tear the ancient parchment, and then took a step back, staring silently at the statue of the first Avatar for a few seconds.
Then she began to smile.
The fox spirit guiding her took a cautious step back, alarmed by the growing aura of danger that began to seep from the blonde haired child. Tanya's smile stretched up in a wide, vicious grin that bared her teeth like a snarl, and seemed to shrink her eyes into focus pinpoints of malicious glee. It was the smile of a predator: of a hunting dog that had cornered its prey in a burrow and could take its sweet time closing in for the kill. A grin that spoke of madness, of violence and delight all rolled into one.
Yet Tanya did not notice, so wrapped up as she was in her thoughts. This was it! The origin of The Avatar! The secret of his creation, and the method of his unmaking! The knowledge she needed to defeat a foe that nobody else had ever been able to for countless thousands of years!
If Wan's story was to be believed (which she did, for what reason would he have had to lie) then The Avatar was essentially possessed; albeit in a more permanent fashion due to this "harmonic convergence" event. The merging of energies between him and the spirit known as Raava created the phenomenon known as the Avatar state. Now that she knew the context behind it, Tanya couldn't help but consider the similarities between the Avatar state and the moments in her previous life where Being X had pressured her into praying to him. In both cases a human contacted a spiritual being, and received a well of cosmic energy, characterised by glowing eyes, that elevated their existing supernatural abilities to unmatched heights. That raised some rather uncomfortable questions about whether Being X had been possessing her in some capacity. Had he been in her head the whole time, speaking to her via hallucinations on those few rare occasions? Or maybe he'd been hiding in her unique operation orb?
But those were questions for another day. For now Tanya turned her mind back to the more pressing question: how this knowledge could be leveraged against the Avatar. The two most obvious answers that popped into her head were to either separate the Avatar from Raava, thus weakening him back down to mortal levels, or to attempt to fuse herself with another spirit, such as the equally powerful Vaatu, to elevate her own power to match his. Yet it barely took a moment for Tanya to dismiss both options. The flaw in both these options was that they required this harmonic convergence event to work. Tanya had no idea when the next one would be, but Wan's story made it clear that this was an event that only came along once in a thousand years. The chances of it happening again before Sozin's Comet passed were minuscule. Besides, the idea of permanently bonding oneself to one of those arrogant, self-centred spirits for all eternity sounded awful. Vaatu especially. Why would any human want to merge with a spirit that hates humanity? It was counterproductive.
After a little more thought a third option dawned on Tanya, which had a lot more potential. Wan's story had explained that although his fusion with Raava was responsible for creating the Avatar State, it wasn't actually the reason why the Avatar could bend all four elements. Sure Raava had been able to act like a carrier bag for keeping the elements in, but Wan had actually received the ability to bend each element from some kind of huge lion turtle animals. Wan's story claimed that the power to bend elements wasn't a hereditary trait that could be passed from parent to child, as was commonly believed, but was some kind of spark that could be actively implanted or removed from a host. The big question in all of this was if the lion turtles were the only creatures capable of learning this technique, or could humans learn it as well? She'd never heard of anyone attempting such a thing, but then again nobody had any reason to believe it would be possible, or any clue on where to start.
If it was possible to learn a technique that transferred the spark of bending from one host to another, then that gave her a way of permanently disarming the Avatar. Rather than try to capture or kill him during each encounter, which had proven time and time again to be an unexpectedly difficult task, all she'd have to do was touch him long enough to snatch away a spark of bending from him. Even if she couldn't use them herself, each successful steal would permanently weaken the Avatar in the present and in all future reincarnations. Steal all four, and the Avatar state would have no abilities left to empower. He'd be like a regular human!
Furthermore, such a technique would guarantee her a position of privilege second only to The Firelord himself in the world that would be made after the Fire Nation won the war. She could take away the ability to bend from those who rebelled, and give them to those who were loyal to the new regime. Heck, Ozai could even decree that bending abilities only be given to soldiers, builders, and those who'd actually studied the skills needed to use them to their full potential, rather than leaving them in the hands of those born with it but too lazy to master the bending arts. Bending would become an asset; a commodity; a resource, and as the only one capable of transferring it she'd be invaluable. The banker of bending abilities. Literally a power broker!
But of course, all this hinged on whether she could learn this power or not. The only way to answer that question was to seek out one of these lion turtle creatures. Tanya had no idea where to find them, or even if they were even still alive, but if anywhere in the world held an answer to that question it was Wan Shi Tong's library.
"Fox." Tanya called, turning to her guide. Was it just her, or was the animal a little further away than it had been a second ago? "Take me to where I can find books on lion turtles."
The fox nodded hastily, and turned around to lead her out of the room, almost seeming like it was in a hurry to get away. It must have noticed her excitement and realised how keen she was to find answers, and decided to waste no time taking her there. What a diligent little fellow. Wan Shi Tong might be an ass, but at least he had the sense to hire good employees.
Tanya followed the fox back out into the main hall, but stopped as a sound caught her ears. She looked up, straining to listen as the echoes of something far up above whispered down to her. It was too distorted to make out anything accurately, but from the different pitches and tones Tanya was pretty certain they were voices, and not Wan Shi Tong's. Had other guests arrived at the library? That was strange: Wan Shi Tong had seemed pretty set against letting humans in.
Suddenly the library began to shake, and Tanya's battle instincts switched to alert. Had a squad of earthbenders followed her here? Researching lion turtles would have to wait: if there was a problem going on upstairs it would be best to find out what.
Firelight lit up the dark library as Tanya took to the air, rocketing up the staircase like… well, a rocket. At first the roar of her own flames drowned out the echoes entirely, but as she climbed higher and higher she began to hear them again with increasing clarity. It almost sounded like combat. Was that damn owl trying to fight off intruders? If so then, galling as it was, she might have to team up with Wan Shi Tong to defeat them.
Something large yet unexpectedly light fluttered past her face. A feather? Yes, it was one of Wan Shi Tong's. That suggested that the great spirit was indeed in combat. Up in the distance she could see a large shadow moving around quickly, letting out echoing shrieks reminiscent of an owl's call, and Tanya increased the thrust to blast up the last stretch of the way besides Wan Shi Tong in a flash of light. Quickly her eyes darted over to the assailants, ready to assess who they were and the best way to take them apart.
Her stomach flipped at the sight of the all too familiar figures.
"Avatar!" She hissed, glaring daggers at the bold monk.
"Tanya?!" The Avatar gasped fearfully.
"Murderer." Katara scowled frostily.
"Ice bitch." Tanya sneered.
"Tanya!" Sokka gulped.
"Wang Fire!" Tanya spat back.
"Umm… no… Sokka…" Aang corrected.
"Humans!" Wang Shi Tong growled.
"Chirp." Momo chirped.
"…" The Blue Spirit looked between them all quizzically.
For a few seconds the various combatants stared each other down silently, waiting to see if the other would make a move.
"What are you doing here?" The Avatar demanded, clearly forcing himself to bring out some courage. He seemed like he'd become a little more willing to stand his ground since they'd last met. A side effect of earth bender training perhaps?
"This is a library. What do you think I came here for, a five course meal?" Tanya replied snarkily. "Obviously I came here to read."
"You gave us a hard time, but let her in!" Sokka cried disbelievingly, turning to Wan Shi Tong. "She's evil!"
"I returned a favour." The owl answered back. "She returned the only copy of the Tale of Tui and La in existence to my collection."
"Tui and La… The ocean and moon spirits!" Aang murmured.
Beside him, Katara's eyes lit up with devilish delight. A ball of dread settled deep in Tanya's gut as she realised what the waterbender was about to do. "Wai-…"
"So that's how she knew who the moon spirit was." Katar interrupted, looking at Wan Shi Tong but pointing at Tanya accusingly. "And did she also mention that she used that knowledge to try and imprison the moon spirit?"
Wan Shi Tong's whole body tensed, like a hissing cat about to attack. His neck twisted around to fix a furious stare at Tanya without the rest of his body moving. "You told me that you were the one who stopped that!" He seethed.
Tanya hovered back a little, feeling just a bit guilty. "Technically I only said that I-…"
"ENOUGH!" Wan Shi Tong roared, spreading his wings out to their full span in a furious sweep. "You humans! Unbelievable! Can not a single one of you resist the urge to lie with every breath you take?! All you ever do is come here to cheat me out of knowledge for your damnable wars!"
Tanya shot a quick, suspicious glance over to the Avatar's team. Wan Shi Tong didn't know the purposes that her research was for, and as she'd come across them already fighting that meant the Avatar had done something to upset the owl. That statement about knowledge used for wars must be aimed at them. What had The Avatar discovered here that would be useful against the Fire Nation?
"Well never again!" Wan Shi Tong continued, flapping his wings. Again the library began to shake. "No human shall ever set foot in my library again!"
It only took a moment for Tanya to comprehend the magnitude of the situation. The shaking was a result of Wan Shi Tong's attempts to bury the library completely, and with all of them inside it. Not willing to let a second go to waste, Tanya looked skyward and blasted off with all her might towards the beams of sunlight up above that revealed an exit. Let the Avatar waste time in battle with the spirit if he wanted, but she was getting the hell out of here!
Few beings in the world could match Tanya when it came to short-distance aerial speed, and the furious shrieks of Wan Shi Tong below her told Tanya that she had escaped his grasp. A few seconds later she burst through a window in the library's upper floor like an erupting volcano, thrust out into the bright and open sky of the empty desert above. She reversed her thrust, bleeding her rapid ascent until she was simply hovering in the air, and then gently guiding herself back down to a nearby sand dune.
It didn't take much longer for The Avatar's gang to come crashing clumsily out of the same exit, staggering away mere moments before the entire tower sank completely beneath the sand.
"Wait a minute…"
"Where's my ostrich horse?" Tanya realised, looking around in the hopes of seeing her steed meandering about somewhere nearby. Yet there was no sign of it. Had it been dragged down into the sand along with the tower?
"Where's Appa?" She heard the Avatar ask. Tanya looked over in his direction in time to see the blind girl hang her head in shame, and noticed the strange assortment of footprints in the sand around her. Understanding dawned slowly on her, and close behind it followed a rising tide of anger.
"You let someone steal my horse?!" She yelled, stomping down the dune towards the blind girl with one finger pointing at her accusingly. "Aren't you supposed to be a master earthbender?! How did you let that happen?!"
"The library started sinking, and then they suddenly came out of nowhere! I can't see so far in the sand!" Toph defended pleadingly. "I couldn't hold the tower up and fight them off at the same time! I had to choose!"
"Plus, y'know, she had no reason to protect your horse anyway." Sokka pointed out. "You're kind of our enemy."
"That's beside the point!" Tanya snapped, drawing close enough to throttle them if she got a half-decent lunge. "Now we're all stranded out here! Do you have any idea how far a walk it is to the nearest town on foot!"
It had taken nearly a day to get here on a mount, and an ostrich horse had a much longer stride than she did. They were looking at a day at least, perhaps even two, of trekking through the hotest, most inhospitable terrain on the planet! If they got lost it'd be fatal!
"Can't you fly back?" Sokka questioned?
Tanya scowled at him. "The jet thrust technique is designed for sharp, fast movements over a short time. It is far too energy intensive for sustained flight; I'd fall out of the sky before an hour." Her eyes flickered to the Avatar. "And I imagine the same goes for airbenders too, otherwise you wouldn't need to ride that ridiculous floating sack of hair everywhere."
"Don't you dare insult Appa!"
The Avatar raised his staff in a threatening gesture, clearly furious. It seemed he had a more emotional connection to his steed than she'd thought. Tanya's instincts responded to the perceived threat in an instant, snapping her into a battle ready stance, and not even an instant later Katara, Toph and the Blue Spirit followed suit, seeing her tension as a warning of incoming battle.
"Can't take a few harsh words?" Tanya ask with a saccharine smile.
"No more than the ass kickings you're about to take." Katara replied with a perfectly serious face.
For a few seconds the combatants stood still, eyeing each other with a mix of wariness and hate. On her side, Tanya's brain was urgently running through thoughts at a million miles an hour. It hadn't escaped her notice that she was hopelessly outnumbered, and despite her prodigious skill, the Avatar's companions had proven to be no slackers when it came to battle. The chances of her winning a straight fight were low, and an empty desert didn't offer much in the way of opportunities for turning the tables.
"Whoa whoa, take it easy!" Sokka called out, stepping out between the benders with his arms raised. Despite herself, the thought crossed Tanya's mind that it was a rather courageous display. "Let's all just calm down for a minute. None of us can afford to get injured in a place like this. It's in all our best interests to cool our heads."
He wasn't wrong. In the middle of a desert, even a sprained ankle would prove fatal. Any injury at all would slow people down and drain their energy, and with a day of walking beneath the hot sun ahead of them, speed and stamina were resources that none could afford to spend frivolously.
"He's right." She interjected quickly, spotting an opportunity to escape a hopeless battle. She forced her body against its instincts and stepped out of her fighting stance, not quite able to completely dissipate the tension in her muscles. "Though I hate to admit it, if we don't agree to a temporary ceasefire all we'll achieve is mutually assured destruction."
The Avatar's cronies hesitated, understandable considering their history. Eventually however common sense prevailed, and they reluctantly dropped their guards. "Fine." Katara gritted out. "As long as you don't try anything funny, we won't attack either."
"Please," Tanya scoffed, "I have better things to do with my life than lose it scrapping with a bunch of children."
"Oh really?" Katara replied catishly. "Given how long you've been chasing us for, I was starting to think you might be little obsessed."
Tanya clenched her fist. "Why you little-…"
"Easy, easy!" Sokka interrupted calmingly. "You go your way, we'll go ours."
The urge to snap at him bubbles up in her throat, but Tanya bit it down. Jesus, these kids had really developed a talent for getting under her skin. Or maybe her patience for their antics had simply run out ever since the north pole? She'd met few other people in her life who she lost her temper with quite so easily. She took a deep breath in, shoving her emotions down so that logic could come back to her mind. Immediately it became obvious that if there was nothing to gain here, she should just walk away. Tanya turned on her heel, striding off without another word.
Only to hear the sounds of footsteps crunching in the sand behind her.
"Are you following me?" She asked, looking over her shoulder to see that the Avatar's company was indeed trailing behind her.
"No, we're just leaving." The Avatar replied grumpily.
"I'm leaving this way. You guys go another way."
"But the nearest town is this way. It's the only one possibly within walking distance." Toph countered.
Right, that was a good point. Since they all shared the same goal of surviving, then realistically this was the only direction it made sense to go in. With dawning horror, Tanya realised what that meant had to happen, and bit back a curse. As long as nobody said it out loud, perhaps they could pretend-…
"I guess that means we're all walking together." Toph said.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Tanya and Katara cried in unison, then shot a hateful glare at one another.
"She's a murderer!" Katara shouted in outrage. "There's no way I'm walking with her!"
"I'm not saying we have to like it." Toph replied. "But we can't fight each other, and we're all going in the same direction. I don't think we have much of a choice."
"You don't understand Toph!" Katara retorted sharply. "You weren't there at the North Pole! You haven't seen the atrocities she's committed!"
"No, and I'm not telling you to forget them." Toph answered. "And by all means, go to town on her the moment we get back to civilisation. But a desert isn't the time of place we can afford to waste time sitting back or taking the long way around. However unpleasant her company may be, it isn't worth risking death for."
Katara looked like she wanted nothing more than to argue the point, but with a visible force of effort squashed her warring emotions down. "Fine." She eventually growled, shooting Tanya a frosty glare as if the situation was somehow her fault.
Tanya scowled back for a moment, then turned towards the waiting horizon and began marching forward, setting a firm pace. "If you pests must insist of following me, at the very least keep your mouths shut. Let's not make this situation any more unpleasant than it already is."
Already the harsh sunlight was prickling irritably on her pale skin, and though her back was turned to them Tanya could feel the glares of the Avatar and his companions on her neck. One long and highly uncomfortable walk was ahead of them, and the sooner it was over with, the better. Yet even though Tanya sorely wished that she could spend the whole walk in stony silence, she knew that she wasn't allowed to. Duty compelled her otherwise.
Because she wasn't the only one who'd discovered a weapon deep within the pages of the library. From the context she'd picked up from Wan Shi Tong, it was clear that the Avatar had found something that would help him to strike a blow against the Fire Nation.
And if she wanted to stop it, she had until the end of this journey to figure out what exactly he'd learned.