Things you need to know before reading this fic:

-This is the second book in an ongoing series. You will not be able to follow it unless you have read the first book, Ripples in the Water.

-This story is rated M for violence. Full, detailed warnings are given at the beginning of Ripples; unless stated otherwise, all warnings listed there apply to this work as well.

-I only have Part 1 completely written, and it's entirely possible that something I didn't anticipate will pop up in Book 2 that wasn't listed in the Book 1 warnings. Therefore, I'm going to say read at your own risk.

Inspiration: When I wrote Ripples in the Water, I held a contest for people to guess the musical inspiration. This one... well, there's still an album behind it, but I didn't use all of the songs, some of them are out of order, and there are a few other artists thrown in there as well, so I'll just tell you. It's The Mask and Mirror by Loreena McKennitt. This chapter was inspired by "The Mystic's Dream."

Part 1: Sand

It was the dead of night, the stars sparkling above her like diamonds and a crescent moon grinning down from the sky, and she did not know where she was.

"Hello?" she called. The wind danced around her, warm and dry, almost like a living thing in its enthusiasm. Looking around, she saw that she was surrounded by a vast expanse of hard-packed dirt and scraggly shrubs, stretching off into eternity as far as the eye could see. There was no trace of water. "Is anybody here?"

Without moving, she had reached the horizon, and was now in a village. The streets were empty, the buildings dilapidated, darkened windows staring down at her like eye sockets from the high walls.

"Hello?" she called again. "Where are you? I can't find you."

The wind picked up. Swirling, ever-present, it blew around her in a fiercely increasing gale that tore her hair from its braids and stole the breath from her lungs. She wrapped her arms around herself, but it was blowing through her as if she wasn't there at all; she squeezed her eyes shut, no longer able to feel the ground beneath her feet or even her own fingers wrapped around her arms; there was nothing left in the world but her, her and the wind…

Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the village, but at the top of a great rock that stood lonely in the middle of the desert.

"Who are you?" she demanded. A tingling wariness was making its way up and down her spine, making her skin prickle and her limbs shake. Her foot moved back, her hands coming up into the guard position, but she had nothing to fight with. "What do you want?"

The only response she received was a low moan, a black, dank not-sound that felt like a pool of tar welling inside of her chest. The wind gusted again… but this time, instead of a playful presence it felt like clawed hands snatching possessively at her clothing and hair. It blew through her in a black mass, threatening to lift her off her feet…

Eyes snapping open, Katara jolted awake—only for the movement to send shooting pains through her chest and side, every fresh breath like being stabbed anew. Slowly, she unclenched her fists from the sheets, forcing herself to take breaths that were slow and measured, but not too deep. It was still a few minutes before she could get her racing heart to calm.

She looked around her. The room was dark, except for the open window above her showing a waning gibbous Moon whose calming light spilled over her body. Lien was curled on a pallet beside her, her sheets thrown off and her thumb in her mouth. There was no sound but for the girl's quiet breathing and Katara's panicked heartbeat still pounding in her ears.

Why was this happening?

This was the third night in a row she'd had such a dream, and the third night that had passed since the disaster that had ended her attempt to test Lien in waterbending. Every time, she had been haunted by that presence: the grasping, greedy thing that lurked beneath the rock in the middle of the Si Wong Desert.

I almost died, she reminded herself. I've been through a lot of stress and trauma. It only makes sense that I'd have a few weird dreams. Somehow, however, she knew that that wasn't it.

She wished that she could pace, or even get up to make herself a cup of calming tea—but her legs, she knew, would not hold her, and it would be some time before she was ready to attempt walking even with assistance, let alone on her own. Briefly, her eyes flicked to the rope that hung over her head, and whose end rested on the floor in easy reach—pulling on that rope, she knew, would set off the bell that hung in Song's room, and bring the healer running at any hour of the day or night—but then looked away. Song had put so much time and effort into helping her in spite of whatever history she had with Zuko; she should not be woken in the middle of the night for a trifle like a bad dream. Besides, Katara didn't think there was much that Song could have done anyway. The healer's expertise was in mending her body, but this, she knew, was a spiritual matter. She needed a spiritual expert.

The bridge between the human world and the Spirit World…

She dearly wished she could have talked to Aang—or the guru who had helped him obtain the Avatar State, or even Zuko's uncle. None of these were an option, though: every single one of them was out of her reach whether through death or distance. Nor could she turn to Lien for help: a half-trained child Avatar should not be expected to take on Katara's personal problems, and besides, she needed to focus on learning the elements. Katara was on her own.

Sighing, she settled back down. There was no way to investigate, no one to talk to, and nothing to do to pass the time. As long as she was here, she might as well do her best to go back to sleep.

"How did you sleep?" Song asked the next day as she changed the dressings. Katara grimaced; it was the one question she'd been hoping the healer wouldn't ask.

"I've had better," she confessed, staring at the ceiling, and then hissed in pain as Song cleaned the wound. She'd wanted to deny it, but when she'd secretly frozen a small disk of water early that morning and held it in front of her face, the dark circles she'd seen under her eyes had put that plan to rest. They were so pronounced it looked almost as if she had two black eyes.

"Has the pain been keeping you awake?" Song frowned as she set her bowl and cloth to the side in favor of picking up something sharp that was made of metal, and Katara determinedly looked away. The painkillers Song had given her with breakfast couldn't cut through everything, and it didn't help that Katara was a healer herself and could make an educated guess as to what Song was doing. "I could increase your dosage a bit, and see if that helps…"

Katara, however, shook her head. "No," she said, and then had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming as a jolt of red-hot agony seared through her side. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but it still left her sweating, taking the air in shallow gulps with her fists clenched in the sheets. "It wouldn't help anyway. Nightmares."

"I see." Though Katara was still not looking at her, she could easily guess the expression that would be on Song's face: mouth compressed, eyes crinkled with sadness. "I suppose that's only to be expected."

Katara only gave silent agreement and let her think what she wanted, knowing that correcting her could serve no purpose and too busy clenching her teeth and keeping her breathing even to try anyway. At least Lien wasn't in the room. She had grown sufficiently at ease with Piandao during the two years they'd lived with him to be left alone with him for short periods of time, and he was using Katara's sessions with the healer to continue to work with her on reading and writing. Katara was glad; she still felt ill at ease leaving Lien unsupervised for any length of time, but didn't want her to have to watch this either. It was bad enough that she still tried to heal Katara at every chance she was given.

Katara still had mixed feelings about being healed by Lien. On the one hand, Lien and her abilities had saved Katara's life that night, in more ways than one. On the other, Lien still did not know her limits (she would push herself to exhaustion if they let her), and had already spent far too much of her life being forced to heal Fire Nation soldiers so they could be sent back out to battle again and again. Not to mention the other thing Katara had realized after Lien had brought her back…

"Zuko." From the look on his face, he had some bad news of his own to share, but this was important as well. "I need to talk to you." She knew that he would understand the implied "alone."

With a nod, he closed the door, making sure it was latched before he knelt by her side, hesitating for a few awkward seconds before resting his hand atop hers. Though he'd probably meant for it to be a light brush of reassurance, the second his fingers touched hers Katara grasped his hand of her own accord, because right now she needed the comfort. Zuko looked briefly startled, but he did not try to pull away. His free hand, she noticed, was clenched around a sheet of parchment, his knuckles white with the force of his grip, and she knew him well enough at this point to tell that it was taking everything he had not to set it alight. "So what's wrong?"

Funny, and sad, that he would automatically assume something was wrong—though of course, he was right. As important as it was, though, it still took her a few minutes to work out what to say, mouth moving soundlessly before she found the right words. "Do you remember the Southern Raiders?"

A look of shock briefly flitted across his face. It was understandable that he would be shocked—though several good things had come out of that night, including their reconciliation and the lancing of the old wound that was her mother's death, it was still something they never talked about. Even now, the subject remained too sensitive for her.

"I remember," he ventured cautiously. "Yon Rha—"

"No. You don't understand." Her head flopped weakly from side to side. "Not Yon Rha—The Southern Raiders."

"Yeah." He still looked confused. "You trashed their ship before you realized we had the wrong man. Then, when we found the captain, you…"

"I started bloodbending." She grasped his hand tighter. "Zuko… after I was hurt, my heart stopped beating."

It wasn't a question. She had seen him, as she returned from the Spirit World, his hands locked on her chest as he frantically tried to keep her alive.

"Yeah." He swallowed. "But what does that have to do with—" Suddenly, his good eye went wide as he made the connection. "Agni, Katara, you're not suggesting that Lien—!"

"Zuko." Her voice had now dropped to a whisper. "I know what it feels like."

Horror dawned on his face as he grasped the full implications of what she was saying, and he held her hand of his own accord now, his fingers tightening gently around hers. "Katara." His voice, too, had dropped to a volume so low it was barely perceptible. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," she confessed, because she was helpless and vulnerable and she hurt so badly and she didn't have the energy to think about anything right now, much less act. "I was hoping you'd have a suggestion."

He hadn't, and for the time being, their only option had been to leave it. It was a solution that neither of them had liked, but they had had no choice. Katara was too badly hurt to focus on anything but her own recovery, and Zuko…

She shook her head. Now was not the time to dwell on what might have been, or what would never happen. Now, she had to focus on what was.

In addition to tending the stab wound, twice a day Song helped Katara brace a cushion against her midsection, and made her cough.

Given all of the life-threatening damage from the initial wound, when Lien had healed her, fixing Katara's broken ribs had been a secondary concern. Without the aid of a water healer, those would have to mend on their own, and in the meantime that meant taking precautions to prevent the development of pneumonia.

After, Katara was always left sweating and shaky, exhausted from the exertion and trying to breathe deeply in spite of the pain. She wished to Tui and La that there was something better, faster—since she had discovered her abilities she had become used to all but the most severe of injuries lasting for a few days at most. This must be how people outside of the Water Tribes felt.

"I don't suppose that I could get a bath."

Song gave her a long, searching look, and Katara fidgeted under her gaze. "Water healing takes energy, doesn't it?"

How had she—no, never mind. Katara would have been suspicious too, under the circumstances. "A little," she confessed. With the exception of fire, bending the elements involved manipulating something that was already there, and used only the energy that was required for the physical motions. Healing was different. Because it involved forcing the water to do something that it wouldn't normally do on its own, it drew from the bender's own reserves, and could be as exhausting as a battle for someone who wasn't well-trained—it was still draining even for someone who was.

"Give it a week," Song said at last. "We'll see whether you're strong enough for it then."

Katara let out a disappointed sigh but didn't argue. It had been more of a wishful fantasy anyway, since she was still bedbound and there was no one who could have moved her. It wasn't even about healing herself, not really—she just wanted to feel the embrace of the water. Song had been cleaning her skin with a damp cloth every day, but it wasn't the same.

"That girl of yours wants to help, you know."

"No, I don't know." Katara squeezed her eyes shut for a second before opening them once more. "Does she want to? Or does she think she has to? I can't… I can't force her to do this. Not after everything she's already been through."

"Of course, you know her better than I do." The other woman's voice was quiet, and when Katara looked the lines around her mouth seemed to have deepened within the span of minutes. "But I'd think you'd have more faith in your own daughter."

Song didn't know about Lien. The fewer the people who knew her true identity, the better, so when Song had made the (perfectly natural) assumption that she was Katara's, nobody had bothered to correct her. Besides, it was as close to the truth as anyone was likely to get.

Song could not know the whole story—as a matter of fact, after they had arrived at this place, Song had informed them that she didn't want to know any more than was necessary for treating her injuries, since the less she knew, the less she'd be able to tell the Fire Nation if questioned. It was a good policy, and they'd agreed with no resistance. It was also why Katara had started refusing the stronger painkillers, and why she'd said no when Song had offered to increase her dosage. If she didn't have a clear head, it was all too likely she'd let something else slip.

"I suppose you have to do what you feel is best," and Katara knew that that was the last she would hear of it. Song wasn't the sort to question other people's life choices, or to give unsolicited advice. Still, Katara was second-guessing herself before Song had even finished gathering up the soiled bandages and leaving the room.

Should she allow Lien to help out? After all, what was the point of training her if they'd only forbid her to use what she'd learned—keeping a bender from bending, she knew, was as cruel as forcing benders to use their gifts for one's own selfish ends. Still…

"Please. She's exhausting herself."

She shook her head, and immediately regretted the action and the wave of dizziness that it brought on—Katara had lost so much blood, and though Song had her drinking something awful that tasted like liquefied metal and which she said would help restore her faster, there were times when she felt like she'd never be strong again. Katara didn't have the answers, she had no one to consult with, and working it out on her own felt like climbing a mountainside that was slick with ice: take one step forward, slide two steps back.

The only thing she knew for sure anymore was that she knew nothing.

Just as it was safer for Song not to know who she was sheltering or what their mission was, it was safer for them not to know any important details about her. Still, Katara found it disconcerting that she did not even know where she was: the journey had been a blur of half-consciousness, her senses dulled by painkillers. All she had was a vague memory of Zuko carrying her.

"Sorry." He cringed when the motion of being lifted caused pain to shoot through her chest, and she cried out in spite of her best efforts. "I think I broke most of your ribs, when I—"

When he'd been doing the work of her heart for her, keeping her body alive long enough for her spirit to return and for the Moon to come back out so that Lien could heal her. "Zuko," she whispered—it was painful to speak in anything above a whisper. "Don't apologize for saving my life."

Still, as every step produced another jolt of agony, she turned to bury her face in his shoulder, much as she'd done after her mother had died and her father would hold her throughout the sleepless nights. Her sobs came out muffled, her tears drying in Zuko's shirt.

Now, there was no longer anyone to cry against. Sometimes, however, Katara held the dagger as she drifted off to sleep, removing the sheath so she could run her thumb lightly back and forth across the inscription on the blade.

She almost had given up, hadn't she?

In the Spirit World, separated from her body but not yet ready to move on to the next life, she had forgotten herself. Though she'd never told Zuko that she almost had not come back, she thought that he knew. The look that he'd given her as he'd handed her the blade had spoken volumes, but the fact that he'd given it to her had said a great deal more.

Someday, she'd have to tell him that it was because of him that she'd returned. Because of Lien, yes, but also because of him. Zuko had saved her life twice over that night.

In the end, Katara hadn't given up, because he and Lien hadn't given up on her.

When they'd been trapped in the desert, Katara had been tormented day after day by dreams of her home in the South Pole. Now, it seemed, she could only dream of the desert.

"Hello?" She had not yet reached the rock, but the ghost town seemed to have grown since the last time she'd set foot here; now, empty buildings without any doors on their hinges stretched out in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she tried again. "Please, just tell me what you want!"

The wind picked up, and she hastily ducked into the doorway of the nearest available house to keep from getting blown away again. Shivers ran up and down her spine the instant she set foot over the threshold of the empty doorway, and as she whipped around (only no one was behind her), she could see that it was merely a broken shell of what had once been a dwelling: shattered pottery lay scattered all over the floor, and the walls had cracked and crumbled into disrepair.

"Is anybody here?" This time, her voice came out in a whisper. Her foot nudged something on the packed dirt floor: a doll, its hair sheared short and its dress ripped from its body.

As she bent to lift the doll, the feeling of ominous tension increased, and the wind howled through the doorway in a hungry black mass. What few splinters remained of the door were ripped from their hinges and carried off into the night.

Still clutching the doll, she stepped back. Already-shattered ceramic broke into smaller pieces under her feet, the more ambitious shards even attempting to pierce through the bottoms of her shoes. After only a few steps, though, her back came up against something solid: she had reached the far wall.

As soon as she touched it, it began to crumble, dust falling onto her shoulders and settling into her hair. She turned around and placed her hand against it, her fingers digging into the stone as if it were no more substantial than rotted wood even as the wind continued to howl behind her and strands of her hair were lifted from her head in a way that somehow raised goosebumps all over her arms. She redoubled her efforts, and now the wall was falling apart in chunks of masonry.

Something was visible on the other side. A thick growth of ivy hung down in a green curtain, so intensely green it seemed almost perverse in the barren desert night, but beyond that, she could tell that there was something else, something that she couldn't quite make out through all of the vines and leaves.

Even as she reached forward to part the vegetation, however, a loud crack could be heard from the ceiling: the walls had continued to crumble around her, helped along by the greedy wind, and now the entire building was about to collapse. Nevertheless, she continued to reach forward… dust was falling liberally onto her head and shoulders… she was almost there…

The ceiling gave with a great crack, rocks smashed into her head…

…and Katara awoke with a start.

The next day, Song helped her sit up so she could take her meal.

The process took at least fifteen minutes. There were cushions to be rearranged so as to best support her back, and of course Katara had to be moved both slowly and gently. Eventually, however, Song had her sitting up so that she wouldn't fall over, with a tray in her lap and a bowl in her hands, and the pain and nausea had eased to the point where she felt able to take a few sips.

Once Katara had recovered sufficiently to eat without help, the four of them had made a point of taking their meals together. Song lived alone, and she and Piandao appeared to be old friends—as Katara understood it, she was the one who had helped him after he'd been injured in the siege of Ba Sing Se. The arrangement was an odd one: Piandao could not kneel to eat thanks to his bad leg, and had to have a chair and table; meanwhile Katara could not move from her bed, and Song stayed kneeling by her side as she delicately ate her own lunch, quietly offering assistance whenever it was needed. Nevertheless, it was far less lonely than eating alone.

Unlike the rest of them, Lien did not have a fixed place when it came to mealtimes: often she would take her food and sit unobtrusively against the wall while she watched the rest of the room with a quiet, alert curiosity, but just as often she could be found by Katara's side opposite from Song. On those days when she was feeling particularly adventurous, she might even join Piandao at the table where he would quiz her on her characters.

Today, she had chosen Katara.

From the moment she sat down Katara could tell that something was wrong: though her silence was not unusual, instead of eating she had set her tray by her feet, where it remained untouched while she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Lien had been systematically starved since she was a little girl; this was the first time Katara had seen her fail to eat whatever was put in front of her, however bland or stale.

"Lien?" she asked, frowning, as she lowered her own bowl back down to the tray. "Is something—"

"Are you going to leave?"

All of the adults exchanged startled glances, before Song and Piandao quietly got up and left the room. Mentally, Katara cursed herself. She'd thought that things were… well, not okay, certainly, but on the right track to getting better. She'd failed to take into account the stability that Lien had lost—quite literally overnight—and now Lien was the one who was paying the price.

"Zuko will be back." As she spoke, her fingers once again closed over the hilt of the knife. "I promise, he will."

Lien was not consoled. Her knees moved in closer, as if she were trying to hide within her own body—according to Zuko, she'd done the exact same thing when the Blue Spirit had broken into her prison cell. "But are you going to leave?"

All at once, Katara was consumed by another memory: her childhood home, blackened with soot and defiled by the scent of burnt flesh, and Lien in front of her begging her to come back…

"I'm not," she reassured. "Hey." Moving in any way was still painful, but she gritted her teeth through the discomfort as he reached out to rest a hand on Lien's knee. "I came back for you, didn't I? I won't leave you for anything after that."

Slowly, she looked up, resting her chin on her knees. She didn't believe her, Katara could tell.

"I won't." Helpless to do anything else, she gestured to the bowl. "You need to eat," she said gently. "Please. You'll feel better. Trust me."

She wished she could have made a better assurance, but somehow, Katara knew that the only thing that would do that was time. With a reluctant nod, Lien pulled the bowl toward her and slowly began to eat.

Once again, a rock, and a wide expanse of desert.

This time, she stood at its base, its immobile bulk simultaneously secure and threatening. It was evening. One edge of the horizon was still tinged with color, and the first stars were winking into visibility overhead.

This time, she did not call out. Something, some primal instinct of self-preservation, told her to keep as quiet as possible and not draw attention to herself. Slowly, she backed up until her body was pressed against the rock.

Movement. Something in the sand was moving, causing grains to tumble downward and sink into an impression whose bottom was growing increasingly deeper…

No. The sand was moving.

Horrified, she watched as first one vortex, then another, formed in front of her and spread outward, greedily swallowing up anything and everything that lay in their path. She had seen whole ships get smashed to splinters when water decided to behave that way…

Without even realizing she had moved, she was scrambling frantically up the side of the rock, clinging to the stone so hard that blood welled up from under her nails. Her clamber dislodged multiple smaller stones that were sent clattering back down to disappear in the sand. For a brief second, they flashed dark in a puff of dust, and then vanished without a trace.

Don't look down, you idiot! She gave herself a savage mental shake as she forced herself to focus on scaling the rock in front of her, and only on that, while she continued her climb.

Finally, she made it to the top, where she collapsed, panting, on her hands and knees. When she had finally gotten her breath back, she dared a peek back over the edge… only to see that while she climbed, the whirlpools of sand had merged into a swirling maelstrom that could have swallowed a house. She backed slowly away, trying not to let her feet make too much noise as she went.

"K-Katara?"

Oh, no. No no no. With a sick dread twisting her stomach, she turned around to face the source of the voice… only to see her worst fear confirmed.

"Lien, what are you doing here?"

"I followed you." Lien's eyes were puffy, her arms wrapped around herself as if for comfort. "You said you weren't going to leave!"

"I'm not!" The wind had picked up again, a dark cold wind that sent violent shivers through her body in spite of her normal affinity for lower temperatures. Looking to where the sun had set, she saw a flock of black silhouettes winging their way toward the rock—too far away for her to make out their form, and some primal instinct told her that she didn't want to. "I didn't mean to come here!"

"Do you want me to take you out?" Lien's posture had straightened, and her eyes were shining with hope.

"Yes." When she held out her hand, Lien took it without hesitation, and then she was leading Katara away, away from the black flock and the grabbing wind and the swirling maelstrom of sand. Katara opened her mouth to protest that there was nowhere to go but the other side of the rock…

…only to wake up in bed in the perfectly ordinary world of Song's house, with moonlight streaming over her and an eight-year-old girl blinking awake at her side.

It took a few seconds for Lien's eyes to stop glowing. When she focused on Katara and saw she was awake, though, the girl all but fell on top of her, her whole body shaking as she sobbed into the front of Katara's robe.

Ignoring the not-inconsiderable complaints of her ribs, Katara held her close until the shaking stopped. Long after Lien had drifted off on top of her, however, Katara was still wide awake, a single nagging question chasing itself in endless circles through her mind:

How in La's name do I keep ending up in the Spirit World?

A/N: I got the inspiration for the first half of this book after literally months of knowing the plot of Book 1 and Book 4, but nothing that happened in between, and frantically searching for a source of inspiration... only to pop in a CD I'd had for at least a year, just for fun listening, and everything here just popped into my head. Fine, Muse. You win.

While I'm normally not inclined to give characters powers or abilities they didn't have in canon (I find it much more interesting from a writing perspective to make the characters play the hand they've been dealt), this is where the inspiration took me, and there is canon precedent: it's implied that Iroh developed some spiritual powers after journeying into the Spirit World.

Also, I have a question: have any of my readers seen Mad Max: Fury Road? Because I didn't see that movie until after I had finished posting Ripples and years after I knew the plot of Ripples, and as much as I loved Fury Road I also spotted some weird parallels that were kind of freaking me out:

-Post-apocalyptic world

-Male-female duo who started off trying to kill each other but once they decide to work together make a seamless fighting team

-Freeing women and girls from slavery

-Female character experiencing the pain of losing her home and her people

-Screaming on a sand dune

-I even made a list of character parallels: Zuko/Max, Katara/Furiosa, Lien/"wives", Piandao/Vuvalini, Nori/Capable, Xi Wang/Nux

-Oh yes, and have I mentioned that lifesaving scene at the end?

So yeah, I kind of need a sanity check. Is this actually the weird coincidence I think it is, or am I just seeing things that aren't there? (Also I want to see crossover art now so if anyone knows where I can find a picture of Katara using Zuko's shoulder as a rifle stand could you please please pretty please tell me where to find it?)