Chapter 20: The Siege of the North, Part Two

I emerged midst a bamboo swamp. It was quiet except for the consistent sound of someone meditating. Beneath the crossbar of a temple like structure sat the cross-legged source. A white-haired monkey in a brown monk's shawl.

"Hello?" I said quietly approaching the meditating monkey.

"Go...away." He responded without opening his eyes.

"I'm sorry to bother you," I apologized, "but have you seen the Avatar? He looks like a bald child monk."

"How should I know," He opened one eye, "my eyes have been closed. Now go away." He closed both eyes tightly and hummed louder. I sighed, but turned away and wandered in the direction I thought Aang would go.

The spirit world was a lot like a dream, I had to pinch myself a few times to remember I wasn't dreaming. I reached a maroon pool of water, the one I knew Aang talked to Roku at.

"Avatar Roku?" I called, the water rippled into an image of Roku before he stood to cast it.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"The Prophet," Roku looked at me with vague recognition, I realize that since the Prophet hasn't been seen in 400 years, since my Aunt Mel, Roku never met one before. "My name is Lucy."

"I didn't know the Avatar still needed one of those, we've done just fine for two reincarnations without you." His words stung, but they raised questions I've had since figuring out who I was. What did I need to be here for when I knew everything would be alright without me?

"I know, but I'm here now and I want to help." I answer my own question in reply to Roku. "I need to find Aang."

"You know where he is. Find him yourself." Roku disappears, leaving me alone to curse his name. I looked down at my reflection in the water. The spirits must be testing me, that's what this is. A surprise pop quiz on something the teacher hasn't taught yet and it's worth half your grade for the entire year. That kind of test.

I continued walking, trying to find a familiar path. It was hard. Trees would pop up and dissolve at random. I saw things in the corner of my eyes, but when I turned to look nothing was there. It was like a dream. My eyes popped with an idea. If the spirit world was like the dream world, maybe I could travel in the spirit world like in a dream too.

I closed my eyes and envisioned the outside of Koh's lair. A huge gnarled tree with a dark hole at its base. I felt a rippling sensation and when I opened my eyes there it was in front of me. Each step I took felt like a lead weight, because I didn't want to go in there to see Koh a second time. I was afraid.

I sat outside Koh's lair like a coward. I got lucky once, but I don't know if I can keep up another emotionless face for a second. I breathed, trying to calm myself down, but it only gets me that much closer to hyperventilating.

"I wish I had a mask." I say aloud. Within seconds the ground ripples, like someone dropped a penny in a pond, and a mask identical to the blue spirit's appears. "Well, if I knew it was that easy..." I slipped on the mask and entered the face stealer's lair.

"I need to find the Moon and the Ocean." I hear Aang say, he is in the same place I was back at the oasis, in the middle of Koh as he wraps endless circles around his body.

"Aang, Tui and La are the Koi fish, lets go before someone kills them." Aang whipped his head in my direction in shock, luckily he regained composure before Koh saw. Oops, that would have been bad.

"I must be going now." Aang tells Koh, who is uncoiling his body so Aang can leave. Koh's face flips to the face of a young bald man. He stares intently at me.

"We'll meet again." Koh's parting words as he recedes back into the shadows leave a pound of ice in my heart.

"Blue spirit?" Aang asks once we're out of Koh's lair. I laugh, taking the mask off. "Lucy! I didn't know you were with-" I cut him off with a finger to his lips.

"Calm down, I'm just borrowing it." I throw the mask behind me where it vanished mid-flight. "Now listen to me, the spirits are in trouble, Zhao is going to try to kill the moon spirit to weaken the Water Tribe. We have to hurry."

"Right." Aang nods, "Do you know how to get back?" He looks around confused.

"I think so," I grab both of Aang's hands, "close your eyes." I do too, and at first I try to take us back to the sanctuary oasis, but when I open my eyes to check we haven't moved. So instead I bring up the image of the bamboo swamp and the sanctuary with the anti-social meditating monkey. When our eyes open we're there.

"Great! You brought us back where I came in!" Aang smiled, "but, how do we get back?"

"I haven't worked that part out yet." I shrug meekly. "Maybe a friend can help? Hei-Bai?" I was lucky the spirit came when I called. Hei-Bai reared up on his hind legs and breathed out a blue, spiritual energy that engulfs us. We return to the Water Tribe's sanctuary.

"They took my body with them." I say, noticing that Aang isn't the only one with a missing body, but that's good, I think I actually prefer that.

"We're still spirits?" Aang looks at blue hands, "Where's our bodies?" He looks around frantically and confused.

"Aang." I say steadily, "Take my hand." He does, just as a blue ball of energy forms around us, beaming us out the sanctuary and towards our respective bodies.

I take a sharp intake of breath, lifting my head gingerly, my neck is stiff from the position its been in.

"Lucy! You're back!" Sokka's smiling face invades my vision. I manage to raise myself up and push past him and Yue to his sister at Appa's reigns.

"Follow that light!" I point at the arc of light above us. She nods in understanding and urges Appa to fly faster. When we reach the end of the arc we are welcomed with the sight of Zuko grabbing a tied up Aang by the collar.

"Appa!" Aang called as he saw us fly over Zuko's head, landing several feet away. Katara is the first to dismount, angry and ready to fight.

"Here for a rematch?" Zuko matched Katara's waterbending stance with his own firebending stance.

"Trust me, Zuko, it's not going to be much of a match." Katara started to waterbend just as Zuko prepared to blast a fireball. I jumped down from Appa's saddle.

"Zuko!" His head turned sharply at the sound of my voice, he just noticed I was there.

"Lucy?" Katara takes Zuko's distraction as an opportunity, sending a shock wave of ice that encases him.

"Katara no!" I run towards Zuko just as she raises the pillar before dropping him. I bend up snow to catch him mid fall, but with the hit of the ice combined with prior injuries, he's still unconscious when I set him down.

"We need to get to the oasis! The spirits are in trouble!" Aang urgently gets up from his cut ropes and starts running towards Appa. Sokka and Katara follow, but I'm slow to move. I look at Zuko's battered face under the palm of my hand.

"Lucy come on!" Sokka yells at me.

"We can't just leave him here!" I yell back, tears threatening to pour. "He'll die!" I try to carry Zuko on my own, but he's too heavy for me alone. "Please help!" My voice cracks.

Aang airbends down from the saddle to help, taking Zuko from my arms so I have to run back. The three water tribe members in the saddle giving me a strange look the entire time.

"Tell me Lucy," Sokka asks once Zuko's loaded up and Aang started flying Appa back to the city, "why you care so much about some guy that's constantly trying to kill us?!"

"And you could live with yourself if you just let him die? He's not that bad trust me."

"Lucy?" I was the first to register the faint whisper of my name from the Fire Nation Prince, and the quickest (and only) to move to his side.

"Zuko!" I couldn't hold back the happiness in my voice even if I tried. I didn't need to looked back to know the shock that would surely grace both Sokka and Katara's faces, thankfully Yue is probably just confused. "I'm so happy to see you," my palm gently caresses his bruised face. "I've missed you so much, even this stupid haircut." I fondle one of the locks of his ponytail between two fingers.

"What's wrong with my haircut?" He asks, still groggy, he may or may not have a concussion.

"You need to grow it out." I giggle, Zuko starts to chuckle, but it quickly becomes a coughing fit. I frown, because he's not in a good condition, but also because I rarely hear him laugh and the situation has to ruin everything.

"What is going on?!" Sokka screams. I see Zuko flinch at the sound. I turn away from Zuko's face to look at Sokka and Katara, Sokka was angry and both looked thoroughly betrayed. My heart fell to my stomach in an instant.

"Sokka..." My voice comes out as a whisper, I really don't know how to explain myself. Sokka and Katara were looking at me expectantly, but I just felt like a caged animal with nowhere to run.

"Guys," Aang's voice cuts through the budding tension, my hero, "Lucy says Zuko isn't all bad, and I trust her, so don't be mad at her for have feelings for him." Sokka offers a strange look I can't read, but I understand as soon as his mouth opens.

"Lucy, this guy is not good. He's just playing with you." He thinks I've been had, manipulated, tricked, into liking Zuko. I can't help the dry humorless laughter that finds it way past my lips.

"Trust me, that is not what Zuko intended." Sokka doesn't believe me though, not that I really expected him to. Katara hasn't said anything about this, she just looks worriedly at me, but I know she doesn't like Zuko. I can feel the choice words I'll be hearing from Katara when she thinks no one can hear us.

"This is the boy you told me about?" Yue whispers. Sokka and Katara weren't looking at me. I nod afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I opened it. "You should kiss him before you lose another chance." She whispers and I smile, a genuine happy smile.

The rest of the ride back is quiet. Zuko had slipped back into unconsciousness sometime while we were arguing. I concentrated on healing Zuko's wounds, both new and the ones he retained from the explosion. Sokka and Katara remained on edge. I couldn't tell if it was me or the battle zone we were soon approaching that made them so stiff. Probably both.

Appa flies over the oasis just as Zhao picks up the white Koi fish, forcing the struggling fish into a bag. The moon becomes a blood red color, the red light it emits washing over the city. Princess Yue and I mirror each other as we both hold our head in pain. I have a headache and I can't breathe.

"Are you okay?" Sokka's hand is at Yue's back. I can't say anything, but if I could I'd be asking someone to relieve the stress of not breathing.

"I feel faint." She says. Yeah, and I'm just casually dying.

"I feel it too." Aang's hands are at his head as well. Appa lands and Aang is the first one to hop off, "Zhao stop!" He screams. I gain control of myself again, taking a much-needed breath of air and follow the others off Appa's back. We face Zhao and his guards, prepared to fight.

"Don't bother!" Zhao holds up a knife to the squirming bag. Aang drops his staff, raising his hands in surrender.

"Zhao! Don't!" Aang advises. Zhao, mad with the power in his hands, laughs mockingly.

"It's my destiny to destroy the Moon... and the Water Tribe. I will be a legend!" Zhao raises his fist and knife to the heavens, "For generations the Fire Nation will tell stories about the great Zhao who darkened the moon!" He swings the knife back over, dangerously skimming the bag, "They will call me Zhao the Conqueror! Zhao the Moon Slayer! ZHAO THE INVINCIBLE!"

"Please, you really think killing a spirit will make you a hero?" I scoff.

"Destroying the moon won't just hurt the Water Tribe. It will hurt everyone – including you. " Aang is so much better at explaining things than me, "Without the moon, everything would fall out of balance. You have no idea what kind of chaos that would unleash on the world."

"He is right, Zhao!" Iroh says appearing from Zhao's men. Iroh, Aang, Zhao and I form a square around the pond.

"General Iroh, " Zhao speaks in a bored lecturing tone, it's a more calmed down form of the bat-shit crazy he was before. "Why am I not surprised to discover your treachery?"

"I'm no traitor," Iroh lowers his hood, "Zhao, the Fire Nation needs the moon too. We all depend on the balance." Zhao keeps the weapon dangerously close to the bag, staring down Uncle Iroh like he's the only man standing in his way and there isn't at least four other people who would kick his ass if they could. Then Iroh points a finger at Zhao, changing the game, "Whatever you do to that spirit I'll unleash on you ten-fold!" Iroh assumes a firebending stance "LET IT GO, NOW!"

Eyes still locked on Iroh, Zhao finally gives in and lowers the bag, releasing the fish back into the water. For a second the red light of the moon vanishes, replaced by its normal color. Then Zhao is overtaken by madness and desperation, crying out in rage as he smites the water with a blast of fire. I feel a sharp pain in the center of my spine, as if I was the one that got hit. The pain drops me to my knees as the moon winks out of existence.

Iroh attacks instantly, blast after blast taking down each of Zhao's four men expertly. Zhao runs away. I'm overtaken by unfathomable rage, I want to stop Zhao, I want him to suffer and pay for what he's done, but I haven't fully recovered yet.

"There's no hope now." Princess Yue is on the verge of tears, "It's over." Determination suddenly takes over Aang, in effect taking over me too, as his eyes and tattoos glow a ghostly color. Staring at the burn on my left arm I see I'm glowing too.

"No, it's not over." Aang's otherworldly voice passes through my ears, but I barely recognize what he said or what he's doing, for that matter I don't perceive much more than the path out of the Oasis (especially the hands of Yue and Sokka that I unconsciously shrug off as they try to stop me) and through the city. Aang's determination mixed with the Ocean spirit's rage has created a deadly combination. I am on a hunt. Zhao will die at my hand.

I vaguely recognize the giant creature that rises high above the city as an extension of the vengeful spirit possessing me now. With the Avatar's help the Ocean Spirit will protect the Water Tribe from attackers just like his beloved Moon Spirit would want him too, but I am on a specialized mission. I have no intention of wasting energy on the Fire Nation Soldiers that invaded the city, all that energy must be saved for Zhao. It doesn't matter anyway because all the Soldiers soon realize the futility of their attempts against the Avatar/Ocean spirit monster and begin retreating.

My steps hasten, fearing that vile man will get away.

"Lucy!" A hand grabs my shoulder, halting me. I turn, glaring at Zuko. "Where are you going?"

"I have to hurry, Zhao is getting away!" I turn back swiftly, continuing to track down the 'moon slayer'. Zuko follows, I think he realizes that I'm not entirely myself, at least I hope he does. We find Zhao soon enough, crossing over a foot bridge. I turn my head just a fraction towards Zuko, he nods in understanding and fires to stop Zhao, the blast hitting the wall right in front of him. Under the cover of the smoke I jump in front of Zhao, knocking him against the wall and restraining him there with ice. When the smoke has cleared fully Zhao doesn't even look at me.

"You're alive?" Zhao says incredulously, staring at Zuko who had emerged behind me. Zhao still doesn't acknowledging me.

"You tried to have me killed!" Zuko launches a few fire blasts at Zhao with a cry of anguish. I raise a wall of ice to block the shots, then drop it just as quick.

"You're the Blue Spirit – an enemy of the Fire Nation!" Zhao accuses, "You freed the Avatar!"

"And I was the Red Spirit." My otherworldly voice has caught Zhao's attention. "But this isn't about loyalty or the fire nation Zhao." I step closer to him, I feel myself exert a power over Zhao that forces him to kneel. Ice begins to cover his body. "This is about punishment." The ice starts to constrict, applying unimaginable pressure on Zhao's feeble human body. "Your punishment." He struggles against the ice. I can feel the tiny sparks of fire that leave his fingertips and are quickly extinguished, just like his life will soon be. "You have disrespected the Spirits one too many times. Now you will finally feel our wrath." The ice has broken bones by now, the cracking sounds are enough to give that away. His head is about to be consumed in ice when a voice reaches out to me.

"Lucy! Stop!" Zuko forces me to turn around. I knock him down in response. "Lucy, this isn't you!" He says as I'm about to turn back to Zhao. Zuko stands up and wraps his arms around me from behind. "Fight this Lucy, you don't have to let the spirits control you, you know this isn't right." He says in my ear.

With Zuko's encouragement I slowly regain control of myself. The ice around Zhao recedes along with the rage. Unable to stand on his own, Zhao remains kneeling lifting his head to the sky, his eyes open wide in surprise. The moon has returned.

"It can't be!" The horror in Zhao's voice is enough to bring the Ocean Spirit upfront, reminding the spirit within that Zhao murdered the moon spirit. I break free from Zuko's embrace, grabbing Zhao with a strength that is not my own. Zuko attempts to stop me once more, but I throw him down, encasing his limbs in ice so he can't move.

The Ocean Spirit's essence has traveled down the canal, approaching the footbridge I first spot Zhao. Before Zuko can break free from his imprisonments I take Zhao to the edge of the footbridge, awaiting the spirit's essence to pass by.

"If there is one thing you learn," My otherworldly voice speaks to Zhao, "it's that the ocean is unforgiving." As the water comes I offer Zhao to it and he is pulled away, engulfed by the angry waters of the Ocean Spirit.

With Zhao gone I have nothing left to be angry about, the Ocean Spirit's spell on me is gone. The first thing I do is crumble. Tears spill freely as I cover my mouth in shock. I can feel Zuko's arms surround me, but my heart just isn't there.

"I killed him." I say, still shocked.

"No you didn't." Zuko tries to reassure me. "It was the Ocean spirit. You couldn't have stopped it."

"Yes I could have. I could have tried harder. I should have been stronger. He didn't have to die." I kept saying over and over. In my heart I knew that Zhao did have to die, it was fate, I just didn't want to be the one that did it.

Zuko and I stayed like that for a long time, with my head in my knees and his arms wrapped around me. It wasn't until I scooted closer, placing my head on his chest, that I realized we couldn't stay like this forever.

"You should find Uncle Iroh." I said quietly, but in the after battle silence I might as well have screamed it.

"Right, and you should get back to your friends." We both stood up, still close together from our previous sitting positions. I looked up into Zuko's eyes sadly. Who knows how long it will be until our paths cross again? I contemplate kissing him now, but the aftermath of murder (despite Zuko's claims that Zhao's death isn't my fault) just doesn't feel like the right moment. So we stand in awkward silence until I finally find the nerve to leave.

I didn't return to my friends that night. I didn't even sleep. Instead I walked aimlessly around the deserted and broken streets of the Northern Water Tribe. Alone among the rubble I was able to come to terms with what I had done. Zuko was right that it was Ocean Spirit that had possessed me. It was the Ocean Spirits doing, but it was my fault Zhao died because I was powerless in my own body to stop it. I realize now that the only solution is to get stronger so that the spirits can't control me like that again.

Sighing, I look up at the moon and shed a tear for my friend who had to give up her life to save everyone else. Unable to look any longer without breaking down again I turn my back to the moon.

"I understand now why you pushed me towards Sokka." The voice I hear behind me echoes and is otherworldly.

"Princess Yue," I smile a sad smile as I turn around, "the moon spirit."

"You just wanted me to be happy." Princess Yue is beautiful, she glows softly and is dressed in white, her hair floats around her like moonbeams. "You knew I was destined to be the new moon spirit didn't you?" I nod almost guiltily. She smiles, "I just wanted you to know that I was happy in the end. I'm happy now, but you have to promise me something." She says seriously.

"Anything." I tell her automatically, but I mean it.

"You'll be happy too." Yue fades away into the moonlight.

In the very early morning sunlight I find Iroh, Zuko, and a small raft that looks like they built it themselves from the wreckage. I don't think too heavily on what I'm about to do to keep my promise to Yue, thinking just makes me realize how bad all my ideas are.

"Zuko!" say loudly, without screaming, as I steadily make my way to him. I can't afford to lose my nerve now.

"Lucy? What are you doing?" Zuko is caught off guard when I grab his face.

"Before you leave again, there is something I need you know." My lips reach out to his in a soft kiss. Initially, Zuko tenses and I'm disappointed that he doesn't feel the same after all. I release his cheeks from my hands and start to back away when Zuko grabs my retreating wrists and brings me back to his lips.

Eventually we separate, our breath heavy, me caressing his face while we stare at each other. We don't say anything, we don't have to, anything that needed to be said was in that kiss.

My thumbs gently rub his cheeks, my eyes wander from his eyes to the rest of Zuko's face, searching for any remaining bruises. Apparently he recognizes the look of a concerned nurse set in, because Zuko grabs my hands in his and kisses the knuckles.

"Yeah, you patched me up pretty good." Zuko answers my unasked question.

"Katara wasn't the only one who found a master." I reply smiling. "You're not going after Aang anytime soon are you?" I ask, my eyebrows knitted in concern, both for him and Aang.

"No," Zuko answers, "I'm tired."

"Then rest, doctor's orders." I give him a quick peck on the lips, "I'll see you later," I promise. I walk back inside the city, looking back every so often while Zuko is still in eyesight. I didn't really want to leave first, but if I waited until Zuko and Iroh were aboard that raft and drifting away from me I might just jump into the water and go with them. And I can't do that.

To be continued in Book 2: Earth. Now published.